A/N: Edited as of Oct 31, 20.
The only way to avenge the fallen, was to deal with the threat himself. He had done so over the past years, but the burden tolled on his mental state proved insurmountable.
That burden was Chris' addiction, an addiction incapable of being quelled no matter how great the effort to extinguish it. Through vengeance alone was he able to temper this addiction that had trailed him since his deployment in Kijuju. There was no definite cure to it – only the means of suppressing it. To do that he had to wring the weight off his shoulders. He had to dispose of Entoma.
Chris ventured deeper in his lonesome before Entoma had endangered more of his comrades, or worse the entire nation. Doing so would be a reckless stunt, but to him getting the rest of his men injudiciously killed fared no better. So that others may live, he would gladly forfeit his life.
His radio crackled.
"Command to Alpha Lead, status."
"Last man," responded the Redfield in low volume, watching the surroundings.
"Get out of there and regroup with Bravo. Romeo's en route to assist. Over."
"On my way. Bravo, don't even think about heading up. Chris, out."
He lied about heading out the structure as his feet refused to turn about. Instead, they went deeper in the fray.
A light noise shuffled close by, making Chris veer his flashlight at his eleven. At the very bottom shelf of a bookcase stood peach-red, slender humanoid legs on black heels that had their tiptoes facing directly at him. From his angle he couldn't see the full form of the figure with the rest of its appearance shrouded by rows of books.
It didn't take much pondering for him to elucidate the owner of those legs, as they were one of the last things he would forget if he was to make it out of this operation alive. Keeping an eye on Entoma's stilled legs, he steadily unholstered the Elephant Killer and pointed its barrel at her.
Chris glanced to the right, when a glint slithered for him a meter away. It was a string of noosed web snaking for him. Before it could ring around his neck, he quickly sidestepped away and extended his arms towards the perpetrator, who was another Entoma crouching above a tall shelf. Chris fired a round at the Arachnid.
Deflecting the bullet with the Hard Armor Bug, the Battle Maid sent it soaring towards the roof. Its destructive stopping power forced her to the edge of the shelf. She frantically wheeled her arms, trying desperately to keep herself balanced on her tiptoes. As she tried heaving herself, she was fired at another two rounds by the captain.
Entoma performed a reverse somersault. The first bullet whizzed past her wavering skirt. The other was cleaved in half by her blade whilst she descended midair. Upon landing on another shelf, she knelt on her knee and straightened her sleeves at her human foe. She fired back with her Bullet Bugs from both openings, forcing Chris on the run. A bullet grazed his cheek.
Tirelessly pumping his arms, he rushed past several bookcases, which fumed sawdust and shredded bits of paper that were being torn by the projectiles. He raced against the biotic bullets that kept striking the dust-rippling floor by inches behind him. Snaps darted close to his ears with a few bullets bolting past his head.
Reaching a viable cover, Chris leaned his shoulder on a pillar, panting vigorously through his nose. This prompted Entoma to cease fire. He brushed his grazed cheek with his fingertips and brought them before his eyes, noticing they were doused in light red. A shallow laceration.
Underestimating Entoma's aim was the last he would do. Out of a modicum of respect, he treated her as he would to a veteran sniper. He retrieved a stick from his pack and extended it a meter long. Donning a small, rectangular mirror at its top tip, the equipment was an inspection mirror that was commonly used to search for explosives strapped underneath passing vehicles.
He steadily brought the mirror out from cover and tilted it to the left, searching for Entoma. When he tilted it farther to the side, her white mask, which was peeking through the gap of a shelf, peered in his view with the blood-reds staring right back at him from the dark. Brightening the mask was a flash accompanied by a roar of gunfire. A Bullet Bug whizzed past the mirror and sent it shattering, making Chris flinch his head back an inch. He dropped the inspection mirror and holstered the magnum.
Chris stuck out the ARST from cover and blind-fired with only his hands exposed, holding down the trigger. Entoma ducked under cover as the bullets razed the stacked books and furnitures in front of her. When Chris pulled his rifle back, she again peeked through the gap and fired back in rapid, three-rounded bursts.
The Bullet Bugs chipped at the concrete, flinging shrapnels and dust. As soon as Entoma stopped hurling rounds, Chris breathed in sharply through his nose and blind-fired at her back with the Arachnid ducking as usual. In this back-and-forth mannerism, they relentlessly exchanged fire, engulfing the library in flashes and thunderous discharges.
The emptied magazine clattered on the expended casings, which clinked on collision. Chris loaded in a fresh magazine, smacked its bottom, and cocked. The combatants went in a short truce with both of them engaged in brief cease fire. In the short respite, the captain tried forming a stratagem that could keep him from being pinned down. He knew just wasting away his bullets, some more blindly firing at the Battle Maid, wasn't going to get him anywhere. Against a foe like Entoma, his coming actions had demanded decisiveness and aggressiveness.
Smoke lines fumed from the openings of her sleeves. Entoma fluttered her sleeves to flush out the smoke. She snapped them forward when she heard a coin-dropping clink emitting behind the bullet-hole-riddled pillar that Chris was using as cover. This time a heavier clink sent her antennae rattling in alert.
She rattled them until they blurred. Her antennae were as sound-sensitive as a bat's echolocation, if not sharper. With them she could feel the vibrations from his vigorously-pumping heart. Entoma also felt a disturbance in the air from Chris' cover, and a moment after she saw a cylindrical object being tossed from the pillar.
It clattered on the floor a couple times before the object had rolled farther from the pillar. In a gentle clink, it hit the leg of a table and wobbled to a stop. Curious, and confused, Entoma steadily lowered her sleeves and tilted her head in perplexity.
The object discharged in a sharp bang, shimmering in blinding light that overwhelmed the Arachnid's visage in pitch-white. Hovering her sleeves over her mask, she let out a piercing shriek. With its blue, marble-like eyes and antennae exposed to the effects, the Hard Armor Bug went in a violent spasm.
Her antennae writhed violently. Hearing-wise, her current experience resembled being relentlessly pummelled by intense shockwaves emitted from three-meter-tall loudspeakers spewing bass in the loudest possible frequency. As for the state of her sight, it was like looking up at a sky with five suns hovering above it. Enduring the aftereffects of a flashbang grenade was grim enough for human counterparts. For the Arachnid that boasted superhuman sighting and auditory perception, it was sheer hell with her senses overstimulating to abnormal proportions.
With Entoma heavily disoriented, Chris dived out from cover with the Elephant Killer in his hands. He landed on his side, extended his arms, and squinted his eyes. The captain discharged.
A loud, reverberating clang was heard. The .500 made a harsh impact on Entoma's chest, which sparked in great intensity. She propelled backwards with her back colliding on a large bookcase. She, with the furniture, tumbled in a trembling thud, rippling a cloud of dust in the vicinity. Entoma was buried under a hill of books. In hot pursuit, Chris recovered and trailed after her in a speed-walk.
