Downfall: Resident Evil II
Chapter Twenty Five: Water Treatment Plant
"Claire!" Leon called, watching both her and Sherry fall toward the water below the platform bridge. "You son of a bitch, I'll kill you!"
Knowing that he only had a few bullets left in the precious Desert Eagle, and that it would be needed if the giant ever caught up with them again, the young man decided to use it, since all he and Ada's pistols were doing was pissing the monster off between the swings it took at them with the guardrail. His reflexes were a bit faster than Claire's had been, so he ducked down underneath the next swing, before taking out the Desert Eagle and firing.
BOOM! The monster's dual voices roared as the high caliber bullet slammed into the more human looking side of its head, causing it to drop the guardrail as it reeled backwards. The monster fell backwards onto the intact part of the guardrail… and broke right through it, and the damn thing would have fallen down into the darkness, if it hadn't grabbed onto the edge of the platform with its human arm.
"Finish it off, Leon!" Ada exclaimed, reloading her pistol. "Hit it with your big gun again!"
It was a tempting prospect, but those last couple bullets were too precious to waste on this thing, and he had already seen how effective the 9mm was… so he slowly moved toward where the monster was hanging, before bending down and picking up the piece of guardrail. The metal bar was a bit heavier than it looked, but that just meant that it would hit harder, and this was Leon's plan when he stood over it.
"You hurt Claire and Sherry." The young man growled angrily, raising the bar above his head. "So now it's your turn to feel some pain."
He didn't know if the monster could understand his words, and he didn't care; Leon's only thoughts being of not being able to protect Claire and Sherry, as he brought the bar down on its human hand as hard as he could. There was a loud clang from the metal, mixed in with a muffled snap when the creature's fingers broke, and then a roar of its dual-voices when the monster fell. A moment later the current of the water below washed it away, leaving the young man to just stand there… dropping the guard rail as he fought back some tears.
"Leon, there was nothing you could do." Ada said, walking up behind him. "But if it makes you feel any better, they're problems are over now."
"You don't know if they're dead, Ada." The young man hissed, turning back to face her. "We have to find a way down there… maybe there's a service ladder, or maybe we can find a map of where the water…
Thump-thump-thump… the familiar sound of rhythmic and very heavy footsteps reached his ears, interrupting Leon's thoughts, making him momentarily forget all about Claire and Sherry as they got louder… and closer. Now unable to move, and too scared to even take a breath in case it revealed his and Ada's position… to the green coat-wearing giant that appeared in the doorway a couple seconds later.
"What is this, a tag-team?" His mind barely registered when Ada spoke. "Leon… Leon, we need to get out of her. Leon!"
Finally snapping out of it when the woman in red struck him in the side of the head with her pistol, the young man realized that she was right, and thankfully there was another door right behind them. Ada fired a couple shots into its legs, most likely in an attempt to slow it down, but there was no effect, so the two of them ran for it. The door behind them was metal, and sturdy enough to be more of a blast hatch than a sewer access door, and this meant that it took both of them working together to pull it open.
Screech! The rusted and seldom used hinges were stubborn, making the hatch even more difficult to open, and causing Leon's heart to beat faster when he felt the platform bridge start to shake from the giant's first step onto it. Luckily they only needed to open it enough to squeeze through, and both of them were pretty skinny, so they were able to slip through and pull the door shut again before the giant got there.
"Lock that bolt up there." Ada said as she moved an emergency brace onto the lower part of the hatch. "Leon, hurry!"
The woman in red wasn't tall enough to reach it, and even Leon had to stretch a little in order to slide the bar, which was part of some kind of flood-containment system based on the warning label next to it, into place. And they had done this not a moment too soon, since the door shook with what could have only been one of the giant's punches immediately after, making them both jump.
