Wow, guys, I realized there were a bunch of typos in the latter part of the last chapter that I completely missed. Sorry about that! I don't feel like going back to fix them, so I'll just apologize again here and we can move on with life. Open Office's spellchecker isn't as finnicky as Word 2007's, and I have yet to get used to that. Anyway.
We've gotten toward the end of the story that runs parallel to RE5. From here we will go onward and beyond for much more fluffliness. But after the final bitch of a boss fight and much ensuing chaos. I don't particularly like the Excella fight just because it's a bunch of bullshit and dickery most heinous and foul – and how the fuck are you supposed to kill a giant tentacle monster the size of a building anyway. My favorite part of ch 6 is the second part of the boss fight – the interactive cutscene. The death scenes are fantastic, and worth missing the cues just to see. Especially the one where Wesker twists Chris' head off. -manic grin-
As they stood outside the bridge, observing the mountainous creature that had become of Excella, Albert's PDA beeped. Since the flailing columns of tentacles the width of a tree trunk were completely avoiding him – something that still baffled them both – he paused to read the incoming message. He knew it was from Jill and it had to be important. The brief, clipped sentences explained about a satellite-based weapon which was probably their greatest chance of destroying the massive Uroboros creation below. Smirking, Albert sent back an affirmative and used the bridge keycard he'd lifted off one of the majini to gain access to the weapon; it looked somewhat like a railgun, but when he aimed it into the car-sized weak-point that bloomed when Chris managed to pump enough bullets into the thing, a high-intensity beam lanced down, blinding them both and making sure that Albert wouldn't be able to see for several minutes.
The beam, whose heat they both had felt at such a close range, shriveled the weak-point to nothing. Tentacles began to shed away from it, flopping limply to the ground and withering away. The remaining tentacles slowed and eventually froze altogether as the viral flesh died. Once the two BSAA agents had regained their sight, they went back into the bridge, knowing they could pinpoint Nathan's location there. Chris went straight to one of the computer consoles, while Albert stepped aside to receive a call on his PDA. Jill's face appeared on the screen.
"How are you faring?" he asked, noticing that she was once more panting for breath.
"I'm fine. I managed to radio HQ, and they're sending a helicopter your way. Ground reinforcements already made it through the caves, so I'm going to meet up with them and rendezvous with the chopper at the dock. Did the satellite work?"
"Fantastically. Thank you, dear heart."
She smiled wryly. "It's still technically in the experimental stages. Glad to see it works, though."
Chris, who was eavesdropping, snorted. "Great!"
Albert glanced at the marksman before returning his gaze to the PDA screen. "Before we go, is there anything we should know about Nathan – any instability in his virus?"
Jill sighed. "I guess you already figured out that his virus is related to T-Veronica, though that was all I managed to ascertain. He also has a Plaga – a master Plaga. I think it's the 'sample' Ada stole in Spain... it's the only explanation I can come up with. When you confront him, I'm sure he'll activate the parasite. The good news is that the combination he already has of the Veronica-like agent and the Plaga isn't compatible with Uroboros, so he can't infect himself with that as well."
A dark smirk immediately spread across Albert's face. "Is that so?"
"That's all the information I have. I wasn't kept very well informed," Jill said, sounding chagrined.
"Don't worry, Jill, what you just gave us is more than enough to work with. I assume you can track the tanker's progress?" Albert replied.
"Yes. I'll be able to until Nathan launches the bomber, then I'll lose the signal. You guys need to locate the hangar if you haven't already – that's where he'll be with the Uroboros missiles. I can't be sure if he's moved the launch time, but the original plan was for him to take off in about fifteen minutes."
"I found the place," Chris interjected, indicating the computer console. He had pulled up the feed from surveillance cameras and found Nathan in the hangar. "We'll get there in three minutes tops."
Jill nodded firmly. "Then go. I'll tag along in the chopper and be there as soon as I can. Good luck."
"And you, my dear." Albert tucked the PDA back into his pocket, looked to Chris, and they set off. As Chris had predicted, it was mere minutes until they stormed into the hangar, Chris with his gun aimed at Nathan's back.
