Jinero: Los Illuminados incident hasn't happened yet, it's still 1998, that was in 2004. Leon surviving Raccoon City and what he accomplished would certainly gain all of their respect though.
HUNK's goal was never to kill Birkin. It was to bring him in alive to Spencer, along with the G-Virus. As far as HUNK was concerned Birkin died the moment he injected himself with the G-Virus, that thing ain't him anymore, and it wasn't his mission to eliminate the G abomination anyways. It is to extract the G-Virus. So he didn't bother wasting his time trying to. Though it played cat and mouse with him for days down in NEST and in the sewers, when he went back for a sample of the G-Virus. Trying to find HUNK, pursuing him like the Nemesis did Jill, until he lost it by the start of this story, and it gave up chasing him. Could be its own story.
Echo Five: HUNK and Carlos don't know anything of Leon and Claire at this point and thus have no thoughts or feelings on them, Same for Jill on Leon, but she will be proud of Claire and relieved she survived when she eventually finds out. All three would be equally relieved to find out Sherry survived. Though Carlos doesn't know her name, that she's the girl he saved during the outbreak.
117: No worries at all. Its a fine pistol type alright, would go appreciated by HUNK and Q for sure.
They all have the gems still, HUNK led them to bypass the wall of City Hall puzzle, no unlocking the gate with the gems required. Time will tell what is done with them, though those are good guesses for each. It was something I lifted from the remake, the blue, red and green gems, which are Jill's, HUNK's and Carlos's recurring 'superhero' colors respectively as well.
Vong: HUNK already knows what Spencer is, what he has done, or at least knows enough. Knows about the Trevors. He has grown to despise the sick old bastard... but it's also complicated, for personal reasons I will soon get into with his backstory. Right now it's a sort of 'Spencer is my master, right or wrong' dynamic. HUNK has been indoctrinated by Umbrella, institutionalized, it's all he has ever really known, though said indoctrination had been thrown into doubt and conflict the more he has seen, the more time he has been with them and all the missions. As well as his time away from Bella, and exposure to Raccoon City, Jill and the consequences of his crimes, what he did to Marcus and his role in the NEST outbreak. I think when Bella left, he started to see the bars of the cage surrounding him for what they were.
Jill and Carlos would have the reaction you stated, their morality compasses are much more properly tuned than HUNK's, even if they have their own baggage and troubles. They are heroes, he is a sympathetic, tragic anti villain. But a villain all the same.
Magd305TLC: Yes xD that about sums it up. HUNK's doctor looks out for him, is very protective. Even in the seriousness of the story there is a certain absurdity and comedy as well, I try to balance it properly. You'll meet and learn more of HUNK's support team soon enough, the dynamics and relationships. I look forward to showing more of HUNK's life at Umbrella, giving further context and insight into his character, as well as Doctor Radames as I depict her and QUARTERMASTER, NIGHTHAWK and SHIPMASTER as well.
Spartan: Pre meeting HUNK Jill would probably be much more critical about Rebecca's Billy decision, conflicted about it. After meeting HUNK and what has passed between them, she would understand Rebecca perfectly and sympathize. Especially given the difference between Billy and HUNK is that Billy was framed for his crimes and HUNK actually committed his own crimes. Worse things than Billy was framed for. Billy is sort of a heroic mirror to HUNK in some ways, HUNK as I see him at least. Both tragic, misunderstood, loners, bitter, introverted, strong, criminals... but Billy is a good guy who was framed, HUNK is bad guy who hasn't faced justice. Billy escapes to freedom, HUNK is not free from Umbrella. HUNK is a cautionary tale in this story.
Rock992: Much appreciated, definitely wanted to do the Grave Digger justice, show it as it should have been in the remake. What we might have had. Spencer is having the time of his life watching Raccoon City alright, Marcus would be too if he were still alive, probably even more. And I didn't even think of that parallel between young Carlos vomiting and young HUNK doing so after killing Marcus. It's fitting and works though. Especially in the present, traumatized rookie Carlos trying to work through it, while the much more experienced HUNK is cold, hard and unfeeling towards the battle. Used to the insanity. "It gets easier" basically.
Akira Hayama: Much appreciated, friend, and no worries at all. I like giving my opinions on relevant topics, answering people's reviews, the things that I can at least lol. We're all here for Resident Evil after all.
The dynamic of Jill and HUNK is that I'm trying to make the most of their time together, even in the middle of the insanity of Raccoon City. Every moment matters. The irony is the infested city is probably the only peace they'll get together, their respective worlds await outside, but here they can be together. 'Star Crossed Lovers' and all that, each torn between their separate worlds. HUNK especially. Jill is free, he is not. She is a growing temptation for him to leave it all behind.
Glad you enjoyed my Grave Digger fight, that I did it the justice it deserved, that Capcom sadly didn't with the remake. I enjoyed having three heroes to work with for it as well, and make the battle layered action, horror, dark comedy and story wise. Many themes and aspects really came together with that chapter, and resolved many things up to that point. All that lies ahead now is the Dead Factory and escape, loose ends tied up. And yes, I like to give flashes of HUNK the indomitable, unrivaled badass we know and love from the games. Although I deconstruct his character and 'legend' a fair bit, flesh him out and what's inside his head, there is enough there to show it isn't all just stories, he is genuinely the best at what he does for Umbrella. The top non super powered agent. The U.S.S. poster boy for a reason, whether he wants to be or not (he doesn't but grimly accepts it like everything else, it's out of his control).
I wanted a very unrealistic situation to be grounded in realism, consequences and effects on those in the battle. It's one thing being in the battle, it's another coming to terms with it after, the insanity they just endured and survived against all odds. Giving humanity to the characters and repercussions was very important to me, one of the biggest themes and inspirations for me while writing, doing this. Makes it all worthwhile. I'm out to write people first and foremost, not mostly unchanging game characters we don't see the effects of all this on. There are advantages to storytelling in just text compared to a video game or other visual medium for sure.
Leaving out the Grave Digger and its potential, among other things in the remake of 3, was ridiculous. The developers had a great deal of material to work with potential, and limited themselves idiotically. Sadly what I've come to expect from Capcom, we all have really.
Alex: It's complicated with HUNK and his support team, he appreciates them, cares about them, but they are also his link to Umbrella, and Umbrella is butting in on his time away from them, basically. Time he is with Jill and Carlos and learning more about himself, going through character development outside of Umbrella's control. His support team is essentially Umbrella tugging on his leash and reminding him of the situation he is in. Where he is and what awaits him outside of Raccoon City, who he belongs to. Under Umbrella's thumb. That does piss him off steadily. And yes, HUNK is consistent even in his coldness, his dismissal of Goblin 6's failure with the 'survival is your responsibility' is also applied to himself. He will take no fewer risks than anyone else, holds himself to his own standards.
I wanted all three to play important roles in the battle against the Grave Digger, not have it all be one. I wanted to show how capable the three survivors were and how well they worked as a team, using their experiences, skills and knowledge. Carlos distracting it and using its acid weakness to drive it back, buy time, Jill with the electricity plan and Mine Thrower, HUNK with the case of grenades plan he used to destroy its hive with earlier Downtown. It all really comes together in that battle, the three of them at their best.
Grave Digger was indeed a good contrast to Nikolai, both wildcards, dangerous, intelligent, but one human the other a giant monster. Only fitting it usurped Nikolai's villain role with its sudden arrival, throwing a wrench in his plans as he intended to do to the trio, at least for a chapter or two. It was unfinished business as well, a loose end coming back to haunt them from earlier in the story. One villain down, but more of them to go still ;).
Glad to hear I painted a vivid unpleasant picture of the graveyard battlefield, which was my intent, a nasty muddy, blood stained quagmire like something from World War 1. And glad I've established HUNK well as a three dimensional character instead of his game self. Was my intent to flesh him out as a character, give him a definitive story, and I will continue to do so. More on him to come, rest assured. I wanted to depict him for a stretch of time from the outside again, take breaks from being inside his head, important for the pacing and what is coming next. His interactions with Jill are vital to that, the feelings they have come to develop for one another. No matter the story's outcome, those feelings aren't going anywhere, their experiences together. His exposure to her, her presence in his story, a victim of Umbrella, was the catalyst for his character development to happen... questioning himself and his role, just as HUNK's presence in Nikolai's story was the catalyst for Nikolai gradually going off the deep end compared to his cold level headed appearance in the original Resident Evil 3. Jill is also growing from her exposure to HUNK, challenging her thoughts on Umbrella, criminals, ethics and bioweapons and giving her a moral conundrum to grapple with over him. HUNK should be her enemy, would be under any other circumstance, but under the ones they are in they fell for each other gradually instead. Both are a challenge to the core identity of each other's characters, and are developing together.
Much appreciated, glad you and others look forward to my next chapters ;), hang in there and you'll get them. Longer chapters of course take longer to edit, add to and prepare than the shorter ones. And not a problem, I like clarifying things on my story and on characters I enjoy, happy to keep doing so.
Arkham Knight: Much appreciated, enjoyed writing the Grave Digger, giving it its due, especially after the remake got rid of it. And certainly hope to do the Nemesis justice next as well.
Guest: What happens to Nikolai shall reveal itself in due time ;). Hope you like it.
Thank you all for the reviews, they are appreciated as ever. On with the show... Dead Factory ahoy:
October 1st, 1998, 2:52 AM
Circular River Gate, Raccoon Park, Northern Raccoon City
"Finally..."
At last, Jill looked up the rain soaked forest path, ahead to Carlos as they walked along, spotting the familiar sight of opened gate waiting for them, and the Monitor's corpse next to it. Breathing with quiet relief. Remembering the agent kicking it wide open for them what felt a lifetime ago already. Behind her, she heard HUNK's low muffled breaths through the rain pattering on the leaves of the trees, and caught a glance at his laser sight now and again while they moved, circling around her in a protective radius again. Comforting her silently. The journey of backtracking back to the suspension bridge gate was not without its share of perils. But compared to what they had endured, it was negligible. Sure enough, the remains of more of the Grave Digger's offspring had greeted her down in the sewer, all filled full of shells. Shredded apart, courtesy of Carlos's righteous rage. There weren't any more of them beyond that. By the time they had all passed through the sewer and reached the main plaza, additional groups of the infected had greeted them there. Without a word, they had been dealt with quickly and efficiently... along with every other mutation that had showed up on the way back, in the time they had spent in the cemetery. All the noise from the battle had drawn them, from all over the park. Probably not every single one of them, given its size, but a fair amount. They had been dealt with all the same.
