Ada stood on the roof outside the room that currently housed Ashley Graham. She'd peeked in earlier to see the decapitated Ganado on the floor and wondered how exactly that had transpired. Surely it couldn't have been the little blonde princess?
She wouldn't have thought it possible, yet it was the only answer she could come up with. Leon and Luis had yet to reach them, and Krauser wouldn't have done such a sloppy job. The wound looked to have been made by at least a dozen weak blows. Who else could have done that?
Well, it was feasible that Aurelleah could have, more so than her sister, but there was no way for Aurelleah to have reached her sister without Leon and Luis's help, and obviously those two hadn't reached the storage room yet, or if they had they lacked the key for it.
She'd just gotten out of the meeting at the radio tower about fifteen minutes prior and was now waiting for Leon and friends to vacate the premises so she could collect the data from the lab. She'd have to move very quickly once they were gone – there were reinforcements coming up from the western side of the island, set to flood the building. This also meant that Leon would need an alternative escape route. Based on the floorplan Wesker had provided her of the building, she thought that the waste disposal vent would be their best bet. She couldn't be sure they'd take that route, though, so she decided she'd give them a little shove in the right direction when they got there. Hopefully that would be soon.
As though in answer to her hopes, she heard footsteps approaching the room from downstairs. She rappelled down until she was just above the window, her warning neatly folded into a paper airplane and ready to fly. Naturally, it had her signature on it.
The door swung open with the sound of a keycard being swiped, followed by the light footfalls of two grown men slinking into the room, combat ready.
It was Luis's voice she heard first. "Dios mio, what happened to—"
Silence. Then Leon asking, "What is it?"
"This is the axe Aurelleah picked up earlier, I'm sure of it. But…"
A bit of quiet shuffling. It sounded like they were investigating.
"Aurelleah?"
Ada blinked. Had the girl been separated from them, after all? How had she gotten all the way over here?
Ada hung against the wall, listening, as Leon and Luis reclaimed their charges, comforting them, checking them over to make sure they were okay. She heard Ashley confirm the story – Aurelleah had decapitated the man, and in response to an attack on Ashley, too, though none of them addressed how she'd gotten there in the first place. Krauser certainly hadn't brought her. He would have mentioned it at their meeting.
Aurelleah herself had so far been silent. Perhaps she was unconscious. Ada wouldn't have been surprised. Decapitating a man for the first time really took it out of a girl.
After another minute of coddling, Leon spoke the exact words she'd been hoping to hear. "We need to keep moving. We have to get to that machine."
Thank you.
Ada could practically feel the exhaustion of the room's inhabitants seeping out the window below her like a fume, but the doctor at least was on the ball. He first offered Ashley something – likely the Plaga-haltering medication – and asked her about her cramps. A brief discussion had him convinced that they would not be able to rest any longer. Likely a wise decision on his part.
He tried to wake Aurelleah up. "Ay, Aurelleah. We've got to get moving, okay?"
There was no response, and Ada's mind slipped once again to the reinforcements that would no doubt already be breaching the far entrance. They needed to move.
The doctor tried again. "Come on, just a little longer? For me?"
Ada had pulled out the note, intent on sending it sailing quietly through the window, but something in the doctor's tone made her pause. It was more than simply imploring. There was a warmth there that Ada was familiar with. She'd heard it in the tones of many, many men before, sometimes even directed at her, and she wondered if her suspicions about him hadn't been correct – perhaps he had fallen for the youngest Graham.
She considered, then decided that this was too great a character insight to pass up on. She wanted to see his body language for herself. She pushed off the wall and let her hookshot out a few feet, leveling herself at the window.
Luis was facing away from her, but even so, his stance was unmistakable. He was holding the girl upright, and his desire for her was clear in the position of his arms, the curve and slope of his shoulders, the tilt of his hips. His support of her was not utilitarian – it bordered on amorous.
"Ack! Who's that?"
Ada's eyes flickered to the oldest Graham, who was staring at her in wide-eyed alarm. She offered a quick smile to the young woman before sending the folded warning drifting through the window and punching the trigger on her hookshot. She drew out of sight as Leon and Luis were still turning around, likely giving them a quick glimpse of red. That was fine – she liked them to remember who was helping them.
She remained close enough to listen to the rest of the conversation: Leon explaining their escape option, Luis gagging at the idea…but it seemed that Aurelleah had yet to wake up.
She hoped Leon had smelling salts on him, because they could not waste much more time, and every second they wasted was another second Ada didn't have to inspect the labs. But if they did have salts, they weren't using them. Instead, she heard Leon say,
"Come on, Ash. They'll be right behind us."
And the pair departed, leaving Aurelleah and Luis alone.
Ada drummed her fingers impatiently against her hip as she waited for them to finally leave, but her ears once again perked up as she heard the man speak, this time in low, husky tones.
"You know, mi cadenza, I was never much one for fairy tales, but even I know how to wake a sleeping princess. We can do this the easy way, or…"
No response. Looked like it wouldn't be the easy way, then.
The sounds that followed next could only have signified one thing: Luis and Aurelleah's relationship had already progressed farther than she would have expected given the small amount of time they'd been together. Of course, trauma and danger could be incredible emotional adhesives. Shared lethal experiences could bind two souls together faster than any common civilian could possibly imagine.
How well she knew.
Though still impatient, Ada discovered genuine empathy for the girl down there, and sincerely hoped the pair made it out of this mess alive. Love was not in the cards for everyone, but she got the sense that those two at least could end up happy together…if they were strong enough to beat the odds so cruelly stacked against them.
They wouldn't make it much longer if they remained in their embrace, though, and she was glad when Leon finally called for them, his tone downright biting.
Luis answered, though not to Leon. "I'm sorry for the rude awakening, my little Valkyrie. But we really do need to get going."
A long, deep yawn. She must have been tired if that was her reaction to such a moment. Then, music to Ada's ears: "Okay. Let's go."
And they left.
She had no time to dally. The instant they'd gone through the door, she dropped back down to the window and slipped inside. She ran down the hall behind them, quiet as a cat, as they rounded the corner ahead.
She had several external hard drives for data collection, as well as a secure, airtight stasis case for biosamples. She knew that there were recessive Plaga eggs in this facility, and she aimed to get a handful before departing.
They split ways, Leon and group going left while she went right, down to the main lab. She knew there were recessive samples in the freezer upstairs, but that was far enough out of the way that she'd certainly end up encountering reinforcements if she took that route. Thankfully, however, it would be entirely unnecessary for her to go up there. Everything she needed would be in the main lab down here.
She pushed open the door to the computer lab and stopped. There was a pair of legs spiny, purplish, humanoid legs just inside the door here, the remains of something Leon and Luis must have killed earlier. The rest of it was drying all over the walls and (unfortunately) the computers. A few of the screens had been shattered by the force of the thing's combustion.