Nathan sighed dramatically. "You know, I was going to let you go," he said, off-handed and casual, as if he were speaking to old friends. "Since Uroboros has clearly accepted you, Wesker, I was willing to let you live. I doubt Redfield would survive exposure, but at least he would have had a chance to be judged before his death. Now, though, I'm pissed." His fists were tense around the rail, causing the metal to implode with a creak. Albert saw the other tyrant tremble slightly, and a wolfish smirk began to form on his face. "You took my servant from me, you've made a mess of my base and my ship, and you forced me to prematurely dispose of my most useful ally. Give me one reason why I should let you walk away."
"You're struggling to stand as it is, Nathaniel," Albert chuckled. "I can sense it. During our little spat earlier, you contracted Uroboros. Perhaps not enough to do much more than weaken you, but your body is exhausted from fighting it off. Las Plagas and Uroboros don't mix well, do they? It seems to coexist well with other Progenitor-based viruses, but Las Plagas must not be compatible hosts for it."
A weird rumble somewhere between a laugh and a growl bubbled up from Nathan's chest. "Never could make it play nicely with Las Plagas. If not for this king Plaga I have, that would have worked well for me in the long run. Ah well – you win some, you lose some."
Albert prowled forward. Nathan didn't move until there were only inches separating them, and then he whirled around fast enough to be a mere blur to Chris' eyes. Both tyrants were then lost to sight, and Chris cursed under his breath. A thunderous crash sounded below, where Albert had thrown his enemy into the floor, leaving a massive dent in the diamond-patterned metal. Chris slid down the ladder as quickly as he could, listening to the sounds of the fighting titans, since he could barely see them. Only two dark blurs – on occasion, he would see little snapshots like photographs when they would momentarily lapse into human speed. And while Nathan was otherwise occupied, Chris took the opportunity to climb into the bomber and do a little investigating. He knew if he stayed out there he would only get in the way.
Chris found the cockpit and went up to the long console that controlled the bomber. He scanned the controls – luckily, he was familiar with this type of assault bomber. The first thing he noticed was that the bomber's controls were fully automated, and when he tried to tamper with them, they locked him out. Chris spat a curse and tried getting past the block, to no avail. He could only stand by as the computer ran through pre-takeoff diagnostics and prepped itself for launch. Cursing under his breath once more, he turned away and headed to a different part of the jet, to where he hoped to find the missiles. He wasn't sure how much he could do to sabotage them without risking getting caught in the aftermath, but he couldn't just sit by and do nothing.
"Chris, where are you?" Albert barked in his earpiece.
"I'm heading for the rear cargo bay of the bomber... damn computers in the cockpit are locking me out of everywhere else."
"Once you get there, stay put and try not to let Nathan kill you."
"What?" But the transmission had cut off. Chris could feel the jet shuddering as the platform on which it rested rose up to the top deck of the tanker. The engines rumbled to life, and Chris swore under his breath. He picked up his pace to a fast jog, but when he got to the last door at the end of the hall that wasn't locked, he hesitated. Putting his ear to the metal, he listened hard, and discerned the sounds of two people on the other side, talking. Chris took a deep breath, readied his gun, and flung the door open. He first saw Albert standing lower down in the cargo hold, Uroboros tentacles coiled around his arms and eyes alight. Then he saw a blur in his peripheral vision and instinctively ducked, diving forward and rolling out of the path of Nathan's fist.
The older tyrant, whose eyes also had an edge of red Chris hadn't noticed before, stood next to the door from which Chris had just emerged. His face was twisted into a wrathful sneer, baring sharpened teeth. He was still trembling from fatigue, and his chest was heaving to suck in great gasps of air. Comparatively, Albert was composed, breathing lightly and unharmed. Nathan leaned against the wall, glaring at the two BSAA agents. Most of his attention, however, was focused on the other tyrant. He was the threat, not some petty human. "I guess I underestimated you. Didn't expect Uroboros to bond with you so quickly, or else this would have been easy. That was my mistake. Still, this isn't over. I'll see both of you dead."
"Save it, Nathan. You're the one who's going down!" Chris growled.
