Here comes the next installment in our little tale. This chapter will start the tie down for the end of the story. I don't really know how its going to end at this point. It could get ugly. It could be great. We'll just have to wait and see.
I started construction on the Linear Compound, tweaking it a little to explore things with Mr. Kennedy again. And I have another idea brewing for a story that's just built around the characters outside of the action. Although, I'm not much on stories with no action and just love but we'll have to see.
This chapter is going to tie together a few of the chapters in 5. Again, I'm not expounding too much on what happens in the game, just to avoid spoiling it for some people and save me from stepping on too many toes.
Chapter 14: Really? WTF.
For days and nights they moved. Irving flinging them around a boat like toys in the room of a spoiled child.
They fought their way deeper into the quicksand of confusion that Africa had become. Caves and ruins filled with infected tribes of hungry followers. They battled spiders and puzzles and flaming balls of fire that wanted to burn the flesh from their bones. And they survived.
Because at the end of the day, they had each other. And though neither would really admit feelings to the other, the love that bound them to each other was a nearly tangible thing.
They knew Tricell was deeply involved now. They'd come across an underground greenhouse of sorts sporting the Pharmaceuticals logo in great detail. Plants sprang up toward the broken sunlight shining through the craggy rocks above. They weren't just any plants; they were bred to bear the fruit of the Progenitor virus. The Progenitor virus was the beginning of all things evil.
Sheva studied Chris as he moved amongst the flowers, perusing a set of papers he'd uncovered amongst the other things. He moved a little stiffly, indicating the last of the painkiller she'd given him several hours before was beginning to wear off. His uniform was stained black on the green cloth in the places he'd bled through his bandaging.
Most of the bites weren't bad really. But the one on his neck refused to quit seeping and clot.
He'd never admit it. But he was hurting. And it hurt Sheva to see it.
"They were trying to grow the Progenitor virus," Chris said as he read the pages in his hands, "They were trying to breed it."
Sheva nodded, glancing down at a few Tricell containers that had been over turned and were since subjected to an overgrowth of moss and vines. "It seems no one's been down here in ages."
"The experiment didn't go as planned. I can't tell what happened because this journal just cuts off but it sounds like typical Umbrella shit. Some subjects escaped, blah blah blah. Everybody killed."
Sheva nodded and followed Chris down a hallway to head into what would likely be the lab facility on the other side of the greenhouse.
A steel door at the end opened slowly when Chris pushed it open. He had his gun in his hand and aimed out the door before he saw the room beyond.
A huge scrape had taken out a chunk of the wall just beyond them. Blood was splattered all over the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. Whatever had been standing there hadn't just been killed, it had been annihilated. And the thing that had killed it was able to slice pure steel.
Not good. Definitely not good.
The room veered to the left and opened into an L-shaped hallway flanked on the sides by yellow doors.
Chris caught something skittering on the ceiling out of the corner of his eye and raised the gun.
It was already gone, farther down the hallway.
Sheva traded her handgun for her shotgun.
"Not a bad idea." Chris did the same.
Side by side, they started down the hallway. At the bend in the hallway, the hall became flanked on either side by glass enclosures. Cells of sorts it seemed that were splashed with blood and chunks of dead bodies but were otherwise empty.
Sheva breathed out and then in, waiting for the stench of death. But the hallway smelled surprisingly sterile. The hallway at the far end dead ended into a smashed in steel door. There was no getting around the mass of twisted metal.
"Shit." Sheva stated, turning to meet Chris's eyes. "What do we do no-"
The frantic skittering sound above them cut her off seconds before something leaped. The hallway was narrow, the room to escape minimal. Chris dove left, Sheva right.
Blood sprayed on her face and she was desperately afraid Chris had been slashed to pieces by the things enormous claws.
But that wasn't the case at all. Chris hadn't really even dove out of the way, he'd gone to one knee and shoved his knife up in the air as the thing had come down.
The weight of the man creature spilled Chris to the floor with it atop him, scrambling those razor sharp talons around in a frenzied movement. It was bleeding all over him, impaled on the knife now thrust into its chest. The hilt of the weapon was grinding into Chris's sternum painfully but he kept on shoving it deeper, put his face into the smelly chest of the beast atop him to keep him inside its attack range, and ground the blade home.
Sheva couldn't shoot. Not with the thing right atop him. There was no way.
She unsheathed her knife and ran toward them.
The thing atop Chris let out a roar.