Other than the occasional gunfire, a grim silence hung over all of them like the storm clouds above... Jill couldn't even find it in herself to break it to talk to HUNK. So deep within her contemplation... and feeling they all needed some time to consider what they had just survived. To say nothing of Carlos. Carlos hadn't stopped to wait for them, but at the same time had not rushed through the park. Gone off on his own. Keeping in sight at all times. Stopping only to put down each threat as it appeared. Which gave HUNK and Jill enough time to catch up... yet remain standing back away from him, giving his desired space. And time to think about what had transpired... and what still lie ahead. The quiet Corporal passed beneath the light posts near the gate, sparing a final look at the Monitor's blood soaked body, and quickly passed through the gate, ascending a wooden staircase beyond, and momentarily passing from Jill and HUNK's view.
Reaching the gate herself next, Jill glanced to the U.B.C.S. Monitor's corpse... knowing now what she did about his fate, the one who had done it. And she drew a low breath, eyes swiveling to HUNK. The agent had drawn back up the familiar illusion again, that he wasn't tired or pained... that everything that had just happened had not affected him. She wasn't sure who he was doing it for more... who he was attempting to fool... himself, or them... or both. Regardless, he stood and walked tall and alert, sweeping their surroundings now and again. Ensuring there were no further ambushes on the way back to the gate. Gesturing for her to keep moving through the gate and after Carlos. Her grip tightened on both her Samurai Edge and Matilda, unconsciously, and she looked back ahead to the staircase leading to the suspension bridge. It was illuminated not only by the light posts in front of the gate, but by a lantern light hanging up on a wooden post at the top of the stairs. The rain drops streaming down her face, she stepped through the gate and beneath a section of wooden ceiling, getting out of the rain at least for a moment. As she ascended the stairs slowly, HUNK slammed shut the metal gate of the park behind them, and followed after her. It echoed with a bang, in unison with their respective boot taps on the stairs as they rose over them. Jill stopped at the top of the stairs and looked over the area quickly they found themselves in. There were a couple wooden chairs drawn up off to their right, but one of them, along with a wooden table, lay broken and collapsed to the floorboards.
They all resided away from the wooden ceiling section that shielded them from the rain, and were soaked through. There were wooden railings around the area, securing them within as the small section of roof did. It looked like a mixture of a lunch break area of sorts and work place for park employees, before the outbreak. Or perhaps employees of the factory came out here for a breather, to get away from the fumes. Probably a bit of both. There was a big bulletin board off to their left hand side when they reached the top of the stairs. A large and detailed map of the entire park, and some of its surrounding land, was pinned to it. Jill gave it no more than a quick glance, already knowing every inch of it. Her attention moved where HUNK's was, ahead of them, standing at the end of the area a few steps ahead. And standing directly in front of the suspension bridge. Carlos stood in front of it, not setting foot on the bridge, but rather looking it over with a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes, and the plant beyond it that it led to. Jill slowly moved over to his side, remaining quiet, while HUNK flanked the Corporal's opposite side. Carlos paid them no heed... and together in silence, over the heavy rain striking the ceiling over their head, the three of them took in the view that awaited them.
Their next and final destination.
The long wooden suspension bridge stretched out before them... well built, reinforced and sturdy... but looking somewhat old and rickety as well, in spite of the many chains attached to two primary cables that ran all the way across. The two primary cables ran to and were attached to two metal posts, on both sides of the bridge. The pair they stood next to, and the pair far away, on the opposite side, working in tandem to keep the bridge suspended. Suspended over the Circular River that flowed all the way south through Raccoon City, passing through the ravine a fair distance below them. Jill looked down over the side, glimpsing the fast travelling torrent of water to the east. It was a long way down. The river flowed out through the woods of Raccoon Park, all the way and past the clock tower, Raccoon University, Raccoon Street, Uptown, Downtown and continued beyond one of the main Quarantine Zones on the other side of the city. Undoubtedly the river there was being patrolled by the military, and secured... she imagined it involved netting, spotlights, flame throwers and guard towers to catch anything that might try to slip out of the city that way. Every exit and entrance to the city covered. She had the sinking feeling more than a few poor souls had already tried to escape down the river futilely. Thinking they were free of the nightmares... and rushing into the parting maw of the Quarantine Zone instead.
Jill couldn't glimpse the Quarantine Zone or any sections of the city... not even the clock tower any longer, even standing as high as they were at the edge of Raccoon City. The forest blocked most of the view that way off... and between the falling rain and the noises of the Circular River, she couldn't hear the military's helicopters or gunfire either. Likely that would be another story standing at the top of the looming factory. Her eyes moved back along the river, to the rocky outcropping along each side. She could make out the concrete entrance of the plant's drainage canal below, illuminated by a single light affixed to one of its walls. A reasonable amount of purified water flowed in a steady current from drainage canal's entrance, washing into the river it had been designed to flow into. She couldn't make out many details within it from their distance... but she knew it led to the lower levels of the plant. It resided on the rocky shore of the riverbank, among a sparse amount of shrubbery and small trees close by. Most of the area had been cleared out, with stone dominating the land around it.
Her eyes rose from the drainage canal, and over the withered concrete above it... until her eyes resided upon the back entrance of Incineration Disposal Plant P-12A. They couldn't see the entirety of the plant from where they stood... but they could see more than enough to gauge it. The aptly named Dead Factory was a hulking ruin of rusted metal and weathered concrete, residing on the other side of the river, like a castle perched upon a high thick hill beneath it comprised of cement. There were a few lights scattered about it, including a distant red one that was blinking steadily on and off. The light enough to illuminate much of the towering building... streaming over the Dead Factory. Certain sections of it, less rusted on the surface than the others, were only so because they had been painted a sickly green hue. Smoke rose heavily from various stacks around the facility... and Jill knew that if she could smell anything, she would smell the chemical stench even this far away from it. She couldn't spot the helicopter platform either from where she stood... but she imagined they were just too far away from it, and that section lay closer to the plant's front, the opposite side of the factory. And higher. Looming over the streets of Northern Raccoon City.
She'd passed the plant for quite some time before the incident in the Arklay Mountains, none the wiser to what was going on inside it. Umbrella had cleverly combined it with a scrapyard, that lay around the front entrance of the facility, leaving damn near everyone assured the place was just another abandoned industrial area. Few tended to look beyond or question the illusions around them. It was only after the Spencer Mansion that she began looking into Umbrella many properties around Raccoon City... finding some interesting links between the two. They'd owned the deed to the property, and everyone working for the city's factory inspectors seemed to suspiciously give it a wide, deliberate berth. That had been when she was still on the force... and investigating on her on time. Between that and other matters she had pursued, Chief Irons had used it as a means to fire her, evidence she wasn't mentally fit after her traumatic experience, pursuing a personal vendetta. Irons had been half right, for once. Though it had also been her job... the pursuit of justice. It just happened to overlap with her new obsession. Umbrella. The firing hadn't been enough to stop her investigation... she'd continued on her own time. Checking up on the place through the summer now and again, between other leads she'd followed up on with the team she'd assembled.
The front of the plant had been entirely sealed up... to the point even when she had picked the lock on it, she'd only found the front doors barred from within. Or likely mechanically or electronically sealed, given the resources and technology at Umbrella's disposal. She'd not seen people ever enter the Dead Factory or leave it during her few stakeouts... but somehow, the smoke continued to roll heavily off it and into the sky. Someone had been operating it. Even automated machinery required regular maintenance. She'd heard stories from some of the locals... of disappearances... kids and teenagers, among others, who had gone snooping around the sizable scrap yard and Dead Factory. She'd wanted to pursue it further, find another way around, as they were, through the park... but there had been so much for her to do in those days, leading up to the outbreak. So many leads she was going after, individual cases... keeping in contact with her fellow S.T.A.R.S, gathering information, consulting with Alyssa and Ben, trying to approach City Hall, trying to tell someone, anyone that would listen to her. Too much to do... and too little time. If her mind hadn't been all over the place... she would have thought to come around the back, as they had now, break into Raccoon Park and come here to the suspension bridge. As it were... she had not done so.
Those who disappeared investigating the Dead Factory had not been the only ones vanishing as the days passed... and Umbrella circled its wagons. There hadn't been enough time to look into each case... or if there had been, she had been distracted with a thousand other things to do. By the time she'd heard of the first cases of infected in Raccoon City... the strange happenings of the Dead Factory were among the lowest on her list of priorities, and went on the back burner. In the end, she hadn't known what the hell the plant was being used for... until HUNK had suddenly appeared into her life. Told her about the NEST facility. Most likely the Dead Factory was connected to NEST by an underground transit system... existed to discard biological waste material from Birkin's mad experiments. And it would explain why she had never seen anyone entering or leaving. As for what resided in its halls now, how it fitted into the scheme of things... she didn't know. But she knew she was about to. And wasn't looking forward to the prospect. She saw no sign of where the military unit might have breached the facility with explosives... infiltrated somehow... nor where the Tyrants Umbrella had been dispatched.
There was no sign from the outside of any engagement or struggle, or damage to the complex. Maybe they'd been dropped directly into the scrap yard, or had come here through the back doors, as they were now. Assuming they weren't sealed as much as the front entrance was. Then again, the military had superior tech and tools at their disposal... perhaps they had hacked it open. Her eyes dipped down to the twin metal doors of the Dead Factory's rear entrance, on a cement platform on the opposite side of the bridge. The effect of its sickly green hue was brightened by the twin lights affixed atop each of the thick double doors. Along with another light shining down from further above on the rusted plant, illuminating the cement platform below in its entirety. Apart from some metal railings around the platform, and some loose scrap metal in one of the corners, there was nothing noteworthy. Nothing about any of it beckoned to them, or welcomed them. It was a sinister presence, in and of itself. And Jill felt the same fear and dread within that had stamped itself on to Carlos's expression. HUNK, off to the side, merely looked the facility over thoughtfully, the green light reflecting in the red lenses. As he had been in the cemetery, he looked like a commander surveying his battlefield. Quite comfortable with what he was looking at. All Jill knew, was that the place was probably crawling with... monsters. To say nothing of five T-103 Tyrants somewhere... and a potentially antagonistic military unit. She didn't imagine, if they were still alive, HUNK was prepared to cooperate with them. Nor them with him. He probably already had a plan to eliminate them.
And Nikolai... of course. Wherever he was in there. Whatever he had planned for them.