Causing him to slow his pace was the vigorous beating of wings. The hill began to rattle, and emerging from the zenith was the Blade Bug that unclamped from its mistress' sleeve. It set its crimson eyes on the Redfield, soared high, and charged at him in a sharp decline whilst it furiously beat its wings.
Chris raised high his magnum and discharged twice at the airborne insectoid, which swung its left bladed-limb to its front. The Blade Bug glowed in the radiance of the spark once it bisected clean the bullet. It then swiped vertically with the other blade, cleaving the other magnum round in half. Fired at for the third time, the creature hovered its blades over its head in a crossed X, shielding its entire visage.
Once the bullet transferred all its momentum to the blades, the Blade Bug twirled backwards in a vertical spin. By expending more energy on its wings, it stabilized itself before it had wheeled back farther and resumed charging at Chris.
In the meantime, Entoma's quivering antennae unburied from the book pile – then her mask. Unburying the rest of her form, she, groaning like a child, wobbled up her feet like a drunk. She shook her head, clutching her scalp with her sleeve like she was suffering a pounding migraine.
Her senses were still haywire with afterimages blurring her sight and screeches tormenting her. Still clutching her head, she fled from the scene, leaving Chris and her companion to duel it out on their own. As she was fleeing, Entoma raised overhead her other sleeve and cheered for the Blade Bug in a lovey-dovey tone.
"Blade Bug, show him what you got!"
Into the dark, she made a successful retreat. The Blade Bug prepared to strike at Chris on its descent, brandishing its blades overhead. Chris holstered the magnum and prepared for close-quarter engagement.
He unsheathed an eighteen-inch Bowie knife from his hip and lodged it firmly on his ARST. Gripping the rifle with both hands, he fixed the tip of the bayonet at the airborne creature that was now a few meters away from crossing blades.
The Blade Bug committed a downward swipe with its blades. An ear-ringing clang pitched when Chris brought the bayonet before his frown, which ignited in fierce gold-yellow. The captain's hazels and the insectoid's crimsons glared at another from inches away. In a test of strength, they pressed their blades forward against another until sparks blazed in-between. The blades scraped viciously to the point the edges went visibly red-hot.
The creature found its rattling blades being steadily pushed back as Chris began exerting more pressure on his bayonet. He then forced its blades aside and thrusted the bayonet at the insectoid. Lifting itself higher in the air, the Blade Bug evaded Chris' stab attack and returned a swipe with its blade. Its swipe was deflected when Chris denied it with a vigorous swing with the bayonet, once more sending it wheeling in the air in an uncontrolled spin.
Whilst it was disoriented, the Redfield snapped the trigger on the flamethrower attachment, spewing napalm at the creature. It soared itself high and quickly enough to steer clear from the flames that only tickled the tips of its hind limbs. Successfully buying Entoma time to escape, it fled. It had already done its job. There was no need for it to risk itself further playing fire with Chris.
The Blade Bug swayed to the sides, dodging five-fives left and right. When it flew far off elsewhere to the dark, Chris ceased firing and lowered his ARST. He sped ahead to the rear-end of the pitch-black library.
On his way he reached in the pocket that held ammunition for his Elephant Killer, but his fingers only brushed fabric. He thumbed the cylinder out and reached a grim realization. He had only one round left.
As he had been swamped in hellbent rage in having the Arachnid executed, he had lost count of how many shots he had fired with the magnum. The Elephant Killer was undeniably one of the better weapons in dealing with Entoma and her goons. He internally cursed himself for not sparingly conserving the rounds, but this was no time to contemplate in the errors of his judgement. He had to adapt to them.
The last he needed was to reinforce the contemplation to a defeatist, negative thinking – something he had learned well throughout his lifetime ever since the death of his parents, when he was forced to take care of Claire himself. If there was one thing life had taught him, it was that adaptation was key.
He felt something cool trickle on his nape, making him stop. Another droplet landed on his helmet, dripped down in front of his eyes, and plopped on his rifle. More dribbled on the floor. Chris beamed his flashlight below and sighted crimson spots specking before his boots. His heart skipped a beat when something weighty fell on him from the ceiling.
He was hugged around his shoulders. The weight of an adult male pressed on his back. Chris saw bloodied, skinned arms dangling out to his front view. The jaw of the flayed corpse rested on his right shoulder with the irises swayed to the corner of its lidless eyes, gazing at its former superior.
The mouth neared the captain's ear. It howled the voice of Chris' recently-victimized subordinate.
"Captaaaaiiiin."
Grunting, Chris gripped its wrists and catapulted the corpse overhead, launching it far to his front. It tumbled on the floor in splats.
He raised his ARST, frowning at it in silence. Creaking a gnarly crack, the crimson corpse snapped its head up to reveal its mangled, gaping face to Chris, who spotted something squirming close to its torn vocal cords.
Like it was a ghost, it levitated off the floor with the blood-dripping limbs dangling. The corpse then settled on its feet and unbent its knees, standing straight whilst it gazed at Chris with its googly eyes. It raised its left arm and waved its wobbly hand at him.
"Hellooo, Captaaaiin."
The moment he saw its emerald eyes, Chris laxed his frown and tilted down his rifle. He knew who it was he was looking at. To his further disturbance, the corpse brought its hands on its hips and began rapidly shuffling its feet. It was tap dancing.
His harrowed sight spotted flimsy spectacles gleaming close to the corpse, which continued dancing with its roundish eyes fixed at its lone audience. He beamed the flashlight forward.
The glints came from webbed strings that were sewn on the body from head to feet. With the light, Chris steadily trailed the webs above until his sight reached the ceiling that had a burrowed hole. Sticking out from the hole were Entoma's antennae and her half-exposed mask.
Beside them were her sleeves that she constantly tugged up in slight jerking motions. The webs were sprung from the openings of her sleeves. As she hummed a playful note, Entoma puppeteered the corpse from above.
Arching his brows to a scowl, Chris furiously discharged at Entoma, who severed the webs and scuttled deeper in the hole. No longer in the hands of the puppeteer, the corpse went inanimate and flopped on the floor in a splat.
Chris, brimming in rage, was too infuriated to bother letting go of the trigger. Never had he seen the bodies of his men being desecrated like he had seen just now. From the Arachnid's playful humming to her blatant disregard for the reverence of the dead, the Battle Maid incensed him to the core with inflaming conviction.
"Wanna play?!"
A tornado engulfed in a scalding sea of orange and red blazed inside him. Halfway in of mindlessly dumping his magazine, the captain still refused to let his finger off the trigger. Expended casings rained from the rapidly-chattering ejection port and clinked beside the firer, sprawling everywhere in the vicinity. Grounding his teeth together in a maddened grimace, Chris shouted with all he had. His thundering volume added to the chaos beside the clamor of gunfires.
"WANNA PLAY?! WANNA PLAY?!"