However, combustion wasn't quite the word for it. There were no burn marks on the creature, though otherwise it looked like Leon had forced it to swallow a live grenade. It had simply been ripped apart from the inside-out by some tremendous force. But since there was no evidence of an explosion, she surmised that what had killed it must have been some kind of internal biological reaction.
Well, whatever this thing had been, it was Ada's job to collect a sample from it. She pulled out a general-purpose biosample vial and decided to retrieve both a portion of flesh and one of the thorny growths it boasted. She knelt by the hips, pulled out her knife, and slid it into an upper thigh beside a spine to begin carving.
She pushed herself back, landing unceremoniously on her rump as the spine she'd targeted shot abruptly out of the thing's body, nearly stabbing her. It extended two feet before retracting. An impressive feat considering the thing's hips weren't even two feet wide at their longest point.
She brushed herself off and regained her position. Whatever this thing was, it definitely needed to be studied.
She returned to her task, taking greater care this time to disturb the body as little as possible while she cut, and managed to saw the base of the spine out. It tried to stab her several more times, but when she finally severed it from the body, it stopped, allowing her to place it in the vial.
That done, she got up to have a look around the lab. She found a large, undamaged access console and turned it on. When it booted up, she saw that everything was in Spanish. Her Spanish was passable, but not good enough to make heads or tails of everything before her.
Thankfully, she didn't need to. The external hard drive came equipped with a program that would forcibly copy everything on any computer it gained access to, then destroy the original data once the copy had been downloaded. Wesker could deal with the translation.
It began the download. This would take at least twenty minutes, so while it worked, Ada went to collect the samples from the lab. She briefly rifled through some of the desks in this room on her way to the next, but when she pushed open the door to it, she stopped.
She pinched the bridge of her nose as she beheld the mess before her. Someone or something had gone verifiably mad in here, and had smashed every test tube and beaker and containment case in sight. The samples she'd intended to collect, every single one of them, were smeared across the floor. A quick inspection led her to believe that this destruction had not been accidental, but intentional. Possibly even personally motivated. Someone had a real bone to pick with these parasites.
Or…with the person whose goal it had been to gather them. She checked one of the ruined samples to find it crusty on its surface, but still moist underneath. Whoever had done this had done it recently – likely within the last twenty minutes. In other words, around the same time she'd gotten out of her meeting with Krauser.
But how could he have gotten here before her? There wasn't direct access to—
She blinked as she noticed that there was a door in the back that she hadn't seen on her floor plans. By the color of the concrete, it had been somewhat recently constructed. At least as recently as the radio tower.
She narrowed her eyes, went over, and checked out where that door led. Sure enough, it led outside, right to the tower.
She rubbed her temples. This hadn't been on her floorplan, but of course Krauser had known about it. It would have been only too easy for him. She wasn't sure why he'd feel the need to destroy the Plaga samples that Wesker wanted, though.
But then, maybe there was a reason. With these destroyed, she'd need to head upstairs, to the freezer, to get the samples she needed. This was a significantly more dangerous route. Maybe he'd been hoping that she'd get herself killed or injured retrieving what he'd denied her in this lab.
Well, there was nothing for it. She turned and began running upstairs. She'd let the hard drive work, gathering the data from the computer while she made her way to the freezer and gathered the recessive Plaga samples. Simple as that.
She went in the direction Leon had gone. As she passed through a security room strewn with corpses, she noticed one Ganado that was still alive. It was undressed, had an unmistakable axe wound on its face, and seemed to have had its testicles blown off. It was on the floor, twitching and whimpering in agony.
She tsk'd as she skipped over it. She was fairly certain she knew what it had done to deserve that fate.
As she ran past the waste vent she heard the party down below – most notably, Ashley.
"What is that thing?!"
Oh, dear. Sounded like someone had thrown out something that was still alive. Perhaps another of those spiky creatures. She hoped one of them hadn't landed on it.
She climbed the stairs up to the next level, dashed through the room, and encountered the first wave of reinforcements. Thankfully it was a relatively small group, but it would still be tedious. They all howled when they saw her, and she whipped out her pistol and started taking measured shots at their knees to send them buckling to the floor. The only ones she favored with headshots were those with crossbows and cattle prods. Heavily armed opponents were not wise to fiddle around with.
She danced past the first row of enemies and headed for the next door. She knew that this one would lock her out once she went through it, but that was fine. There was an access vent to the outside on this side of the building, and she could use it to loop around to the lab entrance to retrieve the external hard drive when she was done.
That said, she would need access to the freezer, and she was pretty sure she knew how to get it. She pulled out a small recording device as she approached the door, hit audio record, opened it, slipped through, then stopped recording once it had closed.
There were yet more enemies on this side. These ones she would need to kill to gain access to the freezer, as she couldn't have anyone catching onto her ruse. She favored each of them with three headshots each, all rapidly delivered, and heard the screech of more foes coming down the hall. Perfect.
She went over to the freezer entrance and leapt up to lodge herself in the shadowy stone eaves above it. As her enemies approached, but before they came within sight of the door, she carefully pulled out her recorder and played back the clip of the waste disposal door opening and closing.
A Ganado came around the corner and stopped. Then it turned back to its allies and said something in rushed, garbled Spanish to its brethren. Ada caught just a few pieces – in the freezer and get the key.
She smiled and waited. About five minutes later, a platoon of Ganados came back. At their head was a massive, armored brute with a big old minigun. It swaggered up to the door, pulled out a keycard, and swiped it, opening the freezer.
Before it could step inside, Ada dropped right down in front of it, calmly snatched the key from its hand, and pulled a frag grenade from her belt. She danced away, dropping the little gift in the midst of the group before any of them even realized what was going on.
They all turned to come after her. She ducked around a corner. When the explosion went off, two of them flew in her general direction, smacking into the wall and slumping unconscious to the ground, while the rest were reduced to charred pulp.
Well, mostly. The big one was still stirring. She stepped over it, and it glared up at her with one glowing red eye.
She began coldly putting bullets into its skull, not stopping until it ceased trying to grab her ankles. When it was close enough to dead, she put the keycard back in the door and stepped inside.
Brrr. Chilly, especially dressed as she was. She'd make this fast.
There were several…things…on the floor in here, as well as a couple strung up from meat hooks on the ceiling. She would have assumed their skin to be purple from frostbite, but the coloration and texture were too similar to those of the spiky being from the lab to be coincidence, so perhaps that color was natural to whatever these things were. Well, nothing about them was natural, clearly. 'Normal' would perhaps be a better word.
They were frozen. She ignored them.
She pulled out her scanner to quickly check the insides of each of the cabinets lining the walls, stopping when she got to one containing several large vials of the shape and proportion she was looking for. She put the scanner away and pulled on the handle.