By contrast to the graveyard... this was a different situation entirely. An unknown, omnipresent danger hidden within entire stories of twisted steel and concrete. Not an open battlefield... but a facility of corridors, machinery... and the lurking potential of anything killing them, if they took a wrong turn. They had no map of the interior... and for all her knowledge of Raccoon City, it meant nothing now. She would be as blind as the others in there. She had no wish to fight any more Tyrants... or to be forced to kill living men... fellow soldiers... but the soldier within her had accepted the possibility of its necessity. The survivor. Prepared to do what it took to survive. While the cop in her wished, as ever, for the best. Wanted an alternative. Hoped. She felt HUNK's eyes, and she turned slightly to look at him... seeing her own troubled expression in the red lenses. By now, she couldn't even offer him a weak smile.
She had none to give, at this moment. It would be false. And she refused to lie to him.
Jill looked back ahead to the bridge, suspended over the river... drawing in a low breath of the cold air... and she was prepared to take the first steady step on to it... when Carlos emerged from his reverie. The fear evaporated from his eyes, and they narrowed, as he took the lead again through the rain, raising his assault rifle to his shoulder. He began to move over the bridge, in the professional manner of a soldier, covering the area for any hostiles, moving slowly. Jill followed after him next, tucking away Matilda safely into a holster and raising her Samurai Edge in both hands, replicating the Corporal's professional movements on instinct with her own training. HUNK brought up the rear, his submachine gun's laser sight sweeping around... looking back now and again behind them, ensuring they weren't followed.
All sides were covered around them, with overlapping fields of fire.
The wet wooden boards of the suspension bridge creaked slightly now and again, as they moved towards the middle of it. Jill was careful to step around certain spots... but overall, the bridge had been well constructed, and held up. Nevertheless, it swayed slightly, between the three of them and the wind... the chains connected to it clanking together and rattling audibly. Jill glanced over to a few of them, scarcely blinking... and looked back ahead. She felt a fear of the great heights... though only when she thought about it, she found. It was something instinctive, instead of a phobia. It was a respect for how high they were... she felt it every time she stood atop a building looking down. How truly tiny they were as people, compared to great heights. Jill looked back ahead to Carlos, as they reached the middle of the suspension bridge... and as she took one more step forward, the entire bridge suddenly jolted and jerked back and forth. The iron chain links along the bridge began to groan louder and shake, and Jill nearly stumbled, struggling to keep on her feet, gaze whirling around trying to figure out what the hell was happening. For a single mad moment she thought the Grave Digger had returned, and was tunneling towards the bridge, sending them an earthquake... but she knew better, between its death and the fact they stood over a river... not on open land. Further behind them, back towards the park, several boards gave way on the bridge, breaking off and falling into the river below.
HUNK remained where he was behind her, keeping as still as possible as the bridge swayed this way and that. Carlos had fallen forward, grunting painfully... and suddenly there was a second powerful jolt of the bridge, and Jill tumbled towards the side of it. Her heart seized in her chest, as instinctively her hand grasped one of the chain links suspending the bridge, before she pitched down over the side. But in the shaking and the chaos, as she fell forward against the loop, she felt the strap on her shoulder give way and slip off entirely. The weight of the Mine Thrower vanished at once, and Jill turned in time to watch it clatter to the floorboards of the bridge, dangling next to the edge.
Heart beating quicker, she reached down to recover it again at once... but she reached in vain. The bridge shook again... and this time it was enough. She watched helplessly as the experimental weapon, the Mine Thrower, fell off the side of the suspension bridge, landing in the current of the river far below, and vanishing beneath the water. Jill uttered a low groan of frustration and swore loudly and colorfully, still reaching down towards it, pulse racing... and she felt HUNK's hand grasp one of the twin shoulder straps, stopping her and pulling her back upright. His low tone leaning in to murmur in her ear, speaking calmly though sympathetically.
"Forget it, Valentine. Not worth it. It was merely a weapon. Equipment."
"That weapon was multi million dollar high tech equipment that saved our asses! Twice! I wanted to keep it! I have six spare rounds for it and everything! Worthless now!"
"You have six spare proximity mines and grenades, you mean. There is an activation switch on them you can use... switch them to one setting and toss them like a grenade. Another setting can be used to set up mines on the ground, for traps that detonate when the enemy is within their radius. Mine Thrower not required for either. Served its purpose. You're alive. All that matters. Let it go."
His tone reasoned calmly as ever. His words touched her... and offered her a consolation prize, at least. His knowledge of the weapon... though part of her heard a bit of QUARTERMASTER's posh English accent speaking through his gas mask. Remembering finding the weapon at the clock tower... the way HUNK had given her a glimpse of his world. Shared it with him. Trusted her. She glanced down at her bandolier with some shotgun shells as well as the six proximity darts... grenades, now. Looking back into his red lenses at her bruised, disheveled, swelling face... she nodded at last. appreciating his words and intent. It was something, at least. And she supposed the cumbersome nature of the Mine Thrower felt somewhat good to be separated from. She spoke again more calmly, quietly, regaining a hold of herself... though tired all the same.
"QUARTERMASTER, right? He left that bit of information out of the weapon rundown..."
"Consider yourself fortunate. Got the abbreviated version, being an outsider. Never had to visit his lab... nor frequently, as I do. Usually talks one's ear off.
She laughed in spite of herself at the words and dryness of his voice, unable to help it, again. What the hell was he doing to her? Why was it so easy for him to make her laugh at the most inappropriate times? She sighed and looked back down at the river one last time wistfully. All the same, she appreciated his reassurance, and let it go. Then she turned away from the river at last amid the continued shaking of the bridge, and she looked ahead as Carlos managed to climb back to his feet cursing under his breath, trying to keep his balance this time. But it wasn't him she watched for very long, amid the swaying of the bridge. It was what she saw in front of him, her heart all but seizing in her chest when she recognized it.
A thick, pulsating, soaked purple tendril had wrapped itself around the loops of one of the chains, locking into place.
"Valentine, no!"
Her first instinct was to shoot it, raising her Samurai Edge... but she felt HUNK grab for her wrist and stop her as he noticed it too, sharp voice reminding her what would happen to the swaying suspension bridge if she missed, and struck the chain. It didn't matter anyways, she hadn't had the time to make the shot anyways, as it turned out. In a flash of speed, inhuman agility for something its size... a great writhing bulk flung its self up through the air from beneath the bridge's underside, and towards the top, landing on it heavily, crouched in a ball about a quarter length of the bridge in front of them. It landed with enough force to send a ripple through the bridge that nearly toppled all three of them over at once. HUNK dug his boots into the bridge and held on fast, as though riding the wave, one arm wrapping around her waist to keep her upright with him. Jill held on to him, also digging her boots into the planks. Their combined weight in close proximity proved enough to anchor them to the spot, instead of flying around this way and that. At the same time Carlos crouched down and held on to one of the chains, rifle in the other hand down at his waist. Jill's arm left HUNK, and she pulled away from his, stepping ahead slightly as the bridge swayed. She no longer saw or heard either him, nor Carlos ahead of her, holding on for dear life. She saw only the obstacle barring their path, to the Dead Factory entrance beyond.
"Oh God no..."
It rose slowly and methodically, in all its horrific, unrivaled glory, in front of them. It stood taller and heavier than it had been before... near everything about it had changed, just as they had told her. Since their last battle. Most of its long, black armored coat had been destroyed... releasing it from the constraints and Umbrella's binding of its mutating capabilities. All that remained were its half melted massive boots, tattered pants, and a small section of the armored material clinging stubbornly to its lower back. Beneath the protruding thick cords of tendrils from its back and broad shoulders. The damage that had been done to it... the many burns lining its body, the impact of the explosions... the bullet holes, it was all present. But no longer as bleeding bleeding wounds... but as thick scar tissue, growing beneath its husk-like flesh. Its throat she had last seen sawed open by HUNK's combat knife had healed over, with a great deal of scar tissue remaining there. As its mutations increased, so did its ability to recover... offsetting the lack of armor. Adapting on its own. Where she had blown off its right hand before, a mass of tentacles had grown from within it, overtaking the stump and rendering the damage she'd done to it useless. The tentacles were coiled around that arm, and whipping back and forth in the air on their own accord, alive... like some Lovecraftian abomination. Its left arm remained intact... but bulkier than before... and with the armor, fingerless gloves and flesh burned away there, the bone-like claws she remembered lashing out at and sparking against HUNK's helmet had grown since the last time she saw them, more jagged like great knives. It looked little different than the one the T-002 had possessed, as it pursued her during their escape from the Spencer Mansion, Wesker's fresh blood dripping from it steadily all over the floor. Its giant feet tracking prints of it down the corridors.
It stood towering like a granite gargoyle in the rain, larger even than the Tyrant before it... perhaps nine feet tall or greater. The dark pants of its shredded uniform were strained to the maximum to remain conformed to its obscene growth in muscle mass. The water from the rain was streaming down its permanently stained grinning maw of razor teeth... and disturbingly large, leathery face. In front of her, Carlos rose back steadily to his feet, shocked by its sudden appearance, and so close to him, as she was. It rose each arm, the mass of writhing tentacles around its body into the air, and the mutating claw, and it bellowed a thunderous roar. The same one that had followed her into her nightmares, after it had infected her. It had been waiting for this moment... hunting them inexorably through the night... and at last it had found them, weaker and tired against it than they had ever been before. Ambushing them, at the worst possible moment, dividing them.
"No... it can't be... not here..."
Their Pursuer, no... the Nemesis. Her Nemesis. The moment she spoke aloud against herself, its sole overly large. malicious, milky yellow eye locked upon her. It was incensed with more rage than she'd ever seen... but also an unmistakable shade of recognition of her. Always that lingering, telltale intelligence. Even in this mutated form, knowledge and familiarity clung to it as horribly as it had to the bridge. Knowledge of its mission... knowledge of her. Every past encounter that had been fought between them.
It lowered its arms and gestured its squirming tentacles in her direction. One of the tentacles shot forward, stiffened as hard as a nail while the others writhed freely, as though they were laughing. It was mocking her with the remembrance of the last time they had fought. With what it had done to Brad. Suddenly, the aching of her shoulder was undeniable... she felt the tendrils hardening and penetrating there again, down the corridor of her memory. And nightmares of the fight. She saw Brad's head snap back, spilling blood as the stiff tendril punched a hole right through his mouth and out the back of his throat. She watched it throw him effortlessly through the air again, landing in front of her in a twitching, bleeding heap. Somehow, it grinned even wider at the horrified look in her eyes... and from its maw of jagged shark-like teeth, its dead voice spoke once more, carried over the bridge and echoed through the ravine around them.