"Sheva, NO! Do-"
It leapt, knife in its chest and all, high up into the air and stuck to the ceiling again. Blood rained down, splattering Chris in a rusty smelling red wash.
He threw an arm over his face instinctively to shield it and groped for his handgun.
Pulling it, he aimed at the things exposed bulbous brain. It was tan in color and shaped similar to a man save for the talons as long as Chris's legs. And the muscles that moved like water beneath its splitting, rotting skin.
Chris shot into its exposed brain, unloading an entire clip. Sheva echoed him with the shotgun.
The thing screamed, a strange warbling cry similar to a bird, and collapsed to the floor with a loud clang of steel. Its bleeding belly was exposed along with an enormous pulsing heart muscle.
There were downfalls to being inside out.
Sheva leapt on it and thrust her knife into its pulsing heart, ripping the blade out and stabbing it home as the muscle pumped arterial blood in a crimson wash.
Chris gained his feet and started toward them. The thing twitched, scrambled, talons ripping up fine chunks of steel on the floor as it gave its last gurgling breath and died, blood spilling in a red pool around it.
Sheva pulled her knife free as well as his, handing it back to him.
"Nasty thing. What is it?"
They studied it together for a moment. "Don't know. But I've heard Kennedy describe something similar that he saw in Raccoon City. He called it a licker."
"A licker? Why that?"
"I don't kn-"
Glass shattered, raining hot shards down upon them in a burning, stinging mess. Sheva screamed as something wrapped around her throat, once, twice, three times and yanked her back through the jagged mess of the glass cell behind them.
Chris was in hot pursuit, leaping between the jagged teeth of broken glass. Another of the things was hanging on the ceiling, bringing Sheva closer and closer to it, strangling her with its long, purple, putrid tongue.
Licker indeed.
He didn't think, he just fired. He unloaded four rounds from his shotgun into its brain and body. The rapid boom, boom, boom was load in the artificial silence.
It dropped Sheva to the floor and leapt from the ceiling, scuttling faster then possible along the wall. Chris fired again but the shot was knock off course when it whipped its tongue at him and hit him right alongside the face, throwing him back.
Sheva took it down as it tried to scuttle back to the ceiling with another shotgun blast to the head. It hit the floor, wailing, and then went still.
Chris clutched the side of his face, wincing. "Ow."
"Let me see." And she sounded gentle as she touched his face, pulled his hand away and looked. "You'll be bruised but it didn't break the skin."
He looked into her face from inches away. "Good. Can't be fucking up my face after all. It's the only part worth a shit."
One of her hands rested on his left bicep, the other was gently holding his chin. She couldn't help it, really, she couldn't. He'd just saved her life.
She ran her thumb over his lips. "It's not the only part."
His insides quivered. He wanted to say it was just sex but it wasn't. It was so much more then that.
Sheva pulled away and started toward a door on the opposite side of the cells. "Come on, Redfield. Suck it up. It's just a little love tap."
Ah. So that's how she wanted to play it. Cool and sarcastic. He could play that game.
He strode toward her and gave her a solid smack on the bottom as he passed her.
She jumped and shot him a shocked look.
"Ah suck it up, Alomar. It's just a little love tap."
………………………………………………………………………………
"They're coming." Excella purred into his ear as she disconnected from her transmission to Redfield and his female companion. She then ran her nails up his chest. "That man, Chris, he has the hots for you, you know."
Wesker was watching the video surveillance. Redfield and his bitch were now making their way toward the main chamber. His preparations weren't complete yet. It was annoying.
Much like the tongue that was sliding into his ear.
Excella playfully massaged his crotch. Did she really think he'd get an erection from that kind of thing? Gods didn't need sex. Didn't she know this?
On the screen, Redfield was battling with a horde of the E19's jokingly referred to as "lickers". They'd made their way through the cells and found the information telling them that Jill Valentine had been a test subject. Now they knew that she was there somewhere. Now he knew that she'd survived.
It wasn't long before he knew Wesker had as well.
Of course, you couldn't kill a god.
"Excella…they'll be at the Monarch Room shortly. I think you should make them welcome."
Excella pouted. "But I wanted to worship you."
Wesker wanted to slap her caressing hands away. But she was still useful to him. The woman had a tendency to pout if she was turned away too harshly.
Instead, he cupped her cheek and gave her a smile. "I want to have all the time in the world for that as well, darling. But these nuisances must be dealt with first."