His rifle clicked with its ejection port revealing the emptied chamber. Unholstering the Lightning Hawk that he retrieved from his last deceased subordinate, he was far from quenching his rage. He aimed the magnum at the ceiling and kept snapping the trigger, discharging until the slide retracted.
Wooden shrapnels splintered from the ceiling with the bullets razing at it hell. A portion of it came crashing down and rippled a cloud of sawdust on the floor. Despite expending all seven rounds, he kept incessantly pulling the trigger, discharging nothing but smoke and clicks.
His panting lightened, and his grip on the magnum unclenched as it was steadily tilted down. The tension on his scowl eased. As he was walking his way to the corpse, Chris questioned himself whether if this had all been a bad dream, a wicked nightmare. Whether if his demons had returned to torment him.
From the wild pounding sensation in his head, the untamed beating of his heart, to the sweat trickling down his temples, it all seemed real – the stifling heat coming from his chest and breaths being no exception. He knew that if this had been a nightmare, he would've found himself sitting upright in his bed, panting with sweat drenching the back of his head and chest. Once more, he found himself before his mutilated subordinate, standing there still with his gaze casted attentively to the gruesome spectacle.
His silent mourning came to an end, when Chris heard something shuffling from above behind his back. He veered his head to the side and, from the corner of his eyes, glanced behind. A brooding, twenty-meter-long figure flailed itself at him in a swing.
He rolled to the side, barely evading the serrated edges of its crimson platings. Chris hurried up his feet and saw in front of him the Thousand Lash Bug stretching its form in full length.
While the centipede had its head concealed inside a burrowed hole on the ceiling, the rest of its lower anatomy dangled back and forth like a playground swing. If Chris hadn't reacted accordingly, he would've been torn in half, or at the least have his right arm severed in a spurting stump. He hurled fire from the flamethrower at its rear-end.
Its tail-end blazing in flames, the insectoid let out a piercing shriek and heaved itself back in the hole. Before it had gone for good, the captain reloaded his ARST and bursted five-fives at it. The rounds pierced its underside that was significantly less protected. Other than pale blue blood oozing from the bullet holes, Chris noticed something striking from the insectoid.
The wounds the creature sustained began sizzling and smoking white fumes with the bullets oozing out of the holes and clinking below. Sealing instantly, the wounds ceased fuming. The centipede boasted an incredible regeneration rate. With the rest of its tail-end slithering in the hole, Chris ceased fire and swerved his aim to the front, heading deeper in.
Pale moonlight beamed through a row of stained glass windows just ahead. He was nearing the far end of the library. The Redfield went in a sudden halt. His feet stopped, because he couldn't get over the feeling that he was being stalked. His sixth sense was kicking in.
A childlike whisper cooed for him from behind.
"Biiiiig aaaarms."
Chris quickly snapped about, spotting Entoma standing just before him. To his confusion, she wasn't in a combative stance, despite him threateningly pointing the muzzle pointblank at her mask. She was instead tilting her head to the sides to and fro with her sleeve hovering over her "mouth" like a curious child awestruck at what she was seeing. Entoma couldn't keep her sight off his bulging biceps and triceps.
Despite the Arachnid's apparent non-aggressiveness, he discharged a third of his rounds at her in rapid fire. His frown intensified. Entoma had vanished in a blink of an eye like a spectre. A trace of her was nowhere to be seen.
Gentle click-clacking of heels rapidly echoed from his right. Veering his aim to the respective direction, he saw a triplet of Entomas charging at him in a single row. They brandished their blades high as they worked their sprinting legs, preparing to strike at Chris.
Chris had never felt this overwhelmed since the days he was forced to fend off a Progenitor-Virus-enhanced Albert Wesker in Antarctica, the Spencer Estate, and Africa. The distance between him, and them, was closing in fast with the Entomas refusing to slow down.
Just then, he recalled how the Entoma that he had recently seen vanished in thin air when fired upon. Focusing back on the triplets, he realized another bizarre phenomenon. With the help of his flashlight, he noticed that, while no shadows stretched behind the Entoma to his left and the one at the middle, a shadow was visibly stretched behind the Entoma on the right.
This was when Chris realized that the Entoma in the right was the Entoma. The others were nothing but fabricated doppelgängers. They were mere illusory constructs used to deceive her prey.
Chris veered his aim to the right and rapid-fired. When the Entoma in the right resounded in clangs and glittered in sparks from deflecting the rounds, the ones in the middle and left disappeared instantly. Though he had no idea how she was capable of such display of deception, his split-second intuition proved accurate.
Her trickery foiled, Entoma dug in her heels and burst forward at Chris, intending to impale his heart with her blade. The attack was halted when Chris blazed napalm from his flamethrower. Before the flames had engulfed her, Entoma lunged meters back with the fire bristling her left sleeve.
Setting her heels down, she swung her sleeve towards the floor, hurling out a talisman glowing in neon-red. Once the talisman struck before her, it burst explosively in a cloud of white smoke. A sharp, ear-rupturing bang made chaos of the library, which rumbled for a brief moment. Nearby shelves either shredded to pieces or toppled recklessly with all the books raining down.
The destructive force made Chris grunt and hover his arm over his wincing face with smoke and gale overwhelming him. He lowered his arm when the wind no longer tormented him and smoke dissipated to lucidity. Entoma vanished from his sight like a houdini.
He locked his aim to the front at the top right, sighting Entoma standing on the roof of a tall shelf far from him. She didn't heed any attention to Chris. Rather, she was busy dousing out the fire wavering on her sleeve that she flailed wildly. Once she did, she brought the sleeve before her mask and anxiously examined it up close.
From seeing the lines of smoke oozing from the fabric, the grey patches, to scenting the charred smell, Entoma had her mood gloomed. In a whine, she desperately tried rubbing away the blackened regions on her sleeve, but to no avail. Glaring at Chris, she stomped her feet left and right, throwing a tantrum with her sleeves overhead.
"Meanie, meanie, meanie! Just because I'm saving you for last since I find you the tastiest – doesn't mean you can do whatever you want! Don't think you're special!"
Entoma rung a grating screech from her vibrating antennae. It was the same screech Chris had heard from outside. A feral roar reverberated from elsewhere, making the Redfield shift his aim to the right. He snapped about when feral cries roared from the opposite. Massed footsteps trembled the floor beneath his boots. The place deafened in howls, guttural bellows, and bloodcurdling shrieks.
Appearing from the shadows were paled, humanoid figures that mindlessly charged for the captain in an unchecked frenzy. Gored white robes, razor-sharp claws, and man-tearing teeth, an army of infected cultists came sprinting at Chris like madmen.
They went more berserk when they set their blackened gazes at their lonesome prey, vigorously pumping their arms. Red-slathered saliva strands flung out their teeth-baring mouths. Wasting no time in satiating their hunger, they intended on making a quick feast out of Chris.
With the remaining third of the five-fives lodged in the magazine, Chris fired at the horde to his front, snapping the rifle's trigger in quick bursts. The infected were seen as mere stationary target practices by the former top marksmanship contender in STARS.
