The Facility Revisited

by OfficerKennedy

The Facility Trilogy 'Director's Cut' - Please read

4. Chapter 4

Notes- After a long delay, here's the next part of The Facility Revisited series. As you'll find out, not much has really changed in terms on content. I've removed the annoying 'CHAPTER BREAK' notes from chapters six and seven and have rewritten the scene where Leon and Chris kiss for the first time. That's about it really for this story as I've always been pretty happy with how it turned out. I can promise you that 'Endgame' is going to be a lot more interesting in terms of changes. There's one massive change coming up which I'm hope you'll enjoy a lot more than the original version! Thanks for reading!

The Facility Aftermath

Chris Redfield pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator as the hired black Jeep powered down the dusty and desolate road. The sun was high in the air and beating down on the vehicle and even though he'd cranked the air conditioning up as high as it would go, he could still feel the stifling heat. He didn't even have music as a distraction anymore. The radio had given out back at the last town and the Jeep was so old it still took tapes. Chris hadn't owned a tape since his teens. Resigned to a ride without some good classic rock, his thoughts turned to his short time in Africa.

He hoped that the people of Ki juju would be friendlier than the lot at the last place. Barry had warned him that it wasn't an ideal place to be an American but he'd still been surprised at the looks of pure hatred he'd been given as he'd stopped off for some gas. He took his hands off the wheel for a moment and wiped his sweaty brow. He needed something to distract himself from the blistering heat and, since music was a no-go, he was going to have to try and find the distraction in his surroundings. Unfortunately for him, the scenery was totally dull. The ground ahead of him was a muted palette of beiges and browns, the cracked baked earth scattered with dry yellow scrub bushes reaching towards the clear blue sky. The few trees that dotted the landscape where short and stunted, the dull green foliage hanging limply from the spider-like branches. It would've been all too easy for him to just turn the damn Jeep around and hop on the first plane back to America. Easy, of course, had it not been for the reason he was here in the first place.

Jill.

He'd returned from his adventures in Spain in high spirits, having successfully secured the funding for the BSAA. The first thing he'd done after a stop off in McDonald's, was head to Barry's place to tell him all about Spain. He'd been met at the front door of Barry's cabin by hushed tones and a grave expression from his former S.T.A.R.S colleague. While Chris had been away in Spain, something had happened to Jill. She'd been working some simple run-of-the-mill case in Chicago when she'd suddenly disappeared without a trace. She'd been keeping in regular contact with Barry and her boyfriend Carlos Oliveira but, after just a week, the e-mails and calls had dried up completely. Worried, Carlos had taken the first flight to Chicago in an attempt to track her down. Her last known whereabouts had been a small hotel in a rather run down area of the city. According to Carlos, the hotel room still had most of her belongings in but had shown no signs of a struggle. He'd involved the police and they'd had just as little luck. It seemed that she'd disappeared off the face of the planet. By the time Chris had returned from Spain, she'd been missing weeks. He'd been pissed that nobody bothered to tell him but he'd gotten over that and thrown himself into the search, desperately clinging onto every small clue or sighting. He'd travelled what felt like the length and breadth of America and he'd still come up with nothing. The weeks had rolled into months and they were still no closer to finding her. Before Chris knew it, a year had passed since his return from Spain and Jill was still missing. Barry, Carlos and the rest of Jill's family were slowly but reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that by now it was very likely that she was dead.

Chris however, utterly refused to believe that his highly resourceful former partner had succumbed to that fate. If anything, while the others around him gave up, his search intensified. The whole business hadn't given him time to even think about Leon much but he'd still called the younger man a couple of times, begging him to use his government contacts. Then, a couple of days ago, seemingly out of the nowhere, the BSAA received an anonymous tip off that a woman matching Jill's description had been seen in a small West African town. Barry and the others had been suspicious about the tip-off but Chris was determined. As far as he was concerned, it was information and he was damned if he was going to let it go cold. So, here he was, with Barry's and BSAA's reluctant backing, chasing down a rumour.

The view didn't improve all that much when he arrived at his destination. The terrain of the roads became bumpy and uneven, the dust rising in clouds as the tyres rolled onwards. The only colour seemed to come from the various battered metal signs hanging above wooden stalls and corrugated sheet metal doorways. With all of the Jeep's windows rolled down he was assaulted by a mixture of smells within the air. The strongest was the smell of manure, doubtless provided by the various livestock that had been herded into makeshift cages made from chicken wire that lined the street. Coupled with that was the choking smell of death coming from the corpses of goats that were hanging from some of the stalls. The villagers milled around the street, the women carrying large pots of water on their heads, the men strolling idly by, casting strange glances at the Jeep as it rolled by. Chris felt uneasy as he pulled over. He'd been told to meet his contact at a local butcher's store. He pulled up beside a battered looking building that appeared to be a street café. The villagers were openly staring at him now, some of them actually slowing down to gape at him as he climbed out of the Jeep. He had a quick look around and couldn't see anyone who was likely to be his contact. He leant against the driver's door, regretting the action immediately when the hot metal stung his back through his BSAA t-shirt.

"The sun does have a tendency to make things hot" A strangely familiar voice suddenly said in a mocking tone. Chris frowned, he'd recognise that sardonic 'you're-so-dumb-I'm-so-smart' tone anywhere.

"Where the hell did you come from"? Chris demanded, his mouth hanging open as Leon Kennedy strolled out of the entrance to the café, a bottle of water in his hand. He looked a little different from the last time he'd seen the younger man. His blonde hair was now a couple of shades darker and slightly shorter, but it was still in that silly floppy style that, if Chris was being honest, he'd always thought looked dumb. Unlike Spain, Leon was wearing desert camo coloured combats and a light grey fitted top. It was actually nice to see him in something other than black.

"America"? Leon replied with a raised eyebrow. "I live there now" He continued with a shrug. He took a sip from the bottle of water. Chris nodded, remembering something about Leon moving back to Washington. "So, how've you been anyway"? His face formed that gentle, concerned look that Chris had come to accept he would receive from people who heard about Jill.

"I guess I kinda dropped off the map after…" He moved to lean against the Jeep but stopped, remembering the heat. He tailed off. He hated to say her name, even now. Leon seemed to get this and nodded sympathetically. A look that, just over a year ago, Chris wouldn't have believed the younger man was even capable of. "So what brings you here anyway"? He asked, eager to get the subject away from Jill. "Did Barry ask you to help or something? I didn't think the government would let you bother with a simple missing person's case" He added with a hint of bitterness.

"They wouldn't" Leon said simply with a shrug. "That's not why I'm here. Although both Dennis and I think that Jill's disappearance has more to do with my mission than our higher ups are willing to consider"

"Huh"? Chris blinked. A year away from Leon had made him forget how much the younger man liked to talk in long, complicated sentences. Was it a prerequisite for Secret Service agents to be so god damn enigmatic? Leon rolled his eyes and shook his head. In spite of the seriousness of their current situation, Chris couldn't help but allow himself a little smile. Leon's attitude was beginning to make him feel like he was back in Spain.

"Why don't you just let me explain you impatient oaf"? Leon handed Chris his bottle of water. Chris gulped from it gratefully, the water dribbling down the front of his BSAA top. Leon raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, instead choosing to offer his explanation. "A while ago, Dennis received some intelligence that Wesker has been conducting experiments near this village. He was going to ask my replacement in Spain to deal with it but, given my personal experience with Wesker, he decided to give me the task of ascertaining exactly what's going on here. Whether or not he's built another facility is still very much in doubt but don't you think, given the former S.T.A.R.S members history with Wesker, yourself included, that it's a little bit too much of a coincidence that at the same time you receive information that Jill's here we receive information that Wesker is too"?

Chris squeezed the plastic water hard, ignoring the powerful spurt of water that exploded from the open neck, narrowly missing Leon. Wesker. Why hadn't he thought of the evil bastard before? It made perfect sense. Capturing Jill was the sort of sick, twisted thing that he'd do.

"So, I take it you won't argue if I say we should work together on this one"? Leon asked. He was looking around, a wary expression on his face. The villagers were still staring at them with expression ranging from contempt to pure hatred. They whispered to each other in their own language, using low, conspiratorial tones. They were hanging around in shady corners between buildings, gesturing to each other. There was an unsettling air of hostility hanging around them that made Chris feel distinctly uneasy.

"Sounds good to me" He replied. He popped open the Jeep's trunk and grabbed his pack. It was a basic backpack containing everything he'd need for a small camp, including a bedroll. He quickly shouldered it, wondering why Leon didn't seem to have a similar setup. After his disaster with his luggage in Spain, Chris had watched the pack like a hawk at the airport, making sure that he had it at his side the whole time. He wondered whether Leon would be proud that he'd actually learnt from his mistakes. "I'm supposed to be meeting a contact from the West African branch of the BSAA around here" Chris added, rummaging in the pockets of his combats for his PDA. He tapped a few of the buttons, grumbling as the damn thing took an age to load up and find the right memo. He wasn't a fan of technology. "There should be a butcher's shop in this village. That's where they'll be. I'll be given a basic load-out but I'm not sure that there'll be any surplus for you"

"Don't worry about it" Leon said with a shrug. "I've got a couple of useful items concealed" He muttered. Chris looked him up and down, curious as to where the aforementioned 'useful items' could possibly be. He figured that it was probably better not to ask. The two of them set off walking, keeping an eye out for the butcher's shop. Leon didn't say very much and Chris figured that the younger man was thinking the same thing he was, that it was probably best that they didn't ask for directions from any of the locals. It was a little strange to be working alongside him again but it was definitely not an unpleasant feeling. He wondered if Leon felt the same way. As quickly as the thought came to him, he dismissed it. Now was not the time to be thinking about his relationship, or lack thereof, with Leon. This was all about finding Jill and taking her back to America safe and sound.

They walked onwards, passing various stalls and huts. Most of the signage was written in the native language. Chris grimaced as he stepped over the rotting corpse of a dead goat with a small army of flies hungrily buzzing around it. The pack on his back was heavy and his back was slick with sweat. The BSAA top that he was wearing was designed to allow the skin to breathe as much as possible but it didn't seem to be able to stand up to the African heat. As they approached what appeared to be a linen stall, they saw a group of three young men kicking a large burlap sack between them as if it were a football. The sack was long and slim and big enough to easily contain a person. The men were all kicking it viciously, putting all their power into each kick. They were shouting to each other enthusiastically as the sack started twitching and writhing. For the briefest of moments, Chris considered that it could easily be Jill in the sack before quickly admonishing himself. He supposed that he'd gotten a little crazy in his searches and he'd been tempted to go back to the drink, especially when he'd been holed up in a sleazy motel after yet another failed lead or dead end. He'd pulled himself through it, telling himself that if he was ever going to find Jill, he would need a have a clear head. He walked past the trio, trying hard not to look; a silent agreement seemed to pass between himself and Leon to just ignore it. It wouldn't be worth getting into any trouble at this stage. However, he couldn't help but flinch as one of the men, seemingly tired of the game, took a hatchet from the back of his ragged trousers and slammed it violently into the sack. Almost immediately the movement within the sack stopped. As if on cue, the three men raised their heads and unashamedly began to eyeball them, their stares almost a warning to carry on walking.

They hurried onwards. Chris wondered if Leon felt as uneasy as he did. The younger man certainly didn't seem rattled but that was probably something to do with his intensive training as a Secret Service agent. Chris had found it quite strange that, after he'd returned to America, he'd found himself missing Leon quite a lot. He'd gotten used to waking up and going downstairs to find Leon sitting at the breakfast table, or just sitting and typing on his laptop as he read a comic book. There were times, on his bleakest searches, that he found himself wishing that Leon was by his side, if only to make the situation less lonely. If there was anyone he would want to have his back on a mission, it would be Leon. They'd swapped contact details when Chris had left Spain but they hadn't really had much contact apart from his calls begging for help with Jill. Despite the nightmarish circumstances of their reunion, Chris was beginning to realise that he was actually glad to see him.

