"This place is huge," Claire said, her voice echoing and bouncing off the storage containers below the main deck. She, Chris, and Alice had found their way to the second level of the ship. So far, it was nothing but storage containers and empty space.

"There are a couple of levels under us, too," Chris pointed out.

As they came upon a large set of doors, the two siblings shined their flashlights at it, revealing the Umbrella insignia. "Umbrella is running the Arcadia?" Alice asked aloud, but mostly to herself. Honestly, it wasn't that surprising.

Seeing the Umbrella logo triggered something in Claire's mind. Everything came crashing back to her in an unsteadying flash. But she didn't have time to be hindered. "It's a trap," she stated, pulling out her gun.

As the doors opened, Chris followed suit and pulled out his own weapon. The three stepped forward into a large open area – the lights flickering on after a few moments. The room was pure white with strange designs on the floor.

"What is this?" Chris asked. "Where is everyone?" He watched as Alice knelt down to take a closer look at the floor.

"I think they're beneath our feet," the brunette answered.

Claire looked around, spotting a pedestal and some kind of control. She picked it up, scrolling through… people. Lots of people. "Look, it's K-Mart," she said, finding the teen's name and picture.

"Bring her up," Alice said, standing upright. "Bring them all up."

Claire hit the button to release then blonde teen and then the rest of the captives. She and Alice went over to get K-Mart once the holding mechanism had come up. Alice opened it up and pulled the various lines off to the teenager. Claire caught the girl as she started to fall.

The sudden change startled K-Mart and she tried to get away from the two older women. "K-Mart, it's alright," Alice assured her. "We're friends."

"You go ahead," Claire told the brunette. "I'll get this device off of her and help the others."

Alice nodded and stood once more, heading through the other holding mechanisms. There were so many people, living people. This wasn't all of them. There must have been more rooms like this one.

Her attention moved to a broken, bloody container. That certainly couldn't be good. She walked over to it, carefully resting a hand on it. A quick, horrific scene raced through her mind before she retrieved her hand.

She looked over to another set of doors. There was something, someone beyond. With new determination, she headed through them and found herself in an aircraft bay. These were the same as the helicopter that she and Wesker had crashed in.

There was also a purging device, like the one at the Tokyo facility. If her instincts were right, and she was pretty sure they were, that device would be much more useful elsewhere. Before continuing through the bay, she carefully pulled it from its place on the wall and hid it in one of the helicopters.

History liked to repeat itself, after all.

Once she was satisfied it was successfully placed, she finished her way through the bay. A set of doors opened up to reveal another large, white room. This one held dried out bodies on tables and a couple of screens hanging from the ceiling. As she moved further inside, the two screens began to lift, one at a time, to reveal she wasn't alone.

"Why am I not surprised?" Alice inquired, her annoyance evident.

"Alice," Wesker greeted with that smug grin of his. "So good to see you again."

"Do I even need to ask how?" she questioned him. "Or what you're doing here?"

"The T-virus brought me back, but now it fights me for control," the man explained, his neck popping for a bit of emphasis. "I thought by ingesting more DNA, I could balance things out."

That explained the bodies in the room. "No wonder your crew jumped ship. Their boss is a cannibal," Alice commented. Her attention moved to two dogs that came out – and she pulled out her shotguns.

"Ah-ah. Sit," Wesker commanded the canines – and they surprisingly obeyed. "Wouldn't want you hurting my pets… and as for my crew, well I have a new subject now."

"Put down the guns," a man ordered her from behind. It was Bennett.

More annoyed than before, Alice dropped the shotguns and carefully pushed them back toward the man. Briefly, she glanced over her shoulder at him. "You've looked better, Bennett," she informed him.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going to have fun playing with your face when you're dead," he sneered in return.

"So what do you want with me?" she asked, returning her attention to Wesker.

"I always knew you'd be drawn back to your friends. Why else would I have left that pretty little redhead by herself in Alaska? You'd eventually go looking and find someone who didn't remember you or anything else." Wesker was getting incredibly close to having that smug grin beaten off of his face. "You'd never leave her behind and she'd be a very good tool to slow you down. Then, once you finally figured out the secret of Arcadia, I could kill two birds with one stone upon your arrival."

He paused a moment, chuckling as he watched Alice's irritation grow exponentially. "Now that you're here, I can ingest your DNA and finally balance myself and the T-Virus. You've always been the missing piece of the puzzle, the only one to ever successfully bond with the virus in such a way."

Alice finally reigned in her anger – geared not only at Wesker, but herself too. She should have known this was a trap. "Yeah? There's just one problem with your plan," she said, taking a few steps to the left. "I'm not on the menu." Without warning, she brought her leg up and kicked a tray of surgical instruments at Wesker.

He ducked to the side, but one of the knives still managed to catch his cheek. He reached up with a gloved hand and touched the cut. "I suppose I'll have to settle this myself," he said, standing up. His movements halted when he heard a couple of faint clicks behind himself. "Ah… Chris and Claire Redfield. Isn't this one big family reunion?"

"Told you I'd be bringing some friends," Alice pointed out.

Wesker smirked, reaching up for his sunglasses. "You should have brought more," he said, turning and throwing the glasses back at Chris. It provided enough of a distraction for him to close the distance between them and knock the other man over.

