Their Last Escape

by antihero276

Former S.T.A.R.S. Officer Jill Valentine unexpectedly meets U.S.S. Special Agent HUNK at the R.P.D., his extraction overridden. Pushed to their limits, they are forced to work together to survive. With only days to escape the T-Virus infested Raccoon City before it is destroyed, they are stalked inexorably from the shadows by a deadly Pursuer, intent on carrying out its mission.

22. Chapter 21: Showdown At Saint Michael

Akira-Hayama: Agreed, too much content was cut out of the remake from the original. Would have loved to see a proper complete remake, instead of chopping out and twisting entire sections of the game. It's like they were just rushing to the end as quickly as they could, not taking their time. Now with them skipping Code Veronica to go straight to a remake of 4, it'll be back to the action hero path they went down last time, all over again. No more genuine survival horror. Such a shame.

While they don't know each other long, a great deal can happen between two people in a limited time span under extreme duress and circumstances, which I'd say Jill and HUNK are in. Under probably any other situation they would be enemies, Jill would just be another company saboteur to him, and him another faceless company thug to her. But due to the situation it has become considerably more complicated than that.

HUNK is most alive in a mission, on a battlefield, doing what he was made for. Best version of himself then. Whereas Jill, despite her training, skills and experience, is not naturally acclimated to a horrific world like Raccoon City. Not mostly desensitized to death and whatnot, as a more 'human' and 'civilian' personality, not so introverted. HUNK does better than her in the middle of hell, but she does much better than him outside it in the real world. His life at Umbrella between missions is not the same as his life when he is doing missions for them. He's not a man to whom peace comes easily. There's always another mission, someone who needs assassinating or kidnapping, some black ops mission from Umbrella. But with her there in his mission balancing him out, things are different. He is distant from Umbrella during Raccoon City, sort of detoxing from them. Time will tell what it does to him.

As for the Nemesis, there's only one outcome possible ;).

Rock992: Much appreciated, glad you understand what I'm getting at. HUNK is awesome and a badass, as is Jill in her own way, but they aren't invincible. I wanted to restrain them a bit, the less is more effect, so when they do something it matters more. Not going to get all the Doom Guy stuff, much as I love Doom Guy and it works well for him. I'm trying to ground it a bit more in survival horror. Thus there is a challenge, even for someone like HUNK who is trained for this shit. I'm not at all going for the action hero nonsense of the later Resident Evil games, there will be some suspension of disbelief stuff I'm sure, but not to the extremes it often goes.

Yes, I believe he could. Not to put down Chris. It'd be something of a challenge, but I can see HUNK winning if it came down to it. He's Umbrella's top operative for a reason.

Arkham Knight: Much appreciated ;) and only time and their experiences will tell how things turn out between them. They have a long haul yet though to get there.

Nightroad816: U.S.S. has plenty of weapons, but I settled on certain weapons for HUNK in this story that worked. Other U.S.S. Agents will show up with different weapons at some point, I'm sure.

No Wolfpack appearing physically in this story. Didn't feel like cramming them in, was working with enough material as it were and needed to focus on what was vital to the story. HUNK as I see him has no disciples. There are people he has trained with, observed, but no proteges. I'm sure him and VECTOR have crossed paths at Rockfort Island, but I'm not doing the student, teacher thing here. HUNK's relationship with his own teacher will be more the focus of his story.

Without Pity: Much appreciated for the fair review and honest feedback. For the spelling errors and other inconsistencies I try to catch as many as I can, but some always slip past. I intend to edit and fix the story as I go along, amend mistakes, as well as once I have completed, I'll go back. It's all the more difficult with the way the story grew in the telling as I went along, new ideas forming, trying to keep it consistent, but I do my best and will continue to. For the being verbose I can admit I definitely was a lot more so back in the day, when much of the material in the earlier chapters were written years ago. I've gotten better at being more concise as time went on, which I hope will be more noticeable in the later chapters. As a ten year work off and on, my style has changed considerably over that course. Much appreciated for the review again.

Braktz: I appreciate you taking the time to review, and that my story has interested you the way it has :).

It was my goal to flesh out the main characters personalities, figure out what makes them tick and how they contrast and are similar. How they all function together as a group in a life or death situation, dynamics and character interactions. Especially HUNK, the primary challenging character for me in this story, figuring out who someone like him is, this faceless character who is an enigma in the games. Perhaps some will like the complicated, fully fledged man I made of him, seeing what makes him tick in my interpretation, perhaps some won't, but I wouldn't have bothered writing this story if he was just going to be a blank slate. I wanted to be the first to make him into someone more. A figure within the universe. A big point of the story is that he isn't a robot, deep down, just seems like it on the surface to many. And Jill sees who he really is. Gaps in the armor. As will Carlos. And I enjoyed the challenge of humanizing him just enough over time, while still keeping him mysterious enough, and the badass people love him as.

Thank you kindly, I prefer the slow burn romances/relationships, taking the time through experiences to make it realistic. An event like a zombie outbreak forcing two characters who would normally be enemies to work together, and to learn things of each other. A survival situation tends to do that, brings out the best or worst in people. In Raccoon City Jill is there to see the best in HUNK, a man working for an evil corporation. And he is able to see a woman like her, a civilian, someone against Umbrella and very much outside of the world he is used to. A world I will delve in as time goes on. Time will tell where things go with them. Thanks again for the review, and hopefully you continue finding the story entertaining.

Thank you for the reviews. Time for the true, overdue clash of our heroes and their most insurmountable foe. Since I am limited to text as a writer and not a movie director, I would recommend listening to Marilyn Manson's Umbrella Theme for this one on YouTube. Either way, hope you enjoy:

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September 28th, 1998, 11:44 PM.

Main Courtyard, Saint Michael Clock Tower, Northern Raccoon City.

"S.T.A.R.S.!"

Jill's mind was ablaze with panic and terror, as her thoughts screamed to do something, to regain a hold of herself. Fight or flight... or freeze. There were only three choices, and one of them was winning out. All she could manage was stepping slowly backwards in anticipation for how the smoking monstrosity looming over her might strike her... which was exactly what it attempted the instant it was up again. Its colossal right arm swung the giant rocket launcher at her like it was a weightless club, nearly making contact with her. She managed to duck backwards out of its reach towards one of the gardens with a low breath, the weapon missing her by inches, enough to feel the air move in front of her face. She knew perfectly well that if it had struck her, her neck would have been broken with its great strength... and that was assuming her entire head wasn't taken off. Still that cold, numb terror draped its self over her, her hands out and at the ready as she backed away from it, trying to think of something, anything that could be done.

Weapons were next to useless against it... there had to be something else... some plan... battlefield circumstances to take advantage of... but she could see nothing of use. But then.. look how successful taking advantage of the spotlight and generator had proven in the end. One only needed to look at the wreckage of the burning helicopter. Nothing they had done to it had worked. Nothing would, she was coming to believe. Her hand moved to the shoulder strap of her shotgun... but again, it proved far quicker than she. It made a gesture that took her off guard, raising its rocket launcher defensively with its left arm, holding both the massive arm and launcher in front of its self like a shield bracing for bullets, but it proved a feint, taking her off guard. Before she could do more than grab her shoulder strap it suddenly lashed out its burnt, clawed right hand in her direction as though it intended to punch her from a distance... and in the end, it did far worse than that. A punch or slash of the claws would have been kind. Instantaneous. Painless. Despite dodging the blow of its rocket launcher, her luck did not endure twice in row. In a gesture she hadn't seen it perform before, despite the distance between them... from several meters away from her its tentacle erupted with frightening speed from the hand and shot out like a massive snake in her direction... not squirming as she was used to seeing it, but jagged and straight as a nail. A mouth with a grinning maw of razor teeth emerging from the end of it like a flower opening its peddles.

