Finale: Out Of The Ashes
Wesker's body hummed with anguish, wracked with the manifold tortures that the burning wreckage had imparted when it had slammed down over him. Even the blow to the head he had taken from the steel girders had not hurt him quite so profoundly, and the damage he had suffered would require days, perhaps even weeks, of intensive recuperation on his part. Until he had honed the regenerative process, he would wear these scars for the foreseeable future, marks that would serve as an admonition against further hubris. He had been foolish to allow the battle to last as long as it had, to the extent that it had even jeopardised his own safety.
Admittedly, he was unsure if it was possible for him to die, but then, he had died once already and hadn't cared for the experience.
He turned away from his confrontation with his nemesis, casting off the ravaged remains of the clothing that was hanging in strings from his torso, tearing it away from where it was fused into his wounds. His trousers remained, to preserve his modesty, though his scarring alone covered his entire form.
It was then that he spied a figure lying several metres away, sprawled upon the floor in a position that suggested death, or proximity to it. Her body had landed on its front, her face pressed to the concrete, putrid water pooling about her cheek where the frost on the dockside had melted, mixing with dirt and dust and grit and her blood. Her right arm was tucked beneath her midriff, the claws potentially stabbing into her torso if she were unfortunate, while her left arm was twisted at an inappropriate angle, almost certainly broken in several places.
Lacerations that had been carved from the inside by shattered bones marred her flesh, already pink with burn scarring. Her legs were splayed, the left pierced by a steel rod, most probably blasted from the fallen stack like shrapnel to skewer her thigh. The right was missing the majority of its foot, leaving only the heel and half of the sole still attached. Her clothing was charred to cinders in places, blotches of skin showing through her shredded combat equipment, revealing those areas that had been seared and scorched by the flames until black.
She was most likely dead, another casualty of the operation, another S.T.A.R.S member he had indirectly caused the demise of.
He strode over to her prone form, leaning down to roll her over and staring into her almost serene expression, but for the scarring she possessed, both old and new. One eyelid hung limp where the orb beneath had burst and thick, dark blood was pouring from beneath, a gory tear for her own pitiable fate. Ignoring the mutilations, he pressed his crimson-slicked fingers to her neck, feeling, by some miraculous happenstance, the fluttering of a weak pulse, faint but not so faint that his improved senses could not locate it.
Her death would be of no great concern to him; indeed, it had been his goal, through one means or another. Still, the fact remained that she possessed an immunity to the Tyrant virus, and such qualities were entirely too valuable to be squandered. If she could be saved then it would be prudent to do so.
He stooped, scooping her ravaged body into his arms and holding her tightly to his own ruined form, before turning towards the submarine's boarding ramp. His soldiers had already embarked several minutes ago, and were simply awaiting his return to commence their departure. Providing she survived the journey to the oil refinery and outpost that his employers maintained several dozen miles from the coast, she could potentially prove undeniably useful.
And, although Wesker was notorious for his lack of sentimentality, if there was one thing he appreciated in an individual it was usefulness.
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