Pandemic: Resident Evil VI
Chapter Forty Five: Chasing Ada
Waiyip, China
June 30th, 2013
With all of the members of Alpha Team present, it should have been easy for Chris Redfield to follow the lead that Ada Wong had been spotted moving toward the city's warehouse district… should have been. After burning all of those chrysalis things in the basement of the apartment building, his team had ignored orders to pull out while all of the other BSAA teams withdrew to their extraction points, only to discover shortly after that the situation in this city was not as contained as they thought.
Maybe some of the virus used by the terrorists had leaked out, or maybe it was intentional, but as Alpha Team moved deeper into the city, the presence of more of those J'avo things became noticeable. Upon reporting this, headquarters simply repeated the orders to pull back until the situation could be reanalyzed, but the Captain was not willing to give up the chance to bring Ada to justice… after all, the increased J'avo presence could also mean that they were closing in on her, and that the woman was getting desperate enough to start infecting more people.
Sure, that wasn't the ideal situation, but someone like her would probably do that anyway, so it didn't really matter if Chris's team was putting pressure on her or not. Thankfully, the local police were doing a good job trying to keep civilians out of the way once the Chinese government was informed of what was going on, but the thing was… those infected J'avo things were attacking anything that wasn't them. The police were able to take down a few of them, but a lot of civilians were getting caught in the crossfire, and soon there was a full blown panic in the streets as people did anything they could to escape.
The concept of BOWs that could use firearms was still pretty shocking to Chris, and not just because a lot of his memories were still jumbled around, but because it took the battlefield to a whole new level. It used to be that BOWs ranged from shambling, infected zombies to the more lethal Hunter and Licker types, along with the Tyrants who were actually pretty rare. Yeah, there were a couple of more intelligent ones like Albert Wesker and Tobias Liquid, but those were like, one in a million, and now… and now the infected victims of these viruses were seeming a lot more human.
Was it stupid to imagine that there was still some humanity trapped inside of the J'avos as they communicated with each other and shot at the fleeing civilians? Yes it was, since there was no way to bring someone back once they were fully infected, but it still made everything feel even more complicated. Pop! Pop! Pop! Complicated or not, the J'avo were shooting at them, so Alpha Team kept moving from one covered position to the next, using single shots to take down any approaching infected, and so far it was working… until something big barreled down on their point-man.
CRASH! The poor guy had barely been able to push the man nearest to him out of the way, when an out of control transit bus came flying through the intersection that Alpha Team was getting ready to cross, and then the man was just gone. Scooped up by the front end in a flash of movement, the bus jumped the curb and slammed into the concrete wall of the nearest building. The driver was dead, slumped over the steering wheel while the horn blared endlessly, and inside the broken windows some of the passengers could be seen convulsing as if they had become infected all of a sudden… no, he couldn't let any more J'avo join the enemy ranks.
"Shoot the ones who are turning!" Chris yelled. "Give the civilians time to get out!"
He and two others began using single shots to stop the passengers from mutating, getting some of them just in time as their skin discolored and they started to growl, and at the same time Piers was forcing the door open so that the frightened people inside could get away. It took some effort, but eventually all of the uninfected civilians onboard were able to get out and run away… there really wasn't time to stop and help everyone, since each second that passed was another chance that their target had to get away, but… but maybe catching up to her wasn't going to be so hard after all… as Ada herself walked into view from around behind the crashed bus.
"Such a big, brave hero, saving all those people." She said with a condescending tone while taking a grenade off her belt. "Here's your prize."
Before the Captain or anyone else could react, the Asian woman pulled the pin on the grenade, and rolled it across the concrete toward them, before calmly walking away. He wanted to go after her right away, but there was the matter of the small explosive that was bouncing along the street, headed right for him, until something got in the way. No, not something, someone… with only seconds to react, one of his soldiers rushed forward, throwing himself on top of the grenade, causing his body to jump a little when the explosive went off, and actually… the blast was a lot smaller than expected.
The reason for this was revealed when instead of dying instantly, the soldier cried out in agony while rolling over, showing that there were a dozen tiny injector darts now embedded into his body. The ones that struck the man's armor weren't a threat, but having seen this kind of grenade before, Chris knew that it only took one of them piercing the skin to be effective… and this guy now had three of them stuck into his neck. Like back in Edonia, the effect was almost instant, causing the soldier to burst into flames while that brownish material encased him, and then he was frozen like all the others… like Finn.