"S.T.A.R.S.!"
The Nemesis began to move, then. Trudging forward, each step shaking the bridge. Each heavy plank creaking under the strain. Then, the Tyrant broke into a run, drawing back its claw covered left hand as it descended upon the closest target to it, Carlos, and aiming a heavy blow his way. For his part, Carlos swore loudly and dived to the boards of the bridge. Dived below and past the titanic Tyrant, landing roughly somewhere behind it, narrowly missing the deadly blow of the claw. It barely took notice or care beyond its attempt to strike him. It didn't look back, even when Carlos, still laying on his back, adjusted his rifle and opened fire on it, firing three round bursts into its back. The bullets impacted, echoing through the ravine, slamming into its flesh and grotesque amounts of muscle. Purple droplets fell like the rain, staining the planks below. In spite of the impacts, the force of the rounds was no longer enough to pause it, or move it in the slightest. Its mutated bulk took the rifle rounds like annoying bee stings, soaking them up. It paid no heed to them, or the owner of the rifle... its eye was reserved for Jill alone.
Jill saw the red laser sight passing back and forth over its body as the bridge swung this way and that. HUNK was trying to adjust his sights and focus on it... but between the heavy shaking of the bridge, and Jill standing in front of him on the narrow path, the laser sight couldn't settle on one spot of the Nemesis and remain there. It tried in vain to settle on one of its tentacles, each of them whipping wildly through the air, but they moved too fast, to say nothing of their owner. Jill dug her boots into the precariously swaying bridge as it advanced upon her... knowing she didn't have the firepower to stop it in its tracks. Instead, she watched as it descended upon her, raising its other arm, the right covered in tentacles, drawing it back and swinging a deadly blow towards her. At the last minute, Jill dodged backwards on pure driven instinct, mere inches from its reach as it swung to the side. Already her free hand had drawn Matilda and she switched it to automatic, emptying an entire magazine of armor piercing rounds into its face with one squeeze of the trigger. The machine pistol kicked in her hand, and the shell casings streaming around them like the rain. The bullets shredded the areas where its right cheek, nose, and right eye should have been, slamming into it all at once with enough force to drive back its head, thick gouts of purple, foul fluid spilling freely, staining its entire face.
One of the rounds severed one of the metal staples that ran along its massive head. Despite the force of the shots all focused as one, its head shot forward again within seconds, recovering from the barrage. As smoke emanated from its mouth, and the rain began washing away the streaming blood, it promptly spat up several of the slugs of lead defiantly, along with several fangs... purple stained, jagged teeth bearing into a homicidal leer again. A grin that brought the two words 'my turn'... to her thoughts. Its face was already knitting back together... and it was already aiming to strike out at her again. Before it could, Jill darted nimbly past it, beneath its other arm, as Carlos had done, using the momentum of its thick frame against it. It was powerful, seemingly unbreakable... it was even fast... but it was not agile, even now. Especially now.
And the more its bulk increased as it mutated, the more each of its strengths, and weaknesses, increased. Jill nearly fell over behind it, struggling to remain upright, to find Carlos had scrambled across the bridge and stood on the cement platform leading to the entrance. He'd dropped down to one knee, and had switched the burst function on his rifle to single shot, aiming down the scope and chipping away wherever he could draw a bead at the Tyrant. Jill kept low as she ran, allowing him a better field of fire to keep striking the Nemesis, for all the good it did. When she reached the end of the bridge, mercifully, she stepped up on to the cement platform next to Carlos. She turned back around, reloading Matilda and drawing her Samurai Edge in the other hand. She brought both pistols to bear, peering down the sights at what they targeted. It had turned back around, in her direction, utterly ignoring the masked and armored agent that had been closest to it, in favor of her.
Thank God. Its programming remained primarily affixed to her. Keeping the agent safe... for the moment.
Her brain worked overtime, trying to figure out a plan to contend with it. All she knew was that she had to get it away from HUNK... and keep it coming after her. Maybe they could lure it further on to the cement platform, and whittle away at it from there... hurt it enough, like they had before. Drive it off the ravine and down into the river somehow. But even then, a sinking part of her didn't believe they could... that this thing... that had turned from her Pursuer, into her Nemesis... could be fought the same way. Its mutations made it more durable than before... before, she was certain the whole magazine she had put in its head at point blank range would have staggered it for a time. Now, it had barely even blinked. This was not the same creature that had stalked them through Raccoon City. This was something far worse. She remembered the carnage, that had been the piano room in the clock tower, after she'd woke up. The battle she'd missed. She remembered the thick puddles of its blood... the remains of corpses, all the shell casings... and the raging fire. The putrid smell of its fluids, mixed with the smell of napalm. It had been near impossible to believe anything could drag itself away from all that... but it had, through a trail of gore, leaving behind only its blood and boot prints. And before that, she remembered it walking away from the courtyard, under the impact of the mines that had penetrated it... weakly walking away, and collapsing into the raging bonfire of the evacuation helicopter. This thing standing on the bridge now, staring back at her, was what had been reborn in that hellfire. A reforged weapon.
It moved a few more steps forward towards her... when a heavy blast took it in the back at close range, booming through the night. Even with its bulk and size, there was force enough to it to slightly stagger it this time. Its bloodied face turned around, incensed, looking at the source... just as Jill and Carlos looked past it in the same direction. HUNK stood quite comfortably in the middle of the suspension bridge, as it swayed back and forth. He had slung his submachine gun, and drawn his shotgun in both hands, aiming it from the shoulder at the Nemesis. The Tyrant gnashed its razor sharp teeth together as it spotted him... the many tendrils protruding from its body whipping around furiously. Its purple blood dripped and ran over its visible red gums and its chin.
"You're going the wrong way."
HUNK's ice cold voice addressed it then for the first time, as he might speak to a person. He rose a hand slightly, beckoning to it slowly and relaxingly. His manner almost receptive, and welcoming. There wasn't the slightest trace of fear in the words, as there was reflected in both Carlos and Jill's eyes. She felt as she had watching him stand calmly in front of the Grave Digger and make the same gesture. Awe and horror at the same time. There was fearlessness... and there was whatever the agent was. Neither monstrosity frightened him. Suicidal confidence against all odds, in a world of nightmares come to life. He was not the least bit afraid to die.
And she found that frightened her most of all.
"That's it. You remember me alright, parasite. Frankl made you too well not to. Get over here. Now."
It released another deep growl... looking back over its shoulder at Jill, and back to HUNK again. Who, the instant it looked back at him, shot it a second time, the roar echoing through the night over the rain. The agent pumped the shotgun hard as the Tyrant staggered back a step or two, shell case flying over the side of the bridge. Despite the familiar purple fluid that flowed, the blast didn't particularly injure it... but it did anger it. Flesh knitting back together where it had been shot, it ignored Jill and obeyed the agent's deliberate provocation. Slowly but surely, it began to pace back down towards him... but when it drew close enough, HUNK turned the shotgun away from it. Instead, he aimed it at the bridge cable to his left... for a split second, Jill didn't know what he was doing... but the realization dawned on her when, to her shock, the Nemesis froze suddenly in its tracks. Its head turned slightly, as it looked at the masked agent... and to the shotgun, and to the cable suspending the bridge dangling over the ravine and river below. Jill saw the intelligence flicker in its yellow eye again... and understanding of how precarious its current choice of footing was.
"How sure are you that I won't do it?"
HUNK's low, dead tone asked it seriously, after a long pause. The bridge continued to sway steadily in the breeze and the Nemesis's momentum, beneath their feet... and it stared back at the agent hatefully, seething, but hearing every word. Absorbing and considering it with that same eerie alien intelligence burrowed away within it. Its parasitic tendrils whipped back and forth of their own accord angrily, desiring to seize the masked man, but their owner kept its arms down at its sides. Forcing them to remain restrained.
"Calculate the odds. Based on what you know about me by now."
"HUNK! What the hell are you doing?!", Jill shouted down to him, unable to help herself, the words bursting from her lungs. "Get away from it! Retreat to the park and double back here!"
"Valentine, Oliveira, get inside and bar the doors. Now. Find somewhere to hold up. Someone needs to keep it out here."
"I am not leaving you alone with that thing! Don't you start playing hero now too!"
"I'm not. It can't be permitted to follow us inside. If it breaches the facility and uncovers our plan, there will be no escape. There is no choice."
"Yes there is! You can get the hell off that bridge and come with us!"
Jill shouted at him defiantly, shaking her head and trying to ignore his reasoning. Even as part of her saw the logic, the cold discomforting logic of his action... it battled the raw emotion coursing within. The overwhelming desire to protect him, as he had her. They'd promised to work together... to protect each other... leaving him on that bridge with it was not keeping her promise. She'd rather its tendrils slammed into her other shoulder, before she'd stand aside and allow that to happen. She turned her attention back to the Nemesis, and spoke to it as he did, took a couple steps closer towards the bridge. Raising her Beretta, she shot it in the back of the shoulder, shouting at it with every bit of the hatred she felt towards it. She saw nothing else... just it, magnified in her vision by her coursing loathing. As the impact slammed into its shoulder, it pivoted on the spot, its body half towards her and the agent, uncertain. Pulled between each target, each threat.
"Its me you want, you bastard, not him! S.T.A.R.S.! Remember?! S.T.A.R.S.! Come and kill me! You've been trying to do it for days! Like a piss poor assassin, you keep missing the target! Finish your mission!"
"Valentine! That's enough! Hold your fire! Leave. Now. You know I'm right."
"Don't listen to him! Don't pay attention to him! He's nothing!"
Jill shouted over him, raising the Samurai Edge again and shooting the Nemesis squarely in the side of the head. The high powered round slammed into its skull, barely effecting it... save the droplet of purple blood that began to leak down its ruined cheek, like a tear. And the sudden enraged, steady gnashing of its teeth. That had done it... she'd reminded it who she was to it. Beside her, Carlos watched on with the rifle trained on the Tyrant... but his eyes wide with disbelief, and on bated breath. The former S.T.A.R.S. Officer waved at it to come towards her as she called to it.
"That's right! It's me you want, remember?! Kill me! Come on! I'm standing right here! I'm injured! You can do it! Come on! Do it now!"