"I think we've found your meeting point" Leon's voice dragged him away from his thoughts. He was pointing towards a building a few metres ahead that had various meats hanging from steel hooks in the dirty window.

"There should be a side door" Chris replied as they walked towards it. A few minutes ago, Chris could've easily murdered a nice thick steak but the sight of the dubious looking meat had put him off completely. Now, if someone offered him the finest fillet, he would have to say no. They walked down the side of the building, sticking close to the whitewashed wall. Some of the paint was peeling away, revealing a yellow sandstone core underneath. More disconcertingly were the reddish streaks across it that were either paint or dried blood. The side door itself had clearly seen better days. Made of heavily scratched steel, it was painted red and when Chris laid a hand on it, it was burning hot. He hissed in pain and Leon sighed heavily before pushing it open with his shoulder. It opened slowly with a loud creak; drawing suspicious looks from some of the villagers there were loitering nearby.

The room inside was, at least, shady. That however was the only positive thing, which Chris could draw from stepping inside. They were assaulted by a pungent rotting smell mixed in with faeces and, judging by the stains on the stone floor, had obviously been used as some sort of holding area come abattoir for the butcher's. There was a large stone table in the middle of the room with a large, rusted butcher's knife lying atop it. Dried blood was streaked across the table top with rivulets that had run down the sides. The walls were lined with a series of rickety looking wooden cupboards and in the nearest corner was a large hefty looking post with a thick rope coiled around it, obviously for tying down the animals that were to be slaughtered. In the back corner of the room, looking somewhat out of place amongst the old furnishings was a walk in fridge. It had been left open by the last occupant and had obviously been allowed to defrost, judging by the disgusting smell that was emanating from it. Chris could hear the distinctive buzzing of a swarm of flies coming from inside of it and hoped that he wouldn't have to find out what it was that they were feasting on. There was a small cough and it was then that Chris noticed a woman leaning against a low shelving unit, a short distance away from the fridge. She was tall and lean, her midnight black hair tied into a neat ponytail. She was dressed in tight tan coloured trousers and a purple vest. Long, brown leather gloves adorned her hands and arms, stopping just before her elbows. They matched the brown leather boots that were on her feet. In the gloom, Chris could just make out a tribal tattoo on her right arm. She smiled at them, seemingly impervious to the smell coming from the fridge. Atop the shelving unit was a large metal attaché case. She smiled at the two of them.

"You get used to the smell." She spoke softly yet confidently in a South African accent.

"I sincerely hope not," Leon replied as they approached her. He held out his hand and nodded at her. "Leon Kennedy. I'm tagging along with Chris here."

"Sheva Alomar." The woman said as she shook Leon's hand. She turned to shake Chris' "And you must be Chris Redfield, North American branch," She smiled curtly and continued. "I have your weapons," She nodded towards the attaché case that appeared to be locked with a combination lock. "You can't be too careful around here. Although I'm sure you've worked that out already. The combination is 2236."

Leon smirked at this but didn't explain why. Chris fiddled with the lock and opened the case to reveal an array of weapons packed into black Styrofoam inserts. Chris dumped his pack before pulling out a gun belt and tossed the spare to Leon who caught it with ease. The case contained the BSAA standard issue 9mm handgun and four clips as well as a shotgun and 12 extra shells. There was also an upper body harness to hold the shotgun and some grenades, which were also in the case. He clipped a radio onto his left shoulder and clipped a wireless blue tooth headset complete with mic into his ear. He turned to face Leon who had strapped the spare gun belt around his waist and was in the process of pulling a thigh holster out of one of the pockets of his combats. He strapped it on and holstered his handgun into it before holstering a magnum around his waist. Chris noted with interest that it was the same magnum he'd had back in Spain.

"Forty magnum rounds and fifty for the handgun." Leon said, loading up the pouches on his belt from his pockets. Chris opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a tinny crackling from Sheva's radio. She cursed in her native tongue and withdrew something from the pocket of her trousers.

"I've marked out a route on this map of the local area," She explained, handing Chris the map. "It leads to a safe house where we can meet up" She fiddled with her radio. "I'd like to escort you but I need to move ahead quickly. Alpha Team were supposed to be radioing from Checkpoint A but they're twenty minutes overdue." She made for the door.

"Wait"! Leon called out. "If you think something's gone wrong we should go with you," He added firmly. He looked over at Chris who nodded in agreement. Sheva however, was already shaking her head.

"You'll only slow me down." She replied adamantly. Without waiting for further arguments from either man, she ran off. Leon snorted as the steel door slammed shut behind her.

"Women…" He muttered. "So how far are we away from this safe house"?

"It's just through the village," Chris replied, studying the hastily drawn map in his hands. "Shouldn't take us too long to get there if we head straight through the main village area."

"Probably not such a great idea." Leon said, pointing towards the window. Chris peered through the smeared glass and saw that a large crowd of villagers had begun to gather around what looked like a wooden stage just a short distance away from the butchery. The crowd seemed roused and excitable, chattering and chanting away and occasionally letting out a cheer. Chris watched with unease as a villager dressed in jeans and checked shirt strutted onto the stage. He was wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a battered megaphone. Leon joined him by the window as the villager raised the megaphone to his lips and started to shout into it. The cheering and chanting grew louder and louder and eventually reached a crescendo as an abnormally large man wandered onto the stage. He was dressed in long black and brown robes that looked hastily stitched together. He was slightly stooped with an almost hump-like protrusion on his back. A black burlap sack covered his head and, more frighteningly, he was carrying a huge axe, the tip of which was crusted with dried blood. Chris watched with horror as two more villagers joined the stage holding tightly onto a struggling Sheva. She was screaming at the men, presumably pleading with them to release her. Chris' fingers curled around the handgun on his gun belt. He moved away from the window and before he could reach the door, a hand clamped down hard on his left shoulder.

"Don't be so stupid" Leon said harshly. "You'll get yourself killed! There's too many of them."

Chris shrugged Leon's hand off easily, shaking his head.

"I can't just let them kill her"! He shot back. He glared at Leon, daring the younger man to keep arguing. Since his increase in size and muscle mass, Chris had found that people were willing to argue with him less and less. Leon however looked back at him calmly. It appeared that he would dare.

"You're going to have to," He replied coolly. "There's nothing we can do. If you go out there guns blazing we'll be outnumbered before we know it. Would you just think for a change? You're not going to be much use to Jill if you're dead"!

Chris knew Leon had a point. There were far too many villagers out there for them to even try and take on. They'd run out of ammo when they were halfway through and then they'd be screwed. The calm look on Leon's face seemed to have a calming effect on Chris too. He hated the idea of standing by and letting Sheva die but they had no other option. They continued to stare at each other, as the crowd grew silent before the air was filled with a horrible, blood-curdling scream, which Chris sincerely hoped he would never have to hear again. If Leon was affected by the scream and the obvious meaning behind it, he didn't show it. He continued to stare levelly at Chris with barely a flicker of emotion. A few seconds passed before he spoke.

"We need to get moving."

Chris nodded and the two of them quickly located a back door that appeared to lead to a side street. The crowd in the square didn't seem to be a hurry to disperse so it looked like they were going to have a take a longer route and stick to the shadows. They readied their guns and stepped out into the street, ready for anything that might try to spring an attack on them.

"I don't know how you do it," Chris said quietly as they made their way down the narrow street. "Show no emotion like that." He explained. He could hear the chatter of the crowd and couldn't work out whether it was getting louder or not.

"You have to." Leon replied, leaning against a hut as they came up to a corner. He nodded at Chris to go first. As Chris stepped round the corner, Leon covered him. Finding no one down the next street, they continued on. "Doesn't mean I don't care."

Chris was about to reply when a metallic rattling cut him off. There was a woman standing the other side of the barbed wire fence at the bottom of the street. Just to the left of the fence was a door but apart from that, it seemed like they'd come to a dead end. As soon as the woman saw them she let out a loud cry. She took an inhuman leap and clung onto the barbed wire fence. As she climbed it and went over the top, the barbs from the wire tore into her legs. She didn't seem to notice as the tears started to bleed. She jumped from the top and landed a few feet away.

"Shit." Leon cursed as she started to advance on them. Chris could hear shouts and calls, obviously in a response to her cry. The woman started to draw a hatchet from a sack tied around her waist but before she could get it out Leon fired one well-aimed magnum shot that hit her directly in the forehead. With one final cry, she dropped to the dusty ground, convulsing for a few seconds before she finally lay still.

"More are gonna come." Chris said, looking for a possible escape. They could go for the door but there was no guarantee it wasn't another dead end. Climbing over the fence was also an option but he didn't fancy ripping his own legs to shreds on the barbed wire.

"We're going to have to go back." Leon replied, almost as if he was reading Chris' mind. Chris' radio suddenly crackled into life almost making him a jump. He fiddled with the tuning knob until the voice came through clearer.

"Redfield, Redfield do you copy"? An unfamiliar voice demanded.

"Redfield receiving. Pass your message." Chris replied into his headset. Leon was watching him hopefully. It was about time they came across a little luck. The radio crackled for a few more seconds before the voice came back, loud and clear.

"This is Kirk from Alpha Team. We'll be at your location in fifteen minutes. Hold up at the base over."

"Received," Chris answered. "It appears the locals are hostile."

"Do what you need to do until we get there. We're bringing in a chopper." Kirk replied before the radio cut out. Chris glanced at Leon who was looking over his shoulder. The voices of the villagers were getting closer. They need to move.

"Maybe we should hole up in the butcher's" Chris suggested as they ran back down the street back towards the main square. "We'll stand a better chance of watching all our directions that way."

"Sounds good to me." Leon said, picking up his pace a little. They ran for the butcher's shop, looking out for villagers as they went. They reached the steel door quickly and Leon wrenched it open before hurrying inside. Chris was about to follow suit when something suddenly yanked him backwards by the cord of his pack. Without turning round to see what it was, he quickly shrugged his shoulders out of the straps and ran for the door, slamming it closed behind him. Leon helped him push one of the wooden shelving units up against it. They turned to regard each other, slightly breathless from their quick run.

"So is this your thing then"? Leon asked with a slight smirk in spite of the situation. "Losing your bags"?

"What the hell are you talking about"? Chris looked at the younger man with confusion. He wasn't entirely used to this more chilled out Leon. He was always waiting for him to make some kind of acidic comment or give him a snotty look like he had when they'd worked together in Spain. Obviously it was an improvement but still, ever so slightly unnerving.

"Well, you lost your bag in Spain didn't you"? He pointed out as he calmly shifted another one of the wooden cabinets so that it was blocking a filthy window. Chris rolled his eyes at his partner and shook his head.

"God, do you remember everything"? He asked wearily. Leon merely snorted at him in return. They moved into one of the corners of the room, giving them the widest possible view. Outside, they could hear whispered voices and footsteps approaching the small shop. In the distance they could hear someone who was obviously the ringleader, rallying the villagers with shouts of encouragement. The tension in the small room was almost unbearable, reminding Chris of the nightmare of the Spencer Mansion. He remembered wandering the seemingly endless labyrinthine corridors and hallways, never knowing what you were going to find behind the next door, or what might be lurking in the shadows. He wondered if Leon was having similar memories of his time in Raccoon City.

