-Unforeseen Danger-
It was a nice spot they had found. The manor house and grounds had class. Now if only there wasn't possible danger around every corner, Noel could enjoy it.
Oh, who was he kidding? He couldn't relax for a second. His daughter was trapped here with him. Where "here" was, no one knew. One minute he was teaching his kid how to properly check her mirrors, and the next they were in a mansion foyer in Colorado. But then, according to Chris, they were in Africa. Now, they were in Antarctica, or not. Impossible to understand.
He watched Eva grumpily make her way over to the group. She plopped down cross-legged on the ground beside Nathan and Steven. Crossing her arms firmly, she glared at Wesker.
"If you hadn't interfered I could have killed her."
Wesker gave her a very serious look. "I don't want you to ever have to kill anyone."
Eva got quiet when he said that and after a long moment of silence, her calm composure was intact.
"I'm sorry. I was being reckless," she apologized. "You taught me better than that."
Wesker merely nodded and turned his gaze to Agent Redfield. "If you don't mind, I propose we rest."
He seemed taken aback by the other man asking permission to make a suggestion. The agent stared at Wesker in surprised wonder and it prompted raised eyebrows above his sunglasses. He seemed like a similar type to the BSAA soldiers, except..insane? Selfish? Evil? Who was this Wesker?
"Are you going to get like this every time I say something, Chris?"
"Just not used to you asking for, well, anything," Redfield stammered, a scowl overtaking his face from the delivery of his explanation.
Wesker regarded the BSAA agent for a moment. He chose not to say anything and went to sit on the edge of the reflecting pool beside Redfield's sister and Lucas. Noel looked up as his daughter came to sit by him.
"I've been thinking."
"About?"
"I never should have asked you to take me driving after school."
"Claire-"
"I begged you and talked you into it even though you were really tired from work. It's my fault we're in this trouble. I-"
"Claire, stop."
She did stop. He breathed in and out, thinking on every awful thing they had seen and heard so far. This wasn't the first time his whole life up and changed without warning. Claire was a baby when he had to take his family into witness protection and change their last name, his career, their home... She didn't know. He would probably never tell her.
"This isn't your fault. You didn't bring us wherever we are. Someone or something else did. We'll find our way home in the end. I promise. I won't let anything happen to change that. Okay?"
She met his eyes briefly before looking away at the water nearby. "Okay."
"Claire, I suppose an explanation is in order," Agent Redfield said, drawing their attention. "This is Sheva Alomar, my current partner from the BSAA's West African branch. I was deployed in a country in Africa to search for evidence of a potential new bio-threat. Alpha and Delta teams were already on the ground when Sheva and I arrived. We learned of a new virus called Uroboros and that the terrorist, Albert Wesker, was alive."
"Didn't realize I signed on for a worldwide tour," Lucas commented with a chuckle.
Noel didn't like how he was becoming more comfortable as time passed. How did he do that? He hated being around men who were a potential danger to his daughter and he couldn't do much about it.
Redfield looked away from Lucas and finished. "The mansion I found all of you in appeared on the map and it was like I walked right out of daytime in Africa to nighttime in Colorado."
"I don't know what's going on but I have this bad feeling," Nathan told them, frowning up at the starry sky.
"Yeah, me too," Steven agreed. "Somebody's messing with us."
"For now we should forget about the why and just focus on surviving," said Agent Redfield.
"But if we can't figure out who or what is doing this, we may never get out of here," Sheva lamented.
"Yeah, it's like we keep going in circles," Steven said. "What's up with this place? There's no logic to it."
Redfield looked at him and his brother. "You would know. Where did you wander off earlier? That was a bad idea."
"Brothers sneak off to steal shit, end up in deep shit."
"Claire!" he uttered in surprise.
"What? I've seen movies," she excused. "And the older one keeps looking at this huge diamond he must have picked up when he ditched our group for a while."
Nathan frowned at her. "It's a gemstone."
"Whatever. Same thing."
"Gemstones are rarer," he argued, to the interest of zero people.
"Claire, watch your language."
"Right. Sorry..."
