"For now, let's stick together," she said. "Strength in numbers, after all."

Leon raised an eyebrow at Claire, but shrugged. "I suppose without duplicates of our items, it'd be more efficient."

"Isn't it gonna be kinda tough, all four of us walking through the hallways of this place?" Dante pointed out.

"Not if we take the lead and you watch our rear," Claire countered.

"Sure. I can watch your rear no problem." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Ms. Redfield rolled her eyes, fixing Leon with a look of pity. "And you managed to put up with this for more than five minutes?"

"Somehow," the R.P.D. officer replied.

"You think you've got it rough, try putting up with him for years," Lady remarked.

"You say that, but who's always hanging around my shop and bugging me?" the man in red countered.

Claire and Leon both ignored the other two as they began to bicker, checking the desk in the other corridor. It was locked, and their keys didn't fit, but about a minute or two of lockpicking from Claire solved that problem easily. "First Dante, now you. Why are all the people I know except me…so good at opening things that aren't theirs?" Leon mumbled.

"My brother's a cop, so I got to learn some of the tricks of the trade," Claire supplied, a sly grin on her face. "But I'd never use them for anything but an emergency. Honest."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry, I won't slap cuffs on you for it. I don't have any handcuffs, anyway."

"Maybe later." She put the lockpicks away and opened the drawer, derailing Leon's train of thought completely when he saw what was inside.

"Is that a gun customization kit?"

"And flame grenades." She pulled the red-capped case out, frowning at their heavy weight. "How am I supposed to carry two of these grenade cases at the same time?"

"Maybe we can each take one? If we each hold a case in one hand and a pistol in the other…Damn, then it's nearly impossible to use them when you need to. Got any duct tape?"

"I wish." She turned to the other two, who were still arguing. "Hey! Any ideas?"

"-and you were the one that blew up the- sorry, what?" Lady asked.

"These grenades. Where do we keep them?"

She blinked, thinking the question over. Well, the best place would be… "Can you fit them in your belt?" She frowned at Claire's pointed glare. "A bandolier, maybe?"

"Do you see one of those around here?"

"Just stuff 'em in your pockets," Dante suggested. "Always works for me."

Claire smiled. "All right Dante! That's a perfect idea." She took hold of the case of incendiary rounds, carried it and the case of acid rounds over to the Devil Hunters, and shoved them into Dante's hands. "Thanks for volunteering."

"What is this, 'Pick on Dante Day' or something?" he grumbled as he stuffed the cases into his coat.

"Oh, why the sour look?" Leon said, grinning. "Isn't it Santa's job to hand out presents at the right time?"

"And there it is. Knew you were saving that one…" He glared at Claire, who had just suppressed a chuckle.

Leon and Claire led the group through the corridor that the desk was in; Leon shook his head when he looked inside the kit. "It's a stock for my pistol that adds a burst function. As if carrying all our things wasn't difficult enough." Heaving a sigh, he closed the desk drawer, and they exited the door at the end of the corridor.

The other side was a large library. So large, in fact, it had two floors and multiple full bookshelves.

"What's a big library like this doing in a police station?"

Leon shrugged at Claire. "Hey, don't look at me. This is my first day. Maybe we'll get lucky and something here might help us. Let's check the books." They spread out; he and Claire took the top floor, while their companions took the bottom floor.

"A whole lotta crap; none of it useful," Dante called out a few minutes later.

Lady replaced the book she'd been inspecting. She'd been hopeful when she saw that it was a company data file on Umbrella, but it turned out to mostly be full of financial tables and medicinal history. "Same here."

"A bunch of stuff on chemistry here," Leon announced from above. "But no instant zombie remover."

"Nor here," Claire sighed. She replaced the book and turned to give up in frustration when something caught her eye, just at the very edge of her vision. She turned her gaze back. A very thick, leather-bound book was sitting slightly apart from the others. It looked pristine, as if it had just been bought at a bookstore days ago.

"Well, I wasn't really expecting anything helpful, honestly," Leon admitted. "Might as well move on."

But how could that be possible, given the state of the town? She picked it up. To her surprise, it was incredibly light.

"Ready to go, Claire?"

How strange; the volume had to be well over a thousand pages, and it felt like she'd picked up a children's picture book.

"Claire? What'd you find?"

She blinked slightly at Leon's voice. Shrugging, she read aloud " 'Livre du Mal Parole'. Is it a book on parole information?"

Lady frowned, something tugging at the back of her mind. Hadn't she heard that name before somewhere?