A sudden heavy pounding on the door snapped him back to reality and he raised his gun. The voices were getting louder and louder and more villagers realised where they'd holed up. The butchery had become stiflingly hot now and Chris could feel the sweat trickling down his back. If Leon was as uncomfortable, then he certainly wasn't showing it. He was focussed on the door, his gun raised, his face set with concentration. Chris fought the urge to run out of the damn door and start gunning down their would-be attackers. He hated waiting around. He was always so proactive and it felt like he was almost hiding away like a scared kid. He jumped as a loud creaking noise echoed around the room, followed by the wooden cabinet breaking into pieces as the steel door was rammed open. Three villagers spilled in through the open doorway, hatchets and knives raised, ready to strike. Less than a second later, one of them collapsed to the floor, felled by a shot to the head from Leon's handgun. Chris followed suit, quickly flooring the other two. Their weapons clattered to the ground but were picked up again by more villagers who scurried through the door. There were a world away from the slow, lumbering zombies that Chris was used to. It was like they were still human but possessed.

"Shit"! He heard Leon's shout as the window smashed and more of them began to pile in through this new entrance. Wordlessly, as if it were practised, the two of them each took a separate corner of the room. Chris dealt with the villagers at the door, Leon taking the ones at the window. Chris' ears hummed with the sound of constant gunfire mixed with the screams of the villagers as they each hit the floor.

"Makes you miss zombies huh"? He called out as Leon dodged a wine bottle aimed for his head before taking out another attacker with an impressively accurate headshot. "They're not acting like any zombies I've ever seen"

"Cover me. I need to reload" Leon ordered as he felled two more of the creatures. Chris turned his attentions to the window as Leon slapped another clip into his gun. The horde was showing no signs of slowing down. More and more of them spilled into the room, their shouts becoming louder and more frantic as they noticed their fallen brothers. Leon narrowly missed a flying hatchet and Chris nearly took a knife to the ribs. The marauding villagers were relentless, now having to clamber over the dead to get to their intended targets. Chris absently noted their disregard for each other as sandaled feet trampled over the bodies of the people who died only moments before.

A loud crash echoed throughout the small room. Both men were showered in brick dust and dirt as one of the walls collapsed in front of their very eyes. The villagers stopped in their tracks as the axe-wielding giant stood in the gap where the wall had just been mere seconds ago. Now they were up close and personal, Chris could see how terrifying it looked. He was a clear two feet taller than either of them with thick limbs and an even thicker torso. An executioner's black hood was hiding his head and face and he was wearing a ragged grey leather apron. The most disconcerting thing about him was the hordes of thick nails that seemed to be stuck into the top half of his body. The axe he was carrying looked just as mean, a thick wooden handle ending in a large, block shaped axe with rusty chains hanging from the end. It was smeared with a garish mixture of dried and flesh blood. Chris felt a new wave of nausea hit his stomach when he realised whom that fresh blood had once belonged to.

"Move"! Leon shouted as the Executioner raised its fearsome weapon. Chris felt Leon grab hold of his shoulder and pull him towards the door. Chris snapped into action quickly, taking down the villagers that blocked their way out of the building. They ran quickly into the street that was strangely quiet after all the hectic activity back in the butcher's. They heard an earth shattering clunk as the axe obviously hit the floor of the building. "This way"! Leon commanded, pointing towards the main square. It made sense to take advantage of the sudden quietness and take the quickest route out of the village. According to Sheva's map, they need to leave the village via some large, grey steel gates. Chris could seem them in the distance, looming towards them promisingly as they ran. He could hear the villagers once more as they frantically searched for them. There was one of them standing near the gates on the roof of a nearby building. He had a megaphone in his hands and as he spotted them, raised it to his lips.

"Oh no you don't asshat"! Chris raised his handgun and, with the skills that made him the highest ranked marksman in S.T.A.R.S, took the guy out with a headshot.

"Impressive" Leon said, somewhat breathlessly. "Think you can get those gates open"?

"Of course I can!" Chris replied simply. Which was true, he could get those gates open, he just needed to work out how exactly. It looked like they were the sort that slid open. Chris grabbed the large metal handle on the side of the gate and started to pull with all his might. When the gates refused to shift he turned round to Leon and nodded in what he hoped was an official and professional looking manner. "Yeah, they're locked." He said with no trace of embarrassment or sheepishness. He stood instead with his hands on his hips, appearing, hopefully at least, to be in charge of assessing the situation.

"Leave that to us guys"! Chris' radio crackled to life once more and Kirk's cheerful voice came through. In the midst of the violent attack and the subsequent quick escape they'd made, Chris hadn't even noticed the distant sounds of the chopper that was fast approaching them. Turning his attentions to the sky, he felt that at that particular moment, there was no better sight in the whole world than the black vehicle.

"Right on time"! Chris replied into his mic. "Looks like the locals are a bunch of assholes who don't take kindly to strangers" He grinned at Leon who rolled his eyes. The younger man was keeping his gun raised, constantly on guard for any remaining villagers that might've worked out their current location.

"Take cover guys, this is gonna be a big one"! Kirk warned.

"Don't even say it" Leon said before Chris could open his mouth. Grabbing hold of the older man once more, Leon dragged him into a small stone building that looked like it could've been used as a storage room. There were a few small wooden crates inside that were stacked next to an old stone trough that was full of dirty, fetid water. They crouched inside and waited for the inevitable blast as the chopper set to work on the gates.

"Y'know, I've just worked out what you are" Chris said as they crouched shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space.

"What the hell are you babbling about"? Leon muttered, sounding unimpressed.

"Well Claire has this theory that the two people in any partnership always fall into certain roles. You've got the silly one and you've got the police officer. The silly one does all the awesome stuff like beating up the bad guys and saying all the cool one liners whilst still having a kick ass sense of humour. The police officer is all serious and careful and always tells the silly one off. And you know what else? It works out great because you actually used to BE a police officer"! Chris explained, grinning triumphantly. He felt like he'd just hit the nail right on the head. He'd always privately thought that his sister's various theories were bullshit so it was pretty neat to see one of them actually working out. Leon however, didn't seem to think so.

"I was only a cop for one day" He pointed out peevishly. "And I have to be the serious one around here otherwise we'd be dead"

"Yeah, but still, police officer" Chris reiterated as if that settled the argument. He smiled smugly and barely flinched when a loud explosion rocked the surrounding area. The earth beneath them trembled slightly.

"All clear guys!" Kirk's voice returned. "We'll catch up with you at the rendezvous. Stay safe"

As Chris and Leon came out of the stone building they saw the chopper disappearing into the distance. The steel gates were now a warped and twisted mass of metal, the ground around them smoking. There were no signs of any villagers. If any had been around they'd probably been scared away by the explosion. Chris breathed a huge sigh of relief and consulted the map.

"There's an industrial area about a mile away which is near a waterfront," He said, speaking more to himself as he thought it through. Leon however, was nodding and tapping away at his PDA.

"Sounds about right" He replied. "Our intelligence believes that Wesker has a facility that's a few miles up the river past some ancient ruins. We'll need a boat to get up there so the waterfront would be a good place to start"

"Let's go then" Chris folded the map away. "Partner"!

"Not that again…"

00000000000

"We've passed that building already"

Leon muttered a curse under his breath as Chris' slightly whining tone broke their silence once more. Ever since they'd left the village square behind, they'd been trapped in a never ending maze of back streets and alleyways. Chris insisted that they all looked the same and that from the amount of turning and weaving they'd been doing, it would be hard to tell whether they'd been going round in circles or not. Leon chose to ignore this. He had a hell of a lot more pride in his sense of direction than that. He was leading the way, his gun at the ready, just in case any villagers decided to launch an attack. They were acting like nothing he'd ever seen before. Definitely not like the creatures that stalked the corridors of the RPD building. They moved faster and appeared to have an almost inhuman amount of strength. The only logical explanation was that they were test subjects. From what he remembered from reading Wesker's research, it seemed like it was most likely a form of the Plagas virus. It made him feel sick to his stomach that this once innocent village had been turned into a large petri dish for Wesker's own sick pursuits.

There was, however, something else at the forefront of his mind and that was Chris. Despite how well they'd ended up getting on in Spain, Leon hadn't had much contact with him since then. It had taken him aback to see how much the older man had changed in a year. It wasn't a physical thing. Chris looked pretty much the same in that respect. It was something else, something less tangible. He thought back to the early days of their relationship when Chris had seemed nothing more than some witless goon that irritated him. In time, Leon had learnt that there were a lot more layers to his personality than that, but he'd never before seen him look so troubled. Chris was acting as silly and quip ridden as usual but there was something a little off about it. Leon considered himself to be something of an expert when it came to putting on an act so he could smell Chris' from a mile off. It seemed strange to come from someone who was usually so direct with his feelings. If Chris was happy, he would say so. If something pissed him off, he would say so. There had never been any complicated façade with him and it was worrying to see that that had all changed so quickly. Normally, Leon would just let him get on with it. Chris would either explode in a fit of rage or keep quiet until the mission was over and they could go their separate ways. It was the way Leon had handled his other unwanted partners. And that was what made all the difference. Chris was no longer one of those unwanted goons. The absence of the older man in his life had done nothing to extinguish the feelings for him that Leon had developed in Spain. He wanted to say that he no longer cared for him but he'd gone through the whole denial phase enough for one lifetime. He heard Chris sigh heavily and waited for yet another whiny onslaught.

"Do you think Jill's even alive"?

The question came out of the blue, as a total surprise, putting Leon on the back foot completely. Chris' tone was uncharacteristically serious and yet somehow resigned as if he was considering giving up. It was so different to the Chris Redfield that Leon thought he knew. His brown eyes were tinged with a hint of sadness that no amount of bravado could hide.

"I mean, look what they did to Sheva" Chris continued. "There's no reason why they wouldn't do the same thing to Jill…fucking animals"! He spat viciously, kicking out at a nearby rusted oil drum so hard that Leon thought he was actually going to dent it. "She's been gone for so long now. For all we know we could be chasing a fucking ghost" He snorted. "Hell, it's what Barry seems to think. He hasn't said so but I know he's given up on her. So has Carlos and he's supposed to fucking love her"!

"Doubtful" Leon replied adamantly. "Remember, the sighting of her is a recent one. If they were going to execute her then they would've done a year ago" He had a horrible feeling that he knew what had happened to Jill but there was no way in hell he would ever say so.

"I guess you're right" Chris said quietly. He scrubbed a hand over his face and shook his head as if he was silently chastising himself. "Let's find her" He added with a new vigour. Leon nodded but couldn't help but wonder whether Chris' mind had been changed on the subject or whether he was just trying to dodge his feelings. As they'd been walking along, the residential looking buildings and shop fronts were less and less and, more imposing featureless buildings had taken their place. Power lines criss-crossed over their heads, attached to rusted fuse boxes and transformers. They turned left and the end of the street and found themselves in an alleyway lined by chain link fences. Just like the ones in the village, they were topped with nasty looking barbed wire. Leon winced when he remembered the woman's legs, torn open by the vicious spikes. It was hard to tell whether or not they had reached the source of the village's power supply or whether it was something else entirely. It had been awfully quiet for a long time now and Leon was beginning to become suspicious. His fingers twitched on his handgun, ready for a surprise attack. Chris' radio crackled, starling him slightly. Kirk's frantic voice followed shortly afterwards.

"Redfield…Kennedy…rendezvous location breached…." He was shouting, his sentences broken up by back interference so that they were only getting the odd word. "Chopper going down…he's attacking…SHIT"!