Vanity appeased, Excella rose. "Well I will make them feel at home then."
Wesker rose and turned to the person standing against the far door. "They're here. Prepare yourself."
"Yes." The person answered in a strangely echoing mechanical voice.
Excella opened the far door and paused, looking over her shoulder. "Albert, darling, will you be joining us?"
"I wouldn't miss it for the world."
……………………………………………………………………………………
Chris was sore by the time they hit the doors that would take them into the inner sanctum of the lab. He'd had to push a crate while fending off the damn lickers to break into the control room and allow them to drop the bridge across the chasm leading to the doors.
Something good had better be on the other side, he thought darkly to himself.
"Do you need another shot?" Sheva asked him gently as he went to open the doors.
Chris rolled his shoulders. "I'm okay for now I think. There's not much left. Let's hold off."
"Alright."
He gestured to her and she went to the opposite side of the doors. They counted together to three and pushed the doors open, Chris going high, Sheva low.
The room was large and echoing. It was like a grand foyer in an old castle. Dual staircases climbed either side of the stone room to a balcony with a set of elevator doors perched right in the center.
Standing in the center of the room was-
"Excella Gionne!" Sheva shouted and both them aimed at her.
Excella turned, clapping. Chris had to admit that the leading member of the Tricell Corporation, one the biggest supporters of the BSAA, and a world wide renowned humanitarian had a nice rack. It was clearly exposed in a form fitting white dress that left little the imagination, looked cheap, and probably cost more then he made in a year.
She was just another liar. Another corporate vampire with too much money corrupted by her own greed and megalomania.
Chris thought about shooting her before she even opened her mouth.
But he had to know.
"Where's Jill! What have you done with her?"
Excella cocked a hip and stuck a well manicured hand on it. "Do you really think I would tell you, even if I knew?"
Chris cocked the hammer on the gun. "Start talking bitch. Or we'll find out if your expensive boob job can hold up to .50 calibur rounds."
"Chris Redfield."
Chris simultaneously felt the greatest rage he'd ever known and the most amazing urge to vomit at those smooth dulcet tones.
"Wesker!" The gun changed from the quickly fleeing Excella to the man coming down the stairs.
"We last met at the Spencer Estate wasn't it?" Wesker smiled as he came toward them. There was anticipation all over his face.
"You rat bastard, two faced fuck! Where's Jill?"
Wesker tilted his head, rather like a curious dog. "Jill? Who's Jill?"
He wasn't going to talk. Of course he wasn't.
Sheva didn't wait for it. She raised her gun and fired.
Wesker moved, like water. There, then gone, then there again. Chris raised his gun to fire as well.
There was a change in the air. A shifting of matter and Chris turned, too slow.
The man that had rescued Irving at the mining camp was suddenly beside him. He leapt, gracefully in the air and delivered a spinning back kick that knocked Chris clean off his feet.
He hit the ground and skidded even as the man turned to Sheva, punched her right in the face and then jumped. The man locked his long legs around Sheva's waist, grabbed two handfuls of her hair as she reeled, and flipped.
Sheva went up, up and came down hard even as the man rolled out of the flip into a perfect cartwheel.
Wesker came to stand beside the man.
Chris and Sheva both gained their feet and took aim again.
"Shall we dispense with the theatrics?" Wesker jerked the hood from the head of the man.
Sheva gasped. Chris's hands automatically lowered his gun. "Jill!"
Jill Valentine stood before him. His Jill. His buddy. His pal. His partner in crime. She was blonde now, ice blonde, and pale. Her once short hair was long enough to trail in a slick ponytail down her back. And her blue eyes were sightless, empty, staring at him as if they'd never snuck out at night at the academy and gotten drunk on the training field.
Wesker patted Jill's shoulder companionably. "So…what do you say Chris? Two on two? That's fair after all."
Chris glanced at Sheva. "Don't hurt her. Try not to."
Sheva nodded. "I understand."
Wesker lifted his shoulders and rolled them. "Seven minutes." He glanced at the watch on his wrist. "Seven minutes is all I can spare to play with you."
At this point in the story, dear readers, I find its safe to say that our hero and his heroine were greatly outmatched. The genetically altered Jill Valentine was obviously being controlled by the diabolical genius that was Albert Wesker.
Our hero and his lady didn't have a chance in hell of defeating them. But perhaps someone had once said the same of Saint George as he went to take on the infamous dragon. Perhaps someone said this of David before he faced Goliath. Or Captain Ahab and his literary nemesis Moby Dick. The underdog, it seems, had been rising for centuries. And so it would be this way again for Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar.
