Uroboros: Resident Evil V

Chapter Fifteen: A Big Surprise

Fully recovered from the effects of the flashbang by the time that the man from Delta Team arrived with a Humvee, Chris and Sheva climbed inside, telling him the direction that Irving's SUV had fled, while using the truck's computer to transmit all of the information that was found on the target's PDA. Thankfully, Headquarters had an entire division of eggheads to start sifting through the data as soon as it was received, but there was one piece of information that had been verified by the time he used the satellite phone to report in.

Based on the Agent's observations, as well as that of Delta Team, and the information on the PDA, it was determined that Kijuju City was suffering an outbreak similar to the Las Plagas incident in Spain. The last piece of Intel needed for the determination came from Irving's files, where it explained that a new type of Plagas had been engineered from a sample that survived back in 2004, but whereas the original parasite was implanted unto a subject as an egg and could take about a week to take control… this new one, called Type 2 Plagas, could take control in a matter of seconds.

"So they force an adult Plaga down the victim's throat?" Chris asked, not feeling comfortable with the idea. "Shit… that explains why the people calling for help suddenly turned hostile, and… how the outbreak spread so quickly."

Damn it, he and Sheva had only been seconds too late to save those people, but now Headquarters had decided that the whole district of the city was to be quarantined until a solution could be found… God, it was Raccoon City all over again. But, at least the BSAA was working fast to capture Irving and prevent further damage, and who knows, maybe there was a cure? After all, both Leon Kennedy and Ashley Graham had survived being infected with the original parasite, so there was always hope.

Meanwhile, Delta Team had been pulled out of Kijuju City, sent on ahead to secure both the waterfront to gain access to the oil field, and to scout ahead in the marshlands to see if anything else could be learned before the attack began. Once everyone was safely across the water to where the oil field was waiting, the plan was for Chris and Sheva to assault the whole facility with Delta Team in order to either capture him… or kill the little weasel before he got away. Hell, the only thing keeping Irving alive at all as far as the Agent was concerned was that he might know where Jill was.

The drive from Kijuju City to the waterfront was a long one, and with both the target and the rest of Delta Team having a long head start, the best they could do was try not to lag too far behind. It was nice to be out of the city, though, and even though the trip took more than an hour, leaving the African Savannah much darker as the stars began to come out, at least there weren't hundreds of people trying to kill them. Hopefully this trend of nothing happening would continue until they reached the oil field, and then all of their efforts could be…

"Say again… you're breaking up." The driver said in response to the transmission that came through. "This is Mathers en route with Redfield and Alomar, say again your last transmission."

It was mostly static that was coming through when he let go of the receiver, along with a few random words that got through, and what sounded like… gunfire? Mathers tried to adjust the signal strength from his end, but nothing was working, leaving the only conclusion that Delta Team was under attack. But how could they be? All of the Intel that had been collected so far suggested that the new Plagas outbreak hadn't spread out of that one district of the city, so what was happening?

Was it possible that Irving had been prepared with another little surprise for Delta Team, like the one that killed DeChant? Not likely, since if the target had another one of those things, he probably would've used it when Chris and Sheva ambushed him back at the shack near the mine. That was another disturbing detail, come to think of it, since out of everything that had been sent from the PDA to analyze… there had not been a single mention of the black, corpse eating, tendril… thing that they had fought in the old recycling center.

The driver kept trying to reach the rest of Delta Team on the radio, but now there were no transmissions coming from the ones sent to secure the waterfront at all, and the ones who had gone into the marshes with Captain Stone were probably well out of range for the equipment they were using. So now all they could do was drive faster, with Chris and Sheva having to hold onto the Humvee's roll bars every time they hit a bump or had to swing around a tight turn in order to stay on the dirt road. There was also no moon tonight, so the only illumination came from the truck's headlights, at least until the distant lights of that village came into view.

"All right, we're almost there, hang on." Mathers said, slowing down a little so that he could cross a narrow bridge across the canal. "I still got nothing from the guys, so hopefully their radio is just broken."

"Yeah, hopefully." The Agent replied, squinting to see up ahead. "Bring us in nice and slow, and we'll take a look around."

