Authors note: Hello guys! Thank you so much for your reviews! I will try to let your earlier ideas flow into the story and hope you enjoy it!
Sorry for the long update, I am still thinking of the sequel for the next chapters until the final ending (Will it be sad? Or happy? I won`t tell :) )
Well, this chapter is just for the flow to the next chapters, I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter E
Today was the day in which he was allowed to get to the B.S.A.A.s large training ground – into their large pool. It was the day his body would wait for the whole time he was being stuck in his cage which was still too small for him to move around.
He jumped on his feet when the door of the laboratory opened as a few doctors, nurses and soldiers stepped inside. Miss Chambers and the sister of Captain Redfield walked inside. They stopped in front of his cage with the soldiers next to them.
"Nah, Piers. You ready for your training?" Claire Redfield said with a large smile on her face.
It was always important that someone accompanied the soldiers and doctors, persons whom Piers knew and trusted. In case he would snap out of control, the trusted persons were the best persons to calm him down again.
After he nodded his head, the soldiers walked to his cage and unlocked the large door while the few doctors checked the monitors and screens. Redfield was the first who stepped inside the cage and put her hand on his rough nose while she led him outside the cage.
After Chambers checked up his eyes with shining into them with her flashlight to see his pupils, they accompanied him outside the labotary through the corridors, whose were enlarged so that he no longer had to squeeze his body through the walls, outside the building to the special secured training area.
The training area consisted of a large running field which was similar to a football field, a 700 feet long and 900 feet wide meadow which grass was around 4 feet high and a large swimming pool. The area was surrounded by large steelth electric fences.
Why that? The B.S.A.A. Build up the fences specifically for Piers since he was the only biological weapon that could be controlled, well, most of the time.
By stepping outside into the sandy ground of the large way going through the different fields, the feeling of a warm and smooth ground rushed through his legs. It wasn`t only a feeling of comfortableness, it was the feeling of being outside.
To feel the wind brushing his skin, tickling his scales, to breath the clear air with his newly formed lungs, to be able to see the different bright colors of the outside world, thr greenish trees whose radiated with the sunlight, the yellow-greenish grass of the meadow, the babyblue colors of the sky or the slight blueish-greenish surface of the pool.
The different scents of plants, rain, wet earthy ground, floral scents in the wind whose caused images going into his mind, images of flowers opening their petals, of small insects like butterflies flying over the meadow and landing on the flowers to drink their sweet nectar, of birds cleaning their feathered wings, of lichenes growing on branches, of mushrooms growing out of the earth, of raindrops falling to the ground and splitteing in thousands of smaller drops, of a mother deer nuzzling her nose against the forehead of her fawn, of leaves falling to the ground.
His super sensitive ears catched up his surroundings in every detail. The walking of the ants, the flap of a bees wings, the rustling of the trees leaves in the wind, the flexure of the grass, the smooth and calming sound the water made when it comes into contact with the wind, the cleaning of mouses and other animals, the different noises coming from the city, driving cars, talking people, barking dogs, meowing cats, machineries.
He felt the reasons why every being on world wanted to live, to live in freedom.
It was a feeling he yearned for.
While taking a deep breath, his body relaxed fully and caused both, Refield and Chambers, to grin. They knew why they needed to do this. This wasn`t only about testing his progress and the results of the drugs pumped into his system, this was about seeing the real Piers again and how he enjoyed the little freedom he had left since he turned.
They put their hands away from his scales as they stopped and let him walk by himself. With slow steps he began walking towards the pool, the shining in his many eyes getting brighter with each step his body did.
The biggest eye of his chest closed its eyelids when he stopped at the edge of the pool and let his body fall inside the deep water. His tail was pulled with him and splashed on the surface when he wound his body inside the pool.
His ears ignored the sounds around him when he moved and swam around the pool like a crocodile that was being held in captivity since its birth and would be released into a river for the first time of its life.
It was then when he saw a big fish swimming in front of him – followed by smaller fishes. Without thinking of it further he swam after it and snapped inside the water while he tried to catch it in his mouth.
But instead catching the fish and tasting the sweetness of its meat and blood, he didn`t felt anything nor did he taste something beside the salty water. He looked around and found the fishes disappearing in the water.