At first she thought it was locked, then she realized it was just frozen shut. She had no heating element she could use for localized thawing, so she'd need to access the freezer controls. She spotted a panel on the wall. Her Spanish was just good enough to allow her to navigate it, and she knew she'd gotten it right when hot air started blasting out of vents while bright red lighting strips lit up along the upper walls.
She looked over the rest of the room while she waited. Empty box of rifle rounds – probably salvaged by Luis. A keycard rewriter – she entered hers, but it didn't seem to be working. Perhaps Leon and Luis had broken it after using it to rewrite their own card. A small room to the side held another pair of legs and splattered remains, all but confirming these things were related to the spiny one she'd seen in the lab downstairs. The cabinet in this room was hanging open. Perhaps the boys had retrieved something from here besides a new keycard.
She heard something move in the main room, and poked her head back out. One of the creatures was swinging gently on its hook.
She tensed, then went over to the cabinet she needed to see if it had defrosted yet. It hadn't, and two of the creatures on the floor began stirring.
She narrowed her eyes and drew her gun. She didn't know what these things were capable of, but she wasn't leaving anything to chance. She stepped over to one and put four bullets in its head.
It twitched, then laid still. She did the same to one of the others…at which point the first one started twitching again, even more vitally than the first time. The two left on hooks gave a few jerks, likely trying to dislodge themselves.
It didn't look like headshots would work with these things. She looked around for an alternative and noticed a heavy saw in one corner of the room, likely for limb removal. That would work just fine. If these things were thawed enough to be moving, they were thawed enough to cut. And since these fellows were so eager to get off their hooks…
She set a chair in front of the foremost one and stepped up so she'd have a good angle for sawing, placed the blade against the neck, and started work. This would allow her to get a good sample of the thing, anyways – perhaps a vertebrae, if she had time to excavate it. As she heaved back and forth on the jagged tool, the thing began twitching and jerking even more rapidly, and its friends were reacting in much the same way.
Finally, it dropped to the ground, head still lodged on the hook. Ada scoffed as its body hit the ground. She stepped down and checked the cabinet again.
It was still frozen, but she heard a slight crackle of ice this time, so she gave it a hard yank and it cracked open, revealing exactly what she'd been looking for – the recessive Plaga samples, going by the labels. She reached for one, but as she did, one of the things started going wild on the ground behind her.
She glanced back with mild disconcertion…and her eyes widened as she saw that the one she'd decapitated had sprouted numerous tentacles from its neck, which, as she watched, were slowly molding themselves into internal cranial structures. The thing was regrowing its head.
At the current rate, it will have its head regrown in perhaps twenty seconds. And it's clearly hampered by the cold – how quickly would it recover in warm conditions? Ten seconds? Less?
Mere seconds to regrow a head. Even she had never encountered a creature with such incredible regenerative abilities. She needed a sample of this being.
But even as she thought this, she saw it wouldn't be so easy. One of them stood up, clearly defrosted enough to cause trouble for her. It didn't get up like a man would – it sprung up on its heels, like someone stepping on a rake. It was downright unnerving. Thankfully it was facing the opposite direction, and looked mildly disoriented.
The other two uninjured ones on the ground were making to get up the same way, and the decapitated one had nearly regrown its head entirely. She needed to move. Fast.
She first put the Plaga samples in her case and stepped back as the standing thing let out a rattling breath. She noticed that the body was regenerating a new head, but not the other way around. Hopefully the head would remain dormant. She grabbed it and slid it carefully off the hook as her most lively opponent turned to stare at her with its empty crimson orbs, taking a shaky step towards her as it heaved a creepy, rattling breath.
The room was very small – she had little room to maneuver in it. She stepped aside, skating around the regenerating creature towards the door. She would have liked to refreeze this room, but that wasn't happening. The one that had managed to stand up was directly in front of the control pad. The next person who entered the room was going to get a very, very unpleasant surprise.
One of the ones on the floor lunged up at her so quickly she actually uttered a small gasp as she dodged out of the way. The thing had numerous, needle-sharp teeth and its jaw had unhinged, head tilting sideways in an attempt to latch onto her neck. It missed her by centimeters, its shoulder slamming into hers hard enough to bruise, and if its fingers hadn't still been frozen, it likely would have managed a firm enough grasp on her to keep her in place until it could take her. As it was, she slipped out of its way, opened the door, and took to her heels, the head still in her hands.
She saw more Ganados had arrived. They yelled as they spotted her – "Un forastera!" – and rushed her, but she was headed in the opposite direction they were. Onward to the vent.
She had just one small difficulty. The head she was carrying had no ears, and she wasn't about to stick her hand in its horrifically fanged maw, so she needed two hands to carry it. If she needed to use her gun to get out of here, she was in trouble. So, she took a moment to make a handhold.
She set the head down on a nearby surface and jammed the fingers of her left hand into its eyes, hooking them inside its skull for fingerholds. Good call not putting her hand in its mouth – the jaw snapped shut when she did this, with enough force to have taken her fingers off.
Excellent timing. More Ganados came around the corner up ahead, and she was able to pull out her handgun and start firing at them with her right hand, holding onto the head with her left. She was in a precarious position, as well as carrying vital cargo, so she did not try to conserve on ammo. She unloaded on them generously, firing until the clip was empty. She then reloaded with one hand, a little trick she'd learned a while back that was extremely difficult to do with her make of pistol, and kept firing.
She cleared the hall and made for the vent, shooting it off as she advanced towards it. More Ganados came around the corner up ahead, one with a crossbow, and she shot the weapon to disable it before leaping up into the vent.
It was tough to wiggle her way down it with her left hand occupied with a monster head, but she managed. The Ganados clustered around behind her, yelling obscenities into the minute, echoey corridor, but they were too dim to figure out that they ought to loop around and try to catch her on the other side. She forced the outside vent off when she reached it, poked her head out, saw no one nearby, and extricated herself from the most uncomfortable position.
Once she was on the ground, she took some vital samples from the creature's head and put them in another general-purpose biosample vial. That done, she secured everything, pulled out her hookshot, and took off towards the radio tower entrance.
Ugh. Well, that had been unpleasant. Thankfully the worst of it was over. And at least she hadn't had to crawl out through the garbage disposal like Leon and party. Oh, those poor girls. At least Leon had experience wading through refuse. As for the Grahams, this would probably go down in their memory as one of the more unpleasant experiences on this little fieldtrip of theirs.
Well, fortunately for them it was almost over. One way or another, they wouldn't have to worry themselves much longer. Either Leon would get them to the machine, remove the Plagas, and kill Saddler, or—
Her radio vibrated.
She sighed. It didn't do to keep Wesker waiting, but she thought it would be prudent to retrieve the data before answering, so she ignored the call and landed outside the entrance.