It looked back one more time to HUNK, yellow contemptuous eye flickering between the shotgun... and the primary bridge cable it was pointed at. Without a sound, it turned away from the agent and continued moving down the bridge towards Jill and Carlos on the platform. Either it had called HUNK's bluff, or it was prepared to risk standing on a collapsing bridge if it meant reaching Jill and killing her. Accomplishing its mission. Deciding HUNK was not worth the effort after all. Jill continued to encourage it loudly towards them, beckoning it with her gun, shooting it in the chest several times, doing everything she could to make it angrier. Cursing at its face. She was so caught up in enraging it... that she nearly missed what HUNK was doing behind it. She caught a quick glimpse of it out of the corner of her gaze... and her eyes flickered quickly over the Nemesis's shoulder. The agent had slung the shotgun back over his shoulder, and reached into one of the pouches on his full body armor suit. From within, he drew a... bottle, of all things. A bottle of dark liquid, with a cloth fastened around the lid. Her eyes narrowed upon it as he drew the Bar Black Jack lighter she'd given him, sparking it and pressing the flame to the makeshift fuse... she remembered Grill 13, where he'd made it, and how he'd utilized the first one. Alarm slamming through her senses, heart racing as she understood. Shouting at him again through the night.
"HUNK! Stop! No! You don't have to do this! I can kill it myself! I can save you!"
"It's ok, Jill. I believe you. You could have saved Sherry too. Would have. If not for me."
The U.S.S. Agent calmly admitted, brushed aside her protests, settling on his course of action as the cloth went up. Raising the flaming bottle back behind his shoulder and tucking away the lighter, he threw it forward with all his might. A muffled grunt of exertion emerging his mask as he released it. It slammed into the back of the Nemesis's massive, leathery head, shattering and covering a great deal of the Tyrant's upper body in alcohol. It didn't even flinch from the impact. At least right up until the point when the flame caught on, and began travelling with the spreading liquid. The Nemesis roared loudly into the night as it caught up, covered in fire, and as it reached the end of the bridge, so close to Carlos and Jill, instead it turned right back around and began to march back towards HUNK, seeing nothing and nobody else. It stopped thinking in that instant. Just as the agent had intended. Reprioritizing its target, soaked, snake-like tendrils flailing around its form, grunting like an animal.
"Get her out of here, Corporal. Keep her safe."
HUNK requested calmly... no longer an icy order or a demand. He spoke plainly to the Corporal for perhaps the first time... as an ordinary man might to another, asking for something. He rose the shotgun to his shoulder again, and aimed it at the burning, advancing, roaring Tyrant. The smoke billowed off it and the flames danced in the now glowing redness of his mask's lenses. The incensed monster, tendrils and all, had turned around on the spot, back to him, its focus on the agent assured. But even then, she knew his eyes were not on the Nemesis... but on her.
"Keep each other safe. More of the enemy awaits ahead."
"Don't you leave me too! Not like this!", Jill shouted at him powerlessly, feeling every bit of dread twisting into knots. "Please! HUNK! Don't do this!"
"Too late. It was my call to make. My responsibility. Its not your fault."
"It is! We were supposed to leave together! All of us! We had a deal! Promised each other! I am not getting on that chopper without you!"
"We'll regroup on the other side. I promise that too. Now move out, Jill. For me."
At last, his red lenses moved away from her, and his helmeted head turned to the overwhelming threat approaching him. The thing that was supposed to be her fate... that he was willing to take upon himself as his own, as Captain Mikhail had. Without fear or regret. He fired the third shell into the center mass of the Nemesis, pausing it for a second mid step. But not enough to stagger it now that it was angry, and bearing down on him. HUNK fired the fourth shot higher, striking the top of its head... to only a little more success, the blood flowing once more down its ruin of a face. Roaring again, it began to charge, breaking into a thunderous run that echoed through the ravine with its shouts. HUNK raised the shotgun for the final time, but didn't aim it in the direction of the thoroughly enraged Nemesis... rather, to the bridge cable to his left again. This time, it was too angry to think... or more likely as the fires burned it, too angry to care. Jill opened fire on it from the cement platform, and the roar of Carlos's rifle joined in, their combined rounds slamming into its back and the tendrils there. But no matter how many rounds it seemed they put into it, it would not turn back around. It had made up its mind, and target, and the stream of bullets meant nothing to it.
As it turned out, HUNK had not been bluffing the Nemesis. As the squirming tendrils rushed towards him and wrapped around his armored mid section, and leg, he squeezed the trigger a fifth time, and promptly blew apart one of the two suspension cables holding the bridge in place. The cable and smaller linking one's gave way, splitting in two, and falling back against both sides of the ravine, still attached to the metal posts on each sides. Gravity prevailed. The entire bridge around them began to creak and moan, and bobbed back and forth precariously, tilting up slowly on one side. The Tyrant's massive legs buckling beneath it for the first time, losing the momentum of its charge and balance, staggering.
Bellowing with rage, the tendrils enveloping HUNK tightened, and began to raise him helplessly in the air like a rag doll, binding his limbs, including the one now holding the useless shotgun. HUNK slammed the stock against the side of the Tyrant's head repeatedly with all he had, to no avail beyond shattering some of its shark-like teeth. Jill screamed at it as she duel fired the pistols wildly, aiming for the back of its head, opening up more wounds that meant less than nothing to it, incapable of helping the agent. The smoking pistols emptied, and still she squeezed the triggers while Carlos rained rounds on its flaming figure at her side. By now the weakened bridge had proven a threat enough to break through even the Nemesis's rage. Its left arm, the claw there, had seized on to the second, remaining cable and was holding on for dear life, along with a number of its tendrils retreating and looping around the cable to brace it further. All the while, the other tendrils struggled to maintain its grip on the thrashing, kicking, bound agent. For all its rage towards HUNK... the Nemesis at last prioritized necessary actions again. The threat of the weakened, weakening bridge. Its writhing mass of tendrils promptly lifted and threw HUNK over the side of the ravine unceremoniously, into the Circular River below, then retracting and fastening around the final cable to keep itself from slipping over the side with him. The agent fell through the air, the shotgun flying from his hands, and disappeared from the view of the two survivors standing numbly on the platform.
In that instant she was silent and still as the grave, over the pounding of the rain, and the roars of the flaming, smoking Nemesis... then, eventually, it all hit her at once. What she had watched. What had become of him. The reality of it. All the air leaving her lungs. Her insides shriveling up. In her mind's eye she saw him struggling beneath the water, sinking below. Drowning, fighting against an enemy that couldn't be fought. And she began to scream the only name of his she knew, over and over, until she couldn't hear anything... until her throat hurt... and then she screamed some more. Receiving no response. The world seemed to slow itself, almost fade away from her, beyond her reach. Her hand shot out, uselessly, in the fallen agent's direction yards away... too far away to even see him, much less reach him. But in her mind's eye... over and over, she did see him, falling through the air, vanishing into the ravine. Crashing into the river below, the water pulling him down. Slowly, very slowly her unblinking eyes rose from the ravine, and back to the Nemesis, dangling upon the bridge. And rage as fresh and passionate as her sorrow pooled and spilled from her lips next, burning her within, burning her eyes and throat with grief.
"I'm going to kill you! Do you hear me you son of a bitch?! I'm going to rip and tear you into pieces! Tear your heart out of your chest! I will not stop until you are fucking dead! DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
"JILL! YOU NEED TO SNAP OUT OF IT!"
Carlos was shouting in her ear over her ragged screams, and a small part of herself returned from its reverie. She felt him wrap an arm around her waist like a vice grip, and felt helpless and weakened as he half dragged and half carried her along the concrete platform away from the bridge. But not away from the images. The devastation and shock, unreality of it all began to concentrate within, enveloping and consuming her. Her limbs felt as though they were lead weights. She looked back over her shoulder to the Corporal, seeing the twisting mixture of anger, shock and grief in every detail of his disheveled face as he bellowed at her.
"YOU HEARD THE MAN! WE ARE LEAVING!"
"S.T.A.R.S.!"
"Let go of me! We have to go back for him! He's still down there!"
Jill shouted back, struggling and straining against Carlos as he dragged her closer towards the sealed entrance doors. She tried to dig her heels into the cement... uselessly. They slipped on the surface. Time had suspended itself into a blur. He was stronger than her, especially taking her wounds, and the weight pressing down on her mind into account. He didn't understand. HUNK did not die. He survived everything. He had to. He had to. There was no other option. No alternative. He'd been with her from the start... the R.P.D... he would not leave her before the end. Not like this. They had shaken hands, made a deal. It wasn't over. It wasn't over until it was over. She had to kill the Nemesis... here and now... she had to destroy it... it needed to end. Somehow, it all needed to end. No more fleeing, no more running. No more people suffering for her. No more... dying for her.
"He's not dead! He is not dead! He can't die!"
"RIGHT NOW WE NEED TO ASSUME HE IS! WE HAVE TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! NOW! IT'S WHAT HE WANTED!"
As the Corporal reached the doors, her body went slack, as the exhaustion caught up with her... the pain of her wounds. Her arms holding the emptied pistols dropped down to her sides. She felt dizzy... felt like vomiting. Felt a thousand different pains and emotions, within and without, tearing her apart. Only the racing beat of her heart reminded her she was still alive, even as her will, and spirit, died in that instant. She stopped struggling against Carlos, as he slung his rifle and grasped the closest handle and pushed his weight against it. It creaked against his weight, but responded, having been left unlocked at some point, mercifully. In a moment he had pulled her inside the Dead Factory's entrance, into the start of its first metal corridor. Muffled, familiar, echoing moans filled the hallway at once as they burst through... the shuffling of dead feet in the distance. Carlos retracted his arm from her, spinning around down the corridor and raising his rifle in both hands. The roar of the M4 fired past and around her, selecting the closest targets and dropping them, painting the walls and floor with blood and brains, buying some time as he prepared to slam the heavy door shut. He was shouting at her again as though from down a hallway... shouting for her to pick up her weapons and fire. To fight. That he needed her help.
"S.T.A.R.S.!"