Nathan cracked a wolfish, slightly crazed grin and laughed. "I'd like to see you try, Redfield." Suddenly, he blurred out of sight. Albert shoved Chris to the side and dashed forward to meet Nathan's assault, lashing out with tentacles to wrap around the older tyrant's body. Nathan was expecting it this time, and avoided the whiplike tentacles. Chris slunk along the wall while Nathan was distracted and made it to the override lever. He had his hand on it, but he hesitated, straining his eyes to try to locate his friend. For a split second, Albert paused, and Chris barely caught the gestured signal before he blurred back into viral speed.
Chris hit the lever and ran for one of the I-beams along the wall, narrowly avoiding Nathan, who had launched himself from the far wall at the marksman. But Nathan was too late to stop the override, and since he was already off-balance, he went tumbling to the floor when the hatch parted. The whole room was turned into a vacuum; wind roared in their ears, and around them, the jet shuddered and dipped from the unexpected change in pressurization. Chris had latched onto tan I-beam for dear life, and he watched Nathan slide across the floor of the cargo bay, scrabbling at the smooth metal for purchase.
A thick column of tentacles slammed into Nathan, and with a scream he was pulled out of the plane. Chris snapped his head up to see Albert with tentacles firmly coiled around one of the I-beams across the room. The tentacles that had lashed Nathan slithered across the open space and wrapped around Chris' upper body, delicately plucking the marksman from the beam and pulling him over to Albert. Even though the slick tendrils made his skin crawl, he was glad to be anchored down.
Moments later, the bomber, whose autopilot had gone haywire somehow – probably Nathan's doing – collided with a solid rock wall. One wing snapped off and the jet skimmed across the ground, grinding to a halt when its nose was buried into another rocky face. Heat and a noxious miasma of gases billowed into the open cargo bay, slapping them both like a brick wall. Albert shielded his face and Chris went into a fit of hacking coughs that had him doubling over and gasping for air. He barely even reacted when Albert picked him up and carried him out of the jet, onto the shelf of rock that overlooked the magma pool. With the amount of toxic gases rising into the jet, they would have asphyxiated in minutes.
Chris went to lean against an upthrust slab of rock; he was already sweating from the overwhelming heat radiating from the magma, and coupled with the hostile mix of gases in the air, he was already reduced to wheezing like a landed fish. Albert looked better off, but even his body couldn't handle too much exposure to the miasma in the heart of an active volcano. He retracted most of the Uroboros tentacles back into himself and watched his human comrade closely. "Is your radio still working? I lost mine."
Chris raised a hand to his earpiece. "HQ, this is Chris. Can you read me? Repeat: This is Chris. Can you read me?" There was only static in reply, so he tried another frequency. "Jill, can you read me? Jill, come in!"
A long pause ensued, and Chris was about to give up, when suddenly the other end of the line crackled into life, transmitting Jill's voice. "I hear you, Chris. Where are you? We found the tanker, but the bomber is gone."
Chris' knees nearly gave out in relief that the transmission went through. "I don't know our exact coordinates, but the jet crashed into a volcano. We need a way out of this thing ASAP."
"The volcano?" Jill repeated incredulously. "All right, we'll head that way. Just hang on!"
Chris sighed in relief and looked over to Albert, but the tyrant's expression had suddenly transformed again into a snarl. Tentacles slid once more out of his skin and he whirled around to face the sounds of another being scrabbling on the rocks nearby. Somehow, Nathan was still alive. There were patches of dark chitin covering his body, some of them shattered and melted. He pulled himself upright, though his body swayed dangerously, and glared at the two BSAA agents. "This ends now," he snarled.
Chris jerked upright, watching in fascinated horror; Nathan's body was ripped apart from the inside, and small gouts of flame leaped from the blood on the surfaces of the new limbs. Albert simply stood by, letting Nathan finish the activation of his Plaga. Chris gave him a confused look, but Albert knew what he was doing. He knew that Nathan was desperate if he was allowing the Plaga in his body to take over; he had sustained enough damage to tax even a tyrant's endurance, even without the exposure to Uroboros that Albert had inflicted upon him. And since Las Plagas was a species that were not suitable hosts for Uroboros, Nathan was now at an even worse disadvantage. He might have gotten a boost of power, and thanks to the Veronica-like virus he may have had much more resistance to the oppressive heat in the volcano, but he was on his last legs and both of them knew it. He had given up all plans to release Uroboros, and now he was just trying to take his enemy with him when he died.