She pushed the door open and thankfully heard no Ganados. She dashed in, went to the computer terminal, checked the download, and saw that she had a few things to wrap up on the program. She started doing this, and her radio vibrated again.
She focused on the program. It took a minute, but she finally finished it up and retrieved the hard drive, stowing it in a special electronics case.
The radio vibrated a third time. Wesker was impatient. She flicked it open as she made for the exit. "Sorry for a delay in picking up…but I have the lab data, as well as the recessive samples."
"Excellent. And the Dominant Sample?"
"Still in Saddler's care."
"Hm. No matter. We'll get it sooner or later. Saddler's people have fallen into a panic – quite a jolly mess he's made, that Leon. But all for the better. Their destruction is only a matter of time, now."
She nodded, stepping outside onto the radio tower bridge and looking around. She supposed she'd head back to grab her extra explosives and plant the rest of the charges while she waited for things to come to a head. And if Wesker once again ordered her after Leon, she'd cite her more important duties as taking precedence, and simply conveniently 'miss' him at every step of the way for the rest of the mission.
Still, she'd rather not be forced to avoid him. She wouldn't mind another chat or two before they split paths again. "Once he gets the girls back and free of their Plagas, his job will be finished. He'll no longer be a factor."
"No, I'm leaving Leon to Krauser."
He said this casually, a throwaway statement, but it made Ada halt in her tracks. In order to cover this up she began scanning the nearby scaffoldings for anchor points for her hookshot, saying nothing and showing no interest as Wesker finished his sentiment. "Hurry up and retrieve the Sample. And the girl, too, when Leon's dead. Alive, if possible, and a sample of her Plaga and corpse if not."
Beep!
The transmission cut out.
She considered this new addendum to her order. He now wanted the girl alive. Ada certainly had no intention of allowing that to happen; even if she had to put the girl down herself, she'd do it if it meant sparing her the horrors of being a plaything of Albert Wesker. She wouldn't be able to go far enough out of her way to help her and her sister get home, but a quick death was within her sphere of mercy.
As to why he wanted her, she couldn't hazard a guess. Just as a scientific curio, she supposed, though it was possible he wanted her for other reasons as well. Whatever the case, he wasn't going to get her.
That settled, she shifted her attention to his other statement, which held far greater significance to her: Leon's imminent assassination at the hands of Krauser.
She ran a mental checklist of her remaining duties. She'd gathered enough data to please Wesker and to satisfy her own objectives, but many explosive charges had yet to be planted. She could not skimp on these. It was vital that the island and as much of its evidence as possible be destroyed when this was all over. That was her job.
She only had three more charges to plant on this side of the island, and she knew where the waste disposal vent would spit Leon and party up. It she hurried, she'd be able to intercept and keep an eye on him, make sure Krauser knew where the boundaries lay. She would also need to prevent him from contacting Wesker again. It would be all sorts of bad if he discovered that she'd turned on Krauser specifically to defy Leon's execution order. He'd be expecting her to assist in it, after all, or at the very least keep out of the way of it.
She spotted a good anchor point for her hookshot. As she ran towards it, muzzle coming up, she murmured, "You forget, Wesker – I don't always play by your rules."
How true that was. Fascinating a creature as he was, their interests simply did not align. He had his uses, and she would remain close to him until the time came to diverge, but at the end of the day she was a being unto herself. He styled himself a god, but she was ruled by no one, mortal or otherwise. There was only one man alive who held any claim to her…but they traveled along separate ways. Their paths intersected only rarely.
They would touch on each other again very soon. But until then, she had a job to do. Always a job.
She hurtled herself into the mist and set to it.
Luis sat against the wall, Aurelleah in his arms, shivering with relief. He'd been certain – absolutely certain – that all he would find of her would be a set of mangled remains. Now here she was, warm and alive and in his arms.
He thought about what was lying just around the corner from them. That body, and how it had gotten there. He knew full well what had prompted that action from her, and though he could understand it, it still shocked him. But that shock took a meager second place to the soul-saving relief.
He'd heard Ashley explain everything to Leon, and he felt further relief that she hadn't been overly harmed. She'd have issues to work out, he was sure, but it hadn't gone so far as to be permanently scarring. Aurelleah would likely come out of this with more serious psychological damage.
She'd been out cold when he'd come in. They both had been, which explained why they hadn't responded to Leon's call earlier. They were so exhausted that they hadn't even heard his shotgun going off.
Aurelleah was barely awake now, and had draped an arm over his shoulder. She'd nuzzled into his chest, closing her eyes again, intent on a rest. Luis didn't mind. He could use one, too.
Unfortunately…
"We need to keep moving," Leon pressed. "We have to get to that machine."
Right. Las Plagas. Luis pulled out the medication and tossed Ashley a pill and a half. "Take these," he said. "You're long overdue. Have the cramps gotten worse?"
Ashley nodded, looking worried. "Much worse. I had another growth spurt earlier. How long do you think I have?"
Luis didn't want to think about it. "Long enough that we can't afford to rest for a couple hours," he relented. Then he stood up, scooping Aurelleah up, and tried to lower her back onto her feet. "Ay, Aurelleah. We've got to get moving, okay?"
She leaned against him, barely upright, and did not respond. He tried again, shaking her lightly. "Come on, just a little longer? For me?"
She whimpered, squeezing her eyes even further shut. She slumped against him.
Then Ashley yelped, "Ack! Who's that?"
He and Leon turned just in time to see a flicker of red disappearing in the window. In its wake, a paper airplane drifted to the ground. Leon picked it up, unfolded it, and read it.
He scowled. "Friend of mine. Reinforcements are on their way. Only way out for us is through the waste disposal vent."
Luis blanched. That would be moderately revolting, given that it was primarily used to hold all of the old food, wastepaper and, worse yet, discarded tissue samples from the lab. And empty crates and broken glass, of course. Hopefully not too much of those last.
"We need to move," Leon reiterated.
Luis sighed. Aurelleah had all but fallen asleep against him, and his own strength was wearing thin. He couldn't carry her any further. He nodded to Leon, who took the hint and turned to go. "Come on, Ash. They'll be right behind us."
She looked at them doubtfully, but evidently she'd been through too much the last few hours to muster any hostility towards him. She left them alone without a single glare.
He propped Aurelleah up against the wall. She looked like she was about to slide right down it. He leaned down close to her and said quietly, "You know, mi cadenza, I was never much one for fairy tales, but even I know how to wake a sleeping princess. We can do this the easy way, or…"
A small sound of protest, a twitch of the eyes. Well, if she insisted…
He nipped at her ear, eliciting a sharp breath from her, and without further ado he pressed a firm kiss to her lips.
He felt her lashes flutter opened against his. She whimpered again and stirred, but he wasn't done with her. He nipped sharply at her lower lip and she automatically opened her mouth, enabling him to deepen the kiss.