Just as quickly as it had come to life, the noise over the radio died. Chris fiddled with the dials, trying to get a better reception, only to be greeted by the continuing silence. In the distance they heard the distinctive, yet muffled sound of an explosion. They looked at each other briefly before looking away, knowing full well what had happened to cause that particular sound. Chris frowned, his expression growing more determined. Leon knew that the deaths of his fellow BSAA members were getting to him. In his Secret Service training, he'd been taught quite harshly that there would be casualties during missions and that they needed to accept this and move on. He'd always hated the thought of being so hardened towards death that the loss of an innocent life wouldn't bother him but the more he'd worked for the Secret Service, the more he realised that, as hard as it was, it was something he had to get used to. He'd seen colleagues die in the most horrible and painful ways and he'd had to work past it to see the mission through to the end. He knew he was going to have to do the exact same thing here but also, to try and keep Chris focussed as well. If Chris lost his focus, they were both dead. A large grey building loomed at the end of the confined alley. There were a few small barred windows and a couple of large chimneystacks sat atop it. There were a couple of worn yellow and black hazard warning signs and a large sign down one side of the building that presumably explained what it was or had the company's name on it. It was the sort of building that wouldn't look out of place on an industrial site or abandoned Business Park. Judging by the streaks of rust stains that ran down from the water pipes and the cracked glass panes of the windows, the building hadn't been in use for a long time. The only thing that was blocking their way was a heavy steel door painted with yellow and black stripes at the end of the alleyway. Beyond that, they could clearly see the grey steel door that led into the building. Constantly on the lookout, they ran for the first door, which on closer inspection was locked tight with a thick chain and sturdy padlock.

"Doesn't look like that's going to move" Leon said, fiddling with the weighty padlock before letting it drop back against the door.

"It's not that high, we could climb over it" Chris suggested. The fence at either side was topped with the brutal barbed wire but, luckily for them, the door wasn't.

"Give me a boost" Leon ordered. Chris nodded and laced his fingers together, creating a little platform out of his hands. Leon stepped in and Chris heaved him up. Leon grabbed onto the top of the doorframe and hauled himself up and over. He landed gracefully on the balls of his feet. "Need any help"?

"Hey, this is Chris Redfield you're talking about" Chris smirked at him, backing off for a few paces before taking a running jump at the door. He grabbed hold of the top of the doorframe just as Leon had and pulled himself up before leaping down, landing heavily on flat feet. Leon gave a sympathetic wince as he landed.

"Did that not hurt"? He asked.

"Not at all" Chris said through gritted teeth. Leon raised an eyebrow and looked at the older man doubtfully.

"Would you like me to turn away so you can react accordingly"? He offered. Chris nodded gratefully. Leon smirked and turned away from his partner. He did however, glance over his shoulder for a brief moment and saw Chris hopping about and mouthing various obscenities. As ridiculous as Chris looked, it was nice to see him acting a bit more like his old self. "Ready"?

"Let's go" Chris said, perfectly calmly. They walked over to the grey steel door, Chris backing up against the wall, his gun raised. Leon kicked the door and it swung inwards, opening with a creak. They entered as slowly and quietly as possible, ready for a surprise attack. The door lead into a narrow empty corridor. It was stacked ceiling high with pallets down one side of it and smelt faintly of old machine oil. The walls were the same grey concrete as the outside of the building and the grey stone floor was spattered with oil and general grime. A few metres ahead of them they could see that the corridor forked to the right, a blind corner. Keeping their weapons drawn, they made their way towards the end of the corridor. It loomed closer and closer, their bodies tense and primed for a surprise attack. Leon opened his mouth to say something but was cut off when a man dressed in khaki tactical gear flew into view from around the corner. His body hit the wall and he slumped down slowly, leaving a gruesome bloody smear on the concrete wall. The body hit the floor and slumped forward. A pool of blood started to rapidly spread across the floor. Judging by the state of him, he'd been dead before he hit the wall.

"Shit"! Chris exclaimed.

"Ssh"! Leon hissed, nodding towards the corner. "Whatever killed him might still be round there," He added in a harsh whisper. Chris nodded and started to advance on the corner. Leon followed, swapping his handgun for his magnum. The rounded the corner slowly, confused when all they found was yet another corridor, stretching down the length of the building before ending with a lift shaft. Leon stood, keeping watch whilst Chris knelt down to examine the man's body.

"Alpha Team" Chris muttered, studying the man's dog tags that were still slung round his neck. "I didn't know him" He was silent as he looked over the body, running his hands over him to try and find the source of the blood. "He's got holes in his torso" He said grimly. "They've gone straight through his Kevlar vest…"

"Gotta be powerful to get through one of those" Leon replied, not taking his eyes of the lift in front of them. "I don't understand how we didn't hear anything," He said over his shoulder. "If he'd been attacked on a different floor and used the lift we would've heard it"

"So whatever attacked him, did it on this floor then…" Chris checked the fallen Alpha's gun. It was completely empty and he wasn't carrying any extra clips.

"Got away silently" Leon finished for him. "Of course the other theory is that whatever attacked him is still around here somewhere, hiding"

Chris stood up and looked upwards towards the ceiling. There were no vents or obvious gaps. The only possible place that something could be hiding was the lift itself. The bottom half of the lift carriage was obscured by a piece of sheet metal adorned with some more of the warning signs they'd seen on the outside of the building.

"I'll go, back me up," Leon said, creeping forwards as silently as possible. He held his breath, as he got closer towards the carriage. He could barely hear Chris' footsteps behind him, proof at least, that he was hopeless when it came to being stealthy. Keeping his magnum trained on the carriage Leon got close enough to take a look. He breathed out when he saw that it was, like the corridor, empty. He turned to Chris and shook his head. Chris looked confused and shrugged.

"Looks like there's no way else to go but down" he suggested. He lowered his gun and hurried to the lift carriage, following Leon in. "I don't like this at all" He added as Leon pressed the lift's button.

"That's good because I'm loving it" Leon replied sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. The lift started to descend, rattling and juddering as it moved slowly downwards. "Do you think we'll ever get the opportunity to get together in more normal circumstances"? He asked, expecting some kind of goofy reply. It came as a shock when a dark look crossed Chris' features.

"Only when Wesker's dead" The older man spat. He didn't offer anything else and Leon didn't want to push him so he kept quiet. It seemed like there was a rich history between Chris and Albert Wesker. Much more than Chris himself had told him. He wondered briefly if he would ever find out the whole story. He wondered if he even wanted to know it.

The lift stopped suddenly, the doors creaking open and revealing another corridor, narrower than the one on the previous floor. Leon heard Chris' sharp intake of breath when he caught sight of the bodies of other Alpha team members, littered down the corridor like gruesome rag dolls left behind when their owner had tired of playing with them. The floor was streaked with slicks of blood leading to the pools seeping out from underneath the bodies. The blood was splashed up the walls, spattered on the thick heavy pipes that ran the length of the ceiling. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, thick power cables drooping down in arcs against the walls. By the looks of it, Leon guessed that it was a maintenance passage of some sort. The smell of the blood was drowned out by the unmistakable stench of smouldering. Whatever had been burnt had obviously not been vented, so the noxious fumes still lingered in the air. Coupled with this smell was a low and distant hissing. Behind him, Leon heard Chris swap his handgun for his shotgun, obviously uneasy. They wordlessly moved along the corridor slowly, picking their way through the mangled corpses. Leon noted, with little humour, how he'd become desensitised to such horrific sights. His mind took him back to the sewers underneath Raccoon City when he'd been confronted with the sight of butchered corpses floating in the murky waters. He'd been shocked to his very core by the sight and had fought to keep the contents of his stomach under control. He'd been confused and unnerved, wondering what the hell had caused such brutal murders. Although he was wondering the very same thing right now, it was different. He knew that whoever or whatever had murdered the Alpha Team would soon be confronting them and it was that feeling, he noted with bitterness, that shouldn't feel so normal.

The end of the corridor opened out into a much wider space. To their left was an upended skip with tractor tires and sandbags spilling out of it. In the right hand corner was another large stack of shipping pallets. The hissing was louder now and seemed to be coming from an off-shoot to their left that lead to another blind corner. In front of them was another heavy steel door, painted red with symbols and writing scratched into it. The walls were lined with extraction units and large fans which served to send the burning smell in their direction. Chris moved forward first, heading straight for the door. He reached out for the handle and Leon could see how sweaty his palm was. As he put it down on the handle he sudden pulled back quickly, like it was hot. Leon glanced towards the offshoot; it looked like they were going to have to go there. It wasn't a very inviting prospect.

"I'll go first this time," Chris said, his voice sounding so suddenly loud in the silence. Leon nodded and followed the older man as he set off down the small corridor, his shotgun poised. Despite the intensity of the situation, Leon couldn't help but admire the toned muscles of Chris' broad shoulders and wide back, showed off by his tight BSAA top. He'd really been stupid to think that his attraction would wane somehow. He shook his head to clear those thoughts. He needed to focus right now, not chase after something he was never going to get.

It wasn't long before they came to yet another locked steel door.

"This one doesn't look that strong, we could probably bring it down with a good kick or two" Chris said confidently.

"I seem to spend my life dealing with locked doors" Leon replied with a heavy sigh. Yet again his mind insisted on taking him back to Raccoon. The police station this time, with its many locked doors. He remembered how much his shoulder had screamed in pain by the time he'd broken down door after door, certain that escape was behind each one of them. The annoyance he'd felt when the stupid club key had been in the lock on the other side of one of them. It was the sort of thing he would've found funny on any other day…

"Tell me about it" Chris said with a strained chuckle. "You haven't felt true irritation until you've chased your own ass through a mansion looking for Sword, Armour, Shield and Kiss-my-mother-fucking-ass keys for hours on end…" He shook his head at the memory and Leon couldn't help but smile a little. It would seem that if they bothered to get into it, they had a lot in common and a lot to talk about. "So, you ready to bust this door down"?

"I guess it's preferable than backtracking" Leon answered. "I'm just not sure we should be making any noise when we don't know what's waiting for us"

"C'mon" Chris shrugged. "It's us! We're well leaded and I'm sure we can deal with whatever might come our way"

Leon nodded and lowered his magnum. After a few seconds of making sure they got the angle right, the two of them kicked their hardest, the door swung open and the hissing noise suddenly got a lot louder. Before they could investigate where the sound was coming from, they heard a heavy breathing coming from behind them. They whirled around quickly and there, standing little over a metre away was a horribly familiar face…

Chris felt his stomach leap into his throat as he turned around to see none other than Jack Krauser standing before them. The barrel of his shotgun was aimed straight at the mutated human but the arrogant man smiled like it was of no consequence.

"Krauser…" He heard Leon's choked gasp, the younger man sounding as shaken as Chris felt right now. He glanced at the younger man who was staring at Krauser incredulously.

Krauser looked the same as he had back at the facility in Spain. The spines on his mutated left arm were dripping with fresh blood from the fallen members of Alpha team. The taut film between these spines was expanding and contracting in time with the crazed man's breathing. He was dressed only from the waist down in the same filthy tattered remains of his combat trousers and scuffed black combat boots that were caked with blood and chunks of flesh. His human face and the rest of his body were still intact which meant that he hadn't mutated any further like Alexia Ashford or the T.A.L.O.S beast. It didn't, however, mean that he wasn't capable of it. Chris barely had time to take in the reappearance of the twisted creature before he lunged for the mass of mutated claws on the end of his arm lunged straight for Leon. Leon ducked and quickly executed a perfect roll, getting to his feet behind Krauser and reaching for his magnum.

"How are you even fucking alive you crazy bastard"? Chris shouted in an attempt to distract Krauser. Krauser however was seemingly ignoring him in favour of Leon. He'd turned around and lunged for the younger man again. Chris, with a clear shot at the man's back, fired. The shotgun shell hit, tearing through Krauser's blood-stained back. The man barely flinched as he continued to advance on Leon. The claw swiped out once more and Leon dodged in the small space, catching his knee on the wall. Chris fired again, another shell hitting Krauser's back, creating a wound but still having no obvious effect. They couldn't carry on like this indefinitely. His mind raced through the options. Escaping the way they came. No. Wouldn't work. Lift too slow. That other door. Try again. It's locked.