She uttered another muffled gasp of shock as it slammed against her right shoulder, driving her back further and penetrating the flesh deeply with ease, erupting blood everywhere in a splatter. Running at once down her front, staining her blue tube top and military sidepacks, her eyes looking down to find the end of the throbbing, vein covered purple tendril embedded between her right scapula and shoulder. It all happened so quickly that at first her senses were numbed and dulled... she barely felt it it go in as she froze rigidly. On the other hand, she did feel it squirming around within the wound, beneath her flesh, before relinquishing its grip, releasing its squirming, writhing end from within. Taking with it a coat of blood lining it... and leaving behind, Jill recognized with cold, spreading terror, an infection. The T-Virus... or something much worse. Whatever virus occupied this thing, gave it a hideous perversion of life, a mockery of it...now belonged to her as well. Her hand shook instinctively as the realization caught up to her, filtering through her shock, and a cold sweat poured down her back. Its eyeless, grinning maw emerged from her flesh, teeth covered in her dripping blood, and it released a mocking hiss. She watched the maw close its moth, burrowing back away within the tentacle... and the tentacle retreated just as quickly at it had lunged at her with a snap back into the Pursuer's hand. The broken flesh closing up in its burnt, stained palm again.

Feeling herself paling and going cold within and without, she gasped again unsteadily, trying to regain her mind... her comprehension of what had happened. Trying not to go into full on shock. She moved her left hand to the wound, grasping it firmly, applying pressure in an attempt to staunch the blood flow, some of which ran in droplets from her face when the tendril had retreated, whipping around. She didn't look at the wound... not at first... she only felt an unnatural amount of warm liquid running down the entirety of her right shoulder, collar and arm, dripping and running in different directions... and she felt a coldness she knew had nothing to do with fear. She breathed hard, sweat pouring down her face, born of sheer terror along with the blood smearing her features. The knowledge of what would happen. Everything taken away from her. With all the strength she could muster, she forced herself to look at the damage.

It looked as bad as she knew it to be. She had it... the disease... the virus. She was dead, a dead woman walking. Simply one whose body didn't realize it yet, even as her frantic, horrified mind gradually did. The blood ran over her gloves and soaked them, along with her bandages. It had all been for nothing, her bandages... the medicinal spray, the herbs, staples and treatments, all the time and effort and medical help expended on her... every bit of it. None of it could help her now any longer. It was in her very blood now, spreading at an unknown rate. Her infected blood... hell, it dripped and ran over her leg and boot... an unceasing flowing stream. She heard a roar of far more power than its earlier low growl, and her head snapped up, to find it throwing its own head back and raising its arms and rocket launcher high in the air.

Releasing a guttural, bellowing roar of triumph.

"N...no..."

It had accomplished its objective, with her... fulfilled its programming. Anything else that remained, finishing her off namely, was merely a matter of details. A formality. It could leave her right now, and it would have accomplished its mission... but she knew, as it knew, that it was too goddamn thorough for that. She felt her vision blurring slightly... and in spite of hearing the roaring at the distance of her perceptions, it had been muffled in a way not at all related to its lungs. Her ears rang... there was only to distant detached moans of the dead outside the walls she would join on the off chance she survived the Pursuer directly. She was as good as one of them, now, the infected. The roar echoed through the night... and the racing of her own heart... her own labored breaths, pounded in her ears. She staggered back a little more, nearly falling against a statue in the garden, using all she had to stay upright.

Her panicked eyes shot over to Hunk, who she had all but forgotten in the sudden shock of it all, to find him in a combat stance, the TMP leveled at the roaring Tyrant. The red glowing laser sight was hovering on the monstrosity... but he didn't shoot it from off to the side. Not right at once. Frozen to the spot instead just as she was. He watched Jill instead of it... and though she couldn't see his face... she knew his expression was one he didn't commonly wear. She gasped out again, struggling to form words, trying to talk to him... but on top of not knowing what to possibly say... she quite simply couldn't. He stood, more a statue than the Tyrant Pursuer, perhaps startled for the first time since they had met... but then the Pursuer stopped its gloating roar and growl, and stood back to its gargantuan height. Its yellow eye watching her suffer... taking satisfaction from the sight, she knew.

Hunk slowly looked away from her and her terminal wound and back to the thing, but still he didn't fire, as the Tyrant didn't move. The U.S.S. Agent saw what she did... the enjoyment in the Tyrant's burnt, bloody visage. She wanted to tell him to flee... to leave her to her fate, as she deserved for messing up so badly. She didn't want to drag him down with her, as she had Mikhail, and probably Carlos. In taking her with them, they had killed themselves. She had doomed them. They would have been safe and clear of the city without her... and here she was, taking more of the survivors with her. At least one of them needed to survive all this... and that would have to be Hunk. He survived everything, if what Carlos had said about him was true. It seemed to be the case. He was the only one left, now. She struggled with the words... and somehow, she couldn't imagine how, she managed it. Voice concerted, fear stricken, that nonetheless reached him as she made her lungs respond, and function.

"Hunk... please... leave me here. It's too late. Just get... get the hell out of here! Now! Run!"

No reply came back to her from the masked man... and the urgency became all the more overwhelming, the turmoil within Jill as her emotions rose, and she struggled to keep her terror in check. A snake crawled within her stomach, weighing it down, a knot of dread. Bile burned in her throat. Hunk merely focused on the Tyrant, wouldn't look at her... so she spoke again with surmounting frustration and anger... anger more at herself than him, her tone raising loudly with the urgency she felt. She had to save him... couldn't let him die too. Not like this. It was too late for her... but for him, it wasn't. He would not be dragged down by her own inadequacy. Her own mistake. Someone must survive. Whatever it took.

"Run God damn it! Save yourself, Hunk... while you still can! We can't... I can't... you can still live. I'll hold it here, in the courtyard. Couldn't save Brad... Marvin.. Sherry... Mikhail or Carlos... but I can save you. Just walk away. Please..."

"That's not going to happen. I am not leaving you here. We leave this city together. Promised you that. Nothing has changed."

His icy cold, resolute tone informed her at last... the voice he had possessed the first time she had met him at the R.P.D... when he'd grabbed her. Murmured in her ear. The voice of a frightening, powerful stranger, who was capable of neither yielding or breaking. Who didn't know the definition of either. A tone that in its own subtle, ominous way was as frightening as the Pursuer's roars and visage. Authority, strength... forged in countless other trials by fire. Looking at him in that moment, she knew he really was Death... as much as the Tyrant was. And also in a way it could not be. Deathly cold. Devoid of fear... fear she had already seen before in its yellow eye on the balcony as it had plummeted to the streets. The Grim Reaper stood with her... lingered with her, heartening her, protected her... while they were forced into a showdown with another form of walking death. She wasn't alone... even though part of her wanted him to flee... most of her was afraid. And all of her needed him there with her. Did not want to be alone. Didn't really want him to go.

The U.S.S. Agent peered down the sights of his modified TMP, stock pressed to his shoulder, and by now Jill glimpsed the red laser sight resting on the center of the Pursuer's massive head as it watched her suffering. Pleasure and satisfaction etched into its bloodied, maliciously grinning face. Having gathered its self entirely, it finally took a solid step forward, crunching the rock path even further. Balling its clawed right hand into a massive fist... it started to move in on her to finish the job it had started. It slowly started to raise its hand again in her direction. Prepared to back her up into the corner, probably grab her with its tentacle and get rid of her while she was off guard. Break her or impale her with the tendrils... perhaps bring her head up to its mouth and feast on her... as it had the other infected.

Before the tentacle could uncoil in its hand, or before it could rush at her... and before Jill could react or say anything, Hunk released a burst of high powered automatic rounds into the side of its head, opening up some fresh small wounds, the purple liquid flowing once more. It emitted an angry, startled grunt, stopping on the spot and nearly buckling under the shots. It had almost forgotten about Hunk's presence on the battlefield, it seemed, being taken off guard. Instead of utilizing its right free arm for a weapon, Hunk put it on the defensive, causing it to raise its arm and rocket launcher as a shield again over its self against the bullets.

Once its head was covered, it turned slowly away from Jill, and back to Hunk in front of the train, who picked his shots well, firing another burst into its exposed clawed hand, shooting the back of it open and exposing the tendons within, penetrating layers of flesh. Fresh purple bodily fluid flowing out. Still it held its ground and held on tight. Snapping another shot in the Pursuer's direction, it grazed off the top of the monster's head that was still exposed... but it merely dug its giant boots into the ground... and shifted its focus. It moved slowly towards Hunk, step by step... getting in closer... but the agent remained far calmer than she felt, and looked ready to nimbly dodge the Tyrant when it got too close. Forcing herself to take action, Jill took the time to fumble her bloody glove around in Rebecca's white medical bag, staining it and retrieving the First Aid Spray she had recovered, as Hunk distracted it. Bought her time. Breathing harder she aimed the nozzle into the center of the gaping, open wound at her collar bleeding all over the place. She began spraying, uttering a hiss as the pain returned... a deep stinging coldness. She kept spraying until half the bottle was gone anyway, before tucking it away and applying more agonizing pressure to the injury. Gasping at the pain.

