AN: WHOOOO! MADE IT TO CHAPTER TEN! *blows party horn* Ye Gods this fic has taken up a lot of my time. I think I'm about halfway done with this fic, according to my outline. (I still have to flesh out some of the ending chapters to this sucker.) Now the good parts start!
As always, Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil or characters. Non-canon characters own themselves. Blah blah blah, don't sue me for this fic.
Oh yeah, This chapter has a special guest-zombie. One of my early reviewers had asked me to write him in as a guest-zombie way back in chapter 4, I think. It took a little manipulation of my outlines, but I managed to fit him in. So here ya go, dude! Hope this makes your day, and thank you for your patience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Team Stevie~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Team Stevie had made their way to the 16th floor of the hotel without any hitches. Leon was tense the entire scouting period, while the other team members exchanged friendly banter amongst themselves.
Leon stopped the team in the middle of the hall, hearing a strange noise from farther ahead of them. "Sounds like there's something up ahead," Leon informed, "Luis and I will check it out. Keep checking this area while we're gone." Claire and Stevie nodded.
Once the two men had turned the corner, Stevie and Claire continued their banter. "Why do the boys get to have all the fun?" Claire complained as she tried another door, finding it to be locked.
"Because they want to be manly men." Stevie responded sarcastically, "Now if only they wore tights…" A mysterious, guttural, gurgling noise sounded from somewhere in the hall. Stevie froze. "Please tell me that was your stomach," the sarcastic cosplayer asked, hoping to everything that the source of the noise wasn't another monster, "Because I ate some of our food rations not too long ago; I shouldn't be hungry."
"That wasn't me." Claire said, sounding worried herself.
"Than what was-!" Stevie started, only to be interrupted by a loud groan. Both girls whirled around to see a zombie sneaking up on them with its arms outstretched.
The dead cosplayer was a dead ringer of Leon; Similar government-issue uniform (sans fuzzy jacket), same hairstyle. The only glaring difference was the zombie's height: The undead figure in front of them didn't even pass Claire's height of five-foot-five-inches. (1)
Stevie doubled over in giggles before she could raise her TMP. "I'm sorry," she said as Claire stared at her with a questioning look, "But that... is kind of hysterical! Get it? It's a miniaturized-zombie-Leon!" Stevie cackled in laughter as she gasped for air.
"Both of you! Get down!" the real Leon ordered, coming around the corner with his handgun drawn.
Claire pulled her convulsing teammate downwards alongside her, right before Leon fired at his undead counterpart. The bullet whizzed through the air above the girls' heads, right before piercing the zombie's skull and destroying the decaying brain matter. The zombie fell towards the two females as it died, landing face down. Once it was safe to get up, Claire and Stevie returned to their feet.
"That makes three I owe you, Leon." (2) Claire stated, while Stevie looked down at the downed zombie and noticed the TMP hanging from his costume.
"Hey, he's got some stuff we can use." She said, kneeling down to check the authenticity of the weapon and noting the absence of colored zip-ties, "This TMP isn't peace-bonded. Think he got it from the Merchant? "
"Wherever he got it, it must have been after the outbreak started." Claire added, rolling the body with her foot once she made sure it was truly dead, "Poor kid. He doesn't look much older than thirteen."
"Wonder what he was doing up here?" Stevie said, looking at the yellow badge that indicated the boy's status as a minor. The name "Experimental Agent 1123" was printed on the front of the badge, with his legal full name below.
"Could have been looking for his own friends." Claire said, as she kneeled at the boy's opposite side and closed his milky eyes.
"Yeah, well… There's no time to go looking for them now." Stevie said, coaxing the TMP out of the kid's dead hands. "Sorry dude, but this isn't going to help you anymore." After claiming the second TMP, Stevie checked the pockets of the kid's costume for other useful things. "Here we go~" she said, pulling out a wallet and examining the contents, finding $500 inside, "Damn, this kid is loaded!" Stevie whispered in amazement, pocketing the money away, "I love it when kids save up their allowances for awesome stuff!" Once the body had been looted, Stevie and Claire stood up, hearing Luis' footsteps return.