"Chris! Move"! Leon called out. The younger man's hands wrapped around his sweaty bicep pulling him through the open door and into a confined chamber. The hissing sound was deafening now and Chris quickly realised that the sound belonged to the gas pipes of a large furnace. He realised too late that there was no other way out of the chamber other than the door they'd just come through. Krauser was gained on them fast. They were going to have to fight.

Huge gas tanks took up the centre of the chamber with 'flammable' symbols emblazoned across them. They were housed in a large barbed wire pen stretching from floor to ceiling. Pipes ran from these tanks into the furnace itself, which consisted of a smaller chamber with two heavy metal shutters at either end. His mind was working quickly now, formulating a plan. It was a relief to hear it echoed from Leon.

"We need to lure him into that furnace" Leon said, pointing towards it. "There's a control panel just by one of the shutters. If we can get them closed and work out how to turn it on before he can escape the heat will take him out" He explained breathlessly. They could hear Krauser in the corridor. He obviously knew they were trapped, as he made no effort whatsoever to get to them quickly. Chris hoped that it would be this unbelievable arrogance that would prove to be his downfall. "You go for the controls, I'll be the bait" Leon continued. Chris nodded, not at all happy with that particular part of the plan. It made sense of course, after all, it seemed that Krauser's interest was in Leon but he didn't like the idea of anything going wrong and Leon getting hurt again. His mind teased him with images of Leon lying in the hospital room in Spain, hooked up to all those machines…

"Chris, he's coming, move"! Leon ordered, running towards the shutter. Chris ran for the second shutter and waited by the control panel beside it. Krauser strolled almost idly into the room, his smirk stretching from ear to ear.

"It'll take much more than some squid in a tank to take me out Kennedy" He mocked, spotting Leon by the shutter. He moved towards him with inhuman speed, closing the distance between them in one leap. Chris spotted the handle on the top of the shutter above Leon's head. He mentally cursed. The damn things were manual! He was going to have to wait for Krauser and Leon to get inside before he could run round to close it. His heart hammered in his chest as Krauser raised his claw, seemingly teasing Leon with it. He wanted to march over there and rip it from the bastard's torso. The only time he'd felt such intense hatred in his life was after Wesker had shot Leon in the facility. He watched as Leon backed into the furnace and Krauser followed, mindlessly taking the bait. Chris saw his chance and ran round to the shutter, reaching up for the handle and slamming it down. It hit the floor with a loud metallic clang and as he ran back to the control panel, he could hear the sound of Leon opening fire, the shots deafening in the enclosed space. As he reached the controls, Leon staggered out of the furnace. He quickly turned and started to shoot once more as Krauser appeared by the doorway. Three bullets struck Krauser's left leg, the magnum's firepower causing him to drop to his knees, his claw pulsating, the spines flexing dangerously. Chris jumped up for the shutter handle and brought it down quickly, trapping Krauser in the furnace. He pressed the start button on the control panel and the hissing grew to a crescendo as the furnace started to fill up with gas. He could hear Krauser inside, screaming and roaring with rage. He looked in through the small viewing window on the other side of the shutter and could see that his left leg had begun to split open, cracking, splintering, mutating and spraying the furnace walls with blood. His screams petered out and Chris jumped back as the claw whacked hard against the reinforced glass.

"Looking for Jill are we"? Krauser bellowed over the sound of the gas. "Maybe you should ask the bitch in the red dress" He locked eyes with Chris, his gaze full of hatred. Chris took a step back from the viewing window. He became vaguely aware of Leon's hand on his shoulder, pulling him back to the control panel.

"I'll hunt you until the end of you days Kennedy"! Krauser roared, suffused with rage. "Dirty faggot"!

Leon remained perfectly composed, his gloved fingers dancing over the control panel, searching for the right button.

"Yeah, I'm gay" He called back calmly. "Looks like it's your problem and look where it got ya" He added, punching a button with a picture of a flame on it. The furnace exploded into life with the energy of the sun, the intense light blanking out the viewing window. The blaze died down as suddenly as it started. They stood in silence for a few minutes, taking in what had just happened. Chris felt shell-shocked. The mention of Jill's name sinking in. He wanted to berate himself for not charging into the furnace at the mention of her name and beating ten tonnes of shit out of him until the twisted bastard told him everything he knew.

"He probably didn't know anything" Leon spoke suddenly, almost making him jump.

"I need to know he's dead," Chris said coldly. He yanked open the shutter, ignoring the burning warmth and stuck his head inside the furnace. The heat within was still intense but he managed to bear it. In the middle of the furnace was a pile of dust and what appeared to be charcoal. The sight made him feel mildly better. "Well, he ain't coming back from that"

"Good" Leon said firmly. He was bending down and picking something up from the floor. He held it up to show Chris. "Keys. Krauser must've dropped them"

Chris nodded, figuring the keys were probably for the locked door they'd passed earlier. His mind was chattering away, trying to figure out what the hell Krauser had talked about when he'd mentioned 'the bitch in the red dress'. Perhaps Leon was right; perhaps Krauser really didn't know anything. After all, the guy was half man half BOW and totally crazy to boot. Then again, if Krauser didn't know anything then how did he know Jill's name? There was always a chance that Wesker had mentioned her in Spain but he got the distinct impression that Krauser was more of a toy for Wesker to play with than a buddy to chat to.

"We're gonna find her" Leon's voice broke through his thoughts once more. He turned to face the younger man and saw the confident, adamant expression on his face. Chris realised that if there was anyone he had to be stuck in this nightmare with, he was with the right person.

"You're right" He replied. "We will find her"

"We'll head back to the door we passed and see what's behind it" Leon continued. He started to walk back towards the corridor. Chris followed, barely looking back at the furnace and the charred remains of Jack Krauser.

000000000000

The locked door had led to yet another lift, which they'd ascended to find themselves in what looked like a large garage like room. A rusty old Jeep was parked in the far corner, its tires rotten with age. There were more pallets and oil drums as well as planks of wood stacked up around the rest of the wall space. The room seemed to be devoid of human life and through a dirty window that spanned almost the length of the back wall; they could clearly see the waterfront area, stretching out below them. Although they had a limited view of the area, both of them could clearly see villagers milling in and out of the small cluster of buildings.

"I can't see any way around" Leon said, after observing the scene for a few moments. "Looks like we're gonna have to fight our way through" He checked out his ammo situation. He was starting to run low on handgun bullets but was still pretty well leaded with his magnum. He knew Chris still had all of his shotgun shells so they'd probably be alright.

"Fuck…look at that"

Leon looked over to where Chris was pointing. Towards the middle of the small waterfront settlement were the unmistakable remains of a smouldering helicopter. Small wisps of smoke were still rising from it, unfurling into the sky.

Leon instantly recognised it as the chopper that Kirk had been riding in. Although they both knew what had happened to it, it was shocking to see it. The villagers were seemingly ignoring it, obviously unfettered by such an erroneous sight.

"We need to end this before anyone else dies" Chris said firmly. He was staring at Leon, looking intense as he spoke. "I'm not losing anyone else on this mission".

He added, almost as if saying it out loud would prevent it from happening. Leon nodded. He wanted to tell Chris that it was going to be alright and that nobody else was going to die except he couldn't. He couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't happen again and he didn't want to insult Chris' intelligence by trying to placate him. His silence however, only seemed to serve to irritate the older man. "I don't get how you can be so cold to this! Doesn't it bother you that people around you are getting brutally murdered? Shit! I mean, I know you're cold, hell, Spain was a perfect example of that but we've seen an innocent young woman executed and now this and you don't say boo" He ranted, getting more and more worked up with every word. Leon continued to remain silent. Chris was obviously stressed and seemed to need to do this. He started to pace, flailing his arms and getting himself more worked up as he did so. He kicked out at one of the Jeep's tires. A large chunk of the tire crumbled off the wheel rim. "These are our colleagues and they're dying and you just carry on like some sort of fucking robot! What do they do in the Secret Service? Remove your fucking conscience as well as your fucking sense of humour"? He whipped around and glared at Leon. "Look at you! Just standing there looking all cool and not saying a fucking word! Can't you at least tell me that it'll be alright? No! You obviously can't even do that…FUCK"! The last word exploded from Chris mouth and he turned away from Leon. Leon heard him sigh heavily.

"Do you feel any better now"? He asked quietly.

"I guess I do actually" Chris turned back around to face him and it seemed that some of the anger and intensity had drained away from his expression. He leant against the Jeep, rubbing the skin between his eyebrows. "I've never been good at dealing with death. I got kicked out of the Air Force because they wanted me to leave a guy behind and I couldn't. Ended up mounting a rescue mission and nearly getting me and a couple of others killed doing it…and then that shit with the Spencer Mansion. Opening a door or walking down a corridor and finding the butchered corpse of one of the Bravos and now this" He waved his hand around in the air. "It just gets to me sometimes and I guess I need to have a vent"

"By saying 'fuck' five times in quick succession"? Leon offered with the briefest hint of a smile. He didn't want to appear like he was trying to lighten the situation too soon but they needed to get moving and press onwards and the sullen, angry Chris would be too careless and take risks.

"You counted"? Chris raised an eyebrow and offered a small smile back. "You're a fucking nerd Kennedy"

"Hey, if I had a dollar for every time I've heard you swear I'd…" He thought for a moment and then shrugged. "Have enough for a semi-decent meal anyway" He nodded in the direction of the window. "I saw a small jetty out there with a boat. That's gonna be our best option to get down the river"

"Let me guess. We're gonna have to fight our way to it" Chris replied. He sighed heavily and checked his ammo. "You think Wesker's got something to do with all this"?

"Has to be" Leon said gravely. "From what I read in the reports we found at the facility he was looking for a group of people to carry experiments out on. They don't act or move like zombies which says to me that it's some new type of virus that he's developed"

"More innocent lives ruined by the hands of Albert Wesker" Chris spat. Leon saw the dark intense look come over his partner's features once more. He knew that personally, his connection to Wesker was purely job related. As far as the Secret Service were concerned, he was just another out of control terrorist who needed to be stopped. For Chris however, it was so much more. The older man had only briefly explained what had happened during the Mansion Incident but Leon knew that Chris' relationship with Wesker was deep and complicated. Seeing that look on Chris' face at the mention of his name made Leon want to hunt the man down and personally tear him limb from limb.

"Let's go," He said with renewed conviction. "We're going to find Jill and we're going to finish this"

They headed out of the garage and down a large set of slightly rusted metal stairs that led into the small village below. They could see the motorboat at the jetty behind another steel gate. Beside the jetty was a set of wooden stalls laid out to make a small market square. Next to this square at the other side was a large steel building with more painted signs and pictures of fish on the side. It was obviously a fishing warehouse of some sorts. The wooden jetty itself looked old and unstable. There was still a slightly hostile atmosphere but it seemed different from the previous village. The villagers were eyeing them with suspicion but were hurrying into nearby houses as if they were trying to get away from them, not attack.

"This is getting strange…" Chris muttered. Leon nodded. The whole air of the village seemed distinctly different. There were no rotting smells or signs of disrepair. The buildings were well maintained the Leon could smell the fruits from the market stalls.

"You two! Americans! Stop right there"! A loud, clear and confident voice called out from the doorway of the fish warehouse. A tall, well-built black man started to run towards them, his head was shaved and he was dressed in olive green combat style trousers and a black vest. A mean looking machete hung from a black leather belt. There was a large tribal tattoo covering his entire left arm and shoulder. He had strong, defined muscles and looked as though he could easily match, if not overpower, Chris in terms of strength. He stopped when they were a metre or so apart, observing them with unfriendly eyes. "What business do you have here"? He demanded, his right hand hovering over the handle of his machete.