Did he now saw things that weren`t there? Just like he dreamed things he never experienced before?
Was it the virus that kept showing him strange things? It seemed to communicate with his mind which was not a good sign.
He decided to appear on the water surface and met the smile of Claire Redfield while she bowed down in front of him. She put her hand into the water and still smiled at him like an innocent little girl might do.
And like a small girl, she moved her hand inside the water and splashed water into his large face. While clenching his eyes shut his ears picked up the sounds of loud laughs coming from three women. He felt his own lips separating as a smile crossed his own face.
When he opened his eyes, he could see three figures standing in front of him while they laughed. Three figures of three women he knew pretty good. But That third woman usually wasn`t visiting him without that man.
While Valentine seemed to say something to him he looked around the pool – to see no one else. Giving a snort, he turned back at them and furrowed his scaly eyebrows suspiciously.
Then without any warning, something tricked the back of his dorsal fin and caused him to quickly turn his head, together with the upper half of his body, in surprise – just to meet the head of the said missing person before it disappeared into the water, leaving him behind with surprised eyes.
Diving underwater, he tried to catch the wrongdoer. He felt the water brushing against his back, each time when he turned to catch the Captain, he was too slow and Chris Redfield disappeared fro his sight once again.
Growling in funny frustration he felt a peck on his side as he concentrated fully on the muscle of his right side and turned quickly at the grinning Captain, who obviously had to force his laugh back. Shocked by the fact that he just got caught, the Captain quickly surfaced, he followed him.
Right before his head came out of the water, the Captain practically sat down on the middle of his forehead and let his legs hang down while he pushed him out the water, the upper eyes looking up at him in surprise.
The Captain just chuckled and put his right hand on the scaly brows.
"Hey down there, you seem to be okay today. I figured out that it would be nice to train with you, together. Like in the old times where I got you assigned in Alpha Team and had to help you increase your strenght, remember?"
Yeah, in that time you always punched the shit out of me, is all he wanted to say while he rolled his twenty eyes. The rolling didn`t go unnoticed by the Captain as he started to pat his forehead, what led him to close his upper eyelids.
"I see, you`re yourself again. So, Chambers you got it?" the Captain asked while Chambers just nodded with a chuckle.
He didn`t believe that training with them would wake him up again. In the last months he felt like the Virus regained much more strenght than ever before. It was fighting him since the beginning of his transformation. It was attacking his mind and strenghtened his instincts.
He often snapped out and acted without thinking what he did. He even forgot his own name and who he was. He never thought that fighting the virus would be so difficult since it was as stubborn as he was.
He saw things that weren`t there, hallucinations and the frequency of hallucinations increased. The virus was about to dominate his body. As worse he felt as stronger it got. It controlled his hunger, sometimes his sight, his instincts and often even his emotions.
But he had people inside the B.S.A.A. who tried to help him. The Redfield siblings, Valentine and Chambers were a great help to keep his mind and with that his body in control. Without them, he probably would have turned into a mindless monster, a puppet of the Virus, a while ago.
Sometimes he even forgot that he was stuck inside that monsters body. Unlike before, the Captain didn`t stop to believe in him like he did in the old times and that they could develope a cure. That thought had become his deepest wish. Getting human and the chance to live his old life again.
Even through the medication and drugs didn`t helped him in the slightest, he felt human in mind while training with his Captain. He was giving him all the hope he needed to continue like this. With the practices they did, he had to focus on the muscles of his body instead what was flowing through the veins.
He was still human in mind but he didn`t know how long he would be able to hold on.
The sun was about to sink and disappear behind the horizon when the soldiers of the training ground left inside the building to take a shower.
Valentine, Chambers and Claire Redfield left the fenced in area in which they trained Piers. The Captain remained sitting on the meadow with him by his side while he lifted up his gloved hand to wipe off the sweat droplets from his forehead.
He looked over at the Captain and let out a relaxed breath when he lay down on the smooth grass. It was good to relax the aching muscles a bit with lying them on something smooth.
Redfield looked over at the sunset as a smile suddenly crossed his face. He looked over at him and followed his gaze towards the horizon.
"A special sunset, don`t you think?" the Captain didn`t turn to him.