It would do no more than stave off the inevitable... but watching it approach Hunk... that was good enough for her. She would make that time he had bought for her count. Jill moaned and shivered... she could almost feel the infection running its way through her system... she felt... filthy, violated, as she was... a walking, ticking biological time bomb that would mutate into something... something that would only destroy and take, as the Tyrant did. In her mind's eye she saw the purple substance in the Tyrant's veins flowing through her own... purple as the G-Virus sample... polluting and infecting her. Working to overtake her... to twist and turn her into a monster. She no longer believed she could kill it... that they could kill it... but she knew it could be driven off, momentarily. Maybe enough for Hunk to get away. For her to convince him to leave her. She would pay him back, for all he had tried to do for her. It was her duty as a cop to protect... and her debt, to the honor he had shown her. Honor he never had to give her. He had tried to save her so many times... had offered her an escape when he could have killed her or walked away at any time. She would prove his unexpected faith in her. As he was proving hers.

She gave up on applying pressure to herself quickly, unslinging her SPAS-12 Shotgun, still remaining upright, she set the shotgun to its semi automatic mode. Once she had, she limped forward towards the Tyrant, the train and the agent, raising the shotgun steadily as she neared. The Tyrant attempted to smash Hunk to a pulp with its rocket launcher, as it had tried with her... but the agent dodged and rolled to the side, sensing it and moving with almost unnatural, fluid-like speed and grace. In spite of his own injuries from the train crash. The Tyrant roared again, enraged at being temporarily thwarted, its launcher missing and smashing into the side of the train, caving in part of the exterior further under the immense strength. Perhaps it was realizing it had written them off too quickly, that there was still some fight left in them. That this Umbrella Agent was a threat still after all. Before it could turn its attention to Hunk again, when she stood a few meters from the monster, she let out a loud whistle that rang shrilly through the gardens, and turned on her flashlight, bloodying it, like the entirety of her arm... but that didn't matter.

The beam shot into the Pursuer's face... it wasn't strong enough to blind it as the spotlight had... but it clearly bothered it. It blinked and winced slightly, intelligent, yellow, bloodshot eye growing all the more helpful. The beam helping her gain its attention again. It cocked its massive head in her direction slowly, its malignant, evil eye catching sight of her once more, and it blinked again... a rare gesture on its part. She rose the shotgun's folding stock to her injured, burning shoulder, wincing, and stared down at the Tyrant, eyes narrowing upon its repugnant face. A fury spreading within her as much as the pain was.

"Was that really all you've got? Not done with you. Come... here, I've got something... something with your name on it. Remember this?"

"S.T.A.R.S.!"

Its jaw parted again and it released a low, enraged growl, the purple fluid flowing down its face and dripping off its jagged, shark's teeth. As it started to extend its arm again, with no doubt the same intent as before with its tentacle, Jill shot it in the stomach with her shotgun, aiming for the hole they had opened up in its coat there. The impact broke its concentration, staggered the giant against the side of the train, and the recoil slammed agony throughout her shoulder and arm. In spite of the pain, gritting her teeth, she wasted no time squeezing down on the trigger again, the powerful, near deafening rounds preventing it from raising its rocket launcher wielding arm protectively over its stomach as the purple liquid flowed from the opening flesh. She didn't give it the chance to recover or take a defensive stance... at least as quickly as it usually did. She wished she could shoot it in the head, but the damn thing was smart enough to continue keeping it covered... so she did what little she knew she could.

She kept a reasonable distance for a shotgun from the Pursuer as she fired round after round into its midsection, all eight, and in spite of everything she was going through... she kept on her guard, not suicidally marching very close to the thing. She only needed to stay alive long enough to send it packing... no more. She would be of no use to Hunk if she was killed before then. One final duty. She did move a little closer to ensure the rounds were a bit more devastating, moving between Hunk and the thing slightly, but leaving Hunk enough room to aim and take over for her when the time came. Every round struck dead on, pushing it further along the broken train as it growled its rage into the night. Its patience with being defied snapping. Her heart raced in her ears... but not with fear... at least not then. She wanted more than she ever had before to kill it. Where most other things would have toppled after one round to the ground, each round did no more than stagger it a step or two... but its hulking body dug its boots into the ground and showed no sign of tripping back or falling among the debris and grass.

The red laser sight flashed upon the Tyrant again and opened up in bursts, shooting it in the stomach and up to its head, keeping it pinned. Jill pressed the trigger down again hard... and there was a telltale, unfortunate clicking. Jill cursed under her breath, and her shaky fingers moved to the front of her bandoleer to retrieve more of her shells, tipping the SPAS-12 to the side. Before she could even grab one, the Pursuer let out a roar as Hunk too ran out of rounds for his magazine and began to hurriedly reload. Its malevolent eye swiveled between Jill and Hunk, perhaps attempting to discern the greater threat, as well as who it had the better chance killing faster. From where Jill stood, heart racing, she watched it study the blood flowing down her shoulder quickly, and it turned fully on the spot to her direction, stepping away from the train, its boot crumbling the stone it tread upon.

"S.T.A.R.S.!"

Jill's panicked eyes watched as it snapped its free arm up... but this time, Jill didn't give it the chance to reach her. Forgoing any gracefulness, she dived off to the side before the tendril burst free, onto the stone path, away from the garden and landed in a painful heap. She grunted, another burst of agony moving freely through her form, dazing her. She lay on the stone path, a small puddle of blood forming from everything that ran from her shoulder, ears ringing. She struggled slowly to try to get back upright, hands clenching her shotgun even tighter, rolling on to her back and making it only to her knees with immense difficulty. The pain only burning and spreading further. Feeling sickly in her throat and in the pit of her stomach. Not knowing if it was fear, symptoms of the virus, or both. She breathed deeply, trying to get a second wind. She heard his voice, muffled from the corner of her stunned perceptions, calling down to her.

"On your feet Valentine! Get up and keep fighting!"

There was another burst of automatic gunfire as Hunk finished reloading, and another growl of rage, and she turned her head in its direction. Her vision was blurry and double, as a giant dark shadow bore down on the smaller one shooting it, burst after burst emptying into its gut... and then the top of its head when it covered its midsection once more. Redirecting its rage off her and on to him. Even hefting the giant rocket launcher as it was, the Pursuer burst into motion, running down towards Hunk and aiming a lethal blow in the agent's direction... but Hunk, ever ready, rolled once more out of the way of the Tyrant. Steadily pissing it off all the more as he chipped away at it slowly, shooting its legs. She had to struggle, cursing at herself to get up... to keep going, that it wasn't over until she ran out of blood. He needed her. Needed her to keep fighting. Fighting for him, if not for her own life. She was doomed... he still had a chance. She saw his masked face again in the darkness, the red lenses burning. Jill's senses were close to exhausted... the entire courtyard kept spinning, over and over again... the world... the moaning, the growling and gunfire... and she had to close her eyes and tune it out... opening them moments later. Forcing herself not to black out. Willing herself to stay in the fight, and to stand up the rest of the way, in spite of the pain.

He still needed her. It wasn't over. Not yet.

Over the sounds of the battle, Jill attempted again what she had before, slipping her bloody gloved fingers into her bandoleer and recovering the next eight shells waiting there. Individually loading them in as quickly and properly as she could, nearly fumbling with the reloading in a way she never would if she had full control. She felt utterly helpless... and it wasn't just physical. Mentally, the fear, and the knowledge of what was to happen to her, combined ate away at her, little by little. There was so much she hadn't done... things she had left unsaid. To her father. All the time she could have visited him again, told him about her life, updated him... and she hadn't. Not in six years. Out of stubborn pride and resentment. A now meaningless resentment she had carried, even after the Army had balanced her anger and gave her focus. Things left unsaid to Chris, Barry and Rebecca as well, her team. She had never told any of them who she was, what she had come from. Who she had been. They would never truly know what had happened to her... what they all meant to her... just that she had died here, with the rest of the city. There was so much she should have done differently... but her life was oozing out of her now, a virus was running through her... and there was no escape from either the city or death any longer. Not for her. All she could do was go down the same way she had been living these past days. Fighting futilely. She knew if she didn't end this quickly on her terms, what little that could be salvaged from the situation would become null and void.