Within moments, Nathan was barely recognizable. The Plaga was a monstrous thing, towering over twice Chris' height. It looked like the unholy mating of a spider, tick and a crab, with a scorpion tail as long as the main body was tall. Its carapace was thickened with the same blackish chitin, and at the fleshier heart of the thing was what what was left of Nathan. The tail, with a hooked spike at the end, curled up and over its body menacingly. Chris dove to the side as the barb flashed down, crushing the boulder on which he had just been leaning. A few Uroboros tentacles suddenly grabbed the marksman by the waist and hoisted him up, depositing Chris on one of the jet's shattered wings. No matter how much he wanted to help, this was no place for a human. Knowing that he'd been relegated to lookout rankled him, but at the same time, he knew he wouldn't last a second if he got caught in the crossfire.
The barbed end of the Plaga's tail descended once more, only to bury itself in a mass of tentacles that merely absorbed the blow. Albert allowed the hulking Plaga to lift him up by the column of tentacles that he'd let coil around his arm, ignoring the acidic burn of T-Veronica blood seeping into the tentacles from the hollow, needle-like barb. He lashed out with his free arm and slammed a mass of Uroboros into the center of the Plaga, swarming the small space not covered by six-inch-thick armor with tentacles. The Plaga gave a bubbly shriek and staggered backward, shaking violently from side to side as if to dislodge the tentacles.
The Plaga pushed its tail harder into Albert's arm, though it was still only piercing through tentacles. Suddenly, it flicked its tail out straight, pulling Albert away from its weak-point. He was catapulted up and out, only to fall into the bubbling magma; he took the Plaga with him, though, having embedded Uroboros into the weak-point – the tentacles had worked their way into the exposed flesh and under the armor. The Plaga shrieked again in protest when it was pulled into the magma, though its shell was heat-resistant and the magma only slid off the chitinous surface. One segmented leg raised out of the magma and stabbed down toward Albert, pushing him completely underneath the surface of the fiery lake.
Chris had found a way to clamber down off the wing of the plane as soon as he saw the two battling titans leave the rock shelf and go into the lava. Widened eyes took in the Plaga's last moments as Uroboros tentacles started bursting through its shell. The virus was reacting to the parasite like it had to any other unsuitable human subject – instead of bonding docilely, it devoured its host. Pieces of armor were pushed off into the magma, leaving pulsating, angry wounds behind that leaked oil and smoldering blood. Within moments, the Plaga had been completely overtaken by tentacles, which in their turn were incinerated to nothing by the heat of the magma.
Chris ran up to the edge of the rock shelf, desperately scanning the molten lake to find Albert. He remembered how vulnerable Uroboros was to heat and fire, and for several agonizing minutes, he was sure that Nathan really had taken his enemy with him in death. "Chris, come in. Can you see the helicopter? We can't get in very close right now because of the updrafts, but as soon as we can we'll drop in to lift you out." Jill's voice through his earpiece made a lump of dread sour in his gut. If Albert really was dead, how could he tell Jill?
Still, he raised his eyes, and true to her word, he saw a helicopter hovering overhead. The image was hazy from the heat waved billowing up from the magma, but he saw the glint of gray against the mottled blue sky. "Roger, I see you. Be careful!"
"Where are you two? From this height we can't see a thing."
"I'm on the edge of the lava, standing on a rock shelf," he replied, then hesitated. The last thing Jill needed right now was to hear that Albert was gone, but lying would be worse. "And, I don't know where Albert is. I lost sight of him. Nathan is gone too – he's dead."
There was a pause at the other end of the transmission. "We'll get close enough to lift you out, and then we'll look for him. Do you have any idea where he could be? Another ledge he could've landed on?"
"Nathan dragged him into the lava... he hasn't come up yet." Chris closed his eyes, hating that he had to tell her exactly what she didn't want to hear.
