Part Three: The Legend of Leon Kennedy
A battle.
A belief denied.
A truth that can't be concealed.
Tall Oaks - 2013
His hand settled atop the gun aimed at her face in the darkness. She saw, in that moment, the hesitance she'd expected from the moment she knew he'd found the tape that showed the horror they were both envisioning. Her, but not her, arisen like a monster from an egg made of goo and nightmares.
The girl beside him gave Ada pause. The righteous fool. Surely he was kidding here. Surely...he had not bound himself to the woman responsible for the fall of an entire city. She knew, in her heart of hearts, he'd always partially blamed Ada for Raccoon City...but here and now...the girl in his care was, without a doubt, the reason Tall Oaks was burning above them.
The crypt, or what was left of it, around them belonged to Derek Simmons - the stupid bastard. He'd found a way to clone her. He'd found a way to copy her and a create a golem with her face. The obsessive stalker with more power than the dead president was now out there guiding her doppelganger to greatness and looking to see the end of the woman it shadowed.
It. Ada refused to refer to the woman wearing her face as anything more than an it. It was a creation. It needed stopped. She'd see it burn like the city brought down by her mechanization's.
Leon spoke into the quiet darkness, "...Ada."
Jesus, his voice was cold. She'd expected it, since he'd awoken alone after she'd fled him the last time. She had no choice, she had to, she'd known that night she was fighting now for them both. She couldn't tell him that, but it didn't change the truth.
So, she kept her face cold too, "Leon...you often go traipsing around crypts while the world burns?"
He shook his head as Helena Harper started to cry where she knelt beside him. Her sister had emerged from the goo filled egg like Ada's clone. She'd converted to something horrid and horrific. Ada had put her down with a clean bolt from her bowgun through the forehead.
It was mercy.
Although both of them were looking at her like she'd murdered a puppy.
Leon shook his head, refusing to engage in banter with her. That was the most alarming thing of all. He remarked, "...what are you doing here, Ada?"
He wanted to ask a much tougher question, she could see it on him. He wanted to ask who are you, Ada? But something checked the impulse. She knew what it was, of course, it was loyalty to the girl who knelt beside him. The stupid, insipid, emotional mess that had traded the safety of seventy thousand people for her very dead and mutated sister. Selfish, stupid, and worthy another bolt to the brains.
But, alas, Leon wouldn't likely let Ada murder the other woman in cold blood.
So, Ada told him, "There are forces at play here so much worse than you can imagine. Get out, get gone...and turn your attention to the people you can stop."
He paused. Ada tilted her head, "...ask. You know you want to...ask me."
He opened his mouth and the thing that had been Debra Harper rose up to try to kill her sister. They struggled, Leon kicked the bitch in the face for the effort, and the winged mess made a bigger one. She slapped the columns of the rickety remains where they stood.
The world shivered, they all stumbled and tumbled, and the platform collapsed.
A tumble, a terrible cry of fear from Helena, and Ada dangled by one tired hand. She thought - this is how I go, falling to my death like a bad video game plot device.
A familiar moment, it seemed, as Leon reached over the dangling dark and commanded, "Take my hand, Ada. Now."
She did. She'd dropped the last time. This time? She took the hand.
He tugged her up and she stumbled against him. He set her away like she'd caught fire and she shook her head. He wouldn't ask if she was real. He was afraid of her answer. She started to tell him and Helena screamed.
They raced toward the sounds of her struggle. There was no time for confessions now. Let him think she was evil. Let him think she was a monster. The sheer fortitude of him would push him toward finishing her off for it.
It was good to let him think she wasn't the woman he'd wanted most of his life.
She left him with a warning, with a fear of what she was, and with a purpose to pursue the truth. It was how she propelled him, it was how she'd always propelled him. Let him chase her. Let him follow her.
The answers were waiting for them both.
Tatchi - 2013
He stood in the swirling sea air and felt a kind of betrayal he'd never known. Ada...responsible for the horror of what had happened in Edonia? Ada? Ada...not human? Ada - a monster?
He just...he was...he wasn't...he couldn't understand it. He couldn't make sense of it. He'd stood on that bridge facing Redfield and couldn't defend her honor. He tried, he did, he waited for to defend herself and she'd stood there in that purple dress and smirked.
How?
Why?
He'd known, somewhere inside, that she'd been darker than he'd ever had the nerve to discover. He knew, in his guts, she wasn't entirely good...but evil? Evil? Evil? Was she?
He started to decide what it meant to have feelings for someone so convoluted and his communicator signaled in his ear. He touched it, brow furrowed, and Hunnigan informed him, "I've got an urgent mayday from a Captain Redfield?"
Leon instructed, "Patch him through."
He relayed the information about Sherry and Jake's abduction. He told about Simmons and his mutation. He informed the former S.T.A.R.S. sniper about the collusion between Simmons and various players within the U.S. government regarding the end of Tall Oaks and the assassination of Adam Benford. Chris agreed to locate and collect Sherry and Jake.
