-1Ah damn I hate to have you guys wait so long, but really I am in a bit of stress with university -stuff right now, actually I typed the following only last night. Additionally I had a small block, just no idea what should come next, but no I got some Ideas.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

8)

Given the choice, what would you do when facing a demon? Would you run, or would you fight and probably die? For Toni the answer only depended on whether you're an idiot or not.

Her heart pounded like it wanted to explode when she looked at that thing. That horrible black, huge and deformed creature.

Just judging from its size and especially the size of its muscles she knew that this monster could rip a human apart easily.

"SSSTTTTAAARRSSSSSS!!!", it growled deeply, its one eye starring into nothingness. Toni had no idea if it could really see with that, but it indeed seemed to look directly at her.

The monster was taking one step after another up the hall, passing the fountain, and coming nearer with each earthshaking step.

Alan looked around, his teeth pressed against each other, and finally his eyes fixed on something. "That way, quick!!", he ordered and grabbed her arm roughly.

Their destination was only about two meters away, an iron ladder, obviously it was some kind of an emergency ladder and someone left it extended for others in need.

Which totally qualifies us right now…

Silently she thanked whoever left this way open for them. "Get yer ass up there!!", Alan commanded and pushed her towards the ladder while he turned around and aimed his weapon at the monster.

Toni did not try to talkback, she knew that she was quicker then him and he would still have a few seconds until the demon would reach him. With desperate effort she climbed up the ladder quicker then anytime before. The growling of the monster got louder with every second passing, she still felt so slow, the second floor of the hall seemed so far away.

Maybe "second floor" was a bit exaggerated, the thing she was climbing to was more like a balcony-like way that lead from the door on the western wall to another one on the eastern wall.

"Sssstttaaarssssssss!!", the thing growled again, and Toni felt like he was standing directly behind her, her breathing got harder and finally she reached the edge of the second floor. She jumped up and turned around.

Alan was still standing down there, but…

NOO!!

The creature was only three meters from him, it just walked up the ramp next to the desk, while Alan still pointed his shotgun at it.

"Get up here now, you idiot!!", she shouted down and pulled her own weapon from her shorts.

"I'll keep him on distance, so hurry!!"

He grimly nodded and grabbed the ladder while Toni watched the monster, her Samurai Edge pointed at its big chest. She already knew that a zombie would not stop if you just shoot his chest or pierce his heart, but this thing might be different and even if the only way killing it was a headshot, she doubted she could hit it. Alan had shown her some tricks, but hitting a moving target was far more complicated then shooting a slow zombie.

It really was saver to aim for his chest and hit.

Alan was halfway up the ladder, a height that this thing surely could easily reach when it suddenly stopped. It…well…it stood right at the computer and seemed to look at it.

Seconds passed and Alan eventually reached the floor too. "What's it doing?", he asked, obviously wondering why he wasn't attacked .

"You tell me…", she gasped not sure what she was seeing. It was gross and still her eyes couldn't stop looking.

The monster stood at the computer and pointed one of his arms at it. A fleshy wet tentacle extended from its sleeve and moved over the keyboard, the mouse and the table, right there where the women had been standing.

"STARSSSS!!!", it suddenly shouted loud enough to make Toni's knee weak as pudding. She sank down trembling. The demon did not even think about the ladder, it turned from the computer and straightly walked at the door that the women had passed.

Toni finally understood the word it was trying to say, it normally only sounded like a simple growl, but…it was an actual word.

S.T.A.R.S.

It had never been interested in herself or Alan, it was simply following the way that the woman went. It was after the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad like a machine that knew nothing but its mission. You couldn't fight something like that, you couldn't even run from it.

"This women will die, you know that, right?", Alan stated coldly.

She nodded slowly.

"And you know that there is nothing that we can do about it, right?"

She nodded again, even slower.

How much she hated to admit it, but he was right. The woman couldn't survive this hunt for long and no one could save her from this monster. It was time for her to face it…in this city there was no place for heroes. They were all dead already.

It felt terrible to just leave that woman to her fate and she was happy that it did, maybe this last bit of guilt she was feeling, was the only thing that distinguished her from Alan.

"Which way are we going?", he suddenly asked, breaking up her thoughts.

From a guided tour through the RPD, which she did in ninth grade, she remembered that the western door lead to a big library and from there you would at some point reach the S.T.A.R.S. office. Which obviously was the place where the woman was right now, thus they should not get near it.