An even longer pause. Chris was afraid the transmission had been cut off, but then Jill spoke up again. Her voice was rough. "We'll look for him."
The helicopter began slowly easing its way down below the rim of the volcano. In the meantime, Chris gingerly trotted closer to where he predicted the ladder was going to drop; gingerly, because the ledge on which he stood was slowly crumbling into the lava.
Movement in his peripheral vision stopped him dead. He turned to look at the movement that had alerted him, and his heart leaped into his throat when he saw Albert hauling himself laboriously onto a spur of rock. Burnt tentacles were sloughing off, but others were emerging and wrapping protectively around his body, shielding the half-healed flesh from further exposure to the magma.
The ladder that Jill dropped nearly brained him, so hard was he concentrating on watching the tyrant pull himself out. Chris grabbed the rungs and started climbing; by the time he got to the top and Jill helped pull him into the chopper, Albert had also freed himself completely from the lake of magma. Chris met Jill's eyes. The pale blue seemed to burn with desperation, which was transformed into wild hope when he told her he'd seen Albert. However, that momentary hope drained from her expression when she looked down and saw the swarm of tentacles all over him.
"Oh God... oh no," she breathed, holding a hand to her mouth. She had seen the crumpled missiles and jumped to the conclusion that he'd just now contracted the virus; the way he looked down there was disturbingly similar to the way unsuitable hosts looked shortly after infection. She would know, having been forced to infect quite a few people with the virus over the course of her captivity. She swallowed back the nausea that rose up at the realization.
Chris glanced sidelong at her, a grimace pulling at the corners of his mouth, before returning his gaze to the tyrant below. The relief that Albert was still alive had been short-lived, since now the question remained, was he still cognizant? He had been barely aware enough to help Chris to safety before the fight began, and since he was still near death, there was a high probability that all sanity and sense had gone right out the window. Especially since those tentacles still weren't retreating back into his body like Chris thought they should be.
Josh, who was in the pilot seat, called back to them over his shoulder. "If we hang around here much longer these air currents will crash us into the side of the volcano!"
Chris and Jill looked up at each other. They were both thinking along the same lines of reluctant acceptance. It didn't look like he was going to be able to make it...
Suddenly, the chopper lurched to the side. Chris and Jill leaned over the edge to see what had happened, and what they saw was a bundle of tentacles wrapped around one of the helicopter's skids, leading all the way down to the rock on which Albert was crouched. The rock was crumbling underneath his feet, and in desperation, he had reached out for something to keep him from falling back into the magma. Josh reacted instinctively to the sudden lurch and pulled the chopper up and out of the volcano.
Another coil of tentacles lashed up like a whip and attached itself to the same skid. Jill and Chris watched the tentacles ripple as Albert pulled them back into himself, reeling his body up toward the helicopter. At first, relief washed through Chris, and he leaned farther over to watch his friend pull himself to safety. Then he got a good look at the tyrant, and all the relief soured. Albert's body was covered in open wounds where his viruses ran out of the resources to completely heal the severe burns, and his eyes glowed solid gold. There was no recognition there.
"Chris..." Jill said, choking the words out of a tight throat. She swallowed hard. "That's not Albert. He's gone."
Torn, he looked from Jill back to the tyrant. At length, he replied. "You're right." It pained him to say it, but it was true.
Jill was remarkably composed as she drew a gun from the holster of her battlesuit. "The best thing we can do for him now is to put him out of his misery."
Chris looked at her, shock on his face. She was right, but how could she say that so calmly, after all they'd been through in the past day? She smiled sadly at him. "He'd do the same for us." Chris nodded and drew his own handgun.
Finally, the pain was gone. Albert knew that it was only a huge spike of adrenaline that was keeping him from feeling the myriad of wounds on his body, but at least he was out of the magma. He continued pulling himself up to the helicopter, buffeted by the wind. His progress was painfully slow – he was just so tired. He hadn't felt this battered since contracting Arklay, and he didn't like feeling weak. At least there would be no more fighting and no more pain for a while –
He cried out when suddenly bullets began stinging him. He felt only shock, at first, then a sense of betrayal. Why were they shooting him? He didn't have the energy to be angry anymore, only dismayed. Why were they turning against him? The bullets hurt more than they should, and the puncture wounds didn't close up. They just oozed blood until his body ran out of ways to clot it. He had lost so much blood...
And still they stung him! Why? He had stopped pulling himself up and was just hanging there, a few meters below the helicopter, clinging for dear life to the skids. He ducked his head and tried to call up Uroboros to shield him, but he was so spent from dragging himself out of the magma that he could barely maintain the the tentacles he had. The rest had retreated back into his body or sloughed off. One bullet barely missed his head, and he flinched away. "Stop!" he called, voice hoarse with fatigue. "Stop!" They could barely hear him over the roar of the helicopter's blades.
Jill did. She jerked back, practically dropping her gun, and put a hand out to stop Chris. He paused and gave her a confused look, but she was leaning over the edge of the floor, staring wide-eyed at the tyrant below. "Albert!"
They had heard him... they had stopped. Albert took a moment to catch his breath. His whole body was shaking from fatigue, and all he wanted to do was to pass out. His body was healing at a dismayingly slow rate; hell, it had just managed to manufacture enough clotting agent to stop him from bleeding. His eyes slid open once more – now the gold had retreated back to its usual boundaries, and the hot infrareds that always invaded his irises when he was agitated had gone away, leaving his eyes the same as always. His body was just too worn out to support the same level of agitation. And by now, all the adrenaline was gone, allowing him to finally start to feel the numerous wounds all over his body. He was struggling to keep his grasp on the helicopter's skids.
Then, from above, Jill called down to him. He resumed pulling himself closer to the chopper, reassured now that they weren't going to attack him anymore. As he drew closer and let some of the tentacles go, he felt Jill's hands reach down to grab them before they could slip free. Chris grabbed them as well, and with their help, he finally hauled his exhausted body into the helicopter.
He looked bad. Jill went for the emergency first-aid kit and started cleaning his wounds. He just stayed where he was, sprawled out on the floor – he didn't have the energy to move. Now that he was safe and no longer dangling several hundred feet off the ground, all the adrenaline was gone. The little reserves he had left were devoted to healing himself.
"Talk to me, Albert. Don't drift off, please," Jill said – almost begged. "Stay with me."
"I'm here, I'm here," he muttered. "Just tired."
"I know you're tired, but you can't go to sleep now. Just keep talking."
He coughed a weak chuckle. "Jill, if I don't rest I am going to die. I'll be fine."
"Says the man who just crawled out of lava," Jill retorted. Her voice was shaky, but she forced herself to stay calm. "Humor me just this once. If only for my sanity, I need to reassure myself that you're still alive."
Slowly, he lifted one hand and rested it against her cheek. "After all the effort I put into getting out of there, I'm not about to let myself die."
Tears stung Jill's eyes, and she curled her fingers around his hand. "Good. If you do, I'll never forgive you."
He smiled slightly and closed his eyes. His hand started to slip out of her grasp. Panicking, Jill pressed her fingers to the side of his throat, and let out a huge sigh when she felt his heart beating normally. He had only passed out. Jill was shivering from the emotional roller-coaster; all she wanted to do was to go to sleep herself, but she was too worried about Albert to let herself rest.
The rest of the helicopter ride back to civilization was touch-and-go. Chris and Jill took turns monitoring Albert's condition as best they could. He stayed unconscious for the majority of it, though by the time they reached land again, he came to. Josh found a spare uniform for him since his clothing had been burnt off in the volcano, and they found several MRE tins in the helicopter. The first one took a while to eat since he was so weak, but as soon as the food hit his digestive system, he immediately looked better, and promptly inhaled the rest of the MREs. They then met up with another dispatch of BSAA and hitched a ride to the nearest airfield, where a small jet was waiting to return to the West African headquarters.
They all three collapsed into the seats, weary and ready to be back home. Jill and Chris were keeping a wary eye on Albert, who was still moving very gingerly. He sat in the aisle seat next to Jill, and Chris took up the row behind of them so that he could take a nap. Jill leaned her head against Albert's shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off with a wry chuckle. "Before you ask, Jill, I'm holding up fine."
She squeezed his hand on the armrest. "I can't help that I'm worried about you, Albert. I don't want to lose you again."
He turned to bury his face in her hair, inhaling her scent. It was subtly different, now, than it had been before, but the change was minuscule. He didn't mind – he was just glad to have her there again. "You won't. I'll be fine."
"You say that, but I saw what you looked like in the volcano –"
"That is under control, dear heart. We told you about that and it hasn't given me problems yet. By the time we get back to the States I'll be fully recovered."
Jill she knew he was telling the truth, and she knew why. As soon as they got to the base, they would all be stuck into a quarantine to make sure they didn't have any infectious agent that they could spread. He'd have plenty of time to get back up to speed while the West African researchers studied the samples of his blood and pondered over Uroboros.
They took off, and for the first part of the flight, Albert had to endure the changing pressurization in the cabin – something his already strained body didn't take well. They didn't have any safsprin aboard the jet to ward off the building migraine, and either way, if he tried to swallow anything, he knew the nausea would bring it right back up. Once they got to cruising altitude and the pressure in the cabin stopped fluctuating, he breathed a sigh of relief and sat back from where he had been hunched over, head in his hands. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Chris was already asleep. He and Jill weren't far behind; they were all exhausted. Silence fell as the other two followed Chris' example and dozed off.
Some time later – he couldn't say how long exactly – Albert woke up. He had been feeling the symptoms of a low-grade fever since returning to consciousness, but now they were increasing dramatically, to the point that he could no longer hide it. It was becoming increasingly clear that there was something in his body that did not belong there, and the viruses were stridently rejecting the intruder. He was fairly certain that at some point during his fight with Nathan, he had come into uncomfortably close contact with Nathan's blood, and the Veronica-like agent had managed to infiltrate his body. It wouldn't have been surprising, since he had been directing all his energy into killing Nathan and then escaping the volcano, which left nothing for his immune system. The alien virus had gotten a chance to entrench itself, and now that Albert's immune system was working again, it had recognized the threat and was working to evict it. But the intruder was putting up quite a fight.
Jill was deeply asleep, so she didn't notice when Albert gingerly slid out from under her head and walked down the aisle. Chris, however, was awake enough to notice. He got up and followed Albert to the tiny bathroom stall, and winced when he heard violent retching. The marksman leaned against the wall and waited for Albert to finish and catch his breath.
Oily tar from dead Uroboros cells, bile, and blood. It was a pungent combination, especially when it just came up from your stomach. Albert wiped his mouth and leaned back, slumping against the wall of the tiny cubicle. Sweat beaded on his brow and he panted for breath; his whole body was aching in protest to the sudden invasion. His vision swam and blurred, and even the dim light reflected off the mirror was painful to his eyes. The muffled roar of the plane engines was deafening. He flinched away from the door with a groan when Chris knocked. "Hey, are you all right?"
"No," he replied curtly. "I'm not all right. I think Nathan's virus got into my bloodstream."
Shit. Chris looked back over his shoulder to reassure himself that Jill was still asleep, then he turned back to the locked bathroom door. "Is there anything we can do?"
"Not until we get back to HQ."
Chris bit his lip. Albert sounded like he was in bad shape. "Are you gonna make it that long?"
Albert sighed heavily. "Maybe. Depends on how much longer until we arrive."
Chris trotted off to the cockpit and spoke to the pilot. It would be nearly an hour – forty-five, maybe thirty minutes if they hurried. Chris assured him that hurrying would be the best thing to do, and left the man to fly the plane. As he made his way back through the cabin, Jill, who had woken up, stood from her seat. She saw the look on his face and was immediately concerned. "What happened?"
Should he tell a white lie and keep her calm, or tell her the truth? He couldn't know for sure how badly off Albert was, since the tyrant had a habit of making his condition seem less severe than it actually was. Resisting the urge to shoot the bathroom a worried glance, he faced Jill. "I was just telling the pilot to step on it. Albert's condition took a turn, and we need to get back to HQ as fast as possible."
Jill's knuckles turned white from the grip she had oh the arm of the seat. "How is he?"
"I don't know," Chris replied honestly. "He locked himself in the bathroom."
Jill led the way back to the bathroom. She crouched against the door, pushing on it as if to get past the barrier. "Albert. Are you going to be okay?"
There was a moment's pause that unnerved both humans. "Did Chris find out how long until we land?" Albert asked at length. His voice sounded raspy and hoarse, and if they listened hard enough, they could hear his labored breathing.
"Forty-five minutes. Half an hour if he pushes it," Chris said.
Albert exhaled heavily. "Then I hope he pushes it."
Jill bit her lower lip almost hard enough to draw blood. "Hold on as long as you can, Albert."
"I am, dear heart. You go sit back down."
She snorted. "I'm staying with you." There was no way in hell she was going to go back to her seat like nothing was wrong. Not when he sounded this bad.
"Jill, there's no point in hanging around. It will just upset you further. This isn't pretty," he urged, almost growling. The last thing he needed was an argument right now.
"And that's exactly why I'm staying here." Her voice had taken on an edge of stubbornness that the other two recognized, and that was when Albert gave up with a sigh. He was just too tired to argue any more.
Chris hung around for a few more moments, then he left to go make sure the pilot had heeded his warning. Jill remained leaning against the door, and she pulled her knees up against her chest. One hand reached up to absently skim her fingers over the uneven surface on her chest where the P30 applicator had once been. The areas around where the tubes were still embedded in her skin were slightly inflamed, but they had been like that since she'd first gotten the thing surgically implanted in her body. She let her head rest against the door and sighed. "Tell me the truth, Albert – how likely is it that you'll make it?" He owed her a straight answer, after all.
The tyrant forcefully pulled himself from teetering on the edge of consciousness. "To be honest, I'm not sure. Half an hour could be pushing it, if the symptoms persist as they have."
Jill swallowed and clenched her fists hard enough that her fingernails penetrated her skin and drew blood. "What exactly is wrong? Is it Uroboros?"
"No," he sighed. "Uroboros would have killed me when I first got it if it was going to at all. I think I was exposed to Nathan's virus. The only reason my body is having such a hard time dealing with this new infection is because of all the damage I took in the volcano, and because my system is still recovering." If he had been in his usual top form, the infection would have been unpleasant, but nowhere near this life-threatening.
Jill unclenched her hands and blankly watched blood ooze from the crescent-shaped marks in her palm. "If you die, Albert..." she almost choked. "I want you to know that the whole time Nathan was holding me captive, I was thinking of you. I constantly prayed that you would know I wasn't dead, and that you would look for me. That hope was the only thing that kept me sane. I missed you so much it was hard to keep going, sometimes. But I had to keep believing that I'd see you again." Her shaky voice trailed off, and she scrubbed tears from her eyes. "You have no idea how it felt to see your face, even before you knew it was me behind that mask. When I saw you in the volcano, I was so afraid that I was going to lose you so soon after getting you back. I don't want that to happen, Albert. I'll go insane."
On the other side of the door, two clear rivulets of tears coursed down his cheeks. The pain in her voice sliced at his heart and made it even more difficult to breathe. There were so many things he wanted – needed – to say, but they all got jumbled up on the tip of his tongue. Eventually, he managed to sort himself out. "I won't let go, Jill. I've been holding on for three years, and I'm not going to let go now. Not of myself and not of you. I refuse to die when I've only just gotten you back. Count on that."
Jill smiled through her own tears, and tilted her head down so that locks of stray blonde hair fell forward. "I will. As long as you hold on, so will I."
Nurr cliffhanger again. I've had these last few scenes of post-Nathan's death bouncing around in my head essentially since I decided to write What If to parallel RE5. I know I could do a lot better (especially with the half-assed Excella fight uurgh) but I think you guys get the gist of it, and I can always fix it when I do the rewrite.
In the process of writing that last conversation with Albert and Jill, I got The Curse by Disturbed stuck in my head. The refrain is pretty much what's going through Albert's head right now. If you care, feel free to look it up.
And now I shall go to bed (as soon as I get this damn moth to stop bugging me). Good morning, all.