"No wonder it's so massive," he observed. "Still, I don't think we'll need it. We're a little beyond normal law and order right now."

"Yeah," she muttered, turning her gaze back to the cover of the book. But why does it look so new?

A book with "parole" in the title would be expected in a police station, really, but…she'd seen one in another library, hadn't she?

Maybe…

She'd been in a library with Trish, whom she'd taunted about picking up Dante's bad habits because she kept throwing books over her shoulder. The other woman had responded that there was no point in being polite when there was no one around to criticize them.

A quick peek couldn't hurt…

But why would the two of them be in an abandoned library looking through books if…!

"Claire! Don't open-"

The other woman gave a start, the book falling from her hands. As it did, Dante sensed a surge of energy. A split-second later, the cover flew open, and a bloodied, horned red skull rose out of the pages, its bite just missing her hand. Claire hopped backwards to put some distance between herself and whatever it was that she'd seen, but the instant she landed, the boards under her feet gave an ominous groan and collapsed. She reached out in Leon's direction, and he raced for her, even though he was too far away to make it in time.

Before he could even get near where she was falling, however, the book rose into the air, the same bloodied skull snapping at him. He halted in his tracks, only just managing to register that it possessed a single, green eye in the middle of its horned forehead before the book fell into the same hole Claire had. As it did, spiderwebs of demonic energy formed over the hole.

Claire felt pain as she landed on her back, but leapt to her feet to face the threat moving towards her. She drew her pistol. "Get back, Leon!" she called out to her unseen friend. "I'll take it out!"

More information returned to Lady at these words. "Just make sure that you don't-"

Bang! "DAMN!"

"-do that!" she finished in frustration as she turned to Dante. "Can't you help?"

Dante gritted his teeth. "You know how the seals work! Tell her what you know about that thing!"

"Claire!" Lady called. "Don't shoot it; it reflects bullets!"

"I NOTICED!"

"If you can stab its eye with enough force, you'll kill it!"

As grateful as Claire was for the tip, she couldn't help but think that she was being mocked somehow; every time she so much as got near the floating book, that skull would jump out of the pages and snap at her. Still, she holstered her pistol and drew her knife; if she couldn't make an opening, she'd just have to wait for one.

The book flapped its covers, and then flew at her like some ridiculous parody of a bird. She ran at it, sliding under it and readying her knife. Contrary to her plan, however, what looked like an arm made of red bones swiped at her; throwing caution to the wind, she stabbed at it, managing to carve a gash along the inside of its elbow. Claire rolled away from the book as a loud hiss seemed to come from it; the arm was gone, but blood was dripping from the pages. She saw the skull rise out of the middle of the book, screaming in pain, and she leapt at it. It only seemed to notice her a fraction of a second before her knife was driven up to the hilt in its eye. Its covers and pages flapped madly, but after a few moments, everything went slack, and the whole thing began to dissolve like dust. Claire looked at her knife; it wasn't even stained anymore. Glancing down at her feet, it seemed that all the blood had been replaced with…what were those?

"Claire! Are you okay?" Leon yelled at the glowing web-like substance.

"I'm fine!" she called out. "There's all these red things scattered all over, though…"

Dante let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Can you get out?"

"There's this white web stuff where I fell through. I don't think-"

Of course. "Look for a switch," he interrupted. "Do you see something like that?"

She looked around, and sure enough, there was a large red switch on the wall next to another bright web covering a bookcase. She flipped it; the web didn't disappear, but the bookcase moved away from the wall, and she could just barely see Dante and Lady past the web's strands.

Lady watched the bookcase lock in place, and as it did, the other three bookcases near it had a red light activate on their sides. "Okay, just wait there. We'll try to figure this part out." She went to one of the middle ones, peering at the red light as Leon came down to join them. It seemed to be a switch made of clear plastic and could be flipped left or right.

A rumbling sound came from her left as the far bookcase slid towards hers, stopping just inches away. "Just making 'em even. That tends to work," Dante supplied.

Not left with much choice, Lady flipped the switch to the right, and the bookcase rattled in that direction for a few moments until stopping. With a loud shattering sound, the barrier broke like glass and dissolved away.

Leon strode into the alcove that Claire was in, looking over the area with worry. "I'm sorry I couldn't-"

"It's fine," she assured him. "I picked up the book, after all." A small bronze plate on the wall slid downward, and they looked at the contents that had been revealed. "Another chess piece and stone." He pocketed the first one as she pocketed the second.

"You did pretty well on your own. I guess the sword really was mightier after all."