Chris had hardly missed, and made certain that each bullet he fired counted. Virtually all that were charging in the front dropped like flies with the rounds razing past their brains. Collateral kills were frequent, since the infected rushed in packed, straightened columns. They didn't bear the conscience to dodge the bullets as the thought of devouring Chris alive blinded them from a semblance of reasoning.
He was raking in a hefty sum of kills in the infected ranks, but his ammo count ran short. Eventually his rifle clicked, and the undead with their beastly breathing were fast closing in from his front and back. The closest aggressor to his front was a mere two meters away from engaging him. Chris barely had any time to reload.
He instead charged forward with the bayonet fixed forward and pierced its belly with the sharp-end. Chris kept charging, and charging until he had two more aggressors skewered like yakitori. In a grunt, he effortlessly heaved them up and flailed the bayonet to the side, tossing the shrieking trio to a bookcase that collapsed under their combined weight.
Another horde came rushing at him from behind. Chris turned about and hurriedly sprinted for a large shelf before they had swarmed him. He gripped the edge of the furniture and, gritting his teeth, toppled it down on a group of charging infected that were close to ganging him. A myriad of books as large and as thick as bibles hailed upon them before the weight of the bookshelf came crashing down like an avalanche in a quavering, dust-rippling thud, overwhelming the aggressors. Some of them flattened to their deaths while the rest helplessly squirmed and shrieked under the unbudging weight.
His action proved decisive. Toppling the furniture slowed the rest of the assailants by hampering their advance. As soon as Chris focused back to the front, a bloodied hand swiped at him. He quickly ducked his head with the claws only bristling his hair. Chris thrusted the bayonet through the infected's neck, finishing it with another jab through the cranium.
The coming aggressor raised its claws overhead and, the moment it brought them down to slash at Chris, severed from the stumped wrists. Chris then sliced at its knee, cleaving it from the rest of the leg. Once the infected thudded on its back, he staked its chest with the bayonet and dragged it along. The tip of the Bowie knife grated against the floor as he sprinted forward.
When he built enough momentum in his legs, he swung the rifle upwards in a curve like one would with a baseball bat, flinging the screeching zombie to the front. The latter collided recklessly with another trio of infected that decked like bowling pins.
On his knee with the rifle gripped forward, Chris awaited for the next aggressor to close in. With the infected just a foot away, he speared the blade through its stomach and heaved it high as he rose up his feet. While overhead of Chris, the infected screeched a high-pitched shriek while wildly writhing its limbs. It was brutally slammed below on its back and the wood under it caved in.
As it struggled to free itself from the crater, Chris used this brief leeway to quickly reload. He got out a magazine, slapped it in the ARST, cocked, and fired at the writhing zombie's forehead, stilling its movement. He focused his aim to the front and continued firing in bursts at a massed convergence of infected that now scaled over the toppled shelf. He then veered about and discharged the other half of the magazine at another converging group until he had one round left chambered in the feed.
At this rate, bodies slumped in the fifties. It was about to mass another fifty with Chris' eyes gazing above at an object that would even out his outnumbered situation.
A massive chandelier hung a distance away. He then eyed an aged rope that was suspending the light fixture by its left edge. Raising high his rifle, he eyed the rope and fired at it with the last round. While the bullet didn't outright sever it, it did snip its edge, making it to tear steadily. When the rope tore from the ceiling, the chandelier tilted downwards and swung to Chris' direction with the remaining rope supporting its weight by its other right edge.
Swinging farther down, the chandelier easily splintered obstructing bookshelves in its destructive path. Even farther down, it decimated close to a dozen infected, tearing them in half and skewering them with its branched, steel ornaments. Chris hurriedly stepped aside and let the battering pendulum swish by. He had gust expelled from the chandelier's growing momentum blasted at him.
Another dozen were wrecked when the chandelier bulldozed through the other side, leaving behind a bloody mess. It then swung high to the other wall of the library and went in a standstill against gravity. Creaking a screech with its reddened crystal ornaments rattling, the chandelier swayed back for the direction it swung from like a pirate ship amusement ride.
Chris focused on reloading the rifle, but a group of sprinting infected to his front weren't far from stacking on him. Just when he slapped the magazine in, he was viciously swiped at, disrupting him from cocking. He fended with his rifle, which ignited sparks, and swiftly crossed his bayonet at the assailant in a X, carving deeply across its face and chest.
Whilst it staggered away, Chris quickly cocked the ARST and fired at its head with the latter thudding on its back. He then parried with his firearm against another claw attack by the coming assailant, who was quickly disposed of with a pointblank to the forehead. The Redfield continued blasting away rounds at another swarm of incoming zombies.
He was grabbed from the back. Two infected clung on him with their arms wrapped around his shoulders. Just when they were about to bite a chunk out of his neck, Chris thrusted his back against a shelf, slamming the zombies on the furniture. He gripped hold of their heads and launched them to the front. He then rushed up to them and, as soon as they went up their feet, wrapped his arms around their waists from behind. Heaving them as he bridged his posture backwards, Chris slammed them head-first with a powerful suplex. The floor caved in, and the scalps of the infected obliterated with all the blood and brain matter splattering out.
Up his feet, he brought the rifle over his shoulder with one hand like he was about to hurl a javelin. Chris charged a couple steps to the front and launched the ARST, hunching his head and shoulders forward. The bayonet impaled an infected through its abdomen.
Whilst it hunched, Chris hurriedly ran up to the zombie, locked its neck under his shoulder, and thrusted his back below. He performed a DDT, driving its head under. Once more the floor caved in with the victim's scalp devastated to a fleshy heap.
A trio rushed for Chris from behind with another pack sprinting from his front. Chris remained laying on his back for a good reason. The battering ram was fast making its return with its momentum far from giving out, hungry for more blood. The zombies were a mere meter away from ganging on him.
The chandelier relentlessly pummelled through them, sending severed arms and heads flying everywhere. Blood abundantly specked on the captain, who remained laying on his back. The chandelier swished by him with its metallic edge inches from mutilating his visage. His hair wavered with the massive light fixture racing past him.
Still laying on his back, he grabbed hold of the rifle, lifted his head, and fired to the front in bursts, eliminating a handful of assailants. Hearing more footsteps converging from behind, Chris rolled on his elbows and discharged more rounds in the prone position.
Chris hurried up his feet and had to deal with another infected charging for him. He bobbed and weaved, and flinched his head back, like a trained boxer as he was being viciously clawed at. When the aggressor swung its right arm, Chris grabbed hold of its wrist and palm-struck its elbow, which had its bone snapped outwards. He committed the same when it swung its other, waning its attack prowess.
He swung at the infected a right hook that caved in its cheekbone. Teeth and bloodied saliva strands flung out its mouth. Chris grabbed its temples and wedged its head between his thighs. Wrapping his arms around its abdomen, he heaved the zombie with its back against his belly and drove its head under as he hopped and sat his rump down. The belly-to-back piledriver had its neck twisted in an audible crack.