"So anyway, Claire," Agent Redfield said, speaking to his sister. "Introductions. This young woman over here is named Claire too, and with her is her father... Noel, right?"
Noel nodded affirmation with a polite smile.
"Lucas, Steven... Nathan, Dr. Patel, and Anderson. Anderson's an agent with the FBI. Dr. Patel and Lucas are working with him on some classified case he won't discuss. Steven and Nathan are brothers."
"It's nice to meet everyone," Claire said with a polite smile. "Sorry it couldn't be under better circumstances."
Murmurs of agreement all around.
"Wesker has decided to take a break from terrorism and come along with us to get out of here. This is Eva. She's his daughter."
Claire nodded slowly at Agent Redfield, registering what he said. "Alright."
"Alright?" Redfield asked, shocked by her lack of reaction. "You don't wanna ask how that happened or anything?"
Noel noticed Wesker taking a renewed interest in the BSAA agent's sibling.
She shrugged. "No. I'm alright working together."
Staring at his sister, he shifted his eyes to Wesker and then back at her. Agent Redfield was suspicious now and Noel was getting a very bad feeling. Something was wrong.
"Well good," Redfield said. "Because we're doing it as a favor for Mom. She couldn't stand me and Wesker fighting all the time. You know Mom."
"Yeah, alright," Claire replied, agreeable.
Wesker got to his feet quick and Agent Redfield pulled his gun on her. The woman's eyes widened at the sight of the gun and she got to her own feet, hands up in surrender. Noel glanced at the confused faces of the others. His expression probably matched theirs. What was going on?
"Whoa, Chris! What gives?"
"What gives? You're not Claire!" Agent Redfield yelled.
"Of course I am. Look at me."
He glared. "I told you our mom asked us to do a favor and you said alright."
"Yeah..."
"Our parents have been dead for over fifteen years! They died in a car crash. The real Claire would know that!"
This wasn't his sister? The Claire look-alike dropped the innocent stare and a smile took its place. Noel shifted and kept his daughter close.
"Darn. Well there wasn't enough time for me to absorb all of her information yet. It always starts with the most recent or important memories. Very unlucky for me that you asked a question from the past. You're good. Weren't so good when I was running around as your partner there."
The Claire look-alike pointed at Sheva and Agent Redfield looked angry.
"You were the one who led us into Excella and Wesker's trap."
The malicious smile grew. Noel let his fingers come to rest on his handgun. He didn't know how this would turn out.
"Where's Claire?" Redfield demanded. "Was she ever really here?"
"Oh yes. Still in the hands of the Ashfords since you left her behind. You abandoned your own flesh and blood."
The agent clenched his fists. "I thought you were her. I never would have left her if you hadn't tricked me."
Noel observed him tighten his grip on his gun, finger flexing near the trigger. The Claire look-alike saw this and started calmly strolling back and forth among them. No worry about getting shot. That was worrying.
"Hey, don't move!"
She laughed at the agent. "What are you going to do? Shoot your own sister?"
"You aren't Claire!"
The Claire look-alike ignored him and turned on Lucas. "Oh my... Now you're a fun one. So many deaths and zero guilt. You're my kind of guy."
Lucas stared at her. "Excuse me?"
His confusion turned to shock when suddenly the Claire look-alike transformed into a young woman with light brown hair and brown eyes. She couldn't have been more than five years older than his daughter.
"How could you kill me, Lucas? I think I might have loved you... How could you kill me like that?"
"You aren't her," the man said. "She was infected and had to die."
She cackled before saying, "I know, Lucas Wilson."
She extended the pronunciation on the name. Wilson? Was it his real last name?
"You killed her. Killed her like all the others you murdered. And you don't feel bad, do you? You just keep on killing without thinking how these people have friends and family. Admirable."
The look-alike switched her gaze to Steven and a new smile adorned her face.
"Do you know what your sin is, Steven?"
She was transforming again and now she was a man with curly brown hair and blue eyes. He had a few days growth on his face and wore a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans. Noel assumed this man was someone Steven knew personally.