"Relax, we come in peace" Chris announced importantly, enunciating every word as if the man was stupid. Leon cupped his face in his palm and sighed deeply. The man looked at Chris in bewilderment.

"Really smooth Chris" Leon said sarcastically. "He obviously speaks English" He nodded apologetically at the man. "I'm sorry about him. He's…something you have to get used to." He said by way of explanation. "My name's Leon Kennedy and we're looking for a way to get up the river. Would you be able to help us"?

Chris snorted indignantly, obviously sore at being denied the opportunity to work on his foreign relations. Leon ignored him. They were having enough problems as it was without Chris' clumsy interpersonal skills.

"My people don't trust Americans" The man replied, his hand still hovering over the handle of his weapon. "But you're different to the ones that have been by here recently" He held out a hand. "Josh Stone"

Leon shook the proffered hand, frowning when he realised what Josh had just said. Other Americans?

"Who else has been through here"? He asked. A couple of villagers were witnessing the exchange, approaching them with obvious caution.

"Leon" Chris whispered.

"Chris, shut up" Leon warned as Josh started to explain how a group of 'soldiers' had descended on the village a few weeks ago. They'd tried to launch an attack on the village but Josh and some of the other men had managed to fight them off.

"It wasn't easy" Josh continued. "They had guns. I heard what happened to the last village they went to. Some sort of infection"

"Leon"! Chris repeated, this time more urgently.

"Not now"! Leon hissed. He turned back to Josh. "Did they have any sort of insignia on their uniforms"? He asked. He had a horrible feeling that these 'soldiers' belonged to Wesker and that they'd been dispatched to the village with the intention of infecting it, just like the previous one.

"Not that I saw" Josh answered. "We were too busy fighting them off. They haven't been back since but obviously we don't trust outsiders now. Particularly Americans"

"Leon"! Chris persisted, poking Leon hard in the shoulder. Leon sighed heavily and apologised to Josh before turning to Chris.

"What the hell do you want"? He asked irritably.

"That kid's staring at me" He whispered, pointing towards a little boy that was standing close by, his arms wrapped around his mother's leg, his eyes wide and unblinking and staring at the two of them. Leon rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Just ignore him," He muttered back. Once more, he turned his attentions back to Josh who seemed to be a little more relaxed in their company. "Did you see anyone else with them? Another man or a woman perhaps"?

"There was a man with them. I only saw him briefly" Josh replied. His hand had moved away from the machete now and was dangling freely by his side. Leon could feel the hostility in the air slowly drifting away. "Self-important man. Dark clothes, dark sunglasses and blonde hair. He seemed to be in charge but he disappeared before I could get near him. He had a woman with him but I didn't get a good look at her"

Leon nodded. That was all he needed to hear. It was obvious from Josh's description that the man he was talking about was Wesker. As for the woman, it could've possibly been the one that Krauser had mentioned back in the furnace. The woman he claimed held clues to Jill's whereabouts.

"You seem trustworthy" Josh continued. "I can give you the boat but nothing more I'm afraid"

"The boat will do fine" Leon replied gratefully. "You have my word that we're fighting on your side. We're trying to stop that man too and we intend to do it sooner rather than later. We could always use the extra help if you want to come along with us" He offered. Josh smiled but shook his head.

"I need to stay here. The soldiers might return. I would never forgive myself if I wasn't here to fight alongside my village" He looked over his shoulder and shouted something in his own language to a nearby man. The man nodded and disappeared inside the warehouse. He came back out a few moments later and handed something to Josh. Josh placed the object in Leon's gloved hand. It was a key, obviously for the motorboat.

"Thank you"

"Not a problem" Josh replied. The pair shook hands and the villagers around them slowly began to go back to their errands and jobs. Leon turned around to see Chris crouched beside the little boy who'd been staring at him, offering him a chocolate bar that he'd pulled out of one of the pockets of his combats. The boy looked up at his mother and his mother nodded encouragingly. The boy reached out and took the chocolate bar, smiling at Chris in thanks before running away, his mother following behind. Chris stood up and grinned at Leon goofily. Leon couldn't help but smile. At least whilst Chris had been distracted with the child he hadn't heard what Josh had said about the woman who'd been with Wesker.

"We've got the boat," Leon said, holding up the set of keys.

"Great" Chris replied. "Sure beats fighting off another hoard of crazies" He followed as Leon led the way down to the steel gate. "Have you got any idea how to drive this thing"? He asked as they approached the motorboat. It was fairly small and compact but would seat two people comfortably.

"Yes actually" Leon said, clambering into the boat. He hadn't had much experience with motorboats but he knew enough to get by. He checked the directions on his PDA and started up the boat. Chris hopped in and the pair set off down the river.

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It was late evening before the buildings and villages made way for marshlands. The motorboat cut through the tall reeds that were dotted in the murky water. The sun had set and taken the heat with it, leaving behind a clear starry sky and cooler temperatures.

"According to my notes there should be a tribal village around here" Leon said as he slowed the boat down a little. There didn't look to be anything around them apart from a very small wooden jetty to their left with a small wooden shack beside it. There were no lights or any other signs of life coming from the shack. Leon looked up at the sky, it was getting darker and darker and he didn't know about Chris, but he was exhausted. They were going to need to find somewhere to eat and sleep soon and judging by how desolate the marshlands were, it could be a while before they came across something similar. He steered the boat towards the jetty and brought it to a stop.

"We should stop here for the night. Get something to eat and get some rest," He explained as he cut the boat's engine. Chris had been surprisingly silent on the journey and Leon guessed that his thoughts had turned back to what Krauser had said about Jill.

"We should keep going" Chris finally replied. He sounded tired and when Leon looked at him, the older man had dark circles around his eyes. "We need to press on. The longer we take the less chance we'll have of finding Jill"

"Chris we need to rest" Leon said firmly. "You look exhausted, I certainly feel exhausted and we both need to eat. I've got some rations on me which are gonna have to do for now" His voice softened. "I know you want to find her and I know how much it must be killing you that we're so close but we need to look after ourselves as well. We'll rest here tonight and press on first thing in the morning. Ok"?

Chris nodded but didn't really look like he agreed. He dutifully followed Leon into the small shack, guns raised, to check it out. It was completely empty and, judging by the dirty straw that covered the floor, hadn't been used for a while. It could sleep the two of them but it would be a bit of a squash. They relaxed somewhat and Leon rifled through the pockets of his combats and produced two foil packages containing some basic rations. He tossed one to Chris who opened it and started to devour it wordlessly. It was obvious by the way Chris was acting that he was in no mood to settle down and go to sleep. Leon sat down beside him and started to pick at his own ration pack.

"How's Claire"? He asked quietly so that Chris could pretend he didn't hear if he wanted to. The last thing Leon wanted to do was push him into talking.

"Fine" Chris replied. "She thinks Kevin's gonna propose soon. I guess I don't mind. He's a good guy and I know he'll look after her" He played with his ration pack awkwardly, as if he was gearing up to ask something. "What have you been doing anyway? Y'know, since Spain"?

"Not a lot" Leon shrugged. "I moved back to America shortly after you did. They wanted to put me in the President's team but I wanted something a bit more low profile" It was uncomfortable sitting so close to Chris. Their shoulders were almost touching and Leon could feel the older man's body heat. It did nothing to help Leon forget just how much he felt for the man sitting next to him. He swallowed hard. "Dennis is still working in Spain. We e-mail each other quite a bit. He asks after-"

"I admire you" Chris suddenly blurted, cutting Leon off. The interruption was so sudden and so unexpected that Leon wasn't sure he'd even heard him right. He looked up at him and Chris obviously understood as he repeated and elaborated. "I admire you for the way you dealt with Krauser back there…when he said all that stuff about you being gay…" He shrugged. "I dunno. You just make it seem so easy"

"It is easy" Leon said adamantly. "He was the one with the problem, not me. I guess it took me longer than it should've done to realise that" He stood up and stretched as much as he could within the cramped confines. "You should get some sleep now. I'll stay outside and keep watch and come get you in a couple of hours to take over. Ok"?

Chris nodded and Leon gently stepped over him, making for the doorway. Chris' next words were quiet and desperate. Even if he wanted to, Leon couldn't possibly have ignored him.

"Promise me we'll find Jill"

"We'll find Jill" Leon replied confidently before closing the shack's rickety door behind him. He sat down beside it, leaning his back against the cool wooden wall. He pulled his PDA out of his pocket and tapped away at it, looking for one of the games he'd downloaded but never gotten round to playing. It was going to be a long night.

"Get lost Claire…" Chris muttered. If there was one thing he hated, it was his stupid sister trying to wake him up when all he wanted to do was sleep. Before he'd moved into his own place it had happened with annoying frequency. He batted out at her and tried to roll over in what was the most uncomfortable bed he'd ever slept in.

"Get up you big oaf" Claire's strangely masculine voice demanded. Masculine? Chris opened his eyes and discovered two things. He wasn't in a bed and it wasn't Claire that was trying to wake him up. Leon was standing over him, shaking his shoulder incessantly. Chris groaned and remembered that he wasn't at home but in some rundown shack in the middle of the African marshlands. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Alright, alright. I'm up" He moaned, taking a proffered water bottle and sipping from it. Leon looked exhausted as he sat down.

"Your turn to keep watch" He said through a badly stifled yawn. "Didn't see anything. S'quiet out there…" He added as his head started to loll. Chris stood up and helped his sleepy partner into a laying position before leaving the shack.

The wooden boards of the tiny jetty creaked as he took each step. He wasn't entirely sure of the time but he guessed it was at least the middle of the night. The marshlands around the shack were deathly silent and after the noise and activity of the village, were actually quite relaxing. If he thought about it enough, he could easily go back to sleep…He shook his head and decided to remain standing up, at least until the tiredness passed over. He dug around in his pockets looking for something he could entertain himself with. Apart from his various supplies, which were all, decidedly functional, all he had in the various pockets of his combats was a penny, some chewing gum, a hell of a lot of lint and a crumpled photograph that he'd taken to carrying around with him. The photograph had been taken shortly before he'd gone to Spain. He and Jill had gone to France because she'd wanted to sample the culture and he'd wanted to try the cheese. They'd gotten over the terrible awkwardness of their break-up and had just had a great time as friends. The photo had been taken in the middle of a vineyard. Jill had eloquently asked a local to take it whilst they stood by the vines. Ever since Jill had gone missing, Chris had carried the photo around with him. He knew it sounded stupid but there was something about her celluloid smile that gave him hope of finding her.

He sighed heavily and leant against the shack. He looked in through the grimy, dirt-smeared window. Leon was laying on his side, deep in sleep. His hair had fallen over his face and his head was cradled in his right arm. Chris winced as he was hit with another horrible flashback of Leon lying in the hospital bed. He hadn't admitted it to anyone but he still had nightmares about what had happened in the Spanish facility. He'd lost count of the amount of times he'd woken up in a cold sweat, his mind full of images of Leon being gunned down by Wesker, his blood spreading across the floor. As he looked at him now he couldn't help but worry about the confrontations ahead of them. Wesker had made it plain that he didn't care whether Leon lived or died and in his experience when Wesker thought that lives were dispensable; those lives were usually dispensed with in the most brutal way imaginable. As he watched Leon turn over in his sleep he realised that he'd really missed him in the year they'd been apart. In the brief moments that his mind had drifted away from finding Jill, it had drifted to Leon. They'd swapped phone numbers and he'd lost count of the times he'd nearly called him only to hang up at the last minute. He found himself suddenly selfishly thinking what might've happened had he not been so fixated on finding Jill. Would he have maybe met up with Leon? He could easily imagine what they might've done. Grabbed a beer in a bar, maybe chilled out playing video games, got in a takeaway. He could see how they would've probably seen a lot more of each other. He wanted to see a lot more of Leon. Working with him again had made Chris realise how much he cared for him and how much he loved him.