She smirked. "I got lucky. At least it wasn't something really bad."

"Like what? An evil tax law book?"

"Tautology right there." They both left the area, darting out of the way of Dante as he strode in, ignoring them. Both shared a confused look, then shrugged and returned to Lady. "So what was it that tried to bite my hand off?"

"An object infested with demonic presence," Lady responded.

"A Scientology book?" Leon muttered.

She ignored him. "They possess books, almost always spellbooks, and eat the people who open them."

Leon's smirk was replaced by a look of fury. "And you didn't think it was important to tell us this?!"

"How was I supposed to know we'd find one?!" she snapped back. "They usually only appear in libraries that have a history of demonic blood rituals, so unless this place has been conducting routine sacrifices every few months, it shouldn't have been here in the first place!"

As imposing as the building was, Leon seriously doubted that notion. "But it was here."

"I know. Look…let's just get moving, and we should be fine as long as we take caution near other books." She saw Dante stride back into the room, tucking something that looked like a bottle into his coat pockets. "You ready?"

"Always."


The young Holy Knight and Order Songstress, meanwhile, had found the doors along the hallway were locked. With not much other option, they retread their steps back to the previous corridor, both of them keeping their eyes trained on the downed form of the green-coated menace until it was physically impossible.

Kyrie led Nero through the blue double doors near the beginning of the hall, and they found themselves in a large office strewn with the remains of zombies, with a divider at the far end. Examining them, they all had fresh, noticeable bullet wounds. "Do you think one of the others was here?" she asked him.

"Hmm…maybe Lady. If it was Dante, these guys would've been in pieces. But it could be someone else alive in this place, too."

Kyrie looked thoughtful. "Why do you think he does this?"

He looked at her, frowning. "Dante? According to him, he-"

"No, not Dante; I mean that man, Mar. Why send us here?"

Nero's eye twitched, and for half a second his frown became a snarl. "Dunno. Maybe it's how he has fun."

"I don't think that's it. He split me apart from the group at the mansion, saying it was to protect me and motivate you. And he admitted that he follows orders from others. He almost seemed…reluctant to bring us to this world."

"Then why bring us here twice? And what does he care about orders when he can run to other worlds?" he countered.

"I've been thinking that too." Her hands were absently playing with her necklace. "You don't think we know him from somewhere, do you?"

Nero snorted. "…Sorry. But I think I'd remember someone like that guy."

"Hmm…"

They continued through the office, splitting up to look for any sort of useful clues or objects. Nero turned up nothing, though he'd held out hope when he saw the door of a safe (though his heart sank immediately when he realized it was open). I wonder if it was opened by whoever was going through here? Or maybe when the undead started taking over…

"Nero, look!" He turned to her, seeing her proudly holding up a key. "I found it in one of the desks. What doors do you think it goes to?"

He looked over the key, which had a red, heart-shaped gem at the base of the key. "I guess we'll find out." They went to the other side of the divider and saw two doors. "Rock-paper-scissors for the first one we try?"

She shook her head, stepping carefully over a headless body and peering at the lock of the door beyond it. "There's a heart engraved above the lock." Using her newfound key, it was unlocked. With Nero at her side, they went through it to find a corridor that was very distinctly yellow. Shattered windows lined it, and slowly padding towards them from the other side were two dogs that seemed to be missing roughly half the skin on their faces. "Nero?"

He nodded. "Yeah." The Holy Knight strode forward, raising Blue Rose. Both dogs began to sprint at him, growling, but with two shots they both slid to a halt. "…Sorry, guys."

Kyrie followed him past the motionless canine forms, a sense of sadness mixed with exasperation going through her mind. Even now, I'm just… She shook her head to rid those thoughts, and they continued down a set of stairs.


The others, meanwhile, had exited the library, finding themselves on the second floor balcony once again. At Leon's suggestion, they'd split up to do a brief check for ammunition; Claire and Lady searched the first floor of the main hall and its connecting rooms, and he and Dante returned to the room where the Licker had crashed through the skylight. Aside from a handful of 9mm bullets (he found literally five) scattered across the floor, there was nothing that they'd missed the first time. "So," Leon began, "that woman with a rocket launcher…is she a half-demon too?"

Dante smirked. "Nope. Just as human as you and your friend."

"I'm almost afraid to ask," he said as they began to exit once more, "but does she always carry that many guns?"

"Not always. She didn't have a shotgun before yesterday."

They exited, back into the corridor with several bloodstains. "What does she use them all for?"

"For shooting."