"Destroy it!" The Captain ordered, maybe a bit higher pitch than he meant to. "Burn it, quick!"
No one in Alpha Team had a flamethrower unit, but one of his men did have an incendiary grenade, which should have been more than effective in burning the husk. However, this meant that the grenade would have to be set right on top of the chrysalis so that the thermite inside could burn it from the top down… but this time the brownish shell was already starting to crack before the soldier was even able to pull the pin.
Suddenly something shot out of the encased soldier's back, jamming into the startled grenadier, and then making a sound like a small engine being revved up as it… oh shit, as it shredded the grenadier's torso into a spray of blood and guts. The rest of the newly born monster quickly burst its way out of the husk, discarding the dismembered grenadier as it stood up to its full height; its form looking surprisingly human aside from looking like it was made completely out of reddish-black muscle. No facial features, no claws… just one arm that looked a lot like an exaggeratedly large chainsaw blade, and… and the blade was spinning as it got ready to attack again.
"Shoot it!" Piers yelled, raising his rifle. "Fucking shoot it!"
Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! These orders seemed to break everyone out of the shock they were experiencing, and a second later the whole team was firing at the monster, driving it back as little holes were punched into its dark muscled flesh. With no face, the chainsaw creature didn't grunt or growl like the others, it just twitched while taking more and more hits… until suddenly sprinting forward as its chainsaw blade revved up. Running like a professional track star, the monster was on top of the nearest soldier before the man could react, swinging its blade, and destroying the man's helmet before taking his head clean off.
The next two soldiers tried to grab the monster's arms, but its chainsaw arm revved up again, slicing into the first one's leg, before bringing the blade across and shoving it right into the ribs of the second soldier who was restraining its human arm. Nearly slicing him in half, the monster turned back around and sliced the throat of the first soldier who was trying to sit up, but by this time everyone had reloaded, and was able to start shooting again. BOOM! Bullets didn't seem to be doing anything but making this thing mad, so one of the other soldiers gave the order to get down before throwing one of his own grenades, and this was a bit more effective.
Rolling the explosive right under the chainsaw creature's feet, the blast made it flail around a bit before falling to its hands and knees. BOOM! BOOM! Two more grenades brought it down the rest of the way, but the monster was only down for a couple seconds before starting to get up, meaning that neither bullets nor explosives were going to stop this thing. The only thing Alpha Team hadn't been able to try yet was fire, since that grenadier was the only one who had been carrying an incendiary weapon… but it was right behind the monster, and the Captain needed to get it.
Rushing forward to the verbal confusion and objection of Piers, Chris balled up his fist and slugged the chainsaw monster right where the face should have been, while running past. His hope had been that this would be enough to knock the creature back down, since it was already staggered by the grenades, but unfortunately all it did was make the thing twitch a little. The incendiary grenade was less than a meter away, but the Captain had to dive farther away from it in order to avoid the blade that was now being swung toward him.
That dive must have been just in time, since it felt like someone smacked him on the back really hard, and then suddenly Chris was no longer wearing his body armor by the time he rolled across the concrete. Apparently the armor had been completely cut off by the chainsaw, and now that same blade was coming down toward him, forcing the Captain to turn his body to the side, so that the blade was buried deep into the concrete instead of his mid-section. Not wanting to give the monster another chance to attack, Chris grabbed its saw arm by the base with one hand while taking out his pistol with the other, and struggling to keep it from reclaiming the weapon.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Aiming at the monster's knee and firing until his clip was empty, the Captain kicked the creature in the same place in an attempt to weaken it, but… but this just wasn't working. Thankfully one of the other soldiers was able to go behind it and grab the incendiary grenade, pulling the pin just as Chris let go of the monster and rolled away, but this also allowed the creature to reclaim its weapon. Turning around and stabbing just as the soldier was about to toss the explosive, the blade sunk into the man's chest… but he used the last of his strength to push the grenade into the monster's face just as it went off.
Apparently fire was the right answer, since the chainsaw creature's body was instantly engulfed in flames, and unlike everything else that was used against it, the monster was unable to simply shake this off. Without a mouth, the thing was silent as it flailed around, stumbling into things as its muscly body started to melt, and then tripping over the curb so that it fell on its face, and was finally still as the flames continued to eat it away.