He slipped a hand under the hem of her shirt, sliding his fingers up her sides, enjoying her softness. She was now fully awake and struggling slightly, but he was enjoying this too much to stop so soon. He pushed further, hand snaking around to trail up and down her spine. He felt each of her vertebrae once, then twice, then shifted his other hand down to her hip to draw her roughly against him.
She pushed on him once…then her own arms wrapped around him in a desperate hug, and he let out a deep, growling sigh of contentment. Every reciprocal act from her was intoxicating, no matter how simple or clumsy it was. Then he felt hot tears trail down his face where his cheeks met hers, and he at last broke the kiss and leaned back.
She pressed her face into his chest and let out a soft sob of reaction, and he brought a hand to the back of her head and stroked her hair. He wondered once more what it would feel like when it was freshly washed and brushed, and absolutely swore to himself that he would find out, preferably as soon as possible. He wanted to run his fingers through it, feel its smoothness and texture…before tangling it up himself in a nice, long romp.
He probably shouldn't have let his mind wander so far, but no use reigning it in now. He was sure she could feel exactly what their brief moment of intimacy was doing to him, and he was fine with that. He wanted her to know what she did to him. He pressed himself more firmly against her, and she gasped…but did not pull away.
He went on holding her like that for a few more moments, until Leon's voice came echoing towards them. "Luis! Elleah! We need to move, now!"
He let go with a shivery sigh. She looked up at him…then down. And she blushed. Furiously.
He liked that. He tilted her chin back up and stole one last kiss, though goodness knew he was aching for more contact than that. "I'm sorry for the rude awakening, my little Valkyrie. But we really do need to get going."
She still looked exhausted, but it seemed he'd managed to share some of his own liveliness with her. He looked forward to sharing considerably more, but he supposed that would have to wait until they got home.
She yawned widely and said, "Okay. Let's go."
They stepped out, and Aurelleah glanced at the mess on the floor, expression freezing with shock upon the revisitation. Luis quickly covered her eyes and led her out of the room. She'd have to deal with the aftermath of what she'd had to do eventually…but not just then. "It's alright," he said soothingly. "It's alright. Ashley is unharmed, we're all together. That's what matters."
Well, that and the reinforcements that were currently on their way. He ushered her out the door, down to where Leon and Ashley were waiting.
They took off, heading towards one of the security rooms. They ran in to see three armed Ganados standing around, waiting for them. As soon as they ran in, one slapped a hand down on the security lockdown button and the doors slammed shut on either side of them, sealing them in.
No matter. Leon popped a crossbowman between the eyes before he could fire at them, then pulled out his Striker. "Hey, Ashley, guess what? I got a new shotgun."
"That's great," she said unenthusiastically, covering her ears. He chuckled and blasted two enemies at once as they rushed him, and the spread even caught the crossbowman, staggering him again. Luis took that one out with his knife while Leon finished the other two off.
Luis went over and pressed the security button, causing the doors to slide up. Leon grunted in surprise as three more Ganados stormed in.
The next crossbowman actually managed a graceless but effective duck-and-roll before Leon could take his head off with the shotgun, trundling right by Ashley. She shrieked and jumped away from him as he stood, weapon up.
Luis managed to shoot him from across the room as the girls ducked out of the way, saving Leon a bolt to the lung. "Thanks," Leon said as he fired at a Plaga that just emerged from one of the others.
Ashley screamed upon seeing the Plaga, which was one of the spider ones. It had flopped to the floor and was twitching madly as it tried to get to them, and she looked highly disgusted by it. Luis couldn't blame her – girls and spiders, after all.
They finished the Plaga off and made to leave, but before they could, one more enemy ran into the room, late to the party. This one really caught Luis's eye, though, because this one was nearly naked. What was more, he had a chasm between his eyes that made it look like he'd taken an axe to the face.
He stood, glaring stupidly at them all, until Ashley said coldly, "That's the other one."
She didn't need to elaborate. Luis, at least, recalled that two Ganados had entered her holding cell, though he'd only seen the one when they'd arrived. Luis saw Leon's collected expression falter for a moment as his lips twitched up into a snarl. He stepped forward, meeting the Ganado's suicidal lunge, and kicked him in the chest, forcing him to the ground.
He brought his shotgun around, but not to the face. Oh, no. He aimed it right between the legs…and fired.
The Ganado screamed in mortal agony, and Leon spat disgustedly before saying, "Let's go."
Luis approved. So, he thought, did Ashley, who showed absolutely no sign of remorse or pity at the crying monster on the ground. Elleah still looked half asleep, and only frowned dully at the thoroughly maimed man as she passed him by. Who knew – maybe she didn't even recognize him. Perhaps that was for the best.
They made it back to the waste disposal chute and went over to the edge. Ashley gagged. "Ugh, it stinks."
She was covering her nose. Even Leon blew a hearty breath out. "Sure does," he agreed.
Then he looked at her, then down below again. It took Ashley a second to process what he was hinting at, and when she did, she said, "No way, Leon."
She sounded adamant, but so was he. He smiled wryly, grabbed her wrist, and said, "Way."
He tugged her off the ledge. She screamed loudly on the way down.
Luis turned to Elleah, figuring he'd have to coax her, but she was too tired to be trepid. She walked right over, waited for Leon and Ashley to clear off, and she gritted her teeth and jumped.
He was impressed – it was a good twenty-foot drop. Of course, given all she'd been through, she probably didn't want to risk getting separated from her sister again. Luis jumped right along after her, and they crashed down on the garbage, which was thankfully void of broken glass and wood splinters. Not the softest or most pleasant landing, but not damaging at all.
Upon touching down, though, Leon barked, "Get up! Move! Regenerator!"
Luis looked to where Leon was staring and a bolt of panic shot through him. He hadn't seen it from up there, but there was a Regenerator – one of the spiky ones – lying on the trash heap. Right next to them.
It twitched, and he jumped to his feet and grabbed Aurelleah roughly by the shoulder, dragging her away as the thing grumbled and rose.
Ashley screamed, "What is that thing?" as it turned and began stumbling after them, gasping and shuddering. Luis heard it extend its spikes in a quick attempt to stab them, but he got them out of the way just in time.
Leon grabbed a lever and threw it, and it opened a gate between them and the next room. Luis pushed Aurelleah through it just as the Regenerator flung its arms out after them. He felt one brush his shoulder as he ducked past, and shuddered.
As soon as he was through, the gate slammed back down. There was a switch on this side, too, and Leon had just thrown it. But the fight wasn't over – he could hear another one gasping up ahead.
If I ever find the fucker that made these things…
Well, odds were good that the fucker that had made these things had been killed by them already, so that was a moot point. Still, he wouldn't leave any flowers on their grave. They moved on to the next room, eyes out for the second enemy, and encountered it promptly.