The other door lead into a secretary's office and from there you would come to either the chief's office or a hallway that would eventually get you to the roof-heliport and the back entrance.

"East. There's a back entrance, maybe Diana, Rick and Ben used that one."

He nodded quickly and started walking.

Toni just hoped that they wouldn't meet Bryan Irons. If he really was part of some kind of conspiracy with Umbrella on the line, she'd rather have him dead. He was crazy, she had known that from that day in ninth grade when her whole class was invited into his office and he would look at each one, shake their hands and tell something about police-work.

But when Toni's and his eyes met she had seen right down into his soul. She had seen what was behind the face of "uncle" Bryan.

On the next day she learned that one of her classmates, a girl called Emma, did not arrive at home from school. The police immediately began searching for her, but they never found any trace. Even though she never found proof for it, Toni was sure that Irons took her somewhere and killed her. She was scared, scared enough to not tell anybody that she remembered him looking at the girl for much longer then he looked at anyone else in the room, that she had seen the glimpsing in his eyes. The same glimpse he had when he was talking about his

stuffed animals.

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When they first heard the screams, Rick wasn't really sure whether to ignore them or not. he had heard so many screams, so many people cry for help that it just sounded like a normal noise, like the traffic, which you get used to when living near a main street. You start to overhear it…

But still… since they already reached the RPD, which wasn't in a very good shape by the way, there was a possibility that Toni and Alan were with the one who was screaming.

The voice was silenced by a few walls, but it wasn't that far away, maybe directly in the room under their feet, if there was short cut they could make it in no time and it might be worth a try.

"Let's check it out", he said.

They quickly opened a door on the left wall, which had a sign with "emergency staircase" on it and were rewarded with fresh air. Rick's lungs were grateful for this small break from the decaying stench in the department, but he knew it wasn't for long.

Metal stairs led down to another door, the only other thing here were a few pots with herbs growing in them. He remembered that this herb was growing almost everywhere in the city, he could think of no reason to cultivate it in a pot, but someone sure knew why he did that.

Carefully he reached for the door, concentrating on any noise that might indicate an enemy attack, but he only heard someone shouting.

"Get away!! Go, damnit!!", a male voice screamed and then Rick could hear a shot, then another. it was obviously a human in there.

Holding his father's sword in his left hand he entered the room behind the door and quickly checked it. It was a small floor with a door on the other end and an opening to the left.

"DIE!!!", the voice said again and another shot echoed from the left, then an empty chamber clicked. Rick stormed forward into the room, which was, as he briefly noticed a office room with many desks. It was in quite a shabby condition, a pure chaos, which was another painful sign for the death of all cops here.

Next to the desks stood a brown-haired boy, about his age, he wore jeans and a white shirt, his face was not really an expression of fear but more of anger and hate. His eyes looked at the ground in front of him, where he still pointed his handgun. Rick reacted before he could see what ever the thing on the ground was. He ran around the desks and stormed towards the boy, his hand at the grip of his sword.

The boy looked at him surprised, his eyes opened wide, but he made the mistake of taking them from the thing that attacked him. Rick attacked in exactly this second.

Iaido, a high level sword-art that his father taught him. It sounded easy, basically it only meant to draw your sword from the sheath and attack in the same movement, that should increase your speed an destructive power by far. Well, Rick never thought he had to use that technique against an opponent ever, because its main purpose was to kill in one strike, but now he was very happy the he learned about it.

Whatever thing to his feet was, it just tried to stab the brown-haired boy with its very very long tongue. Rick was barely able to cut the thin long thing in mid-air and now it was lying on the ground wet an bloody. The boy jumped away and hid behind one of the tables.

The monster that was the original owner of the tongue squealed in pain, but it was still alive and now obviously pissed. It turned at Rick and now he could see that it was…well…nothing he had ever seen before. Its head mainly consisted of a visible brain and a mouth filled with sharp small teeth, there were no eyes. Its whole body had the color of muscle tissue and his arms (or maybe front legs) ended in thirty centimeter long claws.

Rick jumped a meter back and readied himself for the attack of that thing, he now let loose of his the sheath an grabbed the sword with both hands. The blade was light as a feather and there was not even a little sprinkle of blood from this tongue on it.