Hunk... he was all that mattered now. It was her duty to protect him. Save him. She would not screw this up, as she had everything else... as she had failed everyone else. She still had a chance here... to make it all mean something.

The Pursuer aimed its fist again in the agent's direction over by the garden, who narrowly avoided it once more, the gigantic clawed fist shattering an entire stone statue as it growled, crumbling it to various sized bits and dust. It tried clawing and swiping at him, but the nimble agent refused to stay still. Reflexes honed. After what felt to be a millennium, watching Hunk dodge blow after blow from its rocket launcher and clawed hand swipes, running circles around the giant thing and shooting it when he had an opening, Jill finished reloading the last shell. With a pained grunt, she exerted with all she had, she forced herself back up to her feet unsteadily, her head almost spinning, but forced herself to focus. She rose the shotgun in front of herself, limping away from the train and closer down the path to the middle of the courtyard, where Hunk fought the Tyrant alone. Alone no longer. Leveling the shotgun at the side of the Pursuer's face, she pulled down the trigger, the force echoing once more through the night, and sending another spasm of pain through each of her weakened arms.

The twelve gauge shell caught the Pursuer almost full on, and it rocked slightly on the spot, stumbling a bit and then freezing in the midst of attempting to impale Hunk on its tentacle weapon. The moment she fired, she tiredly limped backwards, waving it over when it looked at her. Exhaustion grew by the second... she didn't know how much longer she could keep it up... keep from blacking out... but she knew she needed to keep it away from Hunk... preserve his well being, it was the only thing she found she could fully focus on... the only thing other than her own impending doom. Life was more important than death. As such, the only thing that meant a damn. When her time came, it would. She fired again from beside the front train wreckage... and with the mixture of distance and dizziness, she was surprised the shell even struck the Pursuer's mid section. Albeit with less force than before with the range.

A stream of purple fluid flowed down the thing's colossal leg as it snarled and growled... and it opted to ignore Hunk again, starting to trudge down in her direction. Shrugging off the TMP rounds from the laser sight that followed it. Jill kept the shotgun leveled and steady, urging it closer and closer, whispering to it, taunting it... and when it was no more than two meters from her, she opened up, pumping shell after shell into it, alternating between its stomach and head, momentarily putting it on the defensive. And yet, as she started to fire the final shell, it suddenly lunged out at her, out of its defensive posture with alarming quickness. She pulled back just in time, thinking it would use its tentacle against her again... but to her surprise, instead it seized the very end of her shotgun... its hand so big it covered both the pump and barrel. She peered up into its snarling, hate filled expression... the only one it could truly manage, that yellow eye burning with malevolence. She had never seen anything or anyone hate her more than it did. Look at her that way. Killing her was all it knew... and the harder she made it for it, the more it hated her. Good. Let it feel everything it had made her feel since the R.P.D. courtyard. Since Brad. It reeked of foul rotting gore and death, burnt flesh... it was all she could do not to choke and gag, to force back down a wave of nausea.

Before the Tyrant could tug the shotgun, and her arms out of their sockets, Jill willingly let go of the weapon and dived to the ground away from the Tyrant, knowing damn well the outcome of a tug of war. Using all the focus she could amid the prolonged, increasingly excruciating pain, she caught enough in the dimness of her vision to watch as, in its single hand, the Pursuer effortlessly folded the dark metal that comprised the shotgun in half, before throwing it over its shoulder, where it disappeared somewhere in the garden. It wasn't a huge loss... she had been nearly out of shells for it anyways, and hadn't been planning on using it again after this near one sided fight... but it bothered her no less to watch the weapon she had longed for in what felt another lifetime destroyed in front of her. She heard Hunk fire his TMP again, an echo through the courtyard, the red laser sight falling upon the Tyrant. Firing in bursts, tracers slamming into its body and opening up ever more wounds. It took the rounds... and all throughout, it never took its putrid yellow eye off her... and the moment it was done breaking the shotgun, it trudged again over to her, where she lay. Without thinking, on impulse alone she snapped up one of the Berettas on her waist and shot it, dead on where its nose should have been. Several more shots clipped the side of its head... and it was only then, recognizing the lack of blue steel on the Beretta, that she realized it hadn't been her Samurai Edge she had drawn.

It was Brad's. The lack of stopping power also showed. There weren't armor piercing rounds in this particular magazine.

The thing wasn't even slowed anymore by her rounds or Hunk's... it started to run all of a sudden, bursting into motion, raising its rocket launcher and preparing to bring it down on her prone form. A voice in her dazed mind screamed to roll out of the way, and her body managed to respond a second before one of its clawed swipes snapped her neck or beheaded her. She rolled out of its path, and staggering like a drunk she rose to her feet, firing off another pair of shots before falling backwards against the side of the train and collapsing back down to the ground. She felt the Beretta leave her grip simultaneously, and watched the Samurai Edge fall in the debris and rubble filled fire at the back of the train, and beside the outer wall it had crashed through.

She swore again tiredly, sluggishly trying to rise... a fighter on the ropes, her heart slamming its familiar desperate rhythm in her ears, as she gasped for breath, searching for the pistol only a moment before giving it up for lost. Jill saw it there, deep in the fire and wreckage, out of her reach. The last of Brad destroyed by the Tyrant. All she'd had left of him. She had already burned herself in fire enough for one evening. She was bathed in the heat of the raging fires. She tried to draw the remaining Samurai Edge, hers... but her blood soaked gloves slipped on the handle.

And she was too exhausted... too goddamn tired... she had burnt out all her reserves... couldn't go another round with the Pursuer... she knew it, and it knew it, as it turned and began to bear down on her again. Everything inside her hurt. Burned. She couldn't take in the cold air fast enough. Its footsteps were like the rumble of thunder, or an earthquake... and with the haze that was her vision, only the advancing Pursuer dominated it. She felt cold... so very cold, yet equally heated... a cold flame... sweat pouring down he bloody face and her back. Heat and cold in conflict within and without. Her shoulder wouldn't stop leaking or throbbing deeply, and it left a red smear along the side of the wrecked train when she had slid down it to the ground amid the rubble. She shook her head slowly when the Tyrant stopped on the spot, and looked down over her, tilting its colossal misshapen head slightly to the side.

"VALENTINE!"

It ignored the agent's shout as it had his bullets, seeing only her. It didn't raise its rocket launcher to bludgeon her, it kept the weapon down at its side... instead raising its free bloody hand again. It figured. The same fate as Brad. A way to be damn sure she wouldn't beat the odds again. Impalement through the head. There was no surviving that, no enduring it again. After it did so, she saw it tearing her head and limbs off to be sure, perhaps throwing her on the fire. Anything to make sure she didn't come back. Jill coughed, retched and spat up blood on its boots defiantly, coughing as it flowed down her mouth, gasping and wheezing, but found the gesture had been worth it, a blood bubble popping at the side of her mouth. With all she had left in her lungs, she began to speak a few much deserved words... words she should have told it a long time before now. The instant she had seen it. The very thing she had thought of it from the get go, when she had seen that leering, hateful face.

"You... you are one... ugly... motherfucker... aren't you? Inside... and out."

Its face twisted as it studied her, and a moment later it let out another guttural, enraged roar that shocked her senses, cutting her off... and as the tendril squirmed and pushed forward from the depths of its hand, fresh with its own purple gore, and the red of her blood. As though it understood her words, its malevolent milky yellow, bloodshot eye narrowing further, incensed. Taunting her right back. She fell silent, and began to accept her fate. There was no out for her... she'd put up all she had left, and it hadn't been enough... that was ok. She was only a human being... some washed up cop. A dying woman. It probably wouldn't even hurt... there was no way it could hurt more than she already felt... more than the hopelessness, and the despair. The losses.