They both slid around the nose of the crashed helicopter. "You know what I mean. Neither of you seem too stressed about this whole situation."

Dante stopped in front of a broken door. "What's with all the questions outta nowhere? Are you saying you want us to leave?"

"No, that's not it. Whether you believe me or not, I am grateful to have someone helping me."

"Sure don't act like it," he muttered. Glancing at the broken door, he kicked it in irritation; the force of the impact shattered the wood into several pieces that littered the floor of the corridor beyond, with only a small piece surrounding the doorknob held in the frame. "…That's a new one."

Leon rolled his eyes. "Let's just get back to the other two." There would be time to continue the conversation later; preferably before some different mutated creature attacked them.

The four met back at the ladder on the first floor. "Find anything?" the R.P.D. officer asked the two.

"A few shotgun shells, but nothing else," Lady reported.

"Hang onto them; my pockets can't carry many more. Take these, too." He handed her the 9mm rounds. "Normally, I'd say the best thing to do would be to stick together. But if all of us travel as a group, we're going to have issues when it comes to combat."

"You got that right," Dante chimed in. "Lady and I need space to move around. So we should probably-"

"-put the two of you together?" Claire interjected. "Sounds good to me."

"…Are you sure?" Leon asked, surprised.

"I'm sure. If they've really know each other for years, they'd be more familiar with each other's fighting styles."

He shrugged, and after briefly double-checking their items (trading radios and a couple keys in the process), they split into their respective groups. "We'll start with the east offices and see what we can find."

"Sounds good. Lady, there's a door upstairs we…opened after splitting up. Wanna check it out?"

There was a very brief pause as she considered, then nodded. "If anything comes up, get in contact."

Leon brought up the radio. "Got it. Keep it set on channel 2." And with that, they went their separate ways.


Kyrie and Nero had followed the stairs down into a dimly lit stone corridor. Following it around, they came to an intersection with two branching corridors. "Sheesh…who built this place, a minotaur?" Nero grumbled.

"Actually, the minotaur wasn't the one who made the maze," Kyrie said in a whisper. "It was a human inventor that used it to trap the minotaur inside."

"So does that make us minotaurs?"

"You have been called bull-headed…"

Seeing her soft smirk made him smile as well. "Point well made. Well, let's try the right path." It led past a large set of metal doors into a corner, but the two decided to go through the metal doors. The room inside was so dark that only the golden glow of the Devil Bringer gave them light to see. Nero held it in front of Kyrie to make her stop; the sound of ragged breaths were coming from up ahead. He held a finger to his lips and slowly began advancing, drawing his trusty revolver as silently as possible.

Bang!

Which apparently wasn't silent enough, judging from the bullet that bounced off his demonic arm. "Damn!" He ran back to Kyrie, Ascalon's shield appearing over his left arm in a bright flash of light that briefly illuminated the entire room. He only caught a glimpse, but someone or something was hiding behind a metal shelf and firing shots at them. "We're not dangerous!" Whoever had the pistol didn't seem to think so, as they fired twice more. Giving up, he retreated with Kyrie to the doors, never once turning around until the doors had been closed tight. He let out a breath of relief. "Well…I guess we'll just skip that for now." They continued on to the door at the end of the hallway they'd traversed, bypassing a door with a card reader as they did, Nero checking every now and then to make sure they weren't being followed.

Beyond the end door was a large underground parking garage. After taking out another two zombie dogs, he and Kyrie went to the far end of the garage, where a large transport truck was parked near a door. " 'Raccoon Police Department'…" he read aloud, looking at the stenciled letters on its side. " 'In Case Of Emergencey'… 'Emergencey'? 'Dail 9-1-1'?" He reread the writing, sure that he had made some kind of mistake, but no, that was exactly what had been painted on the truck. "…Someone musta been knockin' back a few too many shots that day…"

"I'll go first," Kyrie offered. She opened the door, checking the other side. "It looks safe."

He nodded, following her through. Just in case, though… He reached out with the Devil Bringer, sending it under the rear bumper and grabbing the axle. Backing up into the hallway past the door, he pulled the truck back until it covered the door. With a satisfied nod, he closed it. "That oughta slow 'em down."


Leon and Claire, in the meantime, had made their way into the east offices. With nothing of value left in it, they proceeded beyond the divider, stepping over the headless body and opening the door to the yellow corridor. There they found two zombie dogs that had been put down with two bullets each. "Did you take care of them?" Claire asked Leon.