Heavy, ground-rattling footsteps trudged from not far away. The shelf beside him toppled. Before it had crushed him, Chris gripped his rifle, hurriedly rolled to the side, and wobbled up his feet. Effortlessly storming its way past the shelf was a zombified cultist weighing five-to-six-hundred pounds, towering Chris by two to three heads. It was as physically imposing as the axe-wielding Executioner he had encountered in Africa, if not bigger.
It heaved its shoulders up and down as it let out beastly breathing noises. Snapping its mutilated, flesh-revealing face at Chris, it widened its black, beady eyes until they went bloodthirsty and deranged. Bits of blood and flesh ran rampant from its mouth, which bore the teeth of a Great White, as it screamed out a guttural roar that rivalled a Tyrannosaurus.
Snapping up his rifle, Chris shot at the overweight infected, snapping the trigger thrice. It let out an unfazed, brutish grunt when a bullet socketed through its left eye. The other rounds lodged in its bulky arm that it used to shield its face. Its footsteps continued thumping for the Redfield without respite.
When it was a foot away, Chris thrusted his bayonet for its forehead. His attack was halted when the blade was grabbed tight by the infected, who used its other hand to grip Chris' vest. It effortlessly launched him over its head and sent him colliding on a shelf from the other side. He crashed on the furniture against his back and fell flat on his stomach and face with books falling on him. His rifle ended up clattering elsewhere far from reach.
Grunting, he tilted up his head to face the encroaching zombie. Blood streaked to his bruised eye from an incision gashed above his eyebrow. The infected, roaring another ferocious cry, pumped vigorously its arms as it charged for Chris, quivering the floor in twice the intensity.
It hopped a meter high when its feet reached just before Chris, facing its flopping belly at him on its descent. He rolled away to safety, and the aggressor caved a crater on the floor with its ginormous, protruding stomach. It recovered itself quickly and commenced sprinting for the human.
As soon as Chris went up his feet, he was aggressively body-slammed by the infected. This time he had his back colliding on a concrete pillar, which brittled in cracks, thudding below on his front. A massive surge of pain streaked across his back, but he sucked it up and groaned in silence. If not for the assault pack cushioning the impact, he would've sustained a life-threatening injury.
He raised his head, and shadowing over his visage was the base of the infected's large foot, which caved in the floor with wood splintering everywhere. Chris evaded in the nick of time from getting his head squashed, standing quickly up his feet. He then ducked his head under when the zombie threw at him a right hook. The blow from its swipe caved a hole on the pillar behind him. Small chunks of concrete debris showered on Chris.
The infected was returned a swift uppercut on its jaw by Chris' knuckles. Blood gushed from its mouth. It staggered backwards and remained there as it swayed its head sideways while moronically groaning. Using its disoriented state, Chris distanced himself to avoid getting cornered.
Chris led his hand behind his right shoulder, to the sheath that was strapped on his scapula. Wrapping his fingers on the wooden hilt, he unsheathed the eighteen-inch blade and brought it before his face. The edge of its stainless steel shimmered under the reflection of the moonlight cascading from the windows.
The blade was a modified kukri knife that Chris had favored during his stay in Africa. In a combative stance, he hunched forward his shoulders and hovered his free hand close to the knife. He stood still there, awaiting for the infected that thumped for him.
It flailed its arm to the left, and another to the right. While powerful, its attacks were sluggish and predictable for Chris' reflexes to handle. When he was swiped at for the third time, and was granted an opening, he charged forward, impaled the zombie's stomach, and thrusted it all the way in until the hilt reached the belly. He then gripped the hilt with both hands and forced it to the side, slicing open its belly, which severed intestines drooped out of.
Slithering out of the belly were bunched-up human corpses of deceased cultists. Coated in sizzling stomach acid, most of them were whittled to fleshless, disintegrating skeletons. Chris could only gaze at them briefly in silenced horror. The smell exuding from the digested corpses were noxious and unbearable.
Unfazed, the infected bear-hugged Chris, lifting his feet off the floor with his arms constricted of movement. Grimacing, grunting, gritting his teeth, he did whatever to free himself, but the hold proved unbudging. The infected squeezed Chris tighter, and tighter, making his moan pronounce in restrained agony.
It opened wide its mouth until it was like that of a hippopotamus. Past the red-slathered teeth, Chris saw inside its mouth a pale human arm sticking out from its throat, beside it the face of a deceased female cultist that the arm belonged to. Her countenance was still with her half-opened eyes lifelessly gazing back at Chris. If Chris didn't resolve the situation quickly, he would soon be joining her.
He bashed his forehead directly on its intact eye with a headbutt. Letting out a groan, the infected released Chris, who fell on his hip, and staggered back. A river of aqueous humor trickled down from his right eye. Chris didn't waste any time. He clenched the hilt of his kukri, hurried on his feet, and capitalized on the situation.
He rushed to the zombie's side, latched on its back, and strangled its neck in a chokehold, sending it in a frenzy. It flailed itself wildly as it senselessly roared and shrieked, trying hard to get Chris off its back. Gritting his teeth, the captain clung onto it like a cicada with his legs dangling and swaying to the sides. He reverse-gripped the knife and sunk the blade deep in its scalp.
The infected howled a bloodcurdling scream. Chris buried deeper the blade until the tip pierced through the hard palate. His action only made it more berserk as it tripled the effort in latching Chris off its back, mindlessly swaying itself aggressively to the sides. Its multiplied effort only convinced him to tighten his chokehold, which clenched so firmly that he fractured its Adam's apple.
A pair of average-sized infected rushed at the two to get a bite out of Chris. When one neared them, it had its head effortlessly decapitated when the crazed mega-weight unintentionally clotheslined it with its outstretched arm. The head bounced off a bookshelf and bounced below some more before wobbling to a stop. The other was met with a diagonal uppercut by the towering zombie and as consequence flew meters off ground and crashed on a shelf that toppled in a thud.
Slamming its back against concrete and furnitures, manically flailing itself sideways, it did what it could to pry the Redfield off, but the latter proved unyieldingly tenacious. Chris had his eyes widened when he noticed the chandelier was swinging back to their direction.
He waited, and waited for it to get closer. He then hopped off the infected and quickly rolled aside. Like a deer caught in the headlights of a passing vehicle, the monstrosity went still as it gazed at the chandelier, which reflected on the entire breadth of its blackened eyes. The chandelier sent its decapitated head rolling before Chris' feet.
The headless body involuntarily flailed its arms before collapsing on its knees. An earth-rattling tremble shook the floor when the rest of the body thumped along. A puddle of blood, and the corpse of the partially-ingested woman, flooded out the stumped neck.
The floor continued rattling. Howls and roars from more infected racketed in a swarm. Chris was spent, but the opposing side, as bloodthirsty and as animalistic as they were, spared little sympathy. He hurried up his feet and pulled his kukri from the severed head with a grunt. He retreated for the windows, to the very end of the library.