If it killed her instantly, the infection it had given her would become meaningless... and she would pose no threat to anyone else. Maybe... it was for the best if it was this way. She called once again to Hunk, wherever he was... she couldn't see him... all she could do was try to hope he had made a run for it. Seen the futility of the situation, of staying with her. Fighting for her. She called to him blindly, and told him to get the hell out. He'd probably already taken her advice, in spite of his own words... she hadn't heard him fire in what felt like forever... but with how distracted she had been... she wasn't sure of anything anymore. Time meant little now. Her vision dazed. It was all scrambled... and there was nothing left she could do. She slumped her head back against the side of the crashed train, and breathed as the blood trickled freely from her mouth. She looked back at it coldly, as it loomed over her... a giant shadow of death.

"S.T.A.R.S.!"

"Yeah. S.T.A.R.S. No matter what you did to Brad and me... you didn't get all of us. Never will. You'll fry, when the nuke flies. Fail your mission. You... and your masters... are going straight to hell..."

With that, she truly felt resigned to the inevitable... but she did not close her eyes as she waited for death to catch up. She wasn't afraid of it any longer... no matter what, it would happen. And she intended to watch until she couldn't. She was done running... done showing it the fear it craved. She would show it who she was in her final moments. And it was not a victim. She had tried... she remembered Hunk telling her. It was more than most people did. The memory of them at the apartment made her smile again fondly, tiredly. As she had held him, lay against him and showed him the photograph. Even in the middle of this hell on earth, her pain at the time... she had never felt safer. At least she'd felt that, on her last day on earth... a good, genuine, warm feeling again. Feeling like a woman again, instead of the thing her experiences had tried to replace her with.

Maybe she would see them all again, wherever she was going. Her mother, the fallen S.T.A.R.S. Officers... Marvin, Sherry, Mikhail and Carlos as well. She didn't know what she would say to any of them... just hoped they would understand. She'd done the best she could. She hoped.

The Pursuer drew its arm back further and started forward one last time... but at the last moment before it could seize and consume her, there was a sudden noise. A low, muffled grunt... and Jill watched as a dark arm locked its self around the Pursuer's thick neck... and to Jill's eye widening shock, a red eyed skeletal face appeared at the Tyrant's shoulder. Her focus somehow returned suddenly, in spite of the dizziness... and her heart that had been starting to relax seized once more sharply. Spasmed as her surroundings came back. No.. not a skeletal face with burning red eyes... a hallucination in the moment, surely. Blinking, she saw a gas mask with red lenses, the fires of the train and helicopter wreckage burning in them. A faceless hired killer for the company that she hated, the same company that had spawned the Tyrant he grappled with. The same company that had deliberately brought her Pursuer to Raccoon City to kill her. As they had unwittingly delivered her protector as well. His name... the only one she knew, escaped her bloodied lips, no more than a murmur beneath the loud sounds of the startled, aggravated Tyrant.

"Hunk..."

The Pursuer growled roughly and suddenly turned around away from her, forgetting her, the formerly stiff and sharp tentacle whipping back and forth like a snake. As it turned, Jill found the armored Umbrella Agent up on the giant Tyrant's back, refusing to let go of something far worse and more powerful than a bucking bronco. Jill could tell he was exerting all his strength and effort to stay attached to the Pursuer, who wildly attempted to smash Hunk with its rocket launcher, in vain, its strikes slow enough for the agent to spot and avoid. Reflexes remaining sharp, though slightly hampered by his position. The arm around its neck tightened, and the Tyrant lurched away from Jill and the train as they struggled and back on to the main stone path of the courtyard, growing all the more enraged with every passing moment. All but bellowing with fury.

Jill felt only numbness at first as she watched... shocked as the Tyrant was... she couldn't be anything other than an observer... it all happened too quickly. She watched as Hunk rose, with effort, the TMP to the side of the Pursuer's head, and stuck it and the red laser sight point blank against the dead flesh where its ear should have been. In an instant, squeezing down on the trigger and holding it, as well as holding tighter to its neck for dear life as it thrashed. Loud yet muffled automatic gunfire rang in Jill's ears. Bursts of light from the gun shone in Hunk's lenses. Purple gore splashed all over the place, coating the gun and his covered arm, as the prolonged point blank gunfire opened up a reasonably sized hole in the right side of the Pursuer's head and skull... and brass casings flew all over the place. She felt some of them landing on her, felt the heat of them... but couldn't repress the smile touching her lips as she watched the scene play out, breathing slowly. Nor could she repress a laugh, over the pain and sickness. As Death struggled with death. Agent versus Tyrant. Umbrella legend versus Umbrella nightmare. Really, it came down to one simple thing.

Man versus machine.

The Pursuer spun around on the spot, raising its rocket launcher as the scene out of an obscene horror movie played out. Without warning, a burst of fire rushed out of its risen rocket launcher, and the metallic explosive charge within screamed out the end, whizzing towards the train... and out of pure chance, past Jill, slamming beyond her into the already damaged outer wall along with the section of the train midway through the wall. It rained pieces of stone, concrete and metal all over again, as Jill lay in her covered spot, every sense ringing, yet alert. All of a sudden, in spite of all the damage it was taking under the gunfire, the Pursuer struck out intelligently once more... it truly was too damn clever. Its head remained intact in spite of the barrage of bullets at point blank range, and it threw down its rocket launcher, as the slimy tentacle in its hand squirmed up, wrapping around the center of the firing TMP, coiling, before tightening all at once with all the strength it could manage.

The TMP strained beneath the pressure, bent and broke apart in half... broke neatly in Hunk's grip... the front half dropping off the Pursuer's shoulder and down to the ground, ending the stream of bullets. The red laser sight dropped away somewhere on the ground... but Hunk was not phased, even in his precarious location. He threw aside the other half of the weapon, and Jill watched a familiar, glinting, serrated steel replace it in his right hand. Gripping the Tyrant's neck tighter with his left arm, the agent reached down with his right, swinging the combat knife at the tendril that had broken his weapon in kind. The blade's teeth biting off a sizable part of it in a single slash. The part of the tendril hit the ground squirming on it like a worm. The purple fluid oozed from the squirming, partially severed tendril as it did from the Tyrant's head. And the moment he cut it off the rest of it retreated back inside the palm of its clawed hand. Next Hunk rose up higher on the spinning Tyrant's back, aiming the stained combat knife at the Tyrant's thick, muscled throat, where the jugular should have been. Jill felt the bile in her throat worsening as she numbly watched him slip the knife in deeply and begin to saw away... cutting through its thick, dead layers of burnt flesh. The purple fluid turning to spurting rain as he cut it from ear to ear... if it had them, anyways. The sight of what he was doing heartening and horrifying her at the same time, feeling her pulse quickening. The image of it. Watching him fight and struggle for her like this, even with the futility of it, even knowing she was dying.

Why... why was he doing all this for her?

The Umbrella Agent didn't make a sound as he sawed away... nor show the slightest bit of hesitation or bit of fear. Everything to him calculated, cool and determined. This was a second nature to him. Nothing about this was out of the ordinary to him. Toppling and killing this monster was all that mattered to him in that moment. But he was so determined with his task that he didn't see its free arm rise again. As the gore spilled from its throat, its giant hand reached around to its back, at last seizing the agent by his body armor and removing his entire body as one might a leech. Breaking out of the agent's grip. It released an enraged, gurgling growl as it held the agent, who responded by kicking the Tyrant in the side of its damaged head with a great measure of strength, enough to snap its head back. Swinging the knife in an attempt to get at its exposed, enraged eye... but it remained just out of reach of the tip. It growled again in response, and shook the agent roughly, before drawing its other arm back and swinging it in the direction of the armored man's head. Before it could strike dead on, the agent moved his head to the side... but not quickly enough or entirely far enough.