"No, we didn't. Look at these wounds, though; exactly two each, and high caliber, if I had to guess." He pulled the radio from his belt. "Leon to Lady. We've come across what's left of some zombie dogs, and it looks like someone else's handiwork."

"An even number of wounds, in sets of two?"

"…Yeah. How did you…?"

"That's good news. It sounds like another friend of ours, by the name of Nero. He's wearing a blue coat, likely traveling with a woman clothed in white. If you see them, mention our names and stay with them until we can all regroup somewhere."

"Copy that. Over." Clipping the radio back on, he and Claire tried the door near the stairs, but with it locked and none of their keys fitting, they had no choice but to take the stairs. Soon enough, they came to the intersection that split into two branches. "Left or right?"

"Right. But one sec." She drew her knife, and after a few moments, she had carved an arrow pointing to the right, with the text "C&L" over it. "Okay, ready." They went into the large metal doors, finding a lit room full of shelves and a power console. One shelf had a map, which Leon took without hesitation. The console, meanwhile, had a series of switches that did…something with the power, adding and subtracting certain increments in various-

"Ugh…I'm starting to envy how easily Dante can smash through problems…" he muttered.

"I'm hurt," Claire said in a tone of mock outrage. "We haven't been together two minutes and you're already sick of me?"

"I'd never get sick of you," he insisted, smiling. "…And even if I did, you've got a grenade launcher, so I'd never say it."

"Well, you may not have Dante's brawn, but at least you've got more brains."

"Ah, so that's why you wanted to be on my team." He chuckled, and then began flipping switches at random out of irritation. He was pleasantly surprised when his third attempt actually seemed to succeed; several extra lights in the room came on, and the console lights lit up with solid green. Grinning, he and Claire left the room, continuing down the hallway. "So tell me…why did you really want to come with me?"

"Don't tell me you wanted to be stuck with Dante?" she said, smirking. "I didn't think you'd be such a glutton for punishment."

"Hey, he may crack one too many bad jokes, but he's all right. Besides, what's wrong with the woman you were with earlier?"

Her smirk faded. "Lady? She's a little too…callous for me."

Leon was tempted to try the door by the lit card reader, but knew it would be a waste without the proper card. "What do you mean by 'callous'?"

"…It's…not exactly easy to talk about right now."

He shrugged, going through the door at the end of the hallway and stepping into a parking garage. "No rush. Hopefully I'm decent company, at least."

"A lot better than being stuck with nothing but zombies."

"Aw, that'll hurt their feelings. And they try so hard to make you feel terrified of your own mortality." He held out his hands, letting his face go slack in a zombie impression. "Urr…" he growled.

"Not funny, Leon…"

"Urr, Claire…"

"Seriously?"

"Urrrrr-"

Bang!

Both of them froze, looking at the door they'd come through. A woman wearing a combination of red dress and combat harness was pointing a gun in their direction, its laser sight just inches from Leon's head. Something about the cold look in her eyes reminded him of Lady…

"Cease fire! We're human!" he yelled.

The laser sight danced briefly over his forehead before the woman slowly lowered the pistol, walking towards them in a very deliberate fashion. "…Sorry about that. With the impression and the uniform, I thought you were another zombie."

"And just who are you?" Claire asked, glaring at the other woman.

She smiled. "Ada Wong. Charmed, I'm sure…"


CHAPTER END

ENEMY FILE

New! Evil Word

Decades of exposure to demon blood and essence has possessed an abandoned spellbook, forming a low-class creature driven only by hunger.

It lies in wait for human prey while pretending to be a mundane book, feasting on those unfortunate enough to open it. Despite its simple nature, it is talented at inspiring curiosity to draw its prey in.

?

The spellbook it uses to manifest itself is filled with arcane knowledge, including protective spells created to provide immunity against archers. Rely on sword attacks, as firearms are useless against it.

Its true self manifests as a red horned skull with a single eye. This eye is its weak point; the demon knows this, and so it will only appear for brief moments at a time.

?

The possessed book is capable of flight and manifesting skeletal arms to attack its prey. If you succeed in attacking the arms, it will be stunned for a moment and reveal its skull out of reflex, giving you an opportunity to kill it.

While fierce in its drive to kill, it is only an accidental construct with low power. Destroying the eye will shatter its hold on the physical world.

6/8


And with that, we've got three of RE2's playable characters all in one place! This chapter was a lot of fun to write; I thought I'd reach the end in ten pages...and then fifteen...and finally, at twenty pages, it was finished.

Hope you enjoyed it! Whether you did or not, all feedback is appreciated. Seriously; your reviews are AWESOME. :-)