Because Chris Redfield was a man driven by vengeance. And vengeance when faced with adversity was the greatest of all weapons to bear.
Chris left Jill to Sheva and took Wesker.
He rushed the other man, realizing that his gun was useless to him. Bullets were wasted.
Wesker toyed with him. A punch was turned into an answering slap. When Chris spun to kick him, Wesker caught his leg and sent him spinning away much like a dancer. He'd shift, move, teleport and be behind him kicking him in the back of the knee, in front of him punching him in the sternum hard enough to knock him flat on his ass.
Chris knew they needed a change of tactic. Jill was somewhere on the balcony fighting Sheva. He could hear rapid gunfire from Jill and the sound of flesh hitting flesh.
Chris back toward the far corner of the room. A door was there waiting. Maybe he could get beyond it and take out the lights. Wesker might be super human but maybe, just maybe, his night vision wasn't.
Chris hit the door with his shoulder, yanked the knob. Locked. Fuck. Figured.
He turned and met Wesker's foot right into his stomach. The kick was so hard Chris was lifted up and thrown back; his body slammed into the locked steel door and forced it clean off its hinges. He hit the wall on the opposite side and collapsed next to a staircase leading up.
Scrambling, his belly threatening to spew chunks from the pain, he started up the stairs on hands and knees. He trusted Sheva to handle Jill. He had to focus on Wesker.
At the top of the stairs, he heard Wesker moving toward him. He was just casually walking. No hurry at all, Chris figured, when you had the strength of a dozen men.
Chris felt like some damsel in a horror flick. You know the type. They run up the stairs in a desperate panic and their pursuer walks quietly after them and still somehow manages to catch them, disembowel them, and never break a sweat.
He blasted the first hanging lantern he came across, feeling the stinging rain of the hot coals before he ran farther down the hallway. The second light went out with another blast from the shotgun.
The hallway was plunged into semi-darkness. Chris fumbled a little along the wall to his left, threw his back against it and waited. He held his breath and only breathed through his nose when he absolutely had to.
Wesker was talking, making himself a better target then he realized, "Don't you understand Chris? The world is full of stupid humans. Inferior breeders based on primal instincts and pointless brain function. The body is capable of so much more then that. There are things beyond humanity that are so much more rewarding."
Wesker paused, glancing up and down the hallway. "Don't you realize why I chose you all those years ago for the S.T.A.R.S? Do you think it was your marksmanship? Or graduating in the top three percent out of the Academy? It wasn't that at all."
The rapid gunfire had fallen silent outside in the main chamber.
"I watched you for weeks before I selected you. I hand picked you because one night it was pouring down rain. The ground was like a swamp. And I was standing in the office of Captain Reynolds and I saw a lone man out on the training field. He was pushing himself harder then any human I'd ever seen. The elements beat at you, your body was obviously tired and exhausted, but there you were, pushing on."
Chris felt his stomach curdling with each word.
"And when you rose, for a moment in a flash of lightening, I saw your face. There was such cold determination on it, such triumph. And such rage. Such rage for a human. I've never felt rage. I've never felt anything really save for curiosity. Some shrink told my Mother Superior at the orphan edge that I was a sociopath. Incapable of human emotion. Being a woman of god, she told him I was just a lonely little boy." Wesker laughed and it echoed down the hallway.
Chris figured he was midway down it now. Not much longer. Keep talking, dumbass. Make yourself an easy target.
"But I saw in you what you could be. What I could mold you into being. I formed the S.T.A.R.S unit for you. Because I knew you would be the perfect test subject and if you survived, well…then you could be so much more then that. I put you on the Alpha team because I couldn't let you be the best. Not right out of the gate. I wanted you to earn it. Don't you realize it yet? The spill at the Spencer Estate was perfect. I organized it just for you. I wanted to see what you could do."
Chris's chest hurt. All those people. All those people in Raccoon City. All those people on his team. Dead because Wesker was bored. Dead because Chris was a shiny new toy that he wanted to play with.
"And look what you've become. Such strength. Such determination. I find it tedious of course. And the novelty is wearing off. But if you would just stop, just consider…the things I could show you. The things I could do for you would be beyond anything you could ever imagine."
That sounded….vaguely perverted. And beyond creepy.