Part of the back of the Tyrant's massive, clawed hand bumped into the front of the agent's mask, and Jill heard a snapping sound of metal as the mask's main filter was broken off, clattering to the ground, and compromising the mask. The very tips of three of its mutated claws slashed at the top of the black metal helmet he wore, sending sparks flying like glow flies through the night. The force of even the partial impact stunning the agent, though he managed to hold on to the combat knife, and this time stab it beneath the chin and up through its jaw, twisting the hilt of the knife and opening another wound. Jill watched it lift Hunk even higher, before drawing him back over its shoulder, the knife sliding back out of its damaged jaw again, and then throwing the agent like a rag doll across most of the courtyard. As he tumbled through the air, this time he dropped the combat knife at last, the stained, glinting steel dropping as both halves of the TMP had, close to them. An instant later, his armored body was slamming into the side of a light post, one of the two near the start of the stone path, directly in front of the fountain, as well as the flaming, smoking remains of the collapsed balcony and helicopter. His armored back crashed against the cast iron post with enough force to bend it slightly to the side, shaking it. His helmeted head slammed down in succession, scraping against the stone path, leaving him face down. Silent and still.

"NO! HUNK!"

Jill's futile scream carried through the courtyard, and as if in response to her own pain, the Pursuer threw back its leaking head again and let out a bellowing growl from the depths of its lungs, raising its arms over head. It screamed not in triumph, victory... but in agony as well. Its roar had become more of a sick gurgling noise, as the fluid continued flowing from its severed throat. She heard the pain in it, something that might have been wheezing, choking. It stopped after a moment or two, and took a huge step over to its dropped rocket launcher and scooping it up effortlessly. Bleeding all over the weapon. For a moment, she thought it would turn again and finish her off while Hunk was down... but it didn't. It seemed to finally determine Hunk the greater threat in that particular moment, and sought to put him down for certain before finishing its goal. She wasn't going anywhere, it must have calculated, and was already dying. She was out of the fight. In one motion, a tendril emerge from its body then, from within the vast armored coat, parting it open, revealing several remaining heat seeking rocket shells within. The tendril picked one up, before moving the shell to its weapon, sliding it gradually into the launcher, reloading the device.

"Hunk! You need to stand up and keep fighting! You are not going to die here with me! Do you hear me soldier?! Wake up!"

She shouted down to him, before another spike of pain from within took her off guard. She moaned under her breath, looking down to her raggedly breathing chest. Her top stained with blood, along with the dangling dog tags, the glinting metal turned scarlet. She knew damn well already the Tyrant's intention... and she attempted to rise again back to her feet. She didn't make it at first, sliding back down to the ground in a heap after a couple attempts, moaning out painfully from the impact of the rubble below her. As this occurred, she watched, stunned, as Hunk miraculously stirred again on the ground, a little stronger than before, and rise partly off the stone path... unable to stand entirely, but able to lean up against the base of the light post for support, sitting up on the spot. The front primary filter on his mask torn off, the left red lens was visibly cracked, and three long, thick, jagged white scratches ran down from the top of his dark, dented helmet, where its claw tips had caught him. The agent's shaky, gloved hand reached up to his shoulder strap, sliding off the MP5 with an extended magazine that resided there... and weakly aiming the submachine gun in the Pursuer's direction. He held it in both unsteady hands... didn't aim from the shoulder, rather from his lap, from the hip... but he didn't fire at once. He looked past the reloading Pursuer, and met Jill's gaze from afar, before making a sharp cutting gesture with his hand. Muffled, sluggish voice shouting down to her where she sat.

"Valentine! Get... clear! Move!"

Jill didn't need to be told twice, understanding at once, even through the growing haziness. She released a pained breath as she struggled off the ground again, forcing herself, propping herself up against the side of the train, nearly slipping with her shoulder against the blood on the cold metal. It took monumental effort, every second of it, and she nearly gave up in the process... but she did make it. She forced herself to stand all the way next, and turning away from the train, she had to hobble away from it and the unaware Pursuer. Holding her wounded shoulder, and moving over to the garden she had been infected beside, using all her effort not to fall, always an inch away from doing so. She limped with all she had, making it over to a statue and leaning against it, safely clear of the battle, but capable of witnessing it. By now, the Pursuer had reloaded, and was closing up its coat... but the instant it started to raise its rocket launcher off the ground and to its shoulder, there was another sudden burst of high powered automatic fire. Of a heavier rhythm than that of the TMP... as Hunk fired where he lay, entirely illuminated and exposed in the light. Tracers flying in a stream from his weapon, rushing to meet the Pursuer.

It would take only one pull of the rocket launcher's trigger to send him to oblivion... and no amount of bullets could hope to stop the Pursuer. The fight seemed all but hopeless... hell, it was. At this point they were just buying time and staving off the inevitable... but it was all they could do. A few of the rounds struck the Pursuer's stomach, knocking it back a slight step under the impact... while some others missed entirely, slamming into the ground, bringing up dirt and rock, or glancing off the side of the train and producing sparks. It was heartrending, she found, even in the middle of this courtyard full with despair... as the usually implacable man could barely shoot straight. He needed time... time only she could buy him, as he was her. She instinctively drew her Samurai Edge at last in one hand, taking aim and joining in, trying to concentrate her hazy vision. Opening fire. Most of the rounds missed, as his were... but a few slammed into the Tyrant's side, the armor piercing rounds tearing into it. Staggering it slightly, throwing off its aim, but it quickly readjusted as her magazine went dry. As she began to reload it clumsily, magazine slick with blood, Hunk continued firing and the Tyrant focused its rocket launcher again. This time, managing to raise the MP5 to his shoulder with a muffled grunt, the U.S.S. Agent did shoot straight... and he shot where it counted. Sparks flew in front of the Pursuer as Hunk's aim rose... and some of the bullets slammed into the barrel of the rocket launcher.

One after another, the submachine gun's armor piercing tracer rounds struck the weapon, sending a pinging sound through the air, punching the massive rocket launcher full of holes. The moment the last of the rounds in the magazine struck, dead on, they detonated the rocket within. The rocket launcher exploded into a hundred pieces of burning metal in the Pursuer's hand with enough force to detonate the remaining rockets within its open, armored coat as well. It didn't know what hit it. The deafening blast overtook it instantly, driving even its massive bulk down into the ground behind it like a rag doll, flames of the blast leaping over top of it. The explosion was bright enough to cause Jill to raise her arm over her eyes, but she lowered it as soon as possible to study the Tyrant's fiery, burning, bleeding, motionless form. Finding she couldn't, between her hazy vision and all the smoke rising up around the crater it lie in. There were several clicks from across the courtyard that drew her attention again, as Hunk's extended magazine emptied... and he stopped trying to fire.

She took a tentative step towards the body... away from the statue she leaned on for support... and then another, but she didn't get closer. She stood, next to the garden, watching the motionless Pursuer... despite the power of the explosion, its body had managed to remain intact, from the outline she glimpsed, its limbs remaining where they were. Her eyes moved on the Hunk's prone, battered, injured form against the bent lamp post. He was slumped against it... and Jill couldn't tell if he was conscious anymore or not. She had no more than studied him from afar... when there came another sickening gurgling sound, in front of her... and the formerly still Tyrant rose from the crater and fire, smoking. Its dead burning flesh making Jill gag for air, and draw back further from it. It threw its head back... and it roared, blood pouring from its throat and mouth, with more rage than ever... and Jill understood why. It had not only been disarmed, she found, her eyes widening... its limbs remained intact, more durable even than the T-002... but that didn't mean severe damage hadn't been done. Its coat had truly been breached, and not in a small spot on its stomach either. A low, despairing murmur escaping her bloody lips.

"Why... can't you just die?"

The entire upper chest portion of its coat was missing, having at last been burnt off to smolders, revealing the grotesque, muscular, pulsating, corpse-like scorched flesh underneath it that made Jill want to vomit. There was a hole in its powerful stomach cavity, through which more purple tendrils were poking through... along with one creeping out of the side of its head by now... where Hunk had shot open its skull at point blank range. She saw the excited throbbing under the flesh, of whatever the hell the tendrils were attached to inside it, surely. She didn't want to know. On its front all that remained was the bottom portion of its coat below the waist, still clinging to its lower form and legs, and its sleeved, massive arms... at least the area below its exposed, inhuman sized shoulders. Metal from the car and train earlier remaining embedded and twisted around sections of its flesh deeply. It not only looked like it was in a great deal of pain... it behaved as such. With no weapon to fight from afar, twin tentacles stirred in each of its hands, bursting forth and whipping around excitedly as their master stopped roaring. As before, it paid no heed to Jill, resuming its former, slow, steady pace, lumbering methodically past the train... intent on finishing the now defenseless Hunk where he lay before the light post. Laying in a spotlight. Seeing only him now, hateful eye incensed, unblinking, enraged. Body still burning, smoking and bleeding profusely.