"Didn't you ever hear the rule, never date your friend's ex?" the look-alike asked, taunting. "It was your love for that girl that got her killed, Steven. He drank because of you. She didn't even love you."
The young man winced but kept his composure. "You're not him cause he's dead. Who the hell are you?"
"A shapeshifter?" Noel pondered. "Like in fairy tales?"
The look-alike sneered as though insulted. "I am no mere shapeshifter!"
He was changing and now he was Agent Redfield, decked out in the entire uniform.
"I am not human. I am so much more than that."
"Ugh, don't be me when you say that asshole," Redfield complained, aiming his weapon at..well, himself.
The look-alike chuckled. "You want to know what I am? I am sin. You pathetic humans give me life, and the amount of sinning this particular group has done helped me become quite strong."
"You're..what?"
"I am Sin," his look-alike answered the BSAA agent, speaking each word slow. "Sin. And you have caught my attention, Christopher."
He didn't seem to like someone using his full name. Or could be he didn't like its usage because of the one saying it. What did this thing mean by calling itself "sin"?
"Sin? Is that your name or something?" Agent Redfield asked, trying to understand.
His look-alike scoffed. "Technically I have no name. I am quite literally sin. You know, evil. Every time someone sins I get a little stronger. As you can imagine, in this world I have a lot of power."
The look-alike, or rather, Sin, smirked. "Did you like my mansion? Getting to see all your friends again, Christopher. Wasn't that nice?"
Redfield clenched his teeth tightly, glaring at Sin with growing anger. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through this thing's skull. Noel experienced the desire on more than one occasion with a particularly nasty perp. But should the agent shoot? If he was responsible for the mess they were in, did they need him to get them out of it?
"What do you want?" the agent asked.
He found the question amusing. "What do I want, Christopher? I want to keep playing my game. You all are playing it so nicely. Lost some people along the way though, haven't we?"
Sin was morphing from the agent to a woman. He transformed into Jill and Redfield immediately flared up in rage.
"You son of a bitch! Don't you look like her. Not her!"
Sin laughed. It was Jill's laugh. It must hurt the man who was once her partner to hear. Joel never lost a partner except when he had to leave his former life behind. But the man he befriended and partnered with for years wasn't dead. What Sin was doing right here was cruel.
"Shame you let this one go, Christopher. Your partner for a decade and you let her take a fall for you. Did you know she wasn't supposed to die yet? Belief you're dying is a powerful thing. Can actually stop a heart. In my stories, no one survives."
"Stop talking with her!"
"Now you're walking around with the man responsible like you're going to be teammates."
"So this game is about Chris, hm?" Wesker asked, striding up to Redfield. "Why don't I end it then."
He grabbed the back of Agent Redfield's neck, dragging him against himself, and placed his gun to the side of the startled man's head. The sudden attack made his own gun slip from his fingers and it clattered to the ground. Noel drew his weapon, uncertain and wary. He kept it lowered but was prepared to intercede if necessary. He clicked the safety off.
"Wesker! What the hell?"
The man ignored him as he peered at Sin, waiting to see its reaction. Intrigue came over Jill's features. Sin shifted its stance a few times before voicing its opinion.
"No fun, no fun. Taking him out of the game so early on ruins all the fun!"
Sin pouted, crossing its arms across its chest and tapping a booted foot. His, her, it. He felt like he was losing his mind to be seeing a genuine shapeshifter in front of his eyes. Him, the grounded former cop who didn't believe in supernatural things. He was far more open to the concept now.
"Christopher is the heart of this. It's beautiful how pure a soul he has and I want to see it get dirty. I wonder how much heartache it will take to break."
Sin backed toward a door on the right of where they were gathered.
"A word of caution for you, Christopher. Everyone in your little group isn't as trustworthy as you might like to think. Someone is lying about their real intentions here. Someone is going to try to kill one of your group and they are going to try to kidnap another. Can you imagine who would do such a thing? I know I can. Find the deceiver and much will be answered for you, Christopher. Do you have the heart to take such betrayal?" After a pause, Sin added, "Again?"