Alice wanted to assist the siblings, but she had a problem of her own. The dogs had gotten up and were much closer now. Like the infected from the prison, these weren't the typical undead dogs. As they snarled at her, they actually split in half, opening up into what could only be described as large mouths with plenty of teeth.

"Great," the brunette grumbled to herself. She went to try and grab one of the shotguns she'd been forced to discard. One of the dogs moved closer and stopped her. That was incredibly inconvenient.

It snarled for a moment before jumping at her. She quickly ducked and rolled, picking up the shotgun. Though she was on the ground now, she was ready when it came back, planting a slug into it.

The shot shattered the two screens and Alice had to scramble to her feet to avoid getting hit. The other dog was going to take advantage of this, lunging at the woman. She looked up to see a particularly large piece of the glass falling and kicked it at the attacking animal – the dog didn't stand a chance against it.

She knew Chris and Claire had been fighting Wesker while she was dealing with the dogs. She'd heard the gunshots and physical blows. Finally, she had a chance to help them.

Bennett had a different plan for her though. He'd gone back to the chair and grabbed one of the embedded knives – the one that had Wesker's blood on it. He charged at Alice, his aim to kill her with the knife.

She saw him coming and brought her arm up in defense. It wasn't the most ideal defense, but she'd rather have the knife go through her forearm than something more vital. A gasp left her as the knife went clear through her arm. There was not only the pain from the initial stabbing, but it felt like fire spread through her veins, initiating from that particular point.

The wave of heat dissipated as quickly as it had gripped her, but that diversion gave Bennett enough time to go after the other discarded shotgun. Luckily, K-Mart picked it up and slapped him across the face with it, effectively knocking him out for the moment.

Alice was quite relieved for the help, but she had more pressing matters to attend to. While she was distracted, Wesker had gotten Chris and Claire in two of the holding tanks. Now he was coming after her.

She pulled the knife from her arm with a pained groan. As Wesker got close enough, she drove the knife straight into his forehead. He stumbled back, but didn't fall. Instead, he reached up to grab hold of the knife and pulled it back out of his head. That smug smirk was back in place until he opened his mouth and tentacles began to emerge.

Alice wasn't waiting around for him to attack. She pulled her shotgun back out and shot him point blank through what had moments ago been a normal mouth. That made him fall back to the ground. Satisfied he was now stopped, she quickly moved around behind the chair and into the small chamber behind. She picked up the control and brought both Chris and Claire back topside.

The two, though a bit disoriented at first, seemed to be fine. Alice wrapped up the wound on her forearm as she walked back into the main room. She planned on heading back to the main deck, but the faint sound of movement caught her attention.

Wesker was getting up again… until Chris' booted foot pushed him back to the ground. "I don't think so," Chris said. He and Claire emptied what was left of their clips into the Umbrella chairman.

The three adults gathered K-Mart and left the large white room, making sure to lock the doors behind them. Bennett had gotten back up and was screaming at them through the intercom system, but a bullet did away with that.

They headed back to the first large room they'd found to help the newly awakened survivors. Many of them were still quite disoriented and had no idea what was going on.

Chris, Claire, and Alice were working on corralling the freed captives to get them up to the main deck of the ship when they heard the distinct sound of a helicopter being started.

"No way," Claire said as the three of them ran back toward the aircraft bay. Sure enough, one of the helicopters lifted off and flew away from the ship.

Alice glanced back toward where the purging device had been. "Come on, we have to get up to the deck," she told the other two.

They quickly made their way back above deck just in time to see the helicopter explode. The brunette's instincts had been right. Wesker was just the kind to cut and run as soon as he had the chance. This time it didn't work out so well for him.

After the light show had dissipated again, they headed back for the bridge. "I never imagined there would be this many of us," Claire commented, looking out over the deck at those milling about. "What do we do now?"

The answer was delayed, but after a moment, Alice reached over and picked up the radio's handset. "We keep to the promise," she said before flipping it on and recording a new broadcast. "This is the Arcadia. We can provide food, shelter… safety and security. There is no infection. If you are out there, we can help. There is hope."

Claire couldn't help the faint smile that pulled at her features. Hope, it was such a foreign concept now. Listening to Alice, however, made her believe in it once more.

They decided to move down to the deck and help get the survivors re-oriented. These were only a fraction of the people claimed to be on board, but they could thoroughly search the ship later – once this first batch was properly settled.

There was a slight problem with that particular plan. It seemed that Umbrella didn't appreciate what they'd done. A whole fleet of helicopters was coming into view.

"What's that?" Chris asked, brow furrowing into a frown.

"Trouble," Alice answered. "And a lot of it."


A/N: Oh noooooooo (yes, another Cartman impression). We ran out of Afterlife plot. This is where I must ask my dear kiddies not to kill me for stopping where I did. It was done for a good reason, I swear.

This chapter stopped at the end of Afterlife mostly because from here on out, my diseased little brain is taking over for the plotline. I will be taking some elements from the fifth game and projecting them into the story after this. So the ending also offers a warning to those who don't wish to have anything about the games or anything that could possibly, remotely happen in the next movie to stop reading right here. Even though I have no idea where Paul and Milla will take the rumored fifth movie, there's always the slim chance that things could overlap and I don't want to be murdered in my sleep for ruining something.

As always - love it, hate it? Let me know. You saw how fast I updated with the last round of reviews.