Its entire being hating the Umbrella Agent as much as it hated her, now.

It was only then that Jill noticed that while the front of the Pursuer's upper body was exposed... the back was another story, the dark, battered armored material still strapped to its form. Jill knew now more than ever that Hunk would be done for... he was barely stirring or moving any longer, the force he had impacted into the post with had been too much. It had been a miracle alone, spoke testament to his talent that he had managed to rise and do what he had before his magazine had run out. The ball as such was once more in her court... and this time she intended to play for keeps. To finish the game it had started. She would deny it what it sought... deny it a direct victory. While it would kill her in the long, or relatively short run... she would make it a victory at a cost... and Hunk would not be a part of that equation. The Tyrant had not been created to kill Hunk... it had been created for her. The rest of the struggle was hers, now. He had done more than enough already... taken enough risks for a dead woman. Jill tucked away her bloody Samurai Edge again in its holster, gritting her teeth, and forcing out some words down to it.

"No... oh no you don't... it's not... over yet. It's me you want... remember?"

Sluggishly, Jill started giving pursuit of the Pursuer, limping down after it, removing her final primary weapon strapped on her shoulder... and raising the Mine Thrower, peering down the impressive sights, holding the foregrip tighter, hand stinging. Tapping the button on the side to release the safety mechanism. The high tech weapon beeped as the safety disengaged, lights on it blinking... the weapon was alien to her, yet familiar enough... remembering dazedly what Hunk and Quartermaster had told her about it. Had shown her. She had six shots... and regardless of the blood loss, the dizziness and shock, the pain, the heat and the coldness... she would be damned if she was going to waste a single one of them. She held the advanced prototype weapon to her agonizing, bleeding shoulder... took aim, and when the Pursuer was no more than half way down the courtyard to Hunk, Jill shot it in the back. She squeezed down on the trigger, releasing a vibrantly glowing blue, blinking dart from within. The Mine Thrower barely even kicked in her fingers, mercifully, very little recoil... and she watched as the glowing dart shot down the broken stone pathway, breezing through the air, and directly struck its target.

The instant the dart embedded into the back of its coat and pierced its flesh, the blue light illuminated part of its coat, then turned ominously red as the Tyrant spun around on the spot to face her. Before it could do anything more than leer hatefully her way, the dart's explosive components detonated powerfully a few seconds later, blasting the Pursuer a few steps forward with the force of a grenade, closer to Jill where she stood next to the train wreckage, and further from Hunk's position. She felt a hard, bitter smile forming as more flames licked up its body, the force of the blast blowing off the back of its coat. Her heart raced in her ears as she glanced at the device. Damn impressive weapon alright. She felt its power, took it into herself, and forced the fear at bay as long as she could. The thing did not growl this time... it moved its shoulders, and instead released a low breath of obvious pain... and when it recovered its balance a moment later... it looked back up at Jill... and it pointed at her, as it had from the start. Remembering its programming, perhaps, the true source of its gate. Gurgling out that word again with a rasp, with difficulty, more purple fluids pouring as its thick, ruined throat tried to form them. Its flesh wasn't knitting together again, this time, she noticed. None of the wounds were. The damage was so severe they would take a long time, surely... if ever. Or maybe it needed another feeding... a feeding she intended to deny it.

"S.T.A.R.S.!"

"Get away from him... you son of a bitch. You're just... Umbrella property. A thing. He's a man... he's mine. All mine... not yours..."

Jill spat the words out harshly with disgust, just as she had spit blood on its boots, and stared hatefully back at the large, milky yellow eye with all the concentration she could manage. So... this was the way to do it. The way to out think it. Constantly trick it... make it keep shifting targets, determining who the greatest threat was. She had known team work was the key, from the first time she'd fought it with Hunk... but she had not taken that it to its logical conclusion, until only now, at the end. She had no doubt it would adapt to this tactic, as it had to every other after a fight... but that wouldn't matter. There wouldn't be another fight. Not for her. This would have to be enough, she had to make it could. Finish the knockdown blows. To hell with this abomination... little felt better than using Umbrella's high tech weapon against its walking biological one.

She squeezed the trigger down another couple time as it started forward again, freezing it before it could gain momentum and run, and the glowing darts struck its upper chest and breached, bleeding stomach. Impacting against the tendrils. The cold blue lights illuminating it switched over to a burning red... and when the seconds ticked past, the combined detonations rippled through the Tyrant, this time almost knocking it to the ground again. It released more deep, groaning breaths, more painful than the first one, cradling its stomach and chest protectively with both arms, the severed tendrils continuing to whip around as though in agony. Incensed... enraged... holding on to her rage and drinking from it as a steadier... her shaky hands relaxed... she relaxed throughout, a strange peace of knowing she was already dead. That she didn't have to worry about that anymore. She aimed another three times... and squeezed the trigger as many times. One after another methodically. As calm as he had been, she was certain, slashing open its throat. She shot its left clawed hand in the palm with a dart, then one in the right thigh... and when its hands moved to its leg, exposing its midsection once more... her jaw tightened, and her lips thinned. She shot it in the right side, between the collar and shoulder. Returned the violation back to its sender. Each of the darts exploded, as one with combined, and admirable force.

The dart on its clawed hand blew off the entire appendage, and exposed much of the squirming tentacle inside, leaving it with no flesh to hide within where the palm was concerned. Protruding out of the bleeding stump where its wrist was. The dart to the leg nearly toppled the monster... but it most certainly exposed some of the muscle and bone there, pealing back the armor and flesh that had covered it. The third and final shot, combined with the second made it stagger every which way, lurching to the left and right on the stone path, back and forth... the blast dislocating its right arm. Its evil, pained eye darted around the courtyard wildly, no longer entirely focused on her any longer. Even though she was empty, and knew it... the Tyrant might not have. With all her effort, she focused on it and only it, aiming down the sights, and forcing out more concerted words with the blood trickling from her mouth.

"Do the world... a favor... go find somewhere... to die alone. You did... what you came here to do... to me. Leave us. Now. Or the next six... go in your head."

Jill lied to the thing easily, not knowing for certain if it understood what she said or not... but having the feeling it did. A feeling she trusted. She kept the empty Mine Thrower aimed, right between its eyes, and she stood her ground, her own eyes still narrowed, lips thinned... not having any of the fear it wanted her to feel. She didn't believe it would work... it didn't matter if it did or not. She had nothing left to throw at it... but she made the threat nonetheless. It was intelligent... maybe enough to recognize, or believe she wasn't bluffing. What other weapon knowledge had it been programmed with? The Mine Thrower was a prototype... not mass produced. If it knew what it was... it would know the ammunition capacity. Know that she hadn't reloaded it. The fear and doubt coiled in her stomach, be she ignored it... and she hoped instead. Prayed silently.

When it regathered its balance, digging its boots into the stone path... it looked slowly back at her... entirely still for a few seconds, in which a breeze passed over Jill... and she felt a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather. A spreading sickness... it was all she could do to keep from throwing up. To keep her hands from trembling, the gun from shaking... not wanting to give away how close she was to collapsing. It stared across the center of the courtyard, down her barrel... silently daring it to attack her again... and all of a sudden, something happened. There was a grotesque squishing sound, muffled... emanating from its exposed tentacles, and the tendril burrowed into its neck... and a thick gout of purple gore began to spray from its shoulder and upper body... from each wound, its chest seeming to seize and pulsate, like it was experiencing a violent seizure, its lower section being bathed in gunk. Fluids that continued pouring from its opened throat, all of it splashing against its intact boots, forming a puddle beneath them. The yellow, malevolent eye looked at her... and she knew what she saw in it. Worse than the surprise it had had on the balcony.

Fear. Hesitation. Agony. Overtaking even its rage.