"Is everyone okay?" Luis asked, coming around the corner.
"We're all fine Luis." Claire replied, "Just had a bit of a scare, that's all."
"As long as you're-" Luis started before he suddenly stiffened in shock; everyone froze. Seconds later, the Spaniard slumped to the ground with a combat knife in his lower back, revealing none other than the black-clad 'Mr. Death'.
"LUIS!" Stevie shouted, this time purposefully mispronouncing the Spaniard's name as well as inadvertently catching the attention of the murderer behind the red-tinted eyeholes of the gas mask he wore.
"Take cover!" Leon shouted, raising his gun and firing at the mercenary. This bought Claire some time to pull Stevie away to safety. The mercenary took cover behind an abandoned maintenance cart before firing his own weapon, causing Leon to take cover besides the women as well. The government agent checked the hall. The mercenary was rolling the cart up the hall towards them, using his cover as a shield. "Now what?" Leon said to himself.
With her back to the wall, Stevie took the flash grenade that she intended to use on a Plaga, pulled the pin out with her teeth, and leaned past Leon, tossing the grenade with enough force for it to land behind the maintenance cart. The grenade exploded in a white flash as it hit the ground, blinding the mercenary. "Go!" Stevie encouraged as Leon and Claire rushed past her to charge their attacker. As the two Raccoon City survivors ran up the hall with their guns out, HUNK stood up and fired, forcing Claire and Leon to dive behind their side of the maintenance cart for cover.
Stevie peeked around the wall and witnessed something odd: Instead of taking the advantage he had over them, HUNK turned around and dashed down the hallway away from them. "Leon! He's making a run for it!" she shouted, pointing down the hall as Leon recovered from his last-second barrel roll. Leon turned around and sprinted up the hall with his handgun at his side, but HUNK was quicker and dashed around the corner. Leon sprinted to the corner not that much farther behind him, stopped and looked around.
"Damn it!" Leon cursed, hitting the wall with a curled fist and turning back to the girls after checking the hallway, "He escaped."
"Who was that?" Claire questioned, holstering her handgun as she walked up to Leon.
"Dunno. But he got a good look at our faces." Leon stated as he caught his breath, "But why didn't he kill us?"
"Cause that's not his job," Stevie said, walking up to the two survivors, "If he wanted us all dead, It would take one grenade to take us down. He must have wanted something else."
"Most likely: information." Leon guessed.
"Think he could he be working for someone?" Claire asked. Stevie nodded as Leon pulled out his radio and clicked the 'Talk' button.
"Chris! Jill! Do you copy?" Leon reported into his radio, "We've been ambushed!"
Stevie grabbed the radio from Leon in a sudden movement. "Everybody who's listening: Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide the survivors too! HUNK in running around in the building! I strongly suggest you keep your backs to the wall if you don't want to get murdered!" Stevie shouted into the radio, "He's probably coming for you guys as well!"
"What?" Kate's panicky voice asked, crackling through the receiver, "HUNK's here too?"
"Yes, Mr. Death himself. Also, we've lost Luis." Stevie reported, trying not to crack up at the last sentence, "HUNK...stabbed him...in the back. Just like in 4."
"Oh no…" Kate said softly, growing quiet and somber.
"Where's Team Mattie? Have you heard anything else from them?" Stevie asked.
"No. I've been trying to check in with them. We're only getting static." Jill responded, "They must be too far underground for us to reach them. We have no choice but to move along."
Stevie nodded soberly and returned the radio to Leon. "She's right." The agent said, "We have to keep searching."
"Fine," Stevie said, "But there's something to do first." Stevie stood up and walked over to Luis' body. She knelt by the Spaniard's side, unfastening his belt and holster, which still held the Red9 inside, and attaching it to her dress so the belt rested on her hips. "I feel bad about taking his stuff, but there's no reason Luis is going to need it anymore," She thought solemnly as she returned to her feet, looking down at Luis' corpse, "Thank you Luis."