Chris blinked, trying to backtrack his own thoughts. Loved? Where the hell had that come from? He looked at Leon once more and almost as if he'd been hit over the head, it all fell into place. Why he'd stayed in Spain, why he'd been so protective when Leon had suffered his albeit brief but worrying setback in his recovery. He should've seen it coming from a mile off but then emotions and feelings never were his strong point. He looked at Leon again and realised there and then that he cared for him a lot more than as a friend.

Feeling something like that for another man was definitely something that was an alien thought to him but, for some reason, it didn't feel at all strange. Chris turned away from the window and looked across the water. What did it all mean? Did it mean he was gay? Surely it couldn't. After all, he'd had relationships with women. Perhaps he was bisexual. He supposed that it made sense. He wondered if he should tell Leon but he quickly realised that a foreign country in the middle of a mission wasn't exactly the best time or place to tell your partner that you were attracted to them. This was going to have to be something that could wait, wait until they'd found Jill, got rid of Wesker and were safely back in America.

Chris looked up at the sky and saw a band of copper along the horizon. It was gradually lightening to gold as the early morning sun began to rise. He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he didn't realise that dawn was breaking.

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His brain was still dealing with and trying to process with the aftermath of his realisation when Leon woke up and joined him on the jetty.

"It looks like the village we're looking for is just over there," Leon said, pointing over at the horizon where the roofs of traditional mud huts could clearly be seen. The younger man turned to face him, one eyebrow raised quizzically. "Are you alright? You're looking at me strangely."

"Yeah, yeah…I'm fine." Chris replied hoping that he sounded convincing. Leon shrugged and checked his ammo. Chris watched him for the briefest of moments before checking his own gear. He was fighting his natural urge to just simply blurt out what he was feeling. It reminded him of his clumsy seduction of Jill. They'd been out at the movies and had been waiting for a train when he suddenly and impulsively turned to her on the platform and told her that he loved her. It had been clumsy and crude and although Jill had seemed to react well to it, he didn't want to make a similar mistake again. He knew that some blurted confession would never pass muster with someone who had such high standards as Leon.

"Did you sleep well"? He asked instead. It was a dumb question with a totally obvious answer but at least it was conversation.

"As well as I could on the floor of a shack" Leon answered. He was tapping away at his PDA again. "Let's get a move on," He continued, heading for the motorboat. Chris followed close behind, hoping that he would be able to keep his emotions in check and come up with a significant way of telling Leon how he felt.

The village was a mile or so down river from the small shack. It appeared to be a fairly small settlement nestled between the reeds and made largely from mud and clay. There were a few wooden huts dotted about as well. The whole place seemed so far from civilisation that it reminded Chris of a medieval village. Leon brought the boat to a stop and they clambered out, guns drawn; impossible to tell at this stage whether or not the village had been touched by Wesker's cruel and twisted hand.

As they entered the village, they could see basic wooden pens off to their left containing weak and bedraggled chickens that were obviously being neglected. To their right were three thick wooden posts of varying heights. Atop these posts were three exquisitely carved masks, lovingly coloured with natural pigments. More of these masks hung over the doorways of some of the wooden huts. The ground beneath their feet consisted of sun baked clay with patches of hay strewn haphazardly about. Chris approached one of the huts carefully. He stuck his head through the doorway to find it empty. The only things inside were some red clay pots and a bed made from hay.

"It's probably for the best that this place is deserted" Leon said. "I can't imagine the tribe would take kindly to a couple of Americans traipsing through what's probably their sacred ground" He consulted his trusty PDA once more. "Intelligence states that there's a possibility that Wesker's facility is located within the ruins of a nearby temple"

"Good thing we don't have to persuade the locals" Chris replied, relaxing a little. He watched as Leon checked a couple of the nearby huts; gun ever ready in case anyone decided to jump out on them. "How's the leg these days"? He asked when Leon emerged from the last hut.

"Fine" Leon said. "I stopped therapy about six months ago…" He stopped and appeared to listen hard. He frowned and readied his magnum. "I heard something" he explained when Chris looked at him. Leon was looking over at the next small group of huts. Then suddenly, Chris heard it too; the unmistakeable sound of footsteps. He grabbed his shotgun and the pair of them stood, waiting. The footsteps grew closer and closer until finally Chris spotted movement from behind one of the huts in front of them. Two tribesmen emerged, naked aside from dry, yellowed grass skirts and bone necklaces. It was immediately obvious that they were infected by looking at their pallid skin and dead eyes. The tribesmen saw them straight away, letting out a strangled war cry before advancing on them, arms raised menacingly.

"What the hell do they think they're gonna do against two guys with guns"? Chris scoffed, raising his shotgun. He fired off two shots, one after the other, hitting each tribesman directly in the head.

Instead of dropping to the floor like he expected the to, the tribesmen's heads stayed on their shoulders. They did however; raise their hands to their heads, acting as if they were in pain. Using this distraction to his advantage, Leon fired his handgun, dropping the pair of their knees. The tribesmen both screamed and Chris could only watch in horror as their bodies started to swell and undulate. Leon fired off more handgun rounds but the bullets had no effect.

"Not this again" Chris muttered, motioning for Leon to back off alongside him. The spines of the tribesmen were bursting through the flesh of their backs, arms morphing into fleshy lumps with long, thick teeth protruding from the ends. Their spines dropped from their bodies, the ribcage still attached along with a bloody lump of flesh that started to harden before their eyes to form some sort of tail. The screams stopped instantly as their heads collapsed in on themselves.

Chris opened fire as the monsters got back to their feet. They were no longer human from the waist up. Their torsos were now huge knobbly lumps of flesh. They stretched their club like arms wide, resembling a twisted Venus flytrap, the inside of which was full of yellow pus filled lumps. Chris recovered enough to fire off a few rounds at the lumps, causing the gruesome creatures to reel back. The blasts only stunned them for mere seconds before they started to advance once more. They were slow and, judging by the way they were ambling along, blind and working from sense of smell only. Chris saw Leon nod at him. He knew instantly what the younger man wanted. He watched as Leon took the left before following his lead and taking the right, circling around the two creatures. Leon quickly switched to his magnum.

"The tail"! He shouted, opening fire.

Chris followed suit, unloading bullets into the tail of the creature closest to him. Leon popped the tail of the other in three shots. Chris fired five shots before the other creature crumpled to the floor.

"Damn thing ate up half my ammo"! He moaned as he kicked the creature's body, making sure that it was dead. "Another one of Wesker's failed experiments" He spat, shaking his head. He fumbled in his combat pocket, grinning as he produced a pack of cigarettes. At least he hadn't left them in his backpack! He would've been pissed to lose them. He popped one out of the pack and stuck it in his mouth before searching for his lighter. He located it quickly and had just sparked the flame when he saw Leon's face. "What"? He asked, a mixture of skill and experience keeping the cigarette in place as he spoke.

"You're still on those"? Leon said.

"Thought you didn't care" Chris teased with a raised eyebrow. "Besides, they make me look cool"

"Fifteen year olds use that piece of self-justification" Leon replied with a look of mild disgust on his face. So Leon hated smoking…Chris resolved to give up as soon as he could but not before he'd had his last victory smoke…not that he was even sure why he cared what Leon thought of his smoking.

"Young at heart, that's me," He said as he lit up, taking the first delicious drag. Leon shook his head and reloaded his gun as Chris smoked. Chris heard the younger man sigh deeply before speaking once more.

"Give me a drag"

"After the shit you just gave me"? Chris said disbelievingly. "Afraid not Mr Kennedy" He took another deep drag. "You don't smoke anyway" He wagged his finger disapprovingly with his free hand. "It's a filthy habit lad and don't you start" He blew out an expert smoke ring. "Or do you just want to look as cool as me"?

"As a matter of fact I used to smoke" Leon replied snottily. "I'm a stress smoker," He added with a shrug. "But it doesn't come as a surprise that you don't know how to share" He teased. "It's just another one of your amazing qualities"

Chris rolled his eyes and took one last drag before offering the rest. Leon took a deep drag, closing his eyes for a moment before blowing the smoke out in a perfect smoke ring that could easily rival Chris'. Leon opened his eyes and smirked, dropping the cigarette and grinding it out with his left hiking trainer.

"Let's move on," He said with a sigh.

They moved onwards through the village, coming to a stop when they reached a large open plan hut, which looked like it could've been used to hold tribal meetings. There was a thick wooden pole in the centre, which obviously served to support the round, hay-topped roof. Attached to this pole, as some sort of macabre decoration, was the dead body of a tribesman. His body was intact and he'd been pinned to the pole by his throat with a vicious looking spear. His skin was the same grey colour of the previous two indicating that he'd been infected. Apart from the body there was no other sign of life.

Chris watched as Leon crouched by the body to examine the neck wound. His fingers brushed across the dead man's skin.

"Blood's clotted and dry," He said. "He's been here a while"

Chris however, was too distracted to reply. Out of the corner of his eye, he'd just spotted what was unmistakably a small group of zombies emerging from one of the nearby huts. They had, at one point, also belonged to the tribe but were now the mindless monsters that Chris remembered from the mansion.

"Leon"! He called out, nodding towards the zombies. Leon stood up and was by his side in an instant. They opened fire on the ringleader, aiming directly for its head. Their bullets hit the mark, exploding the ringleader's head in a mess of blood and gore. The skin of its face flapped forwards onto its chest and a huge worm-like creature burst upwards from its neck. Chris watched in horror as small centipede legs wriggled around, fruitlessly clawing at its shoulders and neck stump. The end of the worm opened up into a four lobed mouth and, with a horrible snapping sound, a tooth lined hole shot forward and proceeded to bite the heads off the tribesman zombies that were lumbering forwards.

The bodies fell slowly, none of them reacting to the sudden attack. The worm-like creature, done with its feast, turned its attentions to Leon.

"What the fuck is that thing"? Chris demanded, raising his shotgun. He'd seen some horrible, twisted, fucked up things back in the Spencer Mansion and in Antarctica but nothing like this.

"Looks like a Plagas creature" Leon called back, backing up. "It was in the reports we took from the Spanish facility," He explained.

Chris fired, sinking three shotgun rounds into the body of the creature. It continued its grim march forwards, unaffected and unperturbed by the shotgun shells. Leon raised his magnum and was about to fire when a huge, guttural roar rumbled across the village. A large, unidentifiable beast bounded out of nowhere. Its huge claws slashed through the neck of the worm-like Plagas creature and ripping open its torso.

It fell to the ground wetly, one of the dismembered zombies' heads sliding out of the tube-like neck in a mess of brownish yellow liquid that started to pool across the clay. The beast let out another roar, finally noticing Chris and Leon. Chris stared open-mouthed. It had a similar bone structure to a man but stood several feet taller. Its arms were outstretched, adorned with veined eighteen-inch claws.

As the beast stood before them, casting a huge shadow, a familiar sick feeling washed over Leon. It reminded him of being back in Raccoon City, facing off against Sherry's father, William Birkin, who'd been similarly deformed after injecting himself with the G Virus. As it roared, the beast's chest expanded to reveal its ribs between stretching bands of bright red flesh. Like Birkin, his chest and shoulders had become disproportionately large with bones extending out and upwards from the collarbones, stretching the blackened skin. Its neck was a tumorous mass and, on the right side, a yellowed inflamed eyeball was sliding around in an abnormal socket. Just like Birkin's had, its skull had mutated and changed shape so that it was larger. The skin however, hadn't followed suit so that it was torn and stretched where the jaw opened. Leon heard Chris open fire, shooting at the beast's legs in an attempt to bring it down. He recalled that Birkin's weakness had been his mutated eye. He grabbed his magnum and aimed, puncturing the eye with one shot.