It was standing around a trio of thoroughly mangled Ganados, and Luis realized that they were the three he'd tossed down here with the crane. Well, that was one way of saving on ammo – get a Regenerator to kill your enemies for you.
It was staggering towards them, and as it stepped into a beam of light, Aurelleah frowned. "That thing…uh…"
"Yeah?" Leon prompted. He sounded interested in what she had to say.
She pursed her lips, hesitating, then she concluded, "That thing has a butt for a face. A spiky butt."
Leon sounded relieved. "Okay, I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that. Seriously, who made these things? I cannot believe anyone thought that would be a good design for a monster, and I've seen some bad ones in my days."
Luis just shook his head and hoisted his rifle. "I'm pretty sure it's the result of an excessively cleft palate, which they simply couldn't bother with fixing since the underlying design was so flawed. These things are also defective in that they will not take orders from Dominants. Saddler no doubt thought it would be a waste of time to improve their aesthetic properties if he couldn't make use of the final product," he said as he took aim at it.
"Buttface," Leon reiterated as Luis began pegging the leeches.
"Yeah, okay, they have buttfaces," he permitted as he shot its leg out and quickly shot the leech on its back before it could start slithering forward.
They moved through the dump. At a couple of places, he and Leon had to shove some heavy dumpsters out of the way. They emerged into the lower levels of the building, which he was not terribly familiar with.
They made their way through the halls, taking out another small group of Ganados, and came to a very odd room.
Luis examined it, trying to discern both its current purpose and the previous one. A wrecking ball hung from the ceiling, suspended above another molten pit. They had the only active volcanic hotspot in Spain here, and Saddler had taken to using this to his advantage. Luis did not know what this spot was used for, though. Perhaps a work in progress.
There was a door opposite them, but unless he was mistaken, that one just led back to the upper levels. What they needed was the pathway leading to a major underground tunnel that he knew connected this lab to another – he'd had a high-speed RTV shipped down to make the trip easier for him – but he got a jarring sense that they should have reached it already.
They jumped down into the room, which had clearly been undergoing serious renovations. Tons of spare construction equipment, scrap stone, cement bags, and rebar was lying around, and—
Luis blinked, then looked to the left wall and said, "I'm pretty sure we need to go that way."
Ashley followed his gaze. "What, into the wall?"
Leon frowned and went over to inspect it. He pulled out his knife and dug it into the stone. A piece chipped out fairly easily. "This was constructed recently. Something behind it?"
"A passage that will cut our trip in half, give or take," Luis replied.
"That's useful. Well, lucky we have a wrecking ball here," Leon said.
Luis went over to the control booth opposite them. "I'll work it. You guys, stay out of the way."
Aurelleah followed him in, watching as he began turning everything on. "You know how you learn to operate big machines like this?" He asked.
She shook her head, looking to him questioningly.
He grinned and said, "Just start pulling levers. You'll make it work eventually."
He turned a key and an engine overheard hummed to life. Then the door to his right opened up, and Ganados started pouring out of it.
He clicked his tongue and pulled out his pistol. "Uh, so, just start pulling levers. I'll keep these guys occupied."
"What?!" Aurelleah exclaimed. "I can't work this thing!"
"Neither can I, but you didn't see me shirking my responsibilities!"
"You—no one even volunteered you! You volunteered yourself! You could have at least asked Leon if he—"
He started shooting, and Aurelleah grabbed the levers and began throwing them up and down.
More enemies were coming up the tunnel they'd come from, and Luis even heard some tromping around on a catwalk overhead. This wasn't good – they were getting boxed in.
The wrecking ball rose a few feet, then stopped. Then it dropped abruptly, and he heard Aurelleah gasp and throw something, and it jerked to a halt a few feet above the lava. She kept up the effort, though, and eventually figured out how to move it left and right.
Sadly, they needed front and back. The wrecking ball swung heavily to the left, and very nearly bashed right into Leon, who ducked out of the way.
"SORRY!" She yelled, and Luis bit down on a laugh. Too bad she couldn't do that with some Ganados.
Evidently, she could, though. A couple dropped down from the ceiling across from Leon, and she threw the ball into a quick reverse, sending the ball rocking into them. This was a help, as more and more enemies were coming in every second. Any assistance was good.
The best help would be for that wall to be broken down, though. Luis fought, giving her time to figure out the controls, and finally she figured the rest of them out.
The ball swung back, then forward in a deadly arc. It hit one Ganado and smeared it into the wall, which cracked heavily at the first blow. She pulled it back and bashed it forward again, this time putting a sizeable crater into it. He could see the familiar doorway behind it when a large chunk of concrete fell away.
"Good job!" He said. "Keep it up!"
She started swinging it back and forth, bashing it into the wall again and again. She shifted it a little to the left so she could work on a different portion of the wall, and in the meantime, more and more guys were flooding in.
She got most of the concrete cleared away, and Luis figured that would be enough, but things weren't looking good. So many Ganados had poured in while she'd been working that they were now swamped. They wouldn't all be able to make it to the door.
Aurelleah, however, seemed to have an idea. "LEON! ASHLEY! GET IN HERE!"
They heard her, and started making their way over to the control booth. Luis was having trouble just keeping these guys out, as the thing had two entrances, but he did what he could to clear the guys out of the back entrance, which Leon and Ashley were making for. They finally got in, leaving them all crowded together.
"What's the plan?" Leon asked, and Aurelleah started operating the wrecking ball again.
"Just give me a second…"
The ball centered itself over the pit again, then slowly began rising. Luis wasn't sure what she was trying to do – and he didn't figure it out until she quite literally dropped the ball.
It fell straight down into the pit of lava, a massive, multi-ton cannonball. Molten stone gushed out of the pit in a circular wave, splashing every Ganado around it, though it didn't hit all the guys near the doors. The ones it did hit, however, fell screaming to the floor and did not get up again.
But she wasn't done. She quickly drew the ball back up and started dual-operating the levers, sending it whirling around in a circle.
Hot lava was flung off of the circling ball by the force of its swing, splattering everything outside the booth. The Ganados howled as they were doused and flecked with it, and he and Leon were able to clear the last few out of the doorway easily once the reinforcements behind them were crippled or dead.
Leon whistled, clearly impressed. "Hot lava wrecking ball attack. Not bad. Not bad at all. I can't wait to tell the guys about this one when I get back."
She looked too tired to be really thrilled with the words of praise, and Luis hoped they reached the machine without many more major delays. She wasn't going to hold up to much more of this.
They went over to the broken down wall, and he and Leon cleared away a bit more rubble by hand, then they crawled through, one at a time, and pushed open the door on the other side.