It wasn't long until they emerged from the shadows, revealing the crimson stained on their robes, hands, and mouths. Chris held his last incendiary grenade, pulled the pin, and clutched the lever. Glaring back at them, he waited for the first group to get closer.
He stepped forward and tossed the grenade at them with the lever clattering below. Half a dozen infected engulfed in searing flames and ignited to hellish, living bonfires. They all screeched in sheer anguish as the flames charred past their flesh. While three of them writhed on the floor until they burnt to death, the rest sprinted past Chris and threw themselves out of the structure, shattering past the windows. From the flames' orange-red radiance to their searing-hot temperature, the creatures rushing from behind despised everything about the fire and did well to distance themselves.
They skirted around the flames and resumed their charge at the lone operator. Chris readied in his combative stance and stood his ground. The first two in the very front of the infected ranks concurrently swiped at him, who ducked his head. The captain turned about and body-slammed them with his shoulders. He hugged them around their waists and dragged them off their feet as he charged forward, shouting a war cry while he was at it.
Reaching a window, he tossed them through the glass that shattered to pieces. The infected shrieked as they fell, and silenced when they thudded harshly beside the burning corpses.
A female zombie fell from the ceiling and wrapped its arms on Chris' shoulders, clinging on his back. Its lower anatomy was severed from the rest of its upper torso with its spine and intestines dangling out. Before it had bitten him, he grabbed its wrists, forced it off his back, and continuously spun, swinging the half-devoured creature in circles like an Olympic discus thrower. When enough momentum built in, Chris released its wrists. The infected plunged through another window and joined the five below.
The next aggressor swung its left claws at Chris, who heightened his reflexes. With a brisk flick of his knife, Chris cleaved its hand clean from the stumped wrist. The zombie then swung its other intact hand, which thumped along below. He sliced at its knee, reducing the leg to a stump.
When it collapsed on its back, he heaved up a large book that laid nearby with both hands. It was as heavy as a dumbbell weighing thirty kilos. He lifted it overhead and, letting go, whomped it on its face. Gore splattered underneath the book.
Chris held up the book and tossed it forward with vigor. The book spun at an infected and thwacked on its face, making it thud on its back. Before it could recover, the creature had the top half of its head splattered to a fleshy stump when it was brutally stomped on by the base of Chris' boot.
He fixed his attention behind him at a charging infected and, vigorously pumping his arms, rushed at it back. When they closed distance, Chris leapt forward and dropkicked the zombie on its chest. It flung backwards in the air by seven meters before thudding and rolling on the floor.
As soon as it writhed up its feet, it was impaled in the stomach by the Redfield's kukri. With both hands gripping the hilt, Chris heaved the infected up and charged forward. He stuck the blade through the wood of a nearby bookshelf and, letting go of the knife, let the zombie hang there with its feet dangling. Chris then proceeded to bash its skull in with a right hook, and another right hook, and another one after.
The first hook cratered its cheek in while dislocating the jaw. The second popped its eyeball out and pulverized almost half its face to a fleshy mess. The last lopped the entire head off with it bouncing and rolling below.
Chris snapped about to deal with the last of the aggressors with his bare fists. He flinched his head back when he was swiped at and returned a left hook to its head, sending it briefly disoriented. He bound its hands together with a flex cuff and gripped its neck while working his other hand to pull two fragmentation grenades from his vest. He then jammed the grenades in its mouth, and the infected, growling, bit them down like it would to human flesh.
Five more infected came sprinting at him from a distance. Pulling the pins from the explosives, he shoulder-pressed the zombie and tossed it at the feral group ahead with a grunt. They all obliterated to chunks and bits when the grenades cooked to their limits. A violent bang travelled fast across the library, its floor trembling in a quake.
Seconds beforehand, Chris had flipped a table and crouched low behind. Shrapnels with shredded viscera embellished his cover. More drizzled on his head and shoulders. Aside from the crackling of fire and the screeching from the swinging chandelier, deathly silence remained.
Groaning silently, Chris wobbled up his feet and gazed around, particularly for the Arachnid. She was missing. He spun around in a circle to reassess his surroundings, but nowhere was she to be found.
Once more he gazed to his left, this time more attentively at the bodies and severed parts scattered everywhere. His right proved no different. For Chris, it was a trip back to Africa, where he and his former SOA partner, Sheva Alomar, were forced to fend off waves of Majini-infected denizens.
His arms, neck, and face glistened in sweat, which trickled down his jaw in droplets. He walked over to the bookshelf that he staked the zombie on to retrieve his kukri. On his way, he couldn't stop panting. With adrenaline steadily parting from his system, he was beginning to feel lightheaded. The captain was far from his twenties, and it was showing.
He gripped the hilt and, with a grunt, pulled the blade from the corpse, which thudded inanimately below. Eyeing his front in vigilance, Chris walked back to the table – and stopped midway. A dreaded aura bristled on his shoulders from behind, then onwards to his neck.
He clenched his knife tight, and snapped about. A ferocious clang resounded when his blade clashed with that of the Battle Maid.
"Oi. Mister Muscles."
Their blades quivered to a standstill. With sparks shimmering brilliantly from the scraping, their own shadows stretched from them, rapidly fading in and out. The friction was so great that lines of smoke sizzled from between.
Neither side overpowered another in strength. With Entoma gazing up at Chris due to significant height difference, their current postures resembled a petite, four-feet-tall J-Pop star intentionally picking a fight with a brawny, six-feet-tall mixed martial arts fighter.
"I've been watching you. You look like you're fun to play. Play with me for a bit."
Entoma tilted her head down as she glared at Chris, shadowing the bottom-half of her mask.
"Please?"
Chris forced her to stagger back when he pressed his blade down against hers. Gritting hard his teeth, he was using all his available strength.
His advance was brought to a sudden halt like he stumbled upon an immovable object. No matter how hard he dug his feet against the floor and pressed down his blade, he wouldn't budge. Nor did she.
All Entoma had to do was slightly bend her knees. Her posture, while graceful, was as stilled as a statue.
"Teehee. I'm stronger than I look, Muscles!"
She returned the favor of charging forward, and Chris found himself staggering back with his feet rapidly shuffling backwards. It was like trying to hold back a raging elephant. Entoma's revelation of her strength was a rude wakening call for the captain.
Chris pressed his knife down with both hands. He pressed it down until veins bulged from his neck and biceps with his face flushing hot-red, grunting as he struggled. Hundred percent. One-fifty. Two hundred. He gave it his all, but nothing changed. Entoma was still pushing him back with the vigor of a wild bull.
Before she had pushed him back farther, he swerved his blade to the side, swerving Entoma's aside as well. Chris used the opening to slice at her, who parried with her Hard Armor Bug. He motioned his blade at her again, only to slice at thin air when Entoma hopped a few meters back. Once she landed soundlessly, the duelists paced steadily in a circle whilst glaring at their opponent in deathly silence. While Chris had his blade disciplined forward in extreme caution, Entoma had hers lowered like she was leisurely strolling through a park.
