For those of you who are interested, here's a link to impalallama's AU- infectedAU
Helena trudged along the sewers, careful not to step into rotten garbage or the rat corpses floating in the water. Water dripped constantly from the ceiling, and somewhere off in the distance was a strange, painful moaning sound. The whole place reeked of disrepair and abandonment. She wondered when was the last time anyone even came down for maintenance work. If there were occasional gratings on the ceiling of the sewer, then why couldn't anyone detect the smell?
In front of her was the…girl, who periodically looked back to see if she was following. Helena was grateful for that, because these sewers were like a goddamn maze.
Exactly how it could be filled with so many pointless-looking twists, turns and dead ends was beyond her. In many ways, it was even worse than using air vents, because down here, there was absolutely no way to tell where you were going or where you were, just had to trust the judgement of someone she assumed knew her way.
The girl paused, and Helena leapt to the other side to see what was in front. Ah. Just one of those valve gates that needed two people to open.
"Uh…can you do it?" she asked, before mentally slapping herself again for asking if someone with no limbs can operate a hand crank.
The girl made a questioning look before grabbing onto the valve handle with her teeth.
Ah.
Holding the crank on her side, she nodded to the girl, and they both turned the wheels until the gate had opened completely.
They then went into the opened area, Helena allowing the girl to go first to guide her. They went through several twisted corridors and corners again until they emerged into a large open area.
There was a ladder at the end of the chamber, but it was locked behind a metal gate that neither of them had the strength to open. Instead, the girl motioned to the keyhole that was in it.
"Great. We need a key. You know where it is?"
She looked defeated for a moment before looking to a ladder in a tunnel that went deeper down. Unfortunately, there was a waterfall being formed by the pipe above it, flooding the tunnel.
And of course, the valve was missing from its place. Perfect. Just perfect.
As if the day couldn't go any better, they heard a squelching noise behind them, and turned to see some…thing crawl out of a small hole and land with a plop. Several other pale-looking parts fell out, and to their horror, the parts started to assembling together, rising up to its full height to reveal itself as a vaguely human-shaped monster, with pale skin and contorting, flexible flesh. Its head lacked eyes, only a single mouth.
It moaned loudly at them before…twitching towards them with an unnerving gait.
Helena growled at it, sending a clear message for it to back down, or at least show a response. She knew that C-Virus mutations still retained their minds. This one must be no different.
It kept advancing towards them. She bared her teeth and snarled at it, sending another warning to the creature. It did not respond in any way, just kept coming.
Was it mindless?
She screeched loudly, insectoid legs erupting from her back in a shower of blood as she splayed her arms wide open, roaring and sending a very clear message of back off.
The creature suddenly paused, grabbed its right hand and tore it off before tossing it at Helena.
She blinked before catching the detached limb in her hands. To her shock, it suddenly started twitching, noxious matter spewing out as the hand seemed to regenerate.
She dumped it on the ground before kicking it away, the talons shredding the hand.
To her amazement, the creature seemed to have regenerated the hand, and was uncomfortably close to her now and the girl now. Too close.
Lifting a leg and raising the slashing claw, she kicked it hard in the middle. The force of the attack sent it stumbling back and bending over backwards in an unnatural way, giving her the time to beckon to the the girl and head off to a corridor off to the side to search for the items needed to move through the gate. She nodded, understanding.
The creature had gotten back to its original position. Either its spine and body were amazingly flexible, or it didn't have a spine at all. She wasn't sure which one to pick, and she didn't care.
It was here that she made a simple mistake—running ahead of the girl.
She realized too late that the girl had screeched out in warning and that the wooden pallets that made up the floor in front of her were crumbling away.
She screeched as she felt nothing beneath her and started falling.
Landing roughly on her stomach, she groaned in pain as her insect legs retracted inside her. She then looked up as the girl looked down.
"Don't worry! I'm…ok!" she called. The girl screeched a few times before quickly slithering off. It was then that she saw the regenerating monster appear, though focused on chasing the girl down.
Oh, no. It wouldn't. They would never get her. She had to get back up there fast.
She then concentrated on finding a way back up. However, much like the rest of the sewers, this floor was horribly labyrinthine, with multiple dead ends and blind corners.
Eventually, though, she came across a small room with a shelf in it. There was a valve wheel on the shelf. And an open vent in the wall, just large enough for her to fit in.
And a chrysalis right in front of it. How someone managed to get here first, she had no idea. She had to hurry before the girl got hurt.
She grabbed the valve and climbed up into the vent when she heard a crack. Looking over, she saw the shell of the chrysalis split open, the sac expanding.
She had no time for this, so she continued with what she was doing, darting forward at high speed and climbing up the ladder she came across at the end. It was during times like these that she realized just how slow she was when she had to crawl through the holes in Simmons' family catacombs as a human.
Emerging out, she slipped to the ground and immediately found a cold touch unravel around her. Screeching in panic, she fell to the ground as the regenerating B.O.W pinned her down. A slimy tentacle came out its mouth, and she tried in vain to kick the thing off.
It was then than something appeared above the mutant.
Staring with shock, she observed as the girl's head suddenly materialized into existence and clamped her jaws around the creature. Struggling in futility, she watched as the girl swung the monster around before throwing it into a wall.
She then looked at Helena and chirped happily. She returned a chirp and smiled the best she could.
"How'd you….do that, girl?"
She seemed to understand before she suddenly became invisible, her skin blending in with the background. However, Helena could still detect her easily. If the rippling of the air didn't give her away, the fact she could still smell her clearly did. Still, it may…come in useful sometime.
"G-Good then. I've got it," she said as she showed her the valve wheel she had obtained.
She then heard something squealing like a pig, and saw the creature struggling around as a pink tentacle-like structure came out its mid-section, trying to reconnect with the lower body.
She growled before walking over to it and kicking the structure hard, blood flicking across the wall as it squealed in a high-pitched tone, shuddering a little before stopping.
Just to make sure, though, she reared her head back and spat a glob of acid on it. It sizzled and starting eating through it as she said "C'mon, girl."
There was a clang, and she turned to see yet another flexible, regenerating monster slipping down somewhere from the ceiling, falling apart into multiple creatures along the way.
Great. How many of them were there?!
"Just…stay away from them, girl," she told her as she motioned for them to get away.
Arriving back at the main chamber with the moans of the creatures still behind them, she placed the valve where it belonged, and started turning it. It was slow, and creaky.
"Help me watch out for them, girl," she told the girl, who nodded and looked over at where they came from. The moanings were getting louder, and soon after a fully-formed monster came out the doorway.
"D-Don't worry. Almost there!" Helena assured, as the water level started getting lower. Finally, it stopped, allowing them to go down the tunnel.
It took her a moment to realize the girl had no possible way to go down the tunnel. She was currently watching the creature edge closer cautiously.
If there was no way for her to get down with her, then either she had to leave her to defend herself, kill the creature somehow now, or bring it down there with her.
Helena made up her choice. Running over, she grabbed the creature and hurled it into the tunnel. It screamed as it went down, though after the impact it was probably still alive. Turning over to the girl, she hissed "Stay here,"
The girl nodded in understanding.
She then went over and leapt down the tunnel herself, expecting to find the creature blocking her way to get to the keycard, wherever it was, but it wasn't there.
Oh, great. The moans were coming from everywhere. The creature had already managed to replicate itself when it was thrown down. She stared as a disembodied hand crawled out of a duct before picking it up and tearing it in half with her great strength, before it could start regenerating. Need to find a keycard now.
In line with the rest of the sewers, this floor was just as dungeon-like, and without the help of her cellphone's navigational system she was effectively blind here.
Who came up with the designs to this place?!
Eventually, though, she finally found what appeared to be an old office room, with a table fan on a desk, and a slow-moving ceiling fan. There was a keycard sitting there on the desk rather suspiciously.
"Finally…" she hissed to herself as she grabbed the card. Turning back, she saw the lower torso of a regenerator spawning out of a tiny hole in the ceiling.
She had no time for this. She sped past the creature, only to be interrupted as she felt something slimy grip around her second joint. She then yelped before kicking it away and watching it twich for a bit before shaking her head and moving on.
Arriving back at the tunnel, she climbed up the ladders to see the girl there, thankfully still in one piece. She made a happy sound upon seeing her, and she smiled the best she could in response before showing her the keycard. The girl chirped in confirmation.
"This…better work," she said before sliding the card into the slot. A second passed before the panel blinked green, and the door opened.
Finally.
Beyond the gate was a ladder that went really high up. She looked to the girl, who nodded and looked up.
Well, as it turned out, trying to climb ladders was being a real problem now. She spotted the solution a short distance away.
"Over here, girl," she said as she removed the grating of an air vent. It looked big enough for them both to fit in.
"Can you make it?" she asked. The girl testingly looked in before slithering into the shafts, then coming back out and nodding at her.
"Good. You…you follow me," she said before going in. She didn't need directions here, she just needed to know she was going up, in a straight line.
The vents weren't no different from the ones she had crawled in previously, so it was a little simple for her. Every now and then, she looked back to see if the girl was following her.
Eventually though, they made it. Helena pushed out the opening of a vent, and crawled out into a dimly lit corridor. This place looked even worse than the apartment she was in previously; bugs were crawling all over the place, rotten vegetables littered throughout, and smudges of dirt and trash everywhere.
The girl(she really should come up with a name for her) slithered out soon, and looked around before giving a happy chirp and nodding to Helena. Apparently, this was the place she wanted to show her.
She had no idea where Leon was. But she knew he could take care of himself, and he would catch up later.
"What are you…waiting for, girl? Go on," she urged. The girl nodded before going up a flight of stairs. Helena noted how the door across the stairs were bolted and shut, and her ears perked up chaotic sounds from both outside and inside the door, but she put it aside for now and followed the girl up the stairs.
The young woman observed the American soldiers as they did their work. One by one, the cocoons of her comrades were incinerated before they could hatch, while one of the soldiers sat on a ledge above, apparently in deep thought.
He would need to think deep, alright. The building complex up ahead was just perfect for an ambush. Perfect. She was fully aware of what would happen if she did it, and she was fully prepared to do it for a better Lanshiang, the one envisioned by Miss Wong. It was too bad that her sister's human form had to be sacrificed, but if she survived encountering the trigger-happy soldiers, she would understand her actions, in time.
She grinned as she uncapped the syringe before jabbing it into her wrist and injecting the contents, giggling like a lunatic as she started to shudder. Minutes later, she burst into flames, her face still twisted in a smile as she was encased in a chrysalis, her human form broken down and reformed into something else entirely.
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Helena: So, how'd you survive Raccoon City anyway?
Leon: A lot of luck. It…wasn't easy, definitely.
Helena: It wasn't easy, huh?
Leon: Trust me. It wasn't easy. The odds were always getting stacked against me. Ammunition was low, I had no partner most of the time, and you could never trust quiet rooms ever again. I...never could look at a one-way mirror the same way again.
Helena: That bad…
Leon: It gets a lot worse, though. I met a lot of people that day. I saw a lot of people. And I could never save all of them. It's something I'll always regret, seeing them but not being able to save them. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I had a chance to save them. And don't even get me started on all the pointless chess keys and inexplicable puzzles...in the middle of a police station, of all goddamn places...
Helena: What?
Leon: Oh, uh...it's nothing.
Helena: I…I see. Anyway, enough chit-chat. We gotta get to the cathedral as fast as we can. Hopefully they'll be no pointless riddles involving chess pieces and moon logic puzzles there...
Leon: Agreed. It's good to have you here, Helena.
Helena: …..
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Kinda sorry if this chapter's a little short and boring. The next chapter is gonna ramp things up. Also, rate and review, please.