Once past the bridge, the truck rolled into what looked like a really tiny version of Kijuju City, with its buildings and roads built in exactly the same manner, they were just smaller and there weren't as many of them. There were streetlights, however, not a lot just at the corner of each street inside the village, allowing the three of them to see… oh my God, there were bodies in the street. Instructing the driver to stop the truck, the group got out, keeping their weapons ready as they moved over to the nearest one, discovering that it was wearing the helmet and armor of Delta Team.

"Oh God, there's more." Sheva said, rushing over to the next one, and then the next. "Wait, they're… they're all BSAA."

Chris hadn't noticed that at first, but unlike in the city, there were no bodies of hostile locals anywhere among the BSAA agents, in spite of how many bullet casings were lying on the ground. All of the casings were 5.56 NATO rounds, exactly the kind used in the BSAA's preferred M4 Carbine rifles, but none of the agents had been shot, either. At first Sheva was worried that they had been attacked by another black tendril monster, but although the bodies had been left in twisted, unnatural positions with expressions of agony on their faces, none of them had their skin burned off like Alpha Team.

Clicking on their flashlights, along with Mathers doing the same with the one on the bottom of his rifle, the three of them continually looked around what they could see of this smaller village, but nothing was there. It was starting to look like they should just try to find an airboat and take off after the others before something happened, and then something moved out of the corner of Chris's eye.

"Redfield, look out!" Mathers yelled, shoving the Agent forward hard enough to knock him off his feet.

It was a good thing the driver did that, because Chris had barely hit the ground when a very large piece of metal went flying right over his head, cutting off Mathers' scream as it smashed him into the ground with a loud CRASH! Wait a second, that wasn't just any piece of metal… it was a Humvee; dented and busted up beyond repair, yet somehow able to go flying through the air without anyone behind the wheel, and… and what was that really loud thumping sound?

Again seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, the Agent looked back just in time to gasp and roll out of the way as something huge came crashing down onto the street enough to make a depression in the hard packed dirt. Scrambling away from the huge object, Chris scooted across the ground like a stumbling crab as he realized that he was looking at a huge, discolored foot… a foot that was attached to an equally large leg… that was attached to something that was now reaching down to grab him with its hand.

Bang! Bang! Firing a couple shots with her pistol to distract the monster, Sheva holstered it in favor of picking up one of Delta Team's rifles, grabbing as many magazines as she could from its previous owner, and then shooting. Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! The monster grunted in what almost sounded like annoyance as the bullets struck it in the face like bee stings, causing it to forget about Chris and pass underneath one of the streetlights, allowing the Agent to get a good look at it.

It was a giant; there was no other way to describe the twenty foot tall horror that might have once been a human, with its heavily cracked, discolored skin, and growls of anger as it pushed the streetlight down to get it out of the way. Following the young woman's lead, he grabbed a rifle along with as many magazines that he could, slamming one in and then returning the favor of distracting it so that Sheva could get out of harm's way. The Agent wasn't stupid, he knew that something like this couldn't be beaten with such small weapons, so the only option right now was to escape.

"Get the truck!" He yelled as the monster began following him. "Sheva get the truck, we're gonna have to fall back!"

Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! Continuing to throw lead at the monster, which didn't do much more than annoy it, Chris knew that he had to wait until Sheva had the Humvee ready before making a run for it, and… oh my God, this thing was wearing the bodies of BSAA agents upside down like tassels on its belt. Yeah, there were three of them, hung up by their ankles so that they were just kind of swinging back and forth, and… okay, she was in the truck.

Becoming pretty annoyed with him, the giant raised both of its arms to crush him, but as awful as it was, Chris used this moment to run right through the monster's legs, having to push his way past the bodies in order to get out the other side. Sprinting as hard as he could, the Agent ran right for the truck, and dove into the back while screaming for her to drive in a voice that was probably a bit higher and more panicked than he wanted to admit. So the young woman hit the gas and cranked the wheel to the left, kicking up some gravel and just missing being grabbed by the monster's hand as they tore their way down one of the village's streets.