The Redfield glanced at his surroundings, sighting giant spiders emerging from the dark. Some peeked out of the holes above the ceiling, while the rest encroached the duelists and crowded them in a semi-circle a distance away. As spectators, they remained there as they were curious how the battle was going to turn out despite the fact that all of them were certain that Entoma was to emerge triumphant against Chris. In a modicum of respect, they did fear the captain, but they feared the Battle Maid considerably more.
He used this brief ceasefire to examine the Arachnid from antennae to toe. Her appearance, particularly her outfit, baffled him to the core. His frown only intensified the more he trailed his sight to her heels. He absorbed every detail about her as much as he could.
The tips of her bright-orange, crooked antennae faced her back. Her dark-purplish "hair" draped over her temples, resembling a bob cut, and her scalp in a pair of spiky buns. Resembling the limbs of crabs, the "hair" appeared scaly and stiff. Draped on her head beside the buns was a white, frilly headdress worn by maids. As for her neck, it appeared unnaturally black. It was the only part of her that was hued in pitch-black aside from her heels.
A pair of pink ribbons were adorned close to her collar, and a larger, crimson variant was bow-tied on her chest. Straps in depressed gold ringed around her sleeves. Laces in crimson and white frills embellished most of her brown-themed maid attire. The bottom edge of her skirt reached down her knees. The same paper talismans she used against Chris and his men laid scattered on her brown-tinted stockings like they were glued to her. Her black heels somewhat compensated for her petite figure by making her look taller than she was.
Spiked skeletal ornaments trimmed from her shoulders to her sleeves with more crossing on her back. Chris couldn't tell from whom the bones had belonged to, but he was certain they weren't of human origin – rather from that of an otherworldly creature that she devoured as prey.
Her visage attained the most attention, and unsettled perplexity from Chris, who realized there was an oddity in her "expression." It was too frigid, too devoid of life despite the weak "smile" riddled on her "mouth." Squinting at it, he figured it was no mouth he was gazing at, but a line drawn with a pair of pointy, downward fangs. So was her "nose" that was drawn in a diagonal slit. Her eyelashes, brows – almost everything, if not everything about her countenance was fabrication. None of them gestured in the slightest. He knew that what he was seeing wasn't a face, but an imitation of one.
Within the unblinking reds were crimson circles packed in threes that were enclosed in blackish-grey sclera. Striped above and underneath them were thin, vertical lashes. The longer Chris gazed at the blood-reds, the more he felt like he was being subconsciously dragged into them. Even from his distance, he found them to be dangerously hypnotizing. Before he had gotten too engrossed in them, he briefly pried his sight off the mask and frowned at her back. He did his best to avert his gaze from hers, but it was strenuously difficult not to. Chris just had to get used to staring back at those inanimate, crimson "eyes." He just had to be careful.
Chris couldn't tell who or what she was. She appeared human, yet she didn't. She appeared juvenile, but seemed more antithetical to immaturity than she looked. To him, her slender legs were the most human she could get.
As willing as he was to put a stop to the Arachnid, Chris starved for information. He resumed their discourse with an inquiry.
"What the hell are you?"
There was lingering silence as they kept circling around. Entoma refused to answer and merely kept up her gaze at him.
"Neo Umbrella? The Connections? HCF?! Who do you work for?!"
She still refused to spout a word.
"Answer me!" demanded the captain. The Battle Maid stomped her heel and thrusted her arms down by her hips.
"None of your beeswax, Muscles! Too many questions – you're ruining the fun!"
As soon as she mentioned fun, Entoma bent her knee and burst at Chris until she had her skirt wavering violently. Gust billowed behind her and unsettled nearby flames. Chris hurriedly sidestepped away before he had his head skewered between his eyes. The edge of her blade grazed inches from his temple and left behind an incision.
He was spared no respite with Entoma relentlessly speeding at him once more. On the defensive, Chris guarded himself with the knife parallel to his eyes. When she reached before him, Entoma motioned her blade in an upward swing that forcefully lifted his knife aside, granting her an opening by breaking his guard.
She then hopped off her feet and, in midair, twisted herself like a tornado as she launched swiftly at Chris. One of her deadlier close-quarter moves, the technique was similar to the one she had used against the recently-deceased Charlie leader and the elite Blue Roses adventurer, Gagaran, who had nearly forfeited her life in the duel against the Arachnid. Fatigued, and armed with only a knife in his hand, Chris was about to fare no better than the Adamantite warrioress.
He couldn't keep his gaze off her whirling mask, which came rapidly at him closer and closer, particularly at her blood-reds. In the last second, he managed to swerve his attention from distraction, but by then it was already too late. Entoma performed a brisk, horizontal slice across his chest, making his heart jump a beat. Facing her heels towards him, she bent her knees and aggressively dropkicked at his chest, launching herself a distance away and landing elegantly by her tiptoes.
As the force dispersed on his chest like venom, Chris staggered ten steps back. He was close to falling on his back, but was just barely able to stabilize himself. Panting, he disciplined his stance, and tilted his head down when clinks were heard below.
Between his boots were bisected parts of magazines and the five-fives that had lodged inside. From the severed magazine pouches drizzled out the rest of the carved magazines and bullets that sprinkled on the floor in vibrant clinks. Chris' bafflement intensified when the rest of his Kevlar began shredding in criss-crosses. Joining the cleaved magazines and rounds were the cut-up ballistic platings and the vast majority of other equipments that clattered below.
His quivering eyes brought attention to the the straps of his assault pack as they tore from his shoulders. The bag thumped below, exposing his back. With his vest as unserviceable as dead weight, he pried it off him and tossed it aside. He wasn't finished with assessing the damages Entoma wrought on him.
Incision-like slash marks were lacerated all over his upper torso. The most significant of them was the one gashed across his pecs. None of them were deep enough to prove fatal. He couldn't tell exactly how or when Entoma had riddled him with all those cuts as all he could recall was her swinging her blade at him once. Whether if it was through sheer speed, or by one of her many deceptive trickeries, Chris once more found himself at a newfound bewilderment. An adept magician bearing the knack for killing – he couldn't think of a more fitting resemblance for the Battle Maid.
Chris found Entoma's speed and strength to barely shy from those of Wesker. Her strength, in particular, baffled him more. For such a frail, petite figure to pack such obscene power seemed a cruel, oxymoronic illusion to the captain. Chris was in no position to be on the offensive. From blinded vengeance to pragmatism, he was being humbled fast.
Entoma hovered her sleeve over the bottom of her mask and tilted her head.
"You don't seem that strong."
Whether if she was outright taunting him or was genuinely disappointed, Chris couldn't tell. Though, this was no time to ponder on the implications of the gestures as Entoma was eagerly looking forward to commencing their second clash. The flames around them blazed harsher.