The next set of halls was nothing but drab grey cement and some piping along the walls. Off to the first rightward branch he knew was a pack of Colmillos in a large kennel. These ones were the result of a failed experiment to make faster, more powerful hounds, but the Plagas had become defective as a result of the excessively rapid muscular growth that had been induced. They were like los Gigantes in this regard – totally out of control.
Needless to say, he steered them away from that door. The next door was a heavy shutter, and he hit the switch to let them through.
All of them backed quickly away as a Regenerator, which had been leaning against the other side of it, stumbled through. It turned to Ashley, narrowed its eyes, unhinged its jaw…
And its head exploded as Leon blasted it with his Butterfly.
Ashley and Aurelleah both ran back, and Luis hoisted his rifle and picked off the leeches. When the thing exploded, the girls let out a long, disgusted,
"Ewwwww…"
Luis chuckled. "Hey, for once, I'm happy to say I didn't make that thing."
They continued along, this time being more careful about opening doors. This paid off, as there were a few more Regenerators along the way. He was glad Leon had grabbed that rifle ammo from the freezer – without it, he'd have been running very low by now.
They got to the next shutter, but when he went to push up on the lever, it got stuck. The shutter groaned and did not move.
"Uh, oh," he said. "That's not good."
"We need to go this way, I take it?" Leon asked.
He nodded. The shutter had a handle, which he grabbed and heaved up on, but the door only slid up a few inches. It slammed right back down when he let it go.
"Help me with this," he said, and Leon grabbed the bottom and heaved once Luis had pried it up a bit. Together they managed to get it up nearly a foot, but there was no way they'd all be able to get under there like this. Not when it kept trying to shut on them.
Ashley said, "The rest of these things have had levers on the other side. I'll crawl under and try to open it, okay?"
Luis didn't like the idea of that. "If another Regenerator is over there—"
"Then I'll crawl back under, no problem," she said. "Just leave it to me."
Ashley dropped down and began wriggling under the door. They put their backs into keeping it from slamming down and chopping her in half, but halfway through, she paused.
Luis could see hear why. Another Regenerator had sensed them, and was coming her way.
"Come back," Luis grunted, but to their alarm, Ashley went forward instead.
"Ashley!" Leon hissed.
"If it gets over here, we'll be stuck back there! Just let me…"
She got through, and Aurelleah dropped to her knees to see what was going on. Ashley grabbed the lever and pushed up on it, and the door began rising…slowly. Too slowly.
"Ashley, drop it and come back!" Leon barked.
She let go and the door halted, dropping back down a good foot before they managed to catch it again, and Ashley went back to holding the lever. "We need it up! It'll only take…oh, God…"
Neither of them could prevent Aurelleah crawling under. She went to aid her sister, standing up and yelling, "Hey, ugly, lookit me!"
Luis realized with horror that she was going to try to distract it from Ashley while the door rose.
"Aurelleah, no!" He shouted. "It is far faster than it looks! If you let it get close, it will take your head off!"
But too late. He heard the telltale sound of the Regenerator snarling…and lunging.
There was a shriek…then a laugh. "Ha! Missed me, missed me, now you've gotta—ACK!"
Another snarl. His heart was hammering as the door continued to rise. Another foot or so and they would be able to duck under it. Come on…
Suddenly, the door jammed. Thankfully, it jammed in the position it was in, rather than trying to crash down again, so they were able to crawl under it without fear of it closing on them. Luis went through and hoisted his rifle to see that Aurelleah had, miraculously, ducked the Regenerator and led it away from Ashley.
The only problem was, now he couldn't see its front, which was where the leeches were. Aurelleah was backing towards another shutter, eyeing the handle. But if there was a Regenerator behind that one, too…
Luis shot the thing's foot out. It fell forward and began wriggling towards Aurelleah, who ran at it and jumped over it.
It flopped up and twisted its head like an alligator, gnashing its teeth at her ankle, but she made it. When its foot regrew and it stood up again, turned towards them, and Luis finished it.
Aurelleah ran back to them and gave her sister a high-five. "Thanks, Elle," Ashley said.
Aurelleah gave a small smile. "Teamwork makes the dream work."
Ashley groaned. "Ugh. More like a nightmare if you ask me."
Leon looked like he wanted to scold them, but decided against it. "Alright, let's move on. Still plenty of ground to cover."
They took off again. Luis felt his fear trying to turn into anger, but forced it down. When he spoke, he spoke calmly and evenly. "Ay, you saw how fast those things are, right?"
They both nodded. "Yeah. They don't look that quick, do they?" Ashley said.
He shook his head. "No, that's what makes them dangerous. Don't get that close again, okay?"
Aurelleah nodded seriously. "I won't."
He cuffed her lightly on the shoulder and pushed up on the next lever. Last one up ahead.
This one was a big old blast door with a pair of handles. He took one, nodded to Leon to man the other, and explained, "We both push up on the levers, and that starts a countdown above the door. When it reaches the right point, we both pull down at the same time. I'll say when. Ready?"
"Ready."
"Okay, push."
They pushed. The countdown started. One loud beep, two…three…
"Now!"
They both pulled down as a bright red light flashed on overhead. The light turned green, and the door opened.
"What's the point of the double lever?" Ashley asked as they went in.
"Good question," Luis said. "A lot of these newly-installed traps and doors are specifically designed to prevent Ganados entering an area without explicit instruction from a leader. They can complete simple tasks, or tasks they have been trained in, but something like that would be beyond their ability to figure out on their own. Aside from that, that door specifically is a simple check on thieves and spies – it requires two to open. One cannot manage it alone."
"Makes sense," Aurelleah said.
A long, twisted, high-ceilinged hallway stretched before them. "This tunnel is almost three miles long. Thankfully, we will not need to walk it."
He pointed to a bright orange Kubota RTV parked off to the side. It was a two-seater in excellent condition, and thankfully, he always kept a spare key taped to the roof of the vehicle. He went over and retrieved it. "So, who wants to drive?"
Aurelleah actually raised her hand. "Oh, me! Me! Can I really?"
Leon looked at her, bemused. "Uh, you know how to use one of these things?"
She nodded fervently. "Yeah, I do yard work for my neighbors. I drive theirs all around their property. It's fun."
Luis shrugged and tossed her the key. "All yours. Probably for the best, anyway. There are doorways here and there along the way leading to other island facilities. We could very well get ambushed."
Aurelleah hopped in and started her up. Ashley took shotgun while he and Leon got in the bed after tossing some stuff out. "Let's go."
He held on tight to the side, expecting them to take off with a real kick, and Leon did the same. But it was obvious that she'd actually done this before – not only did she remember to take off the parking break, she accelerated as smoothly as he did when he was transporting fragile equipment. They weren't jostled at all.
She picked up speed quickly, and Luis sighed in contentment. She got to have fun driving, and he got to have fun not driving. Win-win.
He was able to enjoy the trip for about two minutes. Then a most distressing sound echoed down the tunnel towards them, and he pulled out his rifle.