The last thing Jill saw before the doors closed, was the Nemesis, standing in the middle of the damaged, swaying bridge, still on fire. Its tentacles held on desperately to the sole remaining bridge cable, which groaned under its colossal weight. It had slowly begun to inch along the tops of the tilted planks... moving towards them and towards the back entrance of the disposal plant. It walked steadily... and with purpose, staring at her with rage she felt pouring off it like the smoke from the fire. Roaring its single damning word after her... pursuing her, once more. When it had taken no more than a few steps along the dangling planks... something roared back at it from the darkness. The entirety of the bridge exploded beneath and around it in a fireball. The momentum of the blast severed the remaining primary cable of the and blasted apart many of the wooden planks that comprised it. The propulsion sent even the titanic, flaming Nemesis screaming through the air helplessly, flying, assortment of tendrils flailing uselessly like obscene undeveloped wings. Gravity took its natural course, as it had with HUNK. Its bulk tumbled down over the side of the ravine, disappearing out of sight with the rest of the collapsing bridge and chains into the river far below. The steel door slammed shut in front of her, and Carlos began to bar the door with nearby heavy pieces of rebar, cutting off her view entirely.
But not her realization.
"HUNK..."
Jill's lips parted unconsciously, and his codename escaped them again, this time no more than a murmur. Understanding in a split second what had happened, what it meant, and what she had to do. What he would want her to do, instead of dwelling, coming up with a plan. There would be time for that later. Necessity took priority. Survival. She snapped out of her reverie, and returned to the chaotic world unfolding around her. Reloading the pistols rapidly, working through her shock, she turned on the spot and rose them again. Aiming down the sights, she took on the next approaching, rotting threat that greeted them inside the plant. Standing in front of and covering the Corporal as he barricaded the doors. No... it wasn't just realization she felt growing, even through her terror, sorrow and rage. Her gunfire overtook the corridor, and more bodies of the shambling infected of the facility began to drop. It was hope, forming. Knowing there was still some left. Gradually knitting itself back together, like the Tyrant's flesh. With every squeeze of the triggers.
Her weapon, and his, clearing their way to safety. To freedom. To escape.
The U.S.S. Agent had been in free fall like this before. Made night time HALO insertions on to battlefields... behind enemy lines. Watching the land rushing up closer below from behind a pair of night vision goggles. He'd even been extracted from missions with a Fulton surface-to-air-recovery-system. Skyhooks. War had been with him then and many of those times. He saw her face again... that unrivaled smile as he made his jumps of or returned to the C-130. Every time he made her proud. This was the first time he'd dropped this far without a parachute or rappel line, though. In the midst of the weightless free fall... it seemed it might never end, the world fell with him, while it moved around him.
And then he was striking the water. It rushed up in an instant and rose over the top of his helmeted head. A large amount of air bubbles escaped in a stream from his mask, swirling around him, and he watched them travel away and vanish beyond the surface growing further from his reach. The U.S.S. Agent sank slowly, helplessly to the bottom of the Circular River. For a moment that seemed an infinity, he thought it was all over... that he was slipping away into a dizzying black out. He nearly panicked, suspended in the darkness... but then a part of him, it occurred to him, wanted to give up. To let go, and allow himself to be swept away. To vanish, and never be seen again by the world above. To leave all that trouble behind. It was a part of himself he rarely allowed himself to feel... and here and now, at the bottom of the river, he knew why. He was a boy again, down here cocooned in the darkness where nobody could see him, or shape his life. Issue him the next command... and demand. He belonged only to himself.
He was dwarfed by the water's eternity. Rendered untrained and unskilled. Yet somehow, that boy he'd been felt at home, suspended in a cold void. It was a familiar sensation. And welcome, compared to other things he'd suffered. He was tired. So tired. Tired of fighting and struggling, day by day. Struggling to find a reason to keep going. He wanted the pain to go away. He didn't want to go back up... to wake up... to feel the needles poking and prodding him again. The constant examinations. All the orders. The fighting. The training. It had been that way as a boy... and it was still that way now, as a man. Or as whatever they had shaped him into. He was not a man... not as the world knew them. He was a living machine of instinct, now. Body and mind existing only to serve those who owned him. It was only worse now... the tracking devices they had put on and probably inside him. All the data of his missions being scribbled on a thousand note pads. All the doctors. The men and women in suits. The assassinations, the torturing, the kidnappings they put him up to. The other outbreaks they had caused and commanded him to contain. The worst horrors of every mission, every war he'd fought in. And the Umbrella Satellite Network, watching him periodically throughout... during his missions. Never knowing when it was watching him. When Spencer was watching him. Or any of the others.
The morality of his actions escaped him, above on the surface... or he had been taught to escape from it. Beaten steadily out of him with each mission, long ago. Taught to consider nothing but the mission, to obey, while his subordinates who trusted him died around him. While blood spilled around him and while he spilled blood. While he left them for dead, begging him to come back. And him coldly rejecting them, putting them aside once their use had been expended to Umbrella. Expendable human resources... that's all any of them were. That was all he was. Just a favored resource.
But down here in the darkness... away from everything, he remembered it all... he felt it all.
Down here... he regretted.
Beneath the river, he was freed from his duty... from etiquette... from illusions. From delusions. From the control of others. If he went back to the surface... it would just be to more of that. The leash tightening around his neck, living one day after another for a company that would continue to torment him. Make demands of him that would break ordinary men. The leash exchanging hands like money did... exchanging owners. Serving their whims and interests. Great and small. Petty or idealistic. Mundane or otherwise... he did it all for them. Right now, it was a strange young French noblewoman, virologist and Umbrella Director. Comtesse Christine Henri. As of now, it was primarily her who held the leash, and she was in no hurry to give it to anyone else. She was in Spencer's good graces, third in command of Umbrella, his Inner Circle, as her father had been. As far as he knew, she was more a granddaughter to Spencer than his actual granddaughters... and had requested him personally to serve her after Ashford... nearly two years ago. Had been maneuvering to get him much earlier than that, she had told him.
She was... kind to him, admittedly. Kinder than most of the others had been. He saw her flowing blonde hair again... her large blue eyes watching him wake up... as they had been from the moment he'd arrived at the Paris Facility. No... much longer ago than that... earlier, the other times their paths had crossed over the years. Since that first night they had been introduced at that damned party, the night he had been fully inducted into the global criminal family that was Umbrella. And during his time at her family's estate. She didn't lie or pretend to be anything than what she was. At least... not behind closed doors, with him. To everyone else she put on a mask. But the next master or mistress would come along inevitably... and he'd have to be traded off again for whatever mission he was required to perform. There was a long list of names that wanted him under their employ... there was never a shortage. He was property to be rented out by different sections of Umbrella and sent the live in various places around the world. Now he lived in a castle in France... and in an underground facility not unlike the NEST. Loire Village... connected to the Paris Facility by underground transit. His barracks quarters at the Paris Facility... his barracks quarters at the Loire Village facility... and at the Henri Estate above it. He lived in all three locations, when not away on a mission.
That's how it had been... since War had chosen him... loved him... or claimed to... had trained him, delivered him into Umbrella's grasping hands and eventually abandoned him there. Leaving him with no answers for the questions he had asked her, only the skills to carry out his missions. Always there had been questions, but never true answers... until he'd learned to stop asking them. And not to expect them. She had told him only what she had wished to... her reasons unfathomable... and he remembered everything she had said. Looking up from beneath the river, he saw light emanating from somewhere above. A red light, from the lenses of his mask... but light nonetheless, streaming down like a welcome beacon. And he saw faces... faces that still needed him up there. The faces... and his duty returned to him. His promises. He'd come this far in life, without giving up. Endured what the world and Umbrella forced him into... and he survived. If nothing else, after everything he had lost... everyone he had killed, he survived.
He remembered what she told him once, not long before she left him. He was Death. And Death bore the ultimate burden. Responsibility. It alone could not die. It had to go on. Had to be what it was, for a world that needed it. A world that would misunderstand, fear and hate it. Misunderstand its meaning. Its importance. What made it special. He hadn't understood, then, what she had meant. Her lips had touched his after and the words had faded away, along with any thought but of her. He understood now, in her absence. Holding the weight she no longer helped him support.
He knew what would happen, whether or not he drowned... drowned as he had drowned Marcus. The poetic justice was not lost on him there... he would deserve it no less than Marcus had. His body would either be incinerated by the thermobaric strike or recovered by the U.S. Army, and he'd either end up in a morgue, or a military jail. But far more troubling than either of those things, was the fact they might furnish his body and recover the G-Virus sample off him. His mission would be a failure. His purpose all for nothing. The only thing he was good at. Sometimes he thought that might be for the best... failing at last. So it could all just stop. But it would be a betrayal... of all she had trained him for. Everything she'd made him. What she had wanted him to be. Regardless of her abandonment.
He looked past the image of his floating corpse, and the image of himself locked up in chains. Looked to other, more familiar ones. He saw a pilot... Umbrella's best, a man who had been one of U.S.S.'s top agents. A man he could silently call his friend, not to his face, but down here in the solitude of his thoughts. His best friend. He saw a doctor... a young woman and savant in her fields with a curtain of long, light blonde hair... she was kind to him, and gentle, concerned, where the others weren't. Doctor Carla Radames... it was hard to believe how well she had adapted to her part time advisory capacity with Umbrella Security Service. The change in environment. She had come to him a meek, bespectacled, introverted girl... but over time, she seemed another woman now. At least in the solitude of her lab, their time there together, away from all the stares. Perhaps that was why they got along better than he had his previous doctors. She understood his withdrawal from most others. His wish to limit his social company. He'd never asked why she had requested the position, instead of in some lab facility underground. DEN or even NEST would have been better suited for her when she first arrived. But he'd changed his mind. And was glad she hadn't gone to either. Especially NEST.
There were many questions he'd never asked... her or anyone else. Things not done. Left to do.
He saw a silver haired old man's kindly, if exasperated face... heard QUARTERMASTER's posh accent describing his gadgets and weapons. Lecturing him about their maintenance and improper uses. A genius in his field... with tech, weapons and gadgets that had saved HUNK's life often. Who he wouldn't be able to do his job as well without. He even saw the Comtesse again... his new benefactor... he believed her feelings toward him were genuine. Or as genuine as they could be in their line of work. Theirs was a complicated relationship, even as it seemed simple. But... healthy relationship or not, she was as genuine to him as she could be. More than to anyone else. He saw SHIPMASTER, puffing away on his cigars and typing his reports at his cabin's desk. Always greeting and dismissing HUNK by his real name. Apart from him... only War and Spencer had called him by it consistently... even with a number of others in the company knowing it. Most, it seemed, would never dream of calling him by it, especially to his face... intimidated by him... his legend... as SHIPMASTER was not. The Captain of the Leviathan was impressed by his legend, but not awed by it. Respecting the results of his missions, not the propaganda and mutating rumors surrounding them... the exaggerations. Speaking to him like another agent... not one people had seen fit to elevate because of his mentor and missions. His ability to survive against the odds.