Then he..or it..was gone, pushing through the door and out of the courtyard. As soon as Sin was out of sight, Wesker removed his gun from Agent Redfield's head and let him go. Stepping away quickly, the agent rubbed the back of his neck and anger flashed across his features.
"What was that? You turning on me already?"
"That person or thing which calls itself Sin, wasn't going to leave without someone dying unless I did something drastic. You seem to be the main event for it. I thought threatening you would work best. It worked so don't complain."
The BSAA agent stared at him somewhat puzzled, but the anger returned fast. "You used me!"
"When have I not?"
Something snapped in the agent and he ran for Wesker. Seeing what was about to happen, Nathan and Steven got in his way and held him back as he struggled to jump the offending man. The agent tempered his aggression but the look of amusement on Wesker's face wasn't helping any.
"You two can sort out your differences later," Nathan suggested. "Now's not the time for fighting among ourselves."
"I'm not so sure about that," Agent Anderson said.
The brothers released him and Redfield turned to the federal agent. "What do you mean?"
"Assuming Sin is telling the truth, one of us is a traitor. One of us doesn't want the same things as the rest."
Redfield waved the supposition away. "That thing was just messing with us. There are no traitors here. Well, except for Wesker, but he's going to behave, right?"
Wesker gave him a derisive look but said nothing when Eva elbowed him sharply in the rib. Sheva glanced around at the others, much like Noel was doing, and agreed.
"Chris is right. This thing is lying."
Agent Redfield retrieved his gun and returned it to his thigh holster. "Alright. We need to figure out what that thing meant by playing games with us. We can do it while searching for my sister, and a way out of this place. Now I don't..."
He trailed off and stood staring straight ahead, looking very out of it.
"Chris?" Sheva asked.
Agent Redfield placed a hand to his chest as his face contorted in pain. "My chest..nguuh..."
He gasped, releasing a grunt of pain. Harsh coughing wracked his body and a hand he brought to his mouth came back with specks of blood. Noel didn't have much time to worry on the blood because the agent was clutching his chest with both hands, in obvious discomfort. He stumbled forward while making quiet sounds of pain.
"Aaaughh!" the agent screamed and his body went slack.
They watched him collapse to his knees, falling onto his back. He was unconscious. Everyone stared at their unmoving leader and Eva was first to reach his side. She checked for a pulse, confirming there was one and that he was breathing steady.
"What happened to him? What's wrong?" Sheva asked.
The other BSAA agent came to kneel beside Eva, who shook her head. "I don't know."
"He's been having fits of really bad headaches and pain before losing consciousness," Lucas mentioned. "This is the first time he coughed up blood."
"I know what this is," Wesker said. "Did you see him get injected with anything?"
All eyes moved to him. Did he have answers? His daughter said she was a genius. Was he very intelligent too? He had to be more experienced than any of them with these types of things at least.
Agent Anderson answered the question. "No. Do you know what's wrong with him?"
"Las Plagas."
Wesker came closer to the agent and knelt, opening an eyelid. Noel moved in out of curiosity. He wondered what he was checking for.
"His eyes aren't red. That's good. But it won't be long now. Coughing blood means the eggs have hatched. It's only a matter of time before the parasites control his mind."
"But there's a cure, right? The president's daughter and the American agent who rescued her from that report were infected, but they were cured. We can cure Chris too, right?" Eva questioned.
Noel wondered why the girl cared. She placed a lot of belief in the BSAA agent as well, wanting him to stop her father from a homicidal mission. He looked over to his daughter and thought she seemed rather concerned despite meeting Redfield today. Perhaps it wasn't so strange for them to care about another person. It was a good thing.
"They used a special laser to destroy the parasites in their bodies. We don't have a laser like that here."
Her voice got quieter. "You'll find a way to save him, right Dad?"
"What did I say about calling me that?"
You'll find a way, right?" she asked again, pressing for an answer.
"For now we wait for Chris to wake up."
There might not be a way to save him. He didn't like the idea of the guy trying to get everyone out of this mess dying. Would this Wesker continue his attempt for global infection? Would Sin come back and want everyone dead since the man he wished to play a game with was gone? He looked at the female BSAA agent and hoped she would be able to stand in his place for now.