Shit.
Leon's attention also sharpened. "What the hell? Was that a wolf? Er, Colmillo?"
"Oh, amigo, that is not good," he said, watching behind them. "Those are no normal Colmillos. Those ones are enhanced. We're in for a hell of a fight."
"How fast?" Leon asked, always cutting to the chase.
Luis responded just as promptly as he checked his rifle and reloaded it. "Not as fast as the Verdugo, but fast enough that I might need help getting them down. And if one of them closes with us, I wouldn't even count on your Butterfly to do enough damage."
Leon scowled. "That's not good. Still, we have a hell of a head start. Maybe we'll get to the other side before—nevermind."
He pulled out his Red – thankfully he'd reequipped the stock for distance aiming – as the first of the beasts came around the corner.
Luis couldn't help feeling a sliver of fear at the thing's approach. It was closer to the size of a small horse than a large dog, and its coat, once the clean grey of river rocks drying in the sun, was an indistinguishable murky brown from the years of dust and grime it had accumulated. Its eyes, glazed over from a life of darkness and filth, bulged whitely in its sockets. Its face was void of hair, a mess of sores and scars. Its jaw had unhinged like a snake's, rendering its mouth large enough to swallow a man's head whole, and it certainly had the jaw muscles necessary to facilitate this. A forest of tentacles streamed out of its back, whipping around behind it, though if it managed to catch up to any of them those tentacles would reach out to hold its prey in place while it ravaged them with its long, needle-sharp teeth.
It was the stuff of nightmares, all told. At the moment it was more than a hundred feet away, but closing fast.
He knew there were a round dozen – that was how many he'd made before discontinuing the line. He doubted there would be more than that. Even Saddler had been moderately disturbed by the things, and had overridden Salazar's request that more be made. It was also why they'd been locked down here to begin with. Things Saddler didn't like tended to get chained up underground.
Luis fired, aiming for its upper leg. Thankfully he hit, sending the thing crashing to the ground, but it was up only a moment later and loping after them with only a moderate limp. It was still fast enough to catch them.
"What should I do?" Aurelleah called back. She sounded calm.
"Keep us steady," he replied. "And go as fast as you can."
"Okay."
He felt their speed pick up a bit until they were going at the max, which was close to thirty miles an hour for this make. Unfortunately, the Colmillos clocked in at around fifty. Forty, perhaps, when damaged.
Unless they'd had two of their legs blown off, of course.
He fired another round at the beast as they hit another straight, and the thing went down. It got back up, but it was crippled. That is to say it could still run one of them down if they were on foot pretty easily, but it couldn't keep up with an RTV.
Three more came around the corner, and the stakes became deadly.
Aurelleah didn't slow down, even to take the turns, but she handled them all just fine, even swerving gently to avoid potholes and divots in the road. Under her steady driving, he fired as quickly as he dared, and Leon took up the fight as well, popping shots at their heads for damage and in an attempt to blind them. He tried taking out their legs, but his Red just didn't have the firepower. Crippling was beyond him – he stuck to distracting.
Well, crippling was beyond him unless one of them got close enough for the Butterfly, which happened on the next wave. Four Colmillos rushed them at once, and Luis was reduced to one shot per dog. That was all he had time for before they caught up to the RTV, and Leon had to take the last one, blasting its leg out from under it with his magnum before it could leap for them.
This fight was very risky, but it would be over very quickly. They were nearing the end of the tunnel, and the Colmillo pack was nearing the end of its numbers. At least, of its fit numbers. He put two of the four completely out of commission before another pair rounded the corner, and unless he was mistaken, that left just one more pair untouched.
He prioritized the undamaged hounds, leaving Leon to blast the partially damaged ones when they got close enough, and the strategy served to take down the eighth, ninth, and tenth hounds. But when the last pair came around the corner, things got dicey.
One of them was a typical mutated Colmillo, but the other was the pack leader. This was the one Luis had been fearing seeing, as it was the one he'd pushed the farthest in terms of augmentation, and was El Gigante amongst wolves.
As larger than a carthorse and nearly as fast as the Verdugo, it flew towards them, closing the gap in a matter of moments. Luis could see why it had taken so long to get here – some poor Ganados must have been tasked with releasing all of these things, and their remains were now smeared all around the pack leader's revolting maw. It must have taken first dibs on the food while the others had rushed on ahead to try and run down more prey, and was only now catching up.
He fired at its leg and it stumbled, but kept coming. He shot the other leg and it almost fell…but got back up to speed, at least as fast as its brethren.
Its buddy got close enough to jump at them. Leon aimed at it, but it seemed the things were learning, because it jerked out of the way and Leon's shot missed. It lunged forward, snapping for them, and latched onto the bumper.
The RTV slowed with its considerable weight. Leon took it point blank in the head, and it flew off, leaving them with only the last one. El Colmillo Gigante.
Its blind eyes met with Luis's, and he couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't some sight left in them after all from the voracious wrath he saw staring out at him. He aimed for its head and fired, and one of those eyes popped, spewing white jelly.
It snarled, and the sound was like a power tool. Even Ashley couldn't stifle a small moan of dread in response to it.
It was nearly close enough to jump at them. Luis aimed and fired at its leg, but missed as it juked to the side. Leon fired as well, but did not hit a leg – he caught it in the chest.
This turned out to be a very bad shot. The Plaga inside pulsed with pain, and the thing's tentacles stretched even further out of its body in a dark, wavering stream. Its jaw opened up in a veritable roar, and it pushed itself off the ground in a flurry of hair and muscle.
Time slowed down as Luis raised the rifle to fire one final shot. It was sailing straight towards him, legs outstretched, jaw unhinged, and he aimed for its Plaga's core and let fly.
The shot landed, and as it did, Leon fired as well, blasting the dire wolf's lower jaw clean off an instant before it crashed into its creator in a solid ton of sin.
OoO
Sorry for the late upload. Man have I been working hard the last few days. But it's my weekend now, and I'm gonna enjoy it :D
Also, gonna be honest, I've been spending all my free time playing RE5. It took me a few days to get through. Honestly, I don't see what people complain about! Sure, it wasn't as good as RE4 - what game is? - but it was far from bad. I thought it was excellent. And the fights with Wesker were superb. Oh, hey, pro-tip. You know how some bosses that are hard to shoot turn out to be surprisingly vulnerable to melee attacks?
Yeah, Wesker isn't one of them. Don't try to stab him. He will not appreciate your proximity.
Anyways, had fun with this chapter. Ada is always enjoyable to write. And I figured we'd had enough Ganado gauntlets, so I decided to spice things up a little here. Anywho, see you in a few days! Oh, and welcome to my newest followers, Silivia and Yoko! ^_^
Sincerely,
The Topaz Dragon