And he saw two new faces etched into his thoughts as well... now. Once strangers... now something else altogether. Something much more complicated. Troubling. A beautiful young brunette woman... injured but determined and strong, just and wise for her youth, and facing an unknown future, walking the steel corridors of the Dead Factory. And he saw with her a brave young Corporal he had manipulated, lied to and threatened into his service... a young man who he had come to respect.
They were being pursued by a living shadow, a specter of fate... a Nemesis, that was incapable of giving up. Inescapable. Its tendrils seeking them out. And he saw a silver haired Russian's cold, empty eyes again and pointed smile... covered in explosives, waiting for them all somewhere above, as he had vowed. Preparing God knew what traps for the survivors to walk into. He saw Colonel Vladimir striding the deck of the Leviathan victoriously, having salvaged U.M.F.-013... and he saw the Sixth Laboratory, busily creating another monster in their lab to replace the Nemesis... creating more of them, celebrating their successes... getting away with Nemesis. All of them... accomplishing or getting away with what they had done... if he died here and now, at the bottom of some river in a doomed city. Seeing all their self satisfied, monstrous faces... and the looming fates that might befall the two inside the Dead Factory, bereft of his help, was more than enough. His duty was not yet discharged. Not to Umbrella... and not his promises to them. The ones that had made the years with Umbrella bearable... and now the two that had made him question himself. His purpose. And had made him start to consider... perhaps there was another for him out there. Something more. Somewhere. Someday. Just as someday, he might finally get to die. Find a good way to die.
But that day was not today. This way was not good enough. So he made another choice.
His legs came to life and reacted instinctively, and then his arms copied them, as he kicked and swam back up towards the surface, fighting against the current. Fighting against the dead weight of his own armor. The equipment that had been designed to help protect him, and had gotten him this far now worked against him. He had been trained to hold his breath for some time, and how to swim powerfully... the mask bought him more time to breath as well... but all that would be for nothing, if the current swept him away. If mother nature had its way. Little by little, he fought on, kicking his legs below, arms moving firmly in front of himself. He swam up towards the red light, leaving the cold, weightless darkness... and the boy he had been... behind, for the moment.
It was all gone again the moment HUNK burst up to the surface, gasping for breath that was not coming easily. He reached for the bank of the river, gloves seizing on to the rocky outcropping closest to him and latching his arms to it. Gripping it for dear life.
The force of the current swept his legs up from under him. Gravity returned, including the straining of his muscles, and he began to pull himself along and up on to the rocky shore. The pain and exhaustion returning, even with his adrenaline going. Around him the rain continued to fall heavily, the sound of it splashing on the water's surface surrounding him again. His soaked body gradually, inch by inch left the water, and at a certain point his boots touched rock as well, and he dug them in. Exerting all his effort, he climbed on to the shore, on to a massive, sprawling rock, and collapsed on to it. He felt himself coughing and choking... having been entirely submerged, enough water had seeped into his mask's nozzles, plugging his nose and mouth. He was peering through the water that had filled his mask, drowning inside of it. He removed his battle scarred helmet at once, setting it aside, and his hands quickly dealt with the straps of his mask.
Sliding off the gas mask, the world of red vanished and he coughed and retched up river water, as it streamed freely from the inside of the mask. He dropped the mask into his helmet, kneeling down on the rocky shore, wiping his eyes and mouth, trying to fight the coughing fit. His lungs seared and burned, getting reacquainted to the air. He'd barely managed to recover, when he heard the shouts and screams again... and an echoing roar from somewhere even higher above. He turned on the spot... to find the suspension bridge still swaying over the ravine, occupied now solely by the roaring, burning Tyrant above, its plethora of tendrils looping around anything it could hold on to. A Tyrant that the company... no, the Sixth Laboratory... had designated 'Nemesis'.
The bridge was badly damaged from one of its two primary cables giving way... swaying back and forth. Giving way, he remembered as it all came back, to a blast of his shotgun. He reached instinctively for it on his back... and his fingers grasped air. He found the spot on his back quite empty of the weapon that had served him well, since NEST. His eyes swept the river... and he knew it was long gone. A hand went to the combat knife that remained fastened to his body armor... but it was worthless in his situation. Then, he reached for his shoulder... relieved to find he had secured the strap there properly. Unslinging his modified submachine gun, now his only primary weapon, he brought it to bear. He knelt down on one metal knee pad that slipped and scraped along the stone, producing dancing sparks. He shifted carefully in the direction of the bridge, and peered up through the rainy air.
He slid the under-barrel forward on pure impulse, finding it empty of grenade shells... he'd used the second shell already, back in the cemetery, upon the Grave Digger. As he had used the first on the same Tyrant dangling helplessly from the suspension bridge, when it had tried breaching the chapel. His fingers plucked the third and final high explosive napalm shell from its pouch, and he slid the red tipped end into the barrel with an audible pop. Then, he pulled the under barrel back down, priming the grenade into place. He rose the submachine gun to his shoulder, and aimed the laser sight up in the air... along with the rest of the weapon. He got back to work, doing what he did best. The mission. Always the mission, by all means at his disposal. The removal of threats. The enemy. His mind calculated how many meters the bridge was above and ahead of him... compared to both the effective and maximum ranges of an M203 Grenade Launcher. He took note of the wind conditions, brought with the storm, and he peered through the scope's infrared magnification lens to confirm calculations. He watched the Tyrant burning through the scope, staring in the direction of the plant's entrance, the cement platform... shark teeth gnashing together. Undoubtedly, it saw more than HUNK could from its position. It saw the two survivors he'd left stranded up there. Its melted boots had begun to edge over the weakened, swaying planks, as its tendrils and claw fastened tighter to the final chain. The damage to the bridge had slowed down its progress... but it was tireless, and undeterred. Relentless.
It would reach them, break through the plant's doors and pursue them... and soon.
Unless he did something about it.
The moment he was assured of his calculations, he squeezed down on the secondary trigger without hesitation, and there was a low thump of the grenade launcher as the round shot out, travelling in a wide arc. Covering yards within seconds. Climbing ever higher. For a second, he considered the minimal possibility it could miss. Only for a second. The moment the grenade impacted the bridge exploded, and the blast overtook the Nemesis. He'd fought Tyrants... infected people, irregular mutations and B.O.W.'s... learned their weaknesses even before Raccoon City, exploited them, and destroyed them. In West Africa, in a rusted plant little different than the one above, he'd lent his expertise putting down an outbreak. But he'd never fought anything like the Nemesis. Perhaps it had no weaknesses. It had survived everything else they'd thrown at it. Maybe... just maybe, the Sixth Laboratory had actually performed the impossible, what they'd set out to do. And finally created something born of science that was invincible, immortal... and could render U.S.S. Agents like himself all but obsolete. A world where their own product could become their only necessary employees, simplifying matters for them a great deal. Cutting out the unpredictability of human beings. It was the dream of Umbrella's scientists... a dream of Colonel Vladimir's and likely Lord Spencer's... Marcus's as well... perhaps finally realized.
Or perhaps not.
As the Nemesis flew through the air aflame, screaming in futile rage, limbs and tentacles flailing... HUNK didn't see an invincible juggernaut. Colonel Vladimir and Doctor Frankl's perfect being. Just as he hadn't watching it hold on to the cable for dear life. He saw something mortal, and flawed... draped in the illusion of unstoppable power. The power of the T-Virus. Given more power than it could effectively grasp. Just like the Tyrant's own genetic template. The weakness of the father passed to his sons. He wished the scientists who had designed it all stood on the rocky shore with him, watching for themselves what was becoming of their perfect being. The way it was losing control, its mutations... the way that for all its strength, it could not fight the laws of physics. Right before summarily executing them all, of course, for endangering his mission with their ambition. Saving Frankl for last, so he could watch his friends and colleagues suffering first. Watch the consequences of his crimes playing out. Waiting for his turn, pleading for his life, pleading excuses and lies. Living his final moments in fear of what was to come. The inevitable. Living in the fear his creation had put into Jill.
The Nemesis vanished somewhere off in the darkness into the river, far away... the rapids were worse down there, and probably swept it quite a ways down river. If they were lucky, it would travel beyond the woods... and the military forces concentrated at one of the Quarantine Zones would catch sight of it. If they did, they would hose it down with flamethrowers, rocket launchers, 50. Caliber fire and tank shells. Perhaps a gunship or two for good measure. Probably succeeding where they hadn't.
If they were lucky.
In that fortunate scenario, the U.S. Government would want to get its hands on the leftovers... but if it came down to an engagement, the only thing Colonel Richard Roy Trautmann would take back for them of it would be ashes. If his reputation was anything to go by. In a way, perhaps Sixth Laboratory... Frankl... had made the Nemesis Parasite too well. It had that all too human emotion inside it, apart from its intelligence. It bore rage. In the course of their many encounters with it... that factor alone had given them to means to continue eluding it. They could use its own programming, its fixation on Valentine, against it. By no means was it perfect... a weakness did not negate a strength... but it was something, an unintended error on the part of the European Division. Before, the error had been a lack of intelligence... he'd told them that on Rockfort Island, only a couple years prior... and they'd sought to remedy it. They had... giving it intelligence... and in so doing opening it up to an array of strengths... but also weaknesses that could be exploited.
Emotion. Simple human emotion. A fatal flaw in any weapon.
He'd looked into its eye... and he'd seen an intelligent being in the Nemesis Parasite, lurking behind that eye. Puppeteering the T-103 host surrounding it. Too intelligent for its own good to the company. Following its programming, while perhaps aware it was following its programming. Was it really angry at him and Valentine for fighting and eluding it? Or was it more angry knowing a chain had been wrapped around its neck from the start, by masters prepared to discard it and try again? HUNK did not doubt they intended all along to leave it in Raccoon City to be obliterated with everything else once its mission was complete. Cover up its existence with the rest of the evidence. It would not be extracted, success or failure. Regardless... it had intelligence... but the more they had damaged it, the more they'd reduced it to a tantrum having child's level of control over itself. Free of its power limiter, with the mutations, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle now. Recapturing it. It was beyond Umbrella's control, thus could only be destroyed. He did not fear it as Valentine rightly did... hadn't from the start... but he had respected it for what it was. Its capability, resilience and merciless nature. It was a weapon... and had to be treated as such. Now he had little more than contempt and pity for it. Another monster Umbrella had made... another enemy. An abandoned child of the Colonel's, created and sacrificed to satisfy his own ego.