They could work together even if they fundamentally disagreed on who was responsible.
It didn't have to be personal.
And then? Then it just...was.
"Leon...wait..."
Leon paused and Helena halted on the stairs to head up to the main level. Simmons was dead. They'd battled to the point of nearly losing limbs and lives and leaving a floating mess in the water behind. He was dead.
It was over.
It was done.
Ada could be held accountable as soon as she was -"Ada Wong is dead."
The silence was so loud. It was loud. It hurt. He blinked. Helena gave him a slow, sad look. He'd heard that before though, hadn't he? He'd thought she was dead once before. She wasn't dead.
It made no sense.
He'd trusted Chris to save her life.
In his ear, Chris urged, "...Leon?"
"...I'm here." Leon inhaled sharply, "...thank you. I know you did what you could to prevent that."
Chris was so quiet. He finally came back, "...I wish I could say I'm sorry...what was she to you? And don't feed me some line about a witness."
Leon glanced over the long dark horizon, "...she was...a part of me I couldn't let go of."
Helena touched his arm in sympathy and Chris concluded, "...then I'm sorry for that...but I'm glad she's dead. Do yourself a favor and get out of there safe, ok?"
"...right. Kennedy, out."
He disconnected. He wanted to...what? Mourn her? Stupid to mourn a monster and a traitor. It was stupid to hurt for her. It was stupid to care. It was stupid to -
His ear buzzed again. Chris crackled on and shouted, "LEON! GET OUT OF THERE!"
It didn't matter anymore what he'd lost.
He was about to lose what little he had left.
Tatchi - 2013
Simmons tumbled to his back and was still. The walkway was long and splattered in blood. The gloved hand on her face brought her eyes fluttering as he urged, "...come on, sweetheart...not like this...come on...wake up for me, Ada. Wake up."
Wake up.
She'd been sleeping most of her life.
Didn't he understand that?
It wasn't like her to risk herself to save anyone. She'd nearly died granting him the chance to run. What was he doing here!?
Her eyes flickered open and she gasped, "...Leon! You idiot!"
Surprised, filthy, he almost laughed, "...that's how you say thank you?"
Ada sat up and swayed, head throbbing. Her shoulder throbbed with her head. Hurt. She was badly hurt. She didn't need a doctor to tell her that, but she gripped his vest and urged, "Go! I will hold him here, you fucking idiot, get out of here and run! Find the Birkin girl...she's alive? I made sure she got to you...you found her?"
Something flickered on his face. "...Sherry?"
"Yes...she was there...she was going to lose to that thing...I made sure she got out. I had to...she had-"
He cut her off, "She had all the information on the carrier of the antibodies."
Ada nodded, "...yes. Fuck...my head. I can't think. Where's Simmons?"
He shook his head, "Dead...again...for what it seems to be worth."
Ada shivered and started to get up. She ended up leaning on him for a moment as she mused, "...big hero moment for you, huh? How'd it feel?"
He didn't even tease her. He simply turned her face up and kissed her. It was...without a doubt...the most unlike her moment she'd ever had. Forget saving his life in a bid like a big hero herself and leaping down to take on a monster with nothing but a bowgun and a prayer...this...this goddamn damsel in distress moment...it wasn't her. She didn't kiss him back, but she let him do it.
She whispered, "...I was just resting my eyes."
He shook his head, eyes bright, and remarked, "...what are you?...why are you helping me?"
Ada told him earnestly, "I'm not a monster...you know that now...that thing- I made sure she burned like this fucking city. She won't be back. Make sure the people behind her pay...you hear me? Make them pay. That's in your power...this? It's in mine."
He looked confused before she grabbed his gun and turned his arm with hers, commanding, "Get down!"
He ducked, she used his hand to pull the trigger on his own gun, and Derek Simmons sliced the air above his head, took a heavy Magnum round to the face, and went tumbling off the walk way that shivered sadly. As it trembled and squealed with tortured metal, she grabbed his vest and demanded, "...my grapple gun...on my belt...hurry!"
He grabbed it, he looped the other arm around her, she kept her free hands on his Magnum and he fired the grapple gun. It whined, the world shimmered with heat, and they swung beautifully across the sky. He hired again, they were whipped upward, and landed together on a narrow out cropping.
As they gained their feet, Ada stumbled. He grabbed her arms and she shook her head, denying him, "I'm fine. Get to the helipad...I left you a present...I have things I have to see finished here."
"Ada.."He grabbed her chin to hold her gaze, "Goddamnit...come with me now. Just...let me protect you."
Oy.
She gave him a narrow look and jerked her chin from him. "Don't be trite, big hero, it's boring. Besides...there's already a girl up there waiting for you to save her. Do yourself a favor, make sure Harper sees the inside of a cell for what she's done. Don't let her get away with murder, Leon. Promise me."
He said nothing.
She shook her head, "...boy scout. She's not as bad as I am, but she's not good either. Look what a mess she made. You should have put her down...and you should have let me die...when will you learn?"