When the thing finally attacked Rick was ready. It jumped high into the air an tried to cut him to pieces with its claws, but when dicing was considered Rick was still a bit faster than it. His blade cut through that things torso like butter and made it split.

The two part fell to the ground and left another ugly pool of blood. Rick exhaled slowly to get his adrenaline down, then he picked his sheath up and inserted the sword.

Ben and Diana had watched the battle from a few meters away and they still looked at him like he was a demon. "Hell, how'd you do that?", Ben asked admiring.

"Spinach", he only replied and then turned to the place where the boy was hiding. "You're safe now. Come out."

The boy raised up and seemingly checked his saviors from head to feet. His face was surely not that of a damsel in distress being saved, he was suspicious, but that was not surprising. Most likely he lost his family and everyone else he knew.

"Who are you?", the boy asked with a small hint of a French accent in his voice.

"I'm Diana, this is Ben and our mighty swordsman is Rick." Diana introduced them friendly. She still had that tone of an class rep reporting to a teacher. Anyway the boy seemed to loosen up a bit. He now walked over the dead thing on the ground and stopped in front of the trio.

"Damn, you wouldn't believe how happy I am to find you guys. Now I might really have a chance to stay alive", his smile was faint but still visible.

"Well, don't worry anymore", Diana said in a comforting tone, "we stay together and will find a way out of the city. But considering I don't like to call ya "brown-haired guy", how about telling us your name?"

This time the boy smiled brighter. "Sure. I'm Marcus."

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Emily knew that her life was over now, she would die very soon.

Ten minutes ago, Brian Irons had given her a dress, a very old fashioned yellow thing and she had known from the first moment that something bad was about to happen, she'd seen it in the eyes of the chief. This dress would be the last thing she'd ever wear. After giving her the dress he had disappeared again and locked the door.

She had just hoped that Irons would only kill her, but she had expected something a lot worse. His eyes were filled with the lust that she has seen in so many boys eyes when she was wearing a short skirt or a tight shirt. He wanted her and he would most likely rape her once she left the room in this absurd dress. But did she have a choice? He was armed and she was only a weak girl, who knew nothing about self-defense.

Then she had remembered the can of pepper spray, which was fixed on her key-chain. While she had taken of her jeans and shirt off she quickly reached for her pocket and searched that damn can. It was much smaller then a normal one and the info-text said that it only had enough spray for two shots. Emily quickly slid it into the dresses pocket, put the thing on and looked at herself in a big mirror on the wall.

The dress had looked much better when she wore it, it really emphasized her great body, but the thought of what would be coming next had made her doubt, if she wanted to look as sexy as she did in this dress.

Now that all seemed so pointless. The smell of Irons sweat so close to her made her want to puke, but she could fight it down and tried to concentrate on those two people that pointed weapons at Irons and her.

This all had happened so quick that she did have no idea what was going on. Once she had stepped out of the room, she found Irons leaning against his office desk, a gun in his hand.

"Come here", he had said and Emily had needed all her strength not to cry.

"You know, Emily. You'll live." A false feeling of hope had aroused in her, but his next words crushed it quicker then it came.

"You'll live forever. I am quite an expert at preserving beauty, you see.", He had looked over his shoulder towards those stuffed animals on his wall and Emily started trembling. He wasn't horny like the other guys, he was just totally sick.

"Masters said I shouldn't touch you, but… hell…who cares about that Umbrella lackey, right? There power over the city is gone, now I'm in charge and I say what is happening. And you are one of the lucky ones that is going to share my power." Emily had felt so weak, but she had managed to stay on her feet. "Don't worry, sugar", Irons had told her smiling with such a sick expression that her knees started trembling and she felt one of the chocolate bars coming up her throat again. "It won't hurt. You just swallow this pill and then go to sleep until I awaken you as the ultimate beauty."

He had been holding a small blue capsule that obviously would have killed her, some poison most likely, and she had really thought hard about it. It was surely pretty painless and then she could go to heaven and get rid of all this terrible things that were happening here. Did she even care about what Irons did with her body after her death? Not really, still she had not felt ready to die. Fortunately she hadn't have to make a decision since those two people had entered the office. A boy and a girl, quite her own age. She even might have seen the girl at school before.

But that was irrelevant, since the first thing Irons did when he saw them was grabbing Emily and using her a living shield, while he pointed his weapon at the two and Emily knew that her death was near.