He just let his ears twitch of their own in response.
"In that moments I am asking myself if I am doing right" he stopped as he looked over and then turned his attention back at the sunset again.
"With the 'fighting against bioterrrism' thing. You know, uncountable things happen in the world each second. Things in which people get killed. No matter if their deaths are caused by a weapon just like a knife or a bullet, by an accident for example with cars, planes, trains or a burning building, by getting attacked by animals, by viruses or bacterias, by medicine or drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, hunger, thirst or any other special cases. You mostly can`t prevent their deaths. You can`t save or take care of every single person. In some cases, I am thinking if I am grown for this responsibility we often have to take. Asking ourselves if we are responsible for their deaths. If we could prevent them hitting by a bullet or infected by a virus. I have to admit, after everything that happened to our fellow comrades -".
He blinked and looked over at his Captain while his ears straightened as he listened closer.
"I am asking myself if that was my mistake. If I would have acted otherwise, they would still be alive" his Captain looked over at him with a thoughtful face expression.
"Finn would be here, Ben, Carl and Andy. They would hang around like they did in that bar before our mission in Edonia. They would laugh, they would celebrate for his first mission. They had family, Piers. And... Jeff, Keaton, Marco or Reid... They would all be alive. Because of my mistake, they all had to die. It was my responsibility to keep them alive, as their Captain. And you would be yourself, in your old human body, Piers. You wouldn`t be treaten like a testing subject nor as a monster. This is all my fault and I have to deal with it" he saw his Captain lowering his head as he turned his gaze away.
How he wished he could say something to take off the guilt from his Captain. There was a reason he injected himself. He didn`t want him to think like that. He also wanted to save the people of the word from that C Virus. He gave his old life for them all. For the B.S.A.A., for the future.
It was heartbreaking to hear the tough Co-founder of the B.S.A.A., the legendary Chris Redfield talking like this. He lowered his head slightly and turned at the sunset again.
"And here we are. The tough guy I always used to be is talking with you about this" Redfield let out a huff as he looked up.
"I will never forget his face. It haunts my every nightmare. Fnns face when he turned into a cocoon and reached out for me in his last human moments. I wish I could have helped him and save him. Damn it, he was only 22 years old. Too young to die, just like the others".
When he turned his head towards the Captain while he used his big clawed hand to push him slightly, he started to nod.
"I know, they chose to be B.S.A.A. Operatives and with that, risking their lifes each day on a mission. But as their Captain I should have acted otherwise.. I only saw that bitch and not my comrades, my family. I truly failed as a Captain, but I won`t let this happen again. After I hunted you and first wanted to end this, I understood that you can`t just run away. You have to face your fate because you have to fight for not only your life, you have to fight for who you are, no matter what you are. To fight not only means to carry a gun or defend yourself with your fists and feet, to fight also means to stay yourself. You need to avoid yourself getting changed".
He could feel his eyebrows lifting when he widened his many eyes, including the big eye of his chest. The Captain looked at him with a smile and... was that pride?
"You showed me how to fight, Piers. How to fight the pain of losing someone you are responsible for. How to keep going, no matter how hard it might be. That you have to accept your life and face your fate. You showed me that fighting against bioterorism means more than just killing monsters, a lot more. You taught me to remain calm. And now, you show me how strong willpower can be".
He smiled up at him and pulled the glove ff his hand before he lifted his hand to place it on the scales of his left arm.
"I will bring you back, soldier, this way or another. You will always be my partner, I am responsible for you. Don`t look like this, Piers. You know that you aren`t a monster. You will never turn into one because you have the willpower to fight this. You have the will to stay yourself, still human at heart. No matter if you would stay like this. Chamber will find a way to destroy the virus inside of you. And like this, you could still help me out. Maybe with..." he put his hand on his chin.
"With letting me ride your back while we are on our way to our mission? You are pretty fast. Also, your accuracy is still the same with your electrical hits. Think of it, you`re still a soldier. After the B.S.A.A. found out that the virus is cured and that you are still yourself even in that body, they will sign you in. You will go through a special training and then, come back to Alpha Team" he kept his smile.
How he wished that this could become true, that he could be the one he used to be even in this body. He had no hope that this could happen, but it would be a nice dream...