The door held, though. The metal was dented toward them slightly, and tiny pieces were starting to break off of the concrete walls around it, but it held. The giant must have realized this as well, since the hits stopped after a couple more tries, and then there was a thump-thump-thump, but this time the footsteps were moving away. Leon held his breath again, worrying that the giant was going to run at the door like a battering ram… but maybe it couldn't run? Since the impact never happened, anyway.
"Do you think it's gone, Ada?" The young man whispered. "Ada?"
There was no response, and Leon's heart skipped a beat when he turned around and she wasn't there… only to feel relieved and irritated at the same time when he saw that she had simply gone ahead down the corridor behind them. He supposed that there was no point in telling her to wait, since the woman in red wasn't going to listen, so the young man followed her, traveling up another short set of stairs, and through a door into a large room that was filled with more deactivated monitoring equipment.
Apparently the Raccoon City Police Department was connected via maintenance access to the nearby water treatment plant, although this office, or meeting room, or whatever it was didn't seem like it had seen much use even before the crisis overtaking the city. However, Ada had stopped moving for the time being, giving him a chance to catch up to her while she rifled through the cabinets and drawers, most likely looking for anything useful.
"You don't see a map or anything, do you?" Leon asked, taking a moment to sit down on one of the desks' chairs after all the excitement. "It shouldn't be too hard to find a way down to where Claire and Sherry fell, and…
"You're wasting your time, and putting us in needless danger, Leon." The woman in red coldly replied, closing the cabinet. "Even if they survived the fall and the water, this place is probably crawling with more creatures like that spider you found, so I wouldn't expect them to last long… even if you hadn't sent that big thing right down after them."
Yes, it was true that he had knocked that eye-monster down into the water right after they had fallen, but if anything, that was even more reason to try and find them before it was too late. Now standing up, and reminding her that she didn't know if they were dead, the young man tried to appeal to her sense of empathy; asking Ada how she would feel if it had been her that had fallen off the platform bridge, and needed to be rescued.
"You may not have noticed this, Leon." The woman in red replied, just as coldly. "But your girlfriend is kind of a wimp, and her getting all maternal over that kid makes her even more of a liability. I, on the other hand, managed to take you prisoner… twice… and if I were on my own, I would fight my way out of it, just like I fought my way through this city days before you came to town."
Finding himself unable to think of anything to say back to this, it was difficult for the young man to believe that a woman as beautiful as Ada could be so heartless. She had to understand on some level what it meant to want to protect someone, since after all, she was in the city to find her boyfriend. So why was it so difficult for her to understand how he felt about Claire? Not that she was his girlfriend or anything, but one would think that the woman in red would pick up on the similarities.
"Tell you what, Leon." Ada said after a long, irritated sigh. "If we somehow manage to find a way down there, we can look for your girlfriend, okay? Now stop pouting like a little girl, and act like a man, because I'm going to need you focused if we are going to make it through this."
"Okay, deal." The young man replied. "But from now on we stick together… it's too dangerous for any of us to be on our own, and I don't want to lose anyone else."
The woman in red sighed again before reluctantly nodding, and then without waiting to see if he had anything else to say, she started toward the other door. Grumbling something at him about keeping up, Leon had to get out of the chair and pick up a light jog in order to catch up to her, and he nearly lost his footing on the downward staircase that was waiting for them on the other side of the door.
All of the pipes, and even some of the walls were leaking, causing the normally non-slip metal grating on the stairs to become a trip-hazard, and the young man didn't feel so bad now, since Ada had to hold onto the guardrail to keep from falling as well. Once at the bottom of the stairs, the area around them went from modern concrete, to the old brick and mortar style construction of city sewers, complete with incandescent hanging light fixtures instead of modern fluorescent ones.
These hanging fixtures caused all of the shadows in the passage to move, giving the illusion of creatures reaching out for them… but it was enough to let them see that there was someone else up ahead of them in the tunnel. It was a woman with dirty blonde hair, wearing what looked like a lab coat, and quickly spinning around after hearing their footsteps… with a pistol in her hand.
Bang!