While she struggled in Irons grip and the two people looked at both of them with questioning eyes Irons finally started to talk. "What the hell are you doing here?"

His other hand still pointed the gun at those two.

The blonde boy glared at the chief and Emily was sure that he did not feel any fear. His hand was calm as he held that odd weapon with the blade. Some of the electric light reflected on it and dazzled her a second.

The girl, whose hair might have been dirty-blonde but was now more dirty then blonde, stepped forward and let her weapon sink.

Don't do that he'll kill you, too…, Emily thought and felt a bit of sympathy with the girl. She was as careless as herself when she came in here. "Calm down, chief. We are looking for help." Her eyes were as suspecting as those of the boy.

"Wait a second. Might you be Edward's daughter? That snot-nosed brat?", the chief asked and Emily had to think really hard to remember anyone by that name. Then she looked at the girl and knew who she was. It must have been because of the fear that she didn't recognize her already.

She was Edward Williams daughter, Antonia Williams, that banker her father was friends with. The guy with the Italian women. She had actually met Antonia before on some kind of celebration, but they never talked more then a polite "hello". Antonia always seemed to be annoyed by those banquettes.

This all seemed so far back now, but still she did not want Antonia to die, it was her duty to protect the cities people. She was the majors daughter after all.

"Yeah", Antonia said slowly, "We just wanna talk, okay?"

Irons breathing got quicker and Emily understood that he was planning on shooting Antonia and the boy as soon as the boy put his gun down. Slowly she reached for her pocket with the pepper-spray in it and wished that in this second Marcus, her knight, would come to save her, but she did not believe in miracles. Her hand closed around the can.

"Maybe you just let go of the major's daughter and then we all sit down and talk about all this", Antonia said comforting and Emily was a bit surprised that she was recognized.

Something in the chiefs mood changed, his grip got harder and it really hurt now, his breathing was short and quick. "Release her? She belongs to me!! I am her protector!!"

The hell you are… , Emily thought darkly and remembered his sick words of stuffing her like an animal. Her neck started to hurt and she could hardly breath anymore.

"Please, Bryan, let me go!!", she cried and struggled in his arm.

Antonia looked at both of them with horror, then her companion stepped to the front with his hand still pointing at Emily and Irons, his eyes made it very clear that he would shoot.

"Alright, bastard. Let her go now!!", the boy barked and Irons seemed to explode finally. Emily smelled some of his stinking breath and coughed loudly. His face was over her right shoulder now and the can in her left hand.

"She is mine, just like the rest of this city, how dare you demand anything from me?!", Irons shouted back and Emily felt salvia on her cheek. Then everything happened in slow motion.

From the angle of her right eye she saw the chief finger clench around the trigger of the pistol and she knew he would shoot. Her left arm moved up towards her right shoulder quicker then she ever thought she could move and the black can spit its burning content in the chiefs eyes from a distance of only two centimeters.

The chief yowled from the brutal pain that bit into his eyes. As far as Emily knew this stuff was one of the most painful things that you could do to someone. His arm loosened and she slipped from his grip as quick as she could. Without waiting a second she ran towards Antonia and that boy. Far away she heard the sound of a shot and saw that the boy was thrown back against the door, his arm was bleeding badly as he sank down on the wood, then she saw Antonia's widely opened mouth, she was screaming but Emily couldn't hear it. She briefly turned and looked for Irons, he was stumbling at some door on the back of the room, which wasn't there before, but his weapon was lying on the ground still smoking from the shot that…that…

Wait a second…

She stood in the way. The shot that hit the boy would have had to pass her to hit him, she stood in the line of the bullet. With horror she looked down and saw a blood red flower bloom on her dress, just where her belly was. When the time finally started to run back in normal time, she started to feel the pain. It wasn't bad, but there was this num feeling that spread out from the wound and she felt more blood running down her legs. Too much blood.

Antonia looked at her with pain in her eyes. "Hold still, everything's gonna be fine!!", she said while Emily felt her knees getting weak and then she sank down. Antonia grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "I am not that silly, you know…", Emily said and felt blood in her mouth. It tasted like licking a piece of iron.

"No, you're not silly, stay with me, okay?"

Suddenly she felt sleepy, Antonia's voice was really far away and she understood that it was time to go now. "If… you see… my father…tell him…I love him…and Antonia…take care….."

Then the sleep overwhelmed her and everything got black.