It let out one more pained, deep breath... and then a gurgling roar from its ruined throat, with all it had left, that carried through to the sky and rang even in Jill's ears. To her silent shock, it turned, very slowly on the spot, away from her, and it began to lumber and limp away, leaving behind a thick, long trail of gore in its wake down the stone path it walked. It didn't move in Hunk's direction, it didn't even look at the injured man... it passed him by as though he didn't exist, passed each of the cast iron lights, its massive shadow dancing over the courtyard. The tendrils, so many of them squirming and stirring around it, sprouting and protruding from each wound like a Lovecraftian abomination... its giant, ruined form still twitching and spasming inhumanly. Reaching the destroyed fountain, and the fires raging in front of the clock tower's main entrance. Jill watched, stunned, as the many exposed tendrils all snapped back into its body as one, vanishing within the Tyrant. Then it strode slowly yet assuredly into the depths of the flames, still trying to breath, and growling. When it did so, Jill saw only its towering outline, engulfed in the inferno... before toppling forward, at long last, down into the rubble, and vanishing somewhere beyond it. Well out of her sight. It didn't go quietly. It groaned painfully the entire way, growled... and gurgled out that damning word, the only coherent thing besides its actions that it was capable of doing. Even with its mutilated throat, somehow it managed. Though there was nothing about it that frightened her in this moment... it was a pathetic sound, worthy of a monster.

"S.T.A.R.S... S.T.A.R.S...-

The rasping, gurgling sounds it made vanished as surely as its visage did into the raging fire below the destroyed balcony... leaving them alone once more. Jill peered down the Mine Thrower's sights, into the fire for a long moment... then down to the gore trail and boot prints the Pursuer had left them with... certain it would rise again... attack all over... but it didn't. She stopped slowly, and lowered her weapon... examining it numbly, distantly. It really was one hell of a prototype... empty now, and worthless... but like every other tool, it had served its purpose. She tried to breath, deeply, to comprehend what had just happened. What she had managed. A miracle at Saint Michael... if ever there had been one. She looked to the side of the courtyard with the chapel... the cross perched atop it, for a moment... remembering Carlos's necklace... before her bleary gaze moved on. Somehow, she had succeeded. But it hadn't been alone. A thin, exhausted smile touched her bloody lips... satisfaction. She didn't bother slinging the Mine Thrower. There was no point any longer... and she no longer had the energy to raise her arms. Couldn't hold her flowing, terminal wound. As she stepped slowly, lurched down the stone path towards Hunk's position, she tossed Umbrella's advanced weapon aside onto the path close to Hunk's knife and broken TMP, where it clattered against the ground. Then she drew her Samurai Edge again... all she had left, holding it limply at her side as she staggered forward to him in a final death march. The fires of the crashed helicopter and the light post illuminating her way up the path. His form standing out like a beacon in the midst of it all.

She felt... dizzy... and warm... too warm... not hot... but a tired warmth, that each step was worsening, as though she lay in a heated tub in the middle of winter... a winter that was the wind. Was that... death? The infection? Slipping away? She felt things... many things, that she hadn't before. She had never come this close to the precipice. It was almost like being drunk... but not quite. Her mind still alive, but dimmed. Everything becoming less so. Flashes of faces she knew and had known. Flashes of memory. Her mother's bright smile and the scent of her cooking, radiant in that moment... before death had come to drag her away from them. Her father clad in an orange jumpsuit, sitting in the booth and proud of her... pressing his hand to hers against the glass divided between them as he looked back at her, the last time she had visited him, before the Army and Delta Force... feeling the warm tears running down her cheeks, gripping the phone tighter. Chris's tired, reassuring smile when he had awoken her upon their return to Raccoon City, her partner assuring her the nightmare was over. Barry's low voice thanking her quietly for what she had done for him, telling her he owed her his life... and Rebecca running a medical examine on them all, making sure they were all ok, in spite of how exhausted she herself was, younger than all of them and still mothering them. Brad laying back in the pilot's chair after they had landed, staring distantly out the window to the rising sun, scarcely moving, but turning his head her way, and finally mirroring her own smile, sharing that and a nod. The memories were welcome, here and now... they didn't trouble her, as they did in her nightmares.

It didn't matter that she was dying... she just had to get a little further, another few steps, a little closer to Hunk. He was still... too still and quiet with his head slumped back... he didn't move as her vision danced with everything in that moment, everything she saw, heard, felt and remembered. Despite the satisfaction she had felt, after what they had managed to do to their Pursuer... it wasn't enough. Fear... terror returned to her, the scope of it all, and she freely let it. From where she was, she couldn't hear Hunk breathing those muffled breaths any longer... she could only hear her own. No... no... it couldn't have been for nothing... it couldn't have. She had to get to him... had to get to him... give him CPR if need be... stabilize him somehow with anything, everything she could. She'd given up all she could give to save him from her fate at the hands of the Pursuer. It... it couldn't be. This had to mean something, what had happened here. He survived worse... he had to live. He had to. He wasn't Brad... he wasn't anybody else in the city already gone... he had to make it. Had to tell the story, no matter who to. He couldn't die. Not after so many others had. Not another.

Let her be the last person in the city to fall.

Jill let out a low croaking, hopeless and helpless sound with the last of her effort, when she was within a couple meters of his position. Looking to where he lay motionless against the cast iron light, his spent MP5 laying limply at his side in one hand. Armored form beaten and battered, tattered and defeated. Despite everything he was capable of... he was only human, like the rest of them. She looked at her weakly approaching two reflections in his intact and cracked lenses. The world was spinning, her head was as well, as sight, sound, sensation and scent blended together and became one. She felt warm liquid streaming down her cheeks... and didn't know if they were tears, blood or both. It ran from her nose as well. Her shaky voice choked out his name... his codename again with all she had left, pleading him to wake up. To be with her, as the end drew close now.

"Hunk!...-

With a low, spent moan, the growing chills and nausea overtook her... a violent twisting and surging through her stomach. Her limbs shaking, spasming, feeling herself seizing up, as the Tyrant had. Jill promptly vomited all over the pavement at her feet, the matter running down her bloody front. Lurching a little more forward, her legs gave out underneath her, and the world rushed up to greet her. She collapsed, onto the stone path, without even feeling it. One second she stood, then she blinked, and she wasn't. Her face was pressed down in her own blood and vomit... she tasted the dull, coppery flavor of it, the sickening bile taste. For no more than a second or two, she struggled, tried with the last of what she had in her to rise, as she had so many times before already. To crawl over to Hunk... to be with him, at the very least, before she did it. Before it was over. She wanted to hold him again... be held by him. Hear his muffled, authoritative, strong voice telling her it would be ok... even if it was a lie. She wanted to tell him it would be as well. And tell him what she felt for him. What he did to her. Meant to her.

But he was so far away. Only getting further. Or maybe that was her.

Even as she thought it, she knew she couldn't any longer. Couldn't reach him. Couldn't hold him... couldn't say or do a damn thing. She couldn't even raise the blue steel Beretta to her temple and squeeze the trigger, as she wanted to then. The Samurai Edge weighed a ton in her hand. Everything weighed too much. She had no desire to come back in the way she knew she would. A puppet rising up on some T-Virus strings, filling in for her... taking her body for its own and unleashing further madness and misery into the world. She didn't want to be a monster... wanted to truly die as Jill... but had no choice in the matter any longer. The virus was powerful... could take her body... but it couldn't take her soul. Nor even her heart, really.

Someone else had already claimed that, here and now, in this courtyard.

It beat slower and slower still as she tried to crawl to him, throbbing inside her head. She made it no more than a few inches closer to the masked man, her gloved, bloody hand digging into the stone and dirt, before slackening. She flopped right back down again, and everything that was, that had been, flew from her grasp. She left it all behind. All the pain, sickness and exhaustion. Her fear. She left it all behind gladly, falling down a long, expanding tunnel... one he couldn't follow her down. Couldn't pull her out of, this time. The sights and sounds of her dying city, the wailing chorus of moans at the gates of the courtyard fading away in the distance. All of her duties and responsibilities fulfilled. He was alive. She had protected him. Saved him. As she hadn't been able to anyone else. She got to trade her life for his. He would go on now... and he would remember. Remember her. As the rest of her team and her father would. She could live on that way.

It was a fair trade.

Former S.T.A.R.S. Officer Jill Valentine stopped resisting, and made her journey into the depths of darkness alone. The world above turning to nothingness. The peace of what must have been death descending upon her and enveloping her in its serene, final embrace.