Sheva's voice whispered in the headset. "I'm on the stairs. I'm coming up behind him. Draw him toward you. I'm going to take him out from behind."
Chris stepped out into the hallway, into his path, just like that.
Trust was an amazing thing.
Wesker paused and then started toward him.
"Tell me," Chris said quietly, "What could you do for me?"
Wesker smiled. And there was nothing human in it. "What I've done for Jill is nothing. She resisted the change. Fought it." Wesker was a three steps away. "But imagine what it could be like if you didn't fight it. Uroboros selects those who are worthy."
"You think I'm worthy."
Wesker's smile spread wider. Two steps away. "No. I think you're a fool."
His hand shot out, latched around Chris's throat, quick as a snake. "And I grow tired of fools."
He squeezed and Chris felt the air being cut off to his brain. Wesker drew his hand back, made it flat and open. He was going to rip his heart from his chest.
Three booms went off, quick and loud. Wesker's face registered surprise as he stumbled forward from the shots, releasing his grip.
Chris didn't wait. Didn't think. He punched him. He right hooked him, left hooked him and felt the crunch of glasses beneath his fist. Chris put every ounce of strength he had into it. He hit him with a solid right upper cut to the chest, another left hook. He elbowed him in the jaw, kicked him in the knee cap and finished it off with a roundhouse punch to the face that sent the other man face first into the floor.
Chris shook his hand. His right one was numb from the impact. It had felt like punching pure steel.
"Who's the fool now?" He whipped the shotgun around and fired.
The heavy round tore into the suddenly empty stone beneath him.
Face first on the floor and Wesker had still moved like lightening.
Sheva let out a scream down the hallway. The distinctive sounds of fighting had Chris running.
He went down the stairs and out into the light.
Sheva was being drug up the stairs by her throat.
Wesker tossed her negligently away when he reached the top. "I'm afraid our time here is up."
Sheva hit the wall and slid down it, shaking her head to clear the ringing.
Chris aimed the shotgun at him as he reached the top of the stairs. The other man was entering the elevator.
"Wesker! Stop!" He started to fire and the gun was knocked from his hands. A fist racked his jaw, a foot kicked him clean in the face. His arm was wrenched behind his back, his ankles kicked out from beneath him. Sheva, rushing, was dispatched by a solid kick to the stomach that sent her tumbling down the stairs.
Jill climbed atop him, hyper extending his arm and placing her knee on his shoulder to hold him against the ground.
"Jill!" Chris ground out as the pain of possible dislocation wrenched the hiss from between clenched teeth. "Jill Valentine! It's me Chris! Don't you recognize me?"
Jill's face twitched. She shuddered above him and whispered, "Ch..Chris?"
She let him go, stumbling away. Chris sat up slowly.
Jill was shaking her head, gripping it between her hands. Sheva helped Chris to his feet.
"Interesting." Wesker remarked and pulled something from his pocket. "Still resisting at such an advanced stage. Charming. But futile."
He hit a button on the device.
Jill screamed and clawed at her chest as her body bowed and shook like she was having a seizure.
Chris ran to her and grabbed her shoulders. "Jill! Look at me!"
"Now that your partner has arrived, I think I'll leave you two to catch up." Wesker moseyed into the elevator. "Have fun watching Jill suffer."
"Wesker!" Sheva hit the closed elevator doors. "Bastard!"
Jill knocked Chris away and grabbed at the front of her skin tight cat suit. She ripped it open, clawing at some kind of device imbedded into the skin of her chest.
"Jesus!" Sheva exclaimed.
"Yeah. We have to get that thing off of her."
Jill's face changed from tortured to empty. And then she smiled. And the smile was cold, dead, and very very Albert Wesker.
She backed up toward the balcony edge. And beckoned them with one hand to come for her.
Chris glanced at Sheva. "Don't hurt her. Please."
Sheva nodded. "Let's try to knock her down and pry that damn thing off her."
It wasn't the wisest of plans. But it was better then putting a bullet in his best friend.
For a moment, she'd remembered him.
He was hoping they could still save her.
Jill laughed insanely and then leapt backward over the railing, flipping and landing gracefully on the floor beneath.
It was a fall that would have seriously hurt a normal person.
"Shit." Sheva said with feeling.
"Yeah." Chris rolled his neck and popped it. "Let's do this."
The two of them ran for opposite stairwells ready and willing to do whatever it took to save Jill. Although both of them were desperately afraid the only way to save her…would be to put a bullet right between her empty eyes.
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