They were forced to scatter as the beast started to charge forwards. Chris was still aiming at the beast's legs, switching to his handgun when he ran out of shotgun shells. As Leon rounded its back, he could see more eyes. He aimed for each one and popped them quickly. Under the pressure of his partner's relentless fire, the beast fell to its knees. Chris was beside him once more, using his handgun to fire at the eyes alongside him.

The beast let out a long sigh like a dead body expelling air and collapsed onto its front. Seizing the opportunity, they both reloaded and backed away quickly.

"I know I've said this before" Chris said breathlessly. "But what the fuck is THAT thing"? He wiped some of the sweat from his brow.

"It's not dead" Leon replied flatly. He felt as if he'd been sucked back into the nightmare of Raccoon City and all that it had entailed. It reminded him painfully of Sherry. He saw Chris open his mouth to reply but was distracted as the beast started to move once more. Its whole body began to convulse as its abdominal flesh started to tear. With a sickening crack, its ribs parted, spraying the ground with blood. Leon felt drops of it land on his face. Two new arms, wet and foetal, emerged from underneath the ribs, unfurling as if they'd been trapped within its insides. They grew rapidly, becoming full size within seconds. Its legs were bulging, the flesh undulating as the wounds from Chris' shots healed themselves.

They opened fire once more but, as Leon expected, it seemed largely unaffected as it rose to its feet. It spread its new arms wide and let out its loudest roar yet, spraying them both with a liberal amount of spit. They continued firing, tearing holes in the beast's face and chest as it advanced menacingly upon them. Leon's magnum clicked empty. He muttered a curse and holstered it, out of ammo. He backed away quicker, looking frantically around the village for a new solution.

Just to his left he caught sight of a hut encircled by thick wooden stakes. He needed to move quickly if he was going to pull his idea off. The beast's focus had turned to Chris who was still firing at it. It was his perfect chance and he had to take it. He grabbed a nearby spear and threw it as hard as he could. It hit the beast directly in the middle of its vast back making Leon grateful, possibly for the first time in his life, that his high school athletics coach had pushed him so hard. The beast turned around and Leon bolted for the stakes, positioning himself in front of them as it started to charge at him.

"Come on you fucker" He muttered.

He saw Chris drop quickly into a crouching shooter's stance and start shooting at the backs of the beast's knees. It stumbled forwards and Leon rolled out of its way as it crashed headlong into the hut. Leon stayed on the dusty floor, arms over his head to protect himself from the shower of falling splinters. As soon as it was safe, he sat up and saw that the beast had, just as he'd planned, impaled itself. The three wooden stakes penetrated its chest and abdomen. It struggled against the stakes gasping and screaming as its blood leaked from its wounds. Leon watched in a mixture of sheer horror and disbelief as Chris suddenly charged forwards and dived underneath the beast.

"What the hell are you doing"? He shouted as he watched Chris jam his gun and whole forearm into the beast's torn stomach and punched upwards, emptying an entire clip into its insides. Leon saw the bullets spray outwards from its neck and face. It slumped further onto the stakes, expelling blood and stinking, foul liquid. Chris rolled out from underneath and got to his feet. His hair, face and BSAA uniform were covered in pus and guts. He shook his right arm, sending the foul stuff flying. It landed with a sticky splat inches away from Leon's hiking trainers. He then wiped his sticky handgun down the leg of his combats and holstered it. Leon had never seen anything so disgusting in his life. He expected Chris to grin in that self-satisfied way that he had and come out with some kind of witty comment that would make any action hero of the Eighties seem as eloquent as Oscar Wilde.

It came as a surprise therefore when Chris glared coldly at him and grabbed his arm, squeezing it tightly in a grip that seemed designed to hurt.

"Don't ever act as bait again" He spat, releasing him as quickly as he'd grabbed him, leaving Leon feeling somewhat taken aback. He was about to justify his actions but it seemed like the onslaught of attackers was not yet over. Another group of tribesmen had spilled out of a hut in the distance. "I get the impression we're being played with" Chris said, his voice back to normal now. "And I don't know about you but I used the last of my ammo on Mr Ugly Asshat back there" He added, nodding towards the beast's prone body.

"I'm out too" Leon replied. The tribesmen were getting closer. It looked as if they were just run of the mill zombies but judging by the way the others had suddenly mutated, they couldn't be too careful.

One them suddenly leapt forwards, almost knocking Chris to the floor. Chris responded in kind, delivering a strong right hook, which any boxer would've been proud of. As the tribesman reeled back from the punch, Chris used this to his advantage, sweeping his attacker's legs expertly. The zombie fell to the floor with a wail and Chris was on top on him in instant, raining blows with the expertise of someone who could, and probably had, held his own in a bar brawl.

Leon had his own problems. A pair of them headed towards him, growling and spitting like rabid dogs. One of them lunged for him clumsily. Leon dodged round him and grabbed one of his flailing arms, twisting it with all his strength until he heard the tell-tale snap. The tribesman fell to the ground, roaring in pain. Leon grabbed another nearby spear and stuck it in his fallen attacker's head. The other tribesman seized the opportunity and leapt onto his back, nearly bringing him to his knees with the sudden weight. Leon grabbed its shoulders and pulled it over his head. The tribesman crashed to the floor and Leon took hold of its tribal necklace, choking him until he went limp. He barely had time to think before another one was on him. It knocked him to the floor and stood over him gloatingly. Leon kicked out, his sturdy hiking trainer making contact with the tribesman's stomach. He grabbed the spear and used the momentum of his kick to flip the tribesman over his head. He leapt to his feet and shoved the spear into its gut, twisting it as hard as he could. He looked over his shoulder to see Chris stamp on his original attacker's head. Their eyes met, waiting for the next attack. When nothing came, they breathed out heavily.

"You alright?" Leon asked breathlessly.

"Peachy" Chris replied, wiping his sweaty brow and offering him a cheesy grin. "Any idea where we go now"?

"There should be a cave nearby". Leon answered, looking towards the end of the village. He could see a large wooden gate. "That'll be the way out" He said confidently.

"Great" Chris said. "But before we do that, check this out" He nodded towards the nearest hut where a large metal box was sitting next to the doorway. "I noticed it while Mr Tribesman was trying to get all up in my grill"

"All up in your what"? Leon frowned. He didn't know whether to laugh or just be simply confused. It was quite endearing, the way Chris talked like a fifteen year old sometimes. It was certainly a welcome distraction given the current circumstances.

"Oh Leon, I have so much to teach you"! Chris said with the manner of someone who was extremely world-weary.

"Oh really"? Leon raised an eyebrow. This should be good. "And here I was thinking you have a lot to learn about hand to hand combat given the way you pretty much had a bar room brawl with one zombie whilst I took three of them out"

"You looked like you needed the practice" Chris replied simply although he did look a little sheepish. "Anyway, check out this box. It doesn't look like something you'd see lying around a place like this" He gave it a swift kick and stood ready to attack as it opened. When nothing jumped out, he ventured forwards to have a look in it. "AMMO"! He crowed loudly.

"Ammo"? Leon frowned, instantly suspicious. Chris' earlier comment had gotten him thinking. What if they were in the middle of some sort of twisted game? He didn't know Albert Wesker very well but he certainly wouldn't put it past him to play with his prey before he pounced. Leon sighed heavily and went over the box as Chris started to reload his handgun and shotgun.

"There's magnum ammo in there too" Chris added as Leon approached. "I know you're not gonna trust this but it's all we've got"

"You're right" Leon conceded. As much as he hated it when Chris was right, he had to agree. They had no other obvious options and they needed to reload. He delved into the box and stocked up on both handgun and magnum ammo. At the bottom of the box, slightly rusted and bent was a pair of dog tags. Leon picked them up and examined them closely. "Well…" He said, showing them to Chris. "Looks like Krauser loved us after all" He tossed the dog tags back into the box. It made him feel a little better that they'd found what was obviously Krauser's personal stash but it still seemed a little odd that the ammo was the correct ammo for their guns.

As soon as they were reloaded and ready, they ran for the large wooden gate, all the while keeping an eye out for any stragglers who might attack them. It was whilst looking out for attackers that Leon noticed security cameras hidden in ornaments and masks. Some of the huts also seemed to have electronic locks on them. He realised, with a sinking feeling that the likelihood of them being involved in a game was getting more and more likely. What they'd just experienced had obviously been some sort of arena-like test. He glanced over at Chris who didn't seem to have noticed. It was probably best that he keep his revelations from the older man. He was worried enough as it was.

They reached the gate and, unsurprisingly for Leon, it was unlocked. It opened easily to reveal a rocky tunnel that obviously led to the cave they were looking for. As they stepped inside, they heard a horrible groaning and slurping noise coming from behind them. The beast was suddenly yards away, mutating yet again into an even bigger mass of eyeballs, teeth and tentacles. It lurched towards them on four jointed tentacles.

"Wow, they really make these bastards to last" Chris said sardonically as they bolted down the rocky tunnel.

They both stumbled as they stepped on what looked like a man-made panel. There was an unmistakeable sound of weights shifting behind the walls. Behind them the beast was screeching as it pulled itself along, blood and fluid pattering on the rocks as it moved. Leon could see a large stone door in front of them, probably at least a metre thick. It started to drop downwards, creating a rumbling sound that echoed loudly around the enclosed space. A tentacle whipped around his back and he cried out at the sudden pain. He felt Chris' strong hands grip his arm, spurring him to move faster. He pumped his legs harder and harder as the beast got closer and closer. Together, he and Chris dived forwards, landing under the rapidly closing door with such force that it almost winded them. They scrabbled forward, closely followed by the beast, which tried to squeeze its bulbous mass through the increasingly small gap. Tentacles lashed at their legs as they scrambled away.

As the door continued to press downwards, the tentacles whipped themselves into a frenzy, one of them narrowly missing Leon. Chris was in front of him in seconds, using his massive bulk to shield him. Over Chris' shoulder, Leon could see one of the beast's mutated eyes burst under the pressure from the door, spewing a yellow viscous fluid. Its body finally gave in too; splitting and bursting like a ripe orange that had been stepped on.

Even though the beast was so obviously dead, Chris continued to hold onto Leon, squashing him against his chest. It wasn't at all an unpleasant feeling and did nothing to extinguish his feelings for the older man. He could feel Chris' breath tickling his scalp and ruffling his hair and he was held so tightly against his massive chest he could hear his heartbeat.

"Chris"? Chris didn't respond. "Chris…let go." He said with some reluctance. Instantly Chris' arms released him. Leon backed off, feeling a blush creep across his cheeks; he searched for his PDA, checking nothing in particular until he felt calm enough to look up. Chris was staring at the beast's dead body.

"It's finally dead." He said quietly, kicking at one of the limp tentacles. He sounded somewhat like a lost little kid and Leon would've given anything to know what he was thinking.

"Yeah…" was all he replied. He looked further down the tunnel and could see that it opened out into what looked like a large cavern. A row of bulbs built into the tunnel's ceiling lit their way, power lines sagging between each connection. Wordlessly, they moved further down the passage, Leon's heart thumping in his chest. They'd barely had a chance to breathe since they'd arrived at the tribal village and he could feel the adrenaline starting to wear off. He looked over at Chris who was striding purposefully ahead down the tunnel. They needed to find Jill and soon.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR