Episode Nine: The End
She didn't know how long she spent, cradling Steve's lifeless body. Eventually, her tears dried up, leaving her eyes puffy and inflamed, but her body still shook, trembling with grief that she could not suppress. She removed her jacket and lay it over his naked form, covering the gaping wound in his stomach that had claimed his life. She couldn't bear to see him like that, so compromised, so broken, and all because he had tried to save her. The idea of an act so pure, so selfless, being punished so mercilessly, made her angry, angry at Alexia, angry at the corporation that had nurtured her madness.
Clasping the hand of the young man she had loved, she vowed, right there and then, that she would see them fall. Umbrella, and the insanity they sponsored, would pay.
Time passed unnoticed as she knelt upon the floor, the head of her companion resting in her lap, the fingers of her left hand, her good hand, curled around his. Her other arm was paralysed, stiff with bruising from shoulder to fingertips; even trying to move it hurt, sending waves of agonising pinpricks rolling along her muscles. She had wiped away the majority of the blood on her face, but it still stuck to her forehead in a sticky, rust-coloured stain. Her jaw still ached, but it was a negligible pain in comparison with the fatigue and hurt wracking her entire frame.
It wasn't until she heard the sound of footsteps, heavy boots drumming rhythmically in the corridor beyond the barred gate, that she realised how long she had been there. She looked up, just in time to see Chris appear at the dungeon's entrance. His eyes found her quickly and he called her name, one muscular arm reaching through towards her. Gently, reverentially, she lay Steve's head back, letting him rest on the floor, before standing up awkwardly and hurrying over to her brother, sparing the boy one last, fleeting glance as she ran.
He pulled her into a tight embrace, hampered by the metal bars between them. She sagged against him, eyes closing as she savoured his warmth. She had felt the cold and stillness of death for too long, and craved the touch of another living human being. He was a comforting and familiar presence, and had been throughout her life.
Even now, covered in the ichor of a hundred abominations, smelling of grime and sweat, she caught his scent, the one that she had long ago come to associate with him. It reminded her of old times, before Raccoon City, before Umbrella, when she would meet him at the airport after months apart and wrap him in her arms. It reminded her of days spent doing everything together, hating the thought of him going away, but counting the days until his next visit. She needed those cherished memories now more than ever. Now, just like then, her brother was here for her.
"Claire; you're hurt," he pointed out, no doubt noticing the way she held her crippled arm tight to her stomach, "what happened?"
"Alexia," she replied bitterly, unable to keep the anger out of her voice as she spoke, "she happened."
"What about Steve?" he asked, gloved hand stroking the back of her head lightly, soothingly.
"Dead," she acknowledged, and at that he gripped tighter, though she was already beyond crying, "she tried to turn him into some kind of monster, but he fought back. She killed him right in front of me."
"I'm sorry, Claire," he said, and she had no problem believing that he meant it, with all his heart, "I don't see any way to get you out of here right now, but Shak's coming back with some real firepower. I'm sure she can get you free. I need to go and find a way to stop Alexia, or her hive's going to spread across the entire planet."
"You don't need to tell me, Chris," she asserted, detaching from him so that she could show him the earnestness in her eyes, "I know we need to stop her. Just make me one last promise; finish this. Don't let what happened to Steve happen to anyone else."
"I won't," he told her, returning her intensity tenfold, in the way that only he could, his affirmation making her trust, making her believe, his words, "I promise."
"You have to come back to me," she reminded him, "we're getting out of here together; you promised me that too, remember? I can't lose you as well."
"Don't worry. I've come this far; I'm not going to give up the ghost that easy."
He clasped her shoulder, giving it one last, reassuring squeeze, and then he turned, walking back along the corridor in search of the exit that would lead him to his goal. She noticed the hitch in his stride, the limp betraying the damage to his leg that he had tried his best to hide. She didn't try to stop him; she knew him, and knew that he knew himself. If he was going on alone then he could handle it. Her brother wasn't an idiot. Besides, he had promised her, and he wasn't a liar either.
She hated being trapped, unable to help, and she hated being injured. It made her feel weak and vulnerable, and she hated that even more, but at least she could rely on Chris to pick up the slack. She stared after him for a few more moments, watching as he vanished into an adjoining passage.
"Good luck," she muttered; even if she did have the utmost faith in his abilities, a little fortune never hurt.
She walked back to where Steve was lying, kneeling down beside him and gently running her hand along his cold cheek. It suddenly seemed so much more devoid of warmth after her embrace with Chris. She sat down upon the stone in silence, watching over him. Even if his body was no more him than the monster she had fought, she still wanted just to be with him, for a few minutes more, at least.
All she could do was wait for either Chris or Shak to come back for her; with her body in its current state of disrepair, and with the dungeon sealed, there wasn't really anything else to do.
And so she waited, until at last she heard a voice, but not one that she recognised, nor one that brought her any comfort. When she heard it, suddenly she was glad that her tears had long run dry, that her puffy eyes didn't glisten in the light when she looked up to confront a man who could only be Albert Wesker. He regarded her coldly from the passage beyond her confinement, looking for all the world like some sleek, black predator, albeit more than a little ruffled and charred.
"Miss Redfield," he greeted, with a slight bow of his head.
"Go to hell," she told him flatly, turning her back on him, but unable to keep the scowl off her features.
From what she understood, he had been instrumental in almost killing Chris, Jill and Barry during the Arklay incident, the three of them the only real family she had left. On top of that, he had obviously hurt both Chris and Shak since this most recent nightmare had begun. If there was anyone she hated with a passion to rival what she felt for Alexia, it was him.
"Am I to assume that this boy was Lady Ashford's original test subject?" he asked her, this time earning himself a wild glare, which he pointedly ignored, "the experimental strain in his body would be of immeasurable value, if traded to the correct parties."
"I'll never let you take him," she snapped, fingers tightening possessively around Steve's pale arm, until they became as white as the skin they were pressed into, "you may as well give up right now. There's no way past that gate."
"On the contrary, my dear," he said, reaching out to curl gloved fingers around the wrought iron bars, before, with an effort that barely registered on his stoic features, he wrenched them apart with a squeal of tortured metal, "you are quite mistaken."
She recoiled, stunned and horrified, rising to her feet and backing away. Despite her contempt for him, she couldn't hide the surprise she felt witnessing his impossible strength. She watched him warily as he stepped through the wide gap he had created, taking another nervous pace back when he began to stride towards her. Whatever his intent, it wasn't benign.
But it wasn't in her nature to cower. Even injured, even facing some kind of demon in human skin, she wasn't going to back down. She'd faced bigger, more terrifying monsters than him. Her mind brought her back to Raccoon City, to her association with Annette Birkin. She remembered the older woman's insistence that people like the ones that ran the Umbrella Corporation couldn't be allowed to take what they wanted. She had no trouble in believing that Wesker was one of those people.
She stepped forward, placing herself between Steve and the blond, still clutching her wounded arm to her chest, but balling her left hand into a fist. There was no trace of disdain on his features, but she could tell from the confidence of his swagger that he felt she posed no threat to him. Sure enough, when he reached her and she struck out at him, he simply batted her aside, his blow throwing her over her fallen companion and into the stone column beyond.
She slumped to the ground painfully, her bones jolting inside her body at the triple impact of his hand, the wall and the floor. She tried to stand up, pushing herself onto her knees with her good arm. Something sliced her palm and she let out a gasp, realising that she had cut herself on a piece of the shattered halberd that Steve had used. It was still sharp as a razor, but small enough to fit in her hand, like a knife. Wesker's footsteps approached and she committed herself, closing her fingers around the metal shard, letting it slice into her flesh, but keeping it hidden.
His gloved hand encircled her throat and then he dragged her upright, pushing her back into the wall roughly. She watched as men in similar black uniforms to him followed his lead into the cell, lifting the limp body of her partner and carrying it back towards the hole in the barred gate. Her jacket dropped from his stomach and fluttered to the ground, the inside of it now slick with his blood. She growled as she watched them go, or as best she could with his palm pressed into her windpipe. It was almost too much for her to bear, but she knew she couldn't act now. She was outnumbered and hurt; if the blond didn't just snap her neck then his flunkies would shoot her dead.
"Perhaps it would be most prudent simply to eliminate you," he mused, adjusting his sunglasses nonchalantly upon the bridge of his nose with his free hand, lips turning up in a bloodless smirk, "how your brother would weep to see you die. Providing, of course, that he survives his altercation with Lady Ashford."
Claire struggled, but ultimately any movements she made were futile. His grip was too powerful; he held her in place with such ease and nothing she could do would shake him. In an instant, however, he changed their positions, twisting her away from the wall and seizing her broken arm, wrenching it up behind her back. She cried out, the pain almost driving her to her knees, but he held her where she stood, placing a hand to her shoulder and pushing her ahead of him.
"On the other hand, she may still wish to reckon with you for the death of her own brother; you may yet prove useful to me as an inducement to ensure her compliance," he informed her, before marching her roughly out of the chamber, and to the site of the final conflict.
-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----
The Alexia-creature shrieked, grotesque features pulling back into a wounded howl as her bulbous body began to tear. Bloated sacs disgorged pus and bile across the platform, mercifully draining through the metal grille and down into the abyss below. Chris watched as the frail, almost skeletal, form of the Queen writhed and struggled atop her throne of malformed flesh.
Even as he looked on, her drones flew to her from the hive beneath their battleground, settling around her anchor and gnawing at the meat, severing her from the prison of her own dying carcass. The shriek became a hideous, contemptuous laugh as she rose, borne aloft on thin, vein-filled wings, tearing away from the decaying mass. She threw her head back, mirth descending into a sickening gurgle as acidic vomit rose in her throat, and she disgorged it in streams that bubbled and spat as they fell upon the steel at his feet.
He dove aside, narrowly avoiding a trail of hissing fluid aimed for his face, and heard the sound of a klaxon, different from the incessant blare of the facility's self-destruct announcement. Head snapping around, his eyes settled on the weapon that had been released from the wall, the imminent ruination of the Antarctic base causing its locks to disengage. His magnum was dry, his shotgun too; he hadn't even had the opportunity to empty the sub-machineguns before she'd whipped them out of his hands and into the chasm. The Linear Launcher, the last line of defence, was resting only metres away, turning his frustration into unbridled, giddy hope.
The fight was over.
He ran for it, wrapping his hand around the bulky grip, lacing his index finger around the trigger, and hefted it up, out of its immense metal holster and onto his shoulder. It was reassuringly heavy and also immeasurably simple. There was a safety catch along one side, a power gauge that showed the charge, an eyepiece with a targeting system, and the trigger. Release the first, wait for the second to fill, point the third at the target, and let fly with the last.
Without a moment's hesitation, he did just that, yanking back on the lever that would disengage the massive weapon's safety mechanism as the flying creature circled overhead. He watched, egging it on under his breath, as the bar beside it filled, lights changing from red to orange to yellow to green at what seemed like a snail's pace.
Alexia continued her assault, loosing streams of revolting, corrosive liquid in a desperate attempt to destroy him before he had time to bring the weapon to bear. He dodged, struggling under the weight of the cannon he was holding, feet sticking in the viscous remains of her previous mutation, as he waited for the telltale sign that it was fully charged. The buzzing monster overhead screamed as he avoided her bombardment, more animalistic frustration than human annoyance now that she was so far gone.
There was a musical chime, like an elevator stopping, and Chris glanced at his newfound saving grace to find that it was fully charged. He lifted it onto his shoulder, sighting through the scope as he tracked the flight of the last Ashford, fixing the crosshairs squarely on her corrupted features. She hovered, more like an insect ready to be swatted than a great and powerful Queen. The furious, glowing embers of her eyes locked with the glass lens of the eyepiece, and with the cool, sapphire orb behind it as his finger tensed.
"Game over," he said under his breath, firing the launcher.
A globe of throbbing, pulsating green energy exploded from the barrel. The recoil buckled his bad leg and sent him crashing onto his back in the sludge atop the platform. He grunted, looking up and hoping that his fall hadn't sent the projectile astray. There was an explosion, and an enormous, emerald flower blossomed outwards with Alexia at its centre, a supernova that expanded in a cascade of glowing effulgence, carrying her body with it, tearing her asunder particle by particle. Her skin dissolved, muscle tissue withering into nothing, internal organs evaporating, and bones turning to dust in the heat of the blast.
And then the miniature star collapsed in on itself, imploding as it burned to nothing, vanishing with a roaring, sucking sound, leaving only a faint mist where the last of the Ashford line had once been.
"The self-destruct system has been activated; this sequence cannot be aborted," an insistent female voice announced over the public address system, the thunderous rumble of an explosion from elsewhere on the base snapping him back to reality like a glass of cold water to the face, "all personnel evacuate immediately; I repeat..."
The message looped into infinity as Chris leapt to his feet, leaving the Linear Launcher where it lay, spent and too heavy to carry. He didn't know who had set the place to explode, but he knew one thing; without the cannon, he would never have beaten Alexia. In that sense, he was thankful. Unfortunately, that left him with limited time to get back to Claire, free her, and escape the facility.
He ignored the spasm in his leg as he ran to the stairway, clearing the first half dozen steps in a single bound and only stopping when he collided with the handrail at the bottom. He only just managed to stop himself from pitching into the abyss beyond. The second flight he took three steps at a time, shielding his face as the walls cracked and burst, each detonation gradually shaking the Antarctic base apart. He stumbled into the stone corridor that would lead him to the dungeon where he had last seen his sister, and stopped dead, cold sweat prickling his body.
He found himself staring into the soulless, glassy gaze of Albert Wesker, shades perched as ever before his eyes.
"Chris," his sister grunted, her arm wrenched back in a restraining hold by the towering blond standing behind her, his face set in a familiar neutral line as his hidden gaze took in the arrival of his enemy.
"Move," he insisted briskly, pushing the young woman in front of him through a fissure in the wall to his left, away from the elevator that would lead them back to the Harrier, refuelled and ready in its cradle.
"Claire, no!" he yelled, forced to watch as the girl he had pursued to the ends of the earth was separated from him yet again, dragged away by his superhuman nemesis.
He gave chase, grunting as the flames blossoming from the wall licked out at his bare skin. There was a corridor beyond the wall, one that had become accessible with the destruction wrought by the detonations. A figure loomed from the darkness, far too small to be Wesker, but too broad to be Claire and too tall to be the errant Shakahnna.
The zombie lurched forward, moaning hungrily, but he simply barrelled into it, his body weight throwing it roughly to the floor. Even as it hit the ground, he knew he'd had a lucky escape; if it had snagged him and pulled him down, he'd have been an easy target for the half dozen others gathered in the narrow passage. If he'd had a weapon, he'd have taken them out, even if he hadn't needed to. Though slow and predictable, they were still dangerous, and he didn't like the idea of leaving them alive, for even a moment. For now, though, all he could do was avoid them.
There wasn't any time to waste; he had to save his sister.
He sprinted down the corridor, avoiding the grasping, peeling hands of the undead as they appeared from the shadows around him. Clutching, decayed fingers snapped at his clothing, but he batted them away, bull-rushing any of the walking corpses that happened to be unlucky enough to get in his way. The temperature in the burning facility seemed to drop, and suddenly his breath turned to ivory wisps in the air, even as he charged full-tilt into the set of double doors at the end of the hallway, knocking them aside as he had done every obstacle so far.
The chamber beyond was an immense cavern, seemingly burrowed into the icy rock that the facility was part of. A huge concrete platform served as the stage for several dozen crates stacked randomly about the area, as well as a number of large crane rigs, probably used for loading. It was clear from the immense lake of clear, thinly-frosted water, which flowed through an enormous fissure at the very back of the cave, that it was primarily intended to be a dock. The sleek, metallic form of an ice-clad submarine floated idly in the reservoir.
Standing in front of him, awaiting his arrival, still clutching his sibling in a hold that had her broken arm twisted in a way it wasn't intended to go, was Wesker, a faint hint of amusement on his thin lips. Chris noticed that there wasn't any mist coming from his mouth or nose, but whether that was because he didn't breathe, or because he was simply stone cold, he couldn't begin to guess. Either seemed likely considering that he was dead.
"I must confess, I am surprised to see you alive, Chris," the black-clad male began, twisting the arm of the female in his grasp as she began to squirm, making her gasp in pain and riling her brother all the more, "it had been my intention to offer your sister to Lady Ashford as an incentive to return with me after your altercation was resolved."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but Alexia's toast," he said, smiling at the thought of saving the world, and upsetting the other man's plans into the bargain.
"That is no longer a concern to me," Wesker responded, pearl-white teeth showing in a momentary sneer, before his neutral expression reasserted itself, "your sibling's late lamented companion served as Lady Ashford's primary test subject, her patient zero, if you will. There yet remains an unaltered strain of the T-Veronica virus in his body that will be of immeasurable worth to my current employers."
"Bastard!" Claire snarled, wriggling in the painful hold as though the abnormally powerful male would have allowed her any slack whatsoever.
He quickly silenced her objections with an increase in the angle of her arm, so slight, but so effective that Chris could almost hear the tension in her bones increase. He was stressing the break, and the pain must have already been unbearable. Sure enough, his sister's legs turned to water beneath her, and it was only the blond's grip that kept her upright.
"Perhaps his demise will be no more permanent than my own," he responded, moving his mouth closer to her ear, his tone low and threatening, and as cold as the frigid air around them.
"Get your hands off her, Wesker!" the younger male barked angrily, restraining himself from running forward, knowing full well how fast his adversary could react.
There was no way that he could reach them in time to stop him from hurting Claire; he didn't even have a gun to see if he was faster than a bullet.
"Though your dear sister would be of no importance to me ordinarily, I intend for her to play a vital role in our reckoning," he sneered, wrenching back on a fistful of her hair to bring her head up.
Chris growled quietly as he watched her squirm in agony, and almost missed the furtive downward glance she shot him. Keeping his frown from his features as best he could, he looked her over, seeing the blood flowing in thick, sticky strings through the knuckles of her unrestrained hand. It took him a moment to realise that the wound was self-inflicted. A shard of razor sharp metal, clearly chipped from something larger, was clutched in her fingers, and he realised that they were tightening around it reflexively with every twist of her arm.
Even so, she had a weapon; all she needed was an opportunity to use it.
And then, someone called his name. He turned to see Shakahnna running towards them from the doorway that they had emerged from, evidently having followed them. There were new pistols buckled to her thighs and underarms, her clothing padded with the bulk of cartridges and magazines scavenged from the facility's armoury. In her hand, she clutched her Colt, newly reloaded.
Without saying another word, she hurled the high calibre handgun to him, stopping as she did to rest her hands on her knees and take deep gulps of air. It fell short, skidding along the frosty concrete, but he was already on the move, diving expertly for the fallen weapon and gliding into a roll as he grabbed it. He snapped into a tense crouch, clasping it neatly between his hands, and drew a bead on the blond's forehead. In one fluid movement, he snapped off the safety and pulled the trigger, the gunshot echoing through the chamber.
Wesker's head blurred instinctively to the side, maintaining his hold on Claire's arm, but failing completely to notice as she spun into his grip, bringing her makeshift blade around in an arc. The metal sliced into his left cheek and across the bridge of his nose, knocking his sunglasses onto the ground and earning a grunt of both pain and annoyance from his mouth. She kicked out, slamming her foot into the space just above his kneecap, and used the distraction to shake free from his grasp with the sound of coffee-coloured tresses ripping from her scalp.
Free, she dropped the steel shard and bolted over to her brother, damaged right arm clutched to her chest, as he rose to his feet. He caught her with his free hand, keeping his new pistol aimed at the blond with the other, and clutched her tightly. Blinking tears out of her eyes, she wriggled out of his embrace and moved to his side, letting him put both hands to the Colt.
"What kept you, Shak?" Chris asked, as his redheaded partner bounded over, still breathing more heavily than usual, but having at least got over the worst of it.
"Don't like running," she informed him bluntly, "also, fuck off."
Unfortunately, their reintroduction was interrupted by the sound of cold, insidious laughter.
-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----
Albert Wesker was not a man who was known for outbursts of emotion. Even so, he could not help but make his mirth known at seeing the gathering of three individuals on the icy pier. Here was the very man who had so effectively meddled in his well-organised affairs at the Arklay manor, standing alongside his beloved sister and another female with whom he held the bond of comradeship. Indeed, the situation would only have been made more perfect by the presence of his former subordinates in S.T.A.R.S, Mister Burton, Miss Valentine and Miss Chambers.
He did not imagine that his sibling would provide him with the amusement he desired, or her brother with much in the way of lengthy farewells, so to speak. Shakahnna, on the other hand, had the potential to persist for days, perhaps even weeks, under his ministrations. She would serve as a mere taste of the sadism he would impart, the better for Chris to see what lay in store for his blood relation. The dark-haired male's torment would atone for the past inconvenience that he had caused.
"This operation has been a rewarding experience," he informed them, moving his blood-slicked glove away from his scarred face, letting his prey watch as the wound pursed shut, leaving only a splash of crimson across his features, "Lady Ashford's research will soon be in the hands of my employers. It would appear that my only remaining obligations are to myself; all the better for me that the three of you have gathered here so conveniently."
"Oh, well, we're so glad you're happy, cock-rot," the redhead yelled back at him, the tension in her voice along with the rigidity of her posture betraying what was most certainly fear, both for herself and her two companions, "really, we're thrilled you're having a good day."
She seemed well aware of what he intended, possibly due to her experiences of Umbrella's holding facilities. However, if she truly believed that she knew the full extent of what awaited her once party to his hospitality then she would be sorely mistaken. His cruelty was a being all its own and not to be underestimated, particularly where it concerned his personal adversaries.
"Claire, get the hell out of here, now!" Chris ordered.
"Seriously, toots, no arguments; time to be running away," the other female insisted, silencing her objections with a wave of a clawed hand, before taking another of her salvaged sidearms and pressing it into her good hand, "listen, we've got to do this, so you just be sitting tight until your brother gets back to you. Don't worry; I'll take care of him."
"You aren't a soldier, and you're wounded," the dark-haired male continued, concern clear in his voice, but the hard edge to his tone showed that he was not expecting to be argued with, "this is our fight. He's our responsibility. As a surviving member of the Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S, I'm gonna take care of this traitor once and for all."
"You'll come back, right?" his sister asked, taking the gun that was offered to her and looking to her sibling with a pleading gaze, "you promise?"
"I promise," he told her flatly, turning his head to make eye contact with her quickly.
Wesker seized his opportunity, taking full advantage of the distraction presented to him, and lunged forward with an explosion of rushing air. They were, each of them, only human, susceptible to petty sentimentalities that dulled their focus during times when it was most necessary. He had simply waited for his adversary to spare his sister a fleeting moment of his attention, knowing full well that it would be all he needed to close the distance between them unimpeded.
Even as Chris turned back to confront him, he knocked away the weapon, a bullet bursting forth and spearing through the cold mist, before thrusting his palm forward into the other man's chest. The blow drove the air from his lungs and slammed him from his vertical base, sending him skidding away along the ice. Shakahnna charged forward to engage him, claws flashing as she sliced into the flesh of his forearm, but he simply rammed her with his shoulder, throwing her off her feet. She landed hard on the concrete, swearing loudly, even as the bloody lines she had carved into his arm vanished.
He bore down on the last of his three opponents, who backed away, levelling the pistol she had been given at him. Striding forward, he jerked to his left to avoid her first bullet and to his right to dodge the second, his pace never faltering. The third round, he allowed to impact on his chest, feeling the slug crumple on his flesh and fall away, leaving merely a blister of burned skin at the point of impact. Her eyes widened and she hesitated, retreating several steps as he continued to approach.
Something heavy leapt onto his back, a moment's thought identifying the attacker as the redhead he had shunted to the floor, who sank the blades on her right hand deep into the meat of his pectorals. She yelled for the brunette to escape and, seeing no option available, the younger woman complied, turning to run back in the direction they had come. In spite of her commendable tenacity and ingenuity in the past, she recognised the potential liability that she had become due to her injuries and proceeded with the only logical course of action. It seemed that his former subordinate had educated his sibling well.
The blond watched her depart with a degree of discontent. With her brother caught in a desperate struggle for his survival, there would be no one to pilot the Harrier that Wesker knew he had used to arrive. Thus, she would perish when the facility was finally destroyed. He had prescribed a pivotal function for her within his vengeful design; instead, her life would be squandered, a pity considering how useful she could otherwise have proven. All the same, it was not a matter that would cause him any undue concern. The object of his hateful motives was still within his grasp, as was his companion.
Perhaps, at a later juncture, he might even have occasion to reunite his former subordinate with the other individuals that had avoided their intended demise during the Arklay incident.
For now, however, subduing them was the focus of his attention. He reached up to take hold of the woman who had positioned herself on his back, her legs laced around his waist and her arms over his shoulders. Her response was to lash out with her free hand, slicing at the flesh of his searching fingers whenever they came close. He gripped her ankle instead and pulled her free from his body, allowing her full weight to dangle from his hold. Her matted and dirtied hair hung down to the ground beneath her as she let out a string of curses, swiping at him viciously with her talons.
The Colt in Chris's possession barked behind him, high-calibre slugs bursting in bloody puffs on his back, each impact jerking his body and staggering him. Discarding the female, permitting her to crumple into a heap on the ground, he turned his attention to his nemesis as the younger man lunged for him. His gloved fingers encircled his wrist, halting the heavy blow that had come a mere inch from flattening his slender nose. With a twist, he applied pressure to the captured limb, jerking his adversary off-balance, before kicking him in the stomach so hard that he flew backwards and bounced on the floor. Clutching at his pummelled midsection, he retched, bile spewing from his lips.
With an air of nonchalance, he casually disassembled the semi-automatic pistol he had taken from his opponent's possession, letting the pieces of it drop to the ground.
"I liked that gun, thou fucker!" Shakahnna yelled, as she threw herself back into the fray, tearing the front of his tactical vest to shreds, slicing thin cuts into his flesh that wept crimson almost instantly.
He weathered her frenzied attack, blocking her attempts to ram her blades deep into his body, but still sustaining the slashes from the tips of her elongated fingers. Blood trailed the length of his upper limbs as she sliced the skin of his muscular forearms to ribbons, but he remained undeterred by the pain, subtle as it was. He had honed his resilience well in the half year since his first death and he could scarcely feel the damage she inflicted, though her efforts were far from half-hearted.
Every wound she caused him sealed shut in an instant, his enhanced regenerative capabilities sustaining him in a battle that would have left an ordinary man dead in an instant. She drove her hands forwards, attempting to impale him with all ten of her claws, only for him to arrest her arms at the wrist. Their tips sat mere inches from his stomach, wriggling eagerly, her face alight with bloodlust as she pushed with all her might.
Chris rammed into his back, forcing him onto her poised talons, sharp edges slicing apart skin and sinew, sinking deep into the organs within his belly. He let out a growl, locking his jaw in a desperate attempt to suppress the anguish that the injury caused; even with his immortality, the feel of such a wound was still excruciating. He looked down into Shakahnna's glowing emerald orbs, alive with the thrill of the kill, earnestly hopeful that she had done enough to end his threat.
His response was simply to smile thinly at her, before lashing out with a hard right front kick, his boot hammering her gut and throwing her backwards away from him. Blood gushed down his front from the open wounds she left as he broke the grip that his former subordinate had around his waist, before swinging a powerful elbow strike behind him. The other man ducked the impact, lashing out with an uppercut that snapped his head back, before he responded, unfazed, with a ridge hand blow that collided with his right cheek. The markedly stronger hit spun him head over heels and dropped him on his back stiffly.
Even as he lay groaning, the blond turned his attention back to the young woman he had previously dispatched, watching as she struggled to her feet once again. Their effort was commendable, he felt, but neither of them could hope to match his abilities. His virus-enhanced form granted him the agility to move faster than the human eye could perceive, the resilience to survive any wound, and the strength to crush his adversaries utterly. The knowledge of his superiority was intoxicating, and made him thirst for a challenge, a true test of his might.
Once he had defeated them and taken them into his custody, he would allow them to recuperate and marshal their strength; perhaps then they would be able to provide him with that which he craved.
But still, Shakahnna charged for him again, staggering when he swatted her with a languid blow to the jaw. She reeled, swiping at the air in front of her as the jarring impact made her lose all sense of her surroundings. Smirking at her disorientation, he pursued her, slamming his fist into her side and sending her stumbling clumsily away again, before collapsing to one knee, flailing wildly for some kind of support. He advanced on her, gripping her jaw firmly and tilting her head back. She leered up at him, most unexpectedly, before driving the blades of her right hand into his crotch.
Jaw clenching again, this time even tighter than before, he altered his grip so that he was holding her around the throat, jerking her upright. The sudden movement caused her claws to stick in his flesh, each razor-sharp knife breaking free and leaving her with blunted stubs of metal at her fingertips. He carried her into the air, allowing her to flail ineffectually as he held her aloft, permitting her to slowly fall into unconsciousness.
Before she could pass out, however, Chris made his resurgence, snatching a piece of steel scaffolding from a nearby workbench and smashing it against his back. Still clutching the redhead, he turned, only to have the metal pipe hammered into the side of his cranium once, twice, and then three times in quick succession, each blow causing his head to jerk. He raised his free arm, allowing the rod to bend around the hard sinew as it came back for the fourth time, before seizing the weapon and delivering a punishing front kick to his stomach. He staggered backwards and then collapsed, coughing.
He felt Shakahnna's legs coil tightly around the length of his right arm, and then her weight jerked hard, dragging herself down to the ground and flipping him over her. Landing stiffly on his back, he reached out for her with his free hand, only for her boot to collide hard with his cheek as she scrambled backwards away from him. Incensed at the ignoble manner in which she had toppled him, he rose back to his feet, looking down at her as she pulled her grenade gun from its strap and aimed it into his face.
The weapon coughed, a canister bursting from its gaping mouth, a trail of smoke arching in its wake. With an almost nonchalant wave of his hand, he swatted the grenade aside and into the water beside the dock, where it detonated and sent a geyser shooting upwards from the surface.
"Your persistence is admirable, but ultimately futile," he informed them, as his opponents crawled to one another, struggling to stand up, "though you have never been the most intelligent of men, Chris, surely even you must appreciate my superiority. You bear witness to the emergence of a God."
"Yeah, because you aren't mental or anything," the woman sneered, voice thick with contempt, as she supported her colleague, and he in turn supported her.
"You're nothing but a two-faced, murdering freak," he added, "just another one of Umbrella's pets."
"I may have surrendered my humanity," he countered, "but my power is beyond that of even the strongest B.O.W. If you require a further demonstration, however, then I will be happy to oblige."
Allowing his thin, cruel smirk to grow into a more palpable display of delight, ivory tombstones revealed to the chill air, he surged forward, his speed faster than their eyes could register. He thrust a palm into each of their chests, throwing Chris backwards into a nearby crane rig, which he collided with and then slid down limply, while the female simply skidded away along the floor. Her grenade gun fell with a clatter, sliding into a nearby stack of crates.
"Magnificent, don't you think?" he asked, spreading his arms as though to invite an appraisal of his form, cultivated to a perfection surpassing humanity's feeble limits in a mere six months.
The other male failed to answer. Instead, his eyes turned upwards, focusing on something on the ceiling above, before they moved back to glance at him. Against his expectations, he saw a lopsided smile blossom on his former subordinate's features.
"Heads up, you son of a bitch," he said, wrapping his hand around a nearby lever and pulling it down.
His own eyes snapped up, narrowing when they spied the load of heavy steel beams suspended directly above. He growled when he realised his mistake, muscles tensing as he made ready to spring away, but even as he did, the crane's brake snapped off. The chain unravelled from the metal drum around which it was wound, and then the cacophonous noise of its burden plummeting to the ground thundered all around him as the immense struts pounded the concrete to dust. He glanced upwards as they fell, only to see one on a collision course with his head.
An affronted grunt escaped his lips, moments before there was an explosion of pain and then darkness.
-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----
Chris sagged to the floor, body hurting like hell. Breathing was difficult; talking seemed impossible; standing hadn't even occurred to him, but he suspected that it was out of the question too. But he could hear the rumbling of the installation's gradual destruction, feel the shaking of the ground that told him how dangerous their situation was. He couldn't afford to waste anymore time; he had to get Shak, find his sister and the Harrier, and escape. It would only be a matter of minutes before the entire place came crashing down around them.
He lifted a hand, trying to roll over onto his front, but his battered frame felt almost paralysed. After an agonising few moments, he finally managed to get himself into a position where he could more easily climb back to his feet. With that, he staggered over to where the redhead was still lying, her face a mass of swelling from the blow she had taken to the jaw. He imagined he didn't look much better himself, and that she felt at least twice as bad as he did.
"Shak, come on," he insisted, stooping to tug at the front of her tactical vest, "time to leave."
She stirred slightly, groaning, and then there was another, similar noise that made the dark-haired male's blood run cold. The sound of metal scraping on concrete emanated from the jumbled pile of fallen girders, and when he looked up he saw the mound fall away, rumbling like thunder. He grabbed at the pistol holstered on his partner's right thigh, the twin of the Glock that he had given to Claire, and wrenched it loose, aiming it at the shifting scrap iron as it moved.