She shot out webs from her sleeves and had them stuck to an incinerating bookshelf. Bending her knees and digging her heels, she heaved the furniture up while gripping the lined webs with both her sleeves. Entoma spun in a circle and launched it at Chris, who ducked low in time. Beside the crackling of fire, he could hear the shelf swooshing inches above him. Wind, which enraged the surrounding flames, rushed past his head and neck.
Spinning once more, Entoma wasn't finished as she sent the furniture for Chris in another circle. She severed the webs and hurled the blazing shelf directly at the Redfield. The latter dived to the side and rolled away, evading the shelf that crashed and burst in flames behind him. Entoma brandished her blade and charged for Chris.
Chris pumped his arms as he sprinted for a large table nearby. He heaved it up and hurled it at the Arachnid in the hopes of slowing her movement. She bisected the table by the very middle and raced past the hacked parts. Digging in her heels, she hopped high off the floor and rolled herself midair in a continuous somersault. She rolled until her form blurred like that of an accelerating tyre of a sports car.
Entoma whirled so vigorously that the gust expelling from her fuelled the flames in a wavering uproar. Even from where he was standing, Chris could feel it blowing violently at him. The sound of her blade slicing the air doubled, and tripled after that – the same with the speed of her aerial charge. He barely had any time to evade the encroaching wheel of death. Raising his guard up, Chris held fast his ground and prepared for the worst.
Upon her blade colliding with his, sparks erupted in a fiery spectacle, succeeded by the most deafening clang yet. Within that split moment, Chris' fiery eyes scowled to disconcerted bewilderment. The blade of his kukri severed in half. The top half of its cleaved metal twirled in front of his scowl before flinging elsewhere to the fire.
A harsh scrape grated against his helmet, which sundered immaculately in half. Sparks glittered from his scalp and extinguished before they drizzled the floor. Entoma landed her heels on his shoulder. She crouched low and brought her head to the muscles between his head and shoulder blade.
Grimacing in agony, Chris yelped when Entoma sunk her fangs deep in his trapezius and began feasting on him. Her head rattled erratically in unbridled ecstasy. Before he could pry her off, she lifted her head and hopped off him to the back in a somersault. His own blood splattered across his cheek. Whilst she twirled in midair on her descent, she slashed diagonally at his back and sent him flying to the front with a powerful kick. Chris landed recklessly on his front along with his severed kukri that clattered beside him. He laid there, groaning.
The wounds he sustained on his shoulder and back proved more lethal, and painful, than the previous. Affliction throbbed sharply from them. Blood rivered from his scalp, trickled down the bridge of his nose, and dripped from the tip. The last time he came this close to experiencing death was when he engaged in vicious knife fights with the rogue CIA operative-turned-bioterrorist, Glenn Arias.
Regaining his bearing, Chris struggled his head up and glanced behind. He saw Entoma standing there as she was busy relishing the flesh she had torn off him.
"Sooo gwooooood."
He could see strings of his own flesh dangling beneath her mask with blood and saliva strands dripping copiously. Each time she took a bite out of them, the muscle strings pulled up behind the mask until they were no longer visible. Her antennae quivered violently in elation. Out of all times in devouring her prey, never had they rattled to this extent.
Every blood cell, every string of muscle, Entoma took her sweet time to savour the delectability of fat-free flesh like one would with a piece of steak. Though, there was something extraordinaire about Chris' flesh. She couldn't quite explain it, but it was the difference between tasting steak from ordering takeout and enjoying Wagyu in a Michelin-starred teppanyaki steakhouse. Out of all her prey, she found Chris to be the most scrumptious. Never had she tasted anything like this. Letting out an audible swallow, she shared her thoughts out loud of her most thrilling tasting experience yet.
"So this is what that muscly lady would've had tasted like. Yummy! I want more!"
Entoma refused to squander any longer and commenced her third, and seemingly final, charge at Chris. Strands of reddened saliva drooled beneath her mask as she couldn't relieve the thought of consuming him to the bones.
His kukri severed, and his armor being nonexistent save for his shoulder and knee guards, Chris was practically defenseless. He knew she was going to finish him for good. Just when he thought he was as good as dead, he realized he wasn't completely defenseless, and that he still had one alternative left – one that determined the difference between life and death.
Her heels click-clacked rapidly for him, who waited for the Arachnid to get closer. Keeping his gaze on her, he steadily brought his hand towards his hip. When she was close enough, he unholstered his Elephant Killer with sleight and rolled sideways on his back, straightening his arms with both hands gripping the magnum. He pulled the trigger before she had gotten any closer.
The last bullet chambered in the cylinder whizzed out the muzzle and was headed directly for her mask. Entoma deflected the bullet with the Hard Armor Bug. Instead of colliding on the insectoid's center mass, the round ricocheted off the edge of its armor and grazed the Battle Maid's mask, which twirled from her head and clattered far on the floor. Ceasing all momentum in her legs, she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Ah..No.."
She quickly concealed her visage with her sleeves. Chris, panting, used this brief leeway to quickly wobble up his feet. Whilst clutching his bleeding shoulder, he gazed at Entoma, who kept shrouding her face like she was self-conscious of her true appearance – of what had been laying under the mask for all this time. Speaking of the mask, Chris glanced back at it, and realized that it was very much alive with ten limbs writhing from the underside.
Entoma slowly lowered her sleeves, making Chris squint to try having a better look at her countenance. She lowered them until the forehead, which was as pitch-blackened as her neck, was revealed. Chris' scowl intensified when he spotted dark-crimson, marble-like objects of irregular sizes shimmering on her forehead. Still self-conscious about her present appearance, Entoma let her friends do the honor of eviscerating Chris.
"Everyone, get him!"
The monstrosities hissed and shrieked in unison. A dozen giant spiders webbed down the ceiling. A pack of them, led by the Thousand Lash Bug, charged for the Redfield, who hurriedly sprinted for the windows like his life had depended on it. He lunged himself at a window and shattered through it. On his descent, he shouted with all he had.
Halfway in the freefall, he fought his way through leafless tree branches that nicked all over his face and arms. Deeper as he fell, Chris thumped his back on a van, caving its roof under his weight. He bounced off the vehicle and thudded recklessly on his front, his face planted in soil with dust dispersing from him. Glass shards drizzled on his backside from head to feet.
A/N: Happy Halloween.
(Feb 2, 21): This story is effectively relieved from hiatus. It will continue from where it was left off.
If you wish to support me, please visit my profile page for more information.
Thy Squirrel (Dec 2) – I've been thinking about committing to sequels with different characters from both RE and Overlord. For now it's definitely a possibility.
SomePervyGuy (Dec 8) – Not in depth I'm afraid, no. Though I'm sure the mechanisms behind it are fascinating as you state it.
Muhammadlutfi (Dec 16) – The story's on hiatus. It's not indefinitely cancelled.