The Ada look-alike dismissed the reverie when she felt one of Leon's hands gently nudge her shoulder. "Hey. Time to go." The agent said, prompting Stevie to finish her thoughts and stand up. The girl whispered a short "Goodbye" to the Spaniard as the remains of the team ventured forth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Team Kate~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After news of Luis' death, Team Kate made their way to the fifth floor of the hotel, once again surrounded by numbered doors on both sides as they walked. Feeling confident in each other's skills despite the threat of an ambush, the team decided to break formation, allowing Kate to walk in front of the group.
They had been walking for a while with no zombie interference until they reached a section of floor that split into a four-way intersection; The path in front of them led further down the hall. The left path gave way to a bank of unusable elevators, while the opposite path ended at a window. Kate stopped after a few steps, detecting a scent that would be considered out-of-place in an expensive hotel. "Hold on," she asked, sniffing the air before glancing at the dampened floor as she stood in the intersection. "Is it just me, or does this carpet smell like gasoline?"
Ada saw the overhead light fixture coming undone. "Kate, move! Now!" the spy alerted, dashing forward and shoving the girl out of the way as the light fixture fell down. The lamp broke, causing the electricity to set the soaked carpeting on fire. The end result was a wall of flame that split the team up.
"Kate! Are you okay?" Jill shouted into her radio from the other side.
Kate pulled herself out of the position she had landed in and sat up slowly, taking notice that Ada was gone and reminding herself to thank the spy later for saving her skin. "I'm alright!" she replied into her radio, slightly scared, "What do we do now?"
"There's no way we can get past this fire!" Barry shouted through his radio over the crackling sound of the flames. "Meet us on the next floor!"
"Be careful, alright?" Jill advised.
"Okay," Kate said nervously into her radio, catching glimpses of Jill and Barry through the flames, standing up and slinging her rifle over her shoulder so the butt of the gun showed behind her shoulder, "I'll meet you there." She waited until her teammates had left before turning around and venturing down the hall behind her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Team Mattie~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mattie searched the drawers of the desk first. If Irving had something to hide, he would have put it in there first. The drawers turned up nothing, so Mattie began browsing through the items on top in the desks.
"Okay, file, file, more files," she muttered, picking through items and setting aside the ones she felt were most important, "Sheesh, that gunshot is going to leave a monster of a bruise later," Eventually, all that was left was an unknown object that was covered by a large, stained piece of cloth. "Wonder what this is?" Mattie thought curiously as she took the cloth off, revealing two large cylindrical containers reading "Uroboros" down each side, with a digital clock haphazardly duct-taped to the top of the containers.
The clock appeared to be counting downwards, reading 6:45 before changing to 6:44. "If this is what I think it is," Mattie thought, wide-eyed, "We're in trouble." The Jill cosplayer fumbled for her radio, pushing the button that would play back a message that Mattie pre-recorded on her way to the mechanical rooms, just for occasions such as this one.
"Guys, we've got a seriously big problem down here! Meet up on the ground floor as soon as possible! This is not a joke!" the radio played back the message as Mattie began gathering up the files and other materials; she would tell the others about how Irving's Uroboros-bomb would go off in less than seven hours. The message repeated twice before the lights surrounding the worktable shut off, leaving Mattie in total darkness.
"What the-?" Mattie shouted in surprise as the radio continued broadcasting its message, "Who turned the lights off?" Seconds later, something hit the back of her head, causing her eyes to roll back in her skull. Round, red-tinted eyes reflected what little light was left in the work area as Mattie fell forward, unconscious.
AN: Boom, excitement. I apologize for killing off Luis, but a plot twist had to be done. And besides, it wouldn't be realistic if everybody made it out alive.
Couple of notes:
(1)= This height is according to Claire's bio in Code: Veronica X.
(2)= This joke references RE2 and RE: Degeneration, where Leon saves Claire from a zombie with the same method.
I hope I did okay with the action-y parts of this chapter. Any advice on how to write action sequences better? I want to improve my writing for the huge fight sequence– Oops, did I just let out a spoiler? *crumples up paper and tosses it into garbage*
Okay, Good night all! And Happy Birthday to JediSpartan217!