Rising from the heap of twisted metal, like a dark God from a violated tomb smashed to rubble, Albert Wesker loomed to his full height, pushing aside the beams that had so miserably failed in killing him.
"A commendable effort," the blond acknowledged, though his expression was taut with anger, or at least the closest approximation of anger that would ever manifest on his stoic features.
"Cunt should just stay fucking dead," the voice of his partner groaned from somewhere at his feet, before she rolled over and tried to push herself up. He looped his free hand into her harness and helped her along as best he could.
She clambered to a shaky vertical base as the blond freed himself from the small steel hillock he had been buried beneath, and Chris began to wonder how they could ever win this fight. It seemed almost like he couldn't die, no matter what they threw at him. Still, if they had no chance of surviving the facility's destruction, he'd at least like to hope that Wesker wouldn't be leaving there alive either. Even if a ton of metal to the head hadn't killed him, being blasted to bits might just do the trick.
On cue, there was a detonation so close that it caused the entire dock to tremble, making them all stagger. A wall ruptured, debris spraying across the chamber as flames belched out from the fissure, the fire wreathing and climbing like tendrils of ivy. The heat began to encroach upon the cold, and the burning devastation promised to claim the entire installation before the ice could finally win out against it. The metaphor was striking; despite their passion, despite their zeal, Wesker was an all-consuming force that would eventually snuff them out if the conflict continued.
Their confrontation simmered, their enemy flexing his fingers and glaring through narrowed, inhuman eyes, poised to strike at any moment, while they watched and waited, weapons raised.
There was a deafening roar, and all three of them turned as one, clamping their hands over their ears in unison as the explosion rang out, shaking the room with its noise alone. The wall of the dock, formed from an immense concrete barricade beneath the carved bedrock of the cavern, gave way, splitting like a sheet of paper with a terrible, gut-wrenching tearing noise. The sheer sound of it was enough to send their virally-enhanced opponent into agonised spasms, his powers betraying him and leaving him reeling. There was, after all, a downside to having ears so sensitive.
The immense form of one of the installation's cooling towers crashed into the chamber, dripping slates as it shook apart with the continuing eruptions. Chris watched it fall and yelled out an unintelligible warning to his partner, diving aside as the structure came crashing down, trailing flames behind it as it ripped loose from its foundations. It exploded across the dock, cutting their battleground in half with a wall of flaming debris, a haze of choking dust rising up all around. The jarring rumble rattled his brain in his skull. He covered his head to shield himself from the rain of hot shrapnel, searing clay fragments, baked in the fire, falling down around him and forcing him to roll in an attempt to avoid the worst of it.
Shak and Wesker simply vanished.
In the aftermath, the charred stone column lay smouldering in the trench it had made with its collapse. The chasm in the wall yawned wide like a gaping mouth with a thousand whispering tongues, each the colour of autumn, each with the fierceness of the sun. He clambered back to his feet, coughing in the acrid smoke rolling from the wreckage. The chill from the cold air that his adrenaline had blocked out during the fight was now replaced with unpleasant, sickly warmth. More dust settled in his wounds, creating sediment with the grit from the battle with Alexia.
He looked for Shak, yelling her name between bouts of coughing as the cloud of atomised debris settled in his throat. Wherever she was, he hoped that the chamber's integrity would hold long enough for him to find her, dead or alive. At least if it was the latter, he could reaffirm his vow of vengeance against Wesker and Umbrella. He didn't want to not know, or he'd spend the rest of his life wondering if there had been anything he could have done to save her.
A gust from the fissure at the dock's entrance, which led out onto the icy ocean, parted the smog and the looming figure of Wesker once again became visible. He was standing, upright and unfazed, the charred remains of his flak jacket and uniform shirt hanging from his bloodied torso in tatters. His flesh was covered in dark, raw burn tissue, almost like scales; fitting that he'd shed his human skin to look more like the snake, the cold-blooded, reptilian monster, he really was. His features were marred by it, and rivulets of gore from his shredded torso ran along his arms and from the end of his fingers.
That he was still alive and able to stand spoke volumes for his superhuman resilience.
"You have been fortunate today," he observed, his voice tense with barely constrained agony, his usually neutral expression nothing more than a mask of ugly scarring, "when next we meet, there will be a reckoning."
There was another detonation, a section of the rocky ceiling plummeting through the frost atop the manmade bay and sending an eruption of icy water skyward. The vision of his nemesis vanished amid the smoke once again.
Chris realised with a sinking feeling that the facility was falling apart and that it would be now or never for both Claire and himself to escape. He scanned the fallen debris, praying to any God that would listen, but he could find no sign of the missing redhead. There was nothing left to do but keep his promise to his sister, to go back to, and escape with, her.
He made another promise, this time to Shakahnna, swearing to finish what they had started that day, as he consigned her to the fiery grave, soon to be swallowed by the white oblivion beyond the walls.
-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----