She grabbed his vest, jerked him forward, and pressed a hard kiss to his mouth, demanding, "...don't fucking die, boy scout."
She pressed a pink compact into his palm.
Her grapple gun went off, she swung away to his angry shout, and she hurried into the swirling sky.
She had a lab to destroy. It was time to make sure the C-Virus never made another clone. This was how she made it right for her complicity in Raccoon City. This was how she avenged those they'd lost.
It was all she could do.
New York City - 2013
The compact on his dresser taunted him.
Inside it, they'd found everything they needed to clear his name, everything they needed to bring down those behind the C-Virus. Ada had handed him a win bigger than he'd found in years.
Why?
What was her game here?
Sherry was safe and Jake in the hands of the right people to be properly debriefed. The biological offspring of Albert Wesker had been the target of one too many eager conglomerates trying to steal his blood for their own purposes. He was better kept away from the bioterror world for multiple reasons.
They'd crafted a vaccine with his antibodies. They couldn't manage a cure, but they could stop it before it started. Sometimes, that was the best you could do in bio-warfare. It was the best win they'd had in the battle in a long time.
The toll of death was so high that it negated the win. Leon mourned Benford who'd been like a father to him most of his life. He'd failed him in that city, failed him and left behind those he might have saved to be sanitized. He grieved the losses so badly that it left him breathless as he drank too much and passed out in the hotel room they'd set up for him.
The more he dug into Ada, the more ugly truth he found - Simmons had cloned her...why? The why appeared to be obsession. He was in love with the "bitch in red" the way any sniveling sad sack tended to be. He wanted her enough to make an inferior version of her for his nefarious purposes.
Apparently, Leon wasn't the only fool in the fire burning for a woman who would betray them all.
The data on the little card she'd left them pointed fingers at a ship called The Pandora. It was one of those things that should have been sunk years ago. It was said it was manned by a skeleton crew to keep what was contained within safe from human consumption.
The Pandora was the mythical box it pretended to be. It was home to things that, if released, would poison populations to the point of global extinction. To leave it floating was the safest option out there. If it hit the water, most of the diseases kept aboard it would be neutralized. The T-Abyss virus wasn't stored there, and as far as anyone knew, none of the other viruses were aquatic.
But it was there, waiting for someone to board it and discover it's secrets.
Leon knew they'd go after The Pandora to collect her latent viruses and store them in the CDC for study. He...was afraid they'd get there hands on things that were so much worse than the T-Virus. He was afraid if he didn't get there first, the Pandora would open her box and the world would fall prey to her whims.
He was about to break orders and protocol and bring her down himself. They'd expressly forbade him from doing so. He was told, without compunction, that doing that would rate him a traitor and enemy of the state and he would be tried for treason.
He was risking everything to decide if destroying The Pandora was worth his life.
What if he took it down and finally, finally, finally saw an end to the war?
What if everything they'd been fighting found it's roots right there on that ship?
He was about to prove he was no boy scout. He was going to raid The Pandora, and court the bad side to save the good. He was pretty sure that act alone would lose him any merit badges they wanted to pin to his vest.
He knew Ada would try to stop him. Of course she would, it was who she was. She'd never intended, he was certain, for The Pandora to fall into his hands. Hell, if he was so good at encryption, he'd have never deciphered the text within the data to find the location. She couldn't know he'd crack it. She under estimated him all the time.
He had to destroy it before she could stop him.
For what it was worth, he was aware of what he felt for her. He could acknowledge, here and now, that he was in love with what was likely a figment of a real woman. He knew he was no better than Simmons, clamoring for affection of a liar and a spy.
But he knew he'd kill her if it meant the safety of the rest of the world. He'd do it...and he'd mourn her. He'd done so on that dock in Tatchi. He'd mourned her. He hated himself for loving her.
He hated her for giving him just enough to keep him coming back for more. He hated that even knowing what she was, what she'd do, what she'd put first...he couldn't stop the need for her. Was she good? Was she evil?
Who the hell knew anymore. What divide existed to determine which side was good and which was bad? His "masters" were corrupted. He'd been serving the goddamn liar Simmons for so long he was likely as responsible as Ada for most of the mess they were in. Even if his was indirectly done and hers was purposeful, did it matter? He'd done the bad for the right reasons...but it didn't negate the act itself.
He had to set it right. Sinking The Pandora just might redeem him. If he had to, he'd take Ada down with it. Maybe that was how he saved the world...maybe it came with taking Ada Wong down. Whatever her end game, he couldn't risk her stopping him.
To save the world...he'd likely have to shatter his own heart. What had she said? Big hero. The bad news? The hero seldom ever survived his final battle. He was ok with dying as long as it meant something.
Would it?
Would it mean anything if he died saving the world?
It might...to the very person he'd likely have to take with him when he went.
So...it was a race against a woman who'd been one step ahead of him for far too long.
He was officially on borrowed time.
They were about to find out which side would win - the problem was...he wasn't sure which side he was even on anymore.