HUNK wearily lowered his head away from the destroyed, burning remnants of the bridge, as the cables and chains up there clanked and rattled in the breeze, against the respective rocky outcroppings on either side of the ravine they resided upon. He drew in a low, pained breath... and knew it hadn't been just the water hurting him. Closing his eyes where he knelt, he felt the rain simply washing through his hair and over his pained, bruised face. Moreover... he again felt its tentacles wrapping around his midsection, his limbs. It was entirely possible it had broken a rib or two. Doctor Radames would have a lecture ready and waiting for him, when he got back to the Leviathan. To say nothing of all the other wounds. She would have her work cut out for her. It had been mere seconds from ripping him to pieces... he knew that, in spite of surviving it. It could have done it too... but he had out maneuvered it, rendering even its inhuman strength useless. As he had manage to fight and elude the abomination Birkin had become. And fortune had favored him. Luck had as much to do with anything as skill. Nikolai had been right. He'd always been lucky when it came to killing people and creatures. Or at least surviving them. He doubted men with skills like his could survive the things he had, ordinarily. He wasn't a superstitious or romantic man... but sometimes at times like these, he wondered about the title she had given him. Wondered about the legend that had formed around him.
Breathing slowly and deeply, he tilted the submachine gun to the side, and slung it back over his shoulder. Opening his eyes, they lowered down to a particular pouch on his armor, and reaching down he opened it enough just to be sure. The familiar ominous purple glow of light that seeped out when it was open should have filled him with relief, that the sample remained within, his lifeline... his mission... had not come loose and fell into the river. The sight of the bioweapon didn't make him feel anything, now. Beyond the burden of it. Jaw tightening, he closed the pouch back up securely, and his eyes rose again, followed the source of the closest, most audible noise, off to his right. Blinking slowly from the light, he found himself on the shore next to the plant's drainage canal. The very deepest level of the facility. The purified water flowed steadily out, pouring into the river in a current. Recovering his mask and helmet in each hand, HUNK rose back up to his feet, and moved over the rocky path towards the entrance. Reaching it, he pressed a glove to the cement beneath the flowing water as it swept against his armored bodysuit, by now entirely dark and sleek. The agent rose a leg and stepped up off the stone and on to the cement, pulling himself up until he stood beneath the sole light illuminating the entrance of the tunnel. Standing in the middle of it, the water up to his waist... but not flowing with enough speed to make it especially difficult to remain standing. He peered down the corridor of the tunnel, to find a distant set up bars, dividing the drainage canal's water tunnel from the rest of the facility. There was a metal ladder attached to it that led up to the top of the bars, enough room to climb over and into the plant's canal itself.
Looking down over his uniform... it only occurred to him then, in the light, that a couple small parts of the armored vest and material on his faded yellow combat harness, plate carrier and had been visibly shredded. He didn't know if it had been the Nemesis, the fall, or scraping along the rocks that had done it... or all three. For all he knew, he'd had it since the incident in the graveyard. Nevertheless, a small bit of the under suit over his chest and collar were exposed. The flesh at least hadn't been torn where either breach in his armor lie... there was no blood or stinging there, nor any concern if he'd been infected. If it had punctured him with its tendrils, he noted, remembering Valentine's condition in the wake of the battle in the clock tower's courtyard... he'd still be floating in the river, bleeding out. As it stood... he was as well as he was likely to be... surviving something he should not have. The pants section of his undersuit was worn and starting to fray... but had not been torn, yet. It had held together for some time, for the duration of the brutal mission. In the here and now, however, all the damage had begun to add up and take its toll on the inflammable material and body armor woven to it. His armor and undersuit alike were tattered and damaged. He'd need a replacement, from the Leviathan's armorer, at some point. Hopefully the old man was already working on some upgrades for the undersuit and armor... or had them in mind at least. He was going to hear an earful either way. Probably wouldn't be the best time to inquire again about a Battle Suit.
Raising his helmet and mask, he drained all the water out of each, tucking the battle scarred helmet under his arm while he examined the mask. At some point the crack in the reflective red left lens had worsened... deepened adn spread... weakened... but remained intact, the water not seeping through it on both sides, at least. At last he rose and reattached it. The wet lenses slipped back over his eyes... and the world of colors was filtered together with one of faint red. Fastening it securely in place, adjusting the straps, he drew in a low, comfortable, muffled breath. His hands retracted back and scooped up the dented, heavily scratched black metal helmet, lowering it down until it fit with snugness over his skull. In the same fluent motion, he unslung the submachine gun... and without looking backwards again, he began to slosh forward, wading against the steady current. Moving down towards the bars and ladder. Each step sent pain through his midsection... there was pain all over... a dull ache... but focusing intently, he pushed himself through it. Staving off the exhaustion. He held the submachine gun in both hands, the red laser sight sweeping the darkness for any hostiles... and with a flick of his fingers, he activated the dark swivel headed metal flashlight, clinging stubbornly to the front of his plate carrier. Defying the damage that had been done to his body armor, and every fall he'd endured. Illuminating the path ahead.
There were some sparse lights already, further down the tunnel, along the walls... but they were dim and weakened, flickering now and again. The darkness was replaced by a powerful light of his own. He could detect no signs of infected or mutations... at least from where he stood as he advanced forward. The rest of the plant, he was certain, was another matter entirely. He remembered what NIGHTHAWK had told him.. it had been a fully staffed plant, with security, scientific and maintenance workers. Incineration Disposal Plant P-12A had been designed as a testing ground for newly developed gases and medicines capable of more efficiently deposing of experimental bodies and purging them of the T-Virus. Among other uses. Its facility was the primary dumping ground for Birkin's scientific failures, and any other failed experiments or B.O.W. development being undertaken in the plant by its staff. All contact with the staff had been cut off from the place since the summer, in the weeks leading up to the main outbreak. The subterranean transit system between NEST and the Dead Factory cut off as well.
Birkin had quietly abandoned it as a convenient loss, in the hopes that it would not be connected to his work in the NEST beneath Raccoon City. It had been thought abandoned for months, and had been left alone by Umbrella, prioritizing other assets... until days before, that had changed. After discovering Birkin's plan to sell the G-Virus to the U.S. Government, Umbrella had deliberately leaked the coordinates of the Dead Factory. It had worked. In short order, the U.S. Government had dispatched one of their best Delta Force Units to investigate it, believing their sources that Birkin had set up his lab there. Not realizing they had been sent the wrong coordinates. Colonel Vladimir, scheming bastard that he was, had led them right into a trap with his Tyrant drop. Like everything else the company was doing in Raccoon City now, it had all been to buy themselves some time. More time, to salvage what they could. Particularly the sample he carried. All he was worth to them, at the end of the day. Around him, each of his movements echoed through the tunnel... as did the steady flowing of water as it landed in the river behind him. To say nothing of the steady rainfall, which was growing dimmer the further down the water tunnel he traveled. He moved carefully and deliberately, scanning the high ceiling above, and all sides... detecting nothing stirring in the water, beyond its flowing current.
Mutated, writhing leeches came back to his mind, watching the flow of the water. The way they'd fastened themselves to whichever poor bastard that they had, directing him like a semi living puppet. The hive, and its sliding worm offspring came to mind as well. One of his fallen agent's chest's separating, and revealing a hundred of them, blood soaked and uncoiling. Mewling. Marcus's children. But these sewers were not the the ones he'd been in. Everything pouring out here was filtered and purified extensively. The last thing Umbrella had wanted when the facility was built was a contamination leak spilling into the river, and it being traced back here. They were a careful company... but for all their precautions, they'd overextended themselves, and had not been able to quell the outbreak. Finally, he reached the ladder and back gate, taking the time to raise a hand and press it against the metal bars, putting some effort on it. It remained stuck fast... having been well installed. For all the rust in the place, it was merely on the surface. The equipment and inner layers of the facility were built to last. He looked between the gaps in the bars to the area ahead... the light beyond it was a little better, allowing him a glimpse of the subsequent area. The water continued on down to the end of a tunnel... and there were a number of thick, rusting steel pipes running along the walls and weaving around the ceiling. Now and again, steam emanated from a few of them... undoubtedly connected to the primary treatment room, wherever it was in the facility.
From what he could glimpse, there were two paths leading to other sections of the facility. Each were metal platforms that continued out of his sight from his current position, and were situated just out of reach of the canal's waist deep water. The closest was just over on the opposite side of the bars and to his immediate right... and the second rested at the far end of the tunnel, on the left hand side. Bright red light shone from each, beckoning to him with the promise of different sections of the plant to be explored. Slinging the submachine gun over his shoulder, but keeping a gloved hand on the trigger, he let it hang from his waist. While his other settled on the closest metal rung of the ladder. This time, he did look back over his shoulder, to the illuminated mouth of the tunnel, aiming in the direction he had come. Ensuring he was not being trailed. He didn't get the sense he was... but no chances could be taken with the Nemesis. If it managed to track them again, and make it inside the facility... he didn't want to think about the potential damage it could do. If it had the sense and ability to reach the helicopter first, and destroy it.
Assuming of course Nikolai hadn't already found it.
In a perfect world, the Nemesis would cross paths with Nikolai, leaving them free to reach the helicopter with one or two less looming threats. But it wasn't a perfect world... instead they lived in a marred, grimy one. Against the possible odds stacked against them, it was a world where he had to make the most of what he had at his disposal. A world he'd been forced to ally himself with two unexpected individuals. In spite of everything... he was still alive. Valentine and Oliveira were still alive, up there, somewhere. Waiting for him. Or searching. But before he headed inside, he remembered another duty remaining... and reluctantly raising his hand to his mask, he saw it through.
"NIGHTHAWK... this is HUNK. I've reached the Dead Factory. Am on my way inside now."
"Reading you loud and clear. What the hell happened? I'm reading here that the suspension bridge was destroyed."
"Ambushed and separated by the Tyrant codenamed Nemesis. The others proceeded inside the facility above through the back doors. I'm taking the drainage canal. We'll rendezvous inside."
"Trying to tell me you just went bungee jumping without a cord?"
"Something like that."
"Should take up golf. Something a bit more mellow. But that just wouldn't be you, huh? You alright? I've been assuring Doctor Radames since you cleared out the graveyard, but she won't stop pestering me."
"Tell her I'm fine. Well as I can be. She'll have plenty to work on when I get back... but I'm managing."
"I'll pass it on. Think she's still a bit miffed about you snapping at her, but given the circumstances, I'm sure you'll get off the hook. Just give her a smoldering, intense look when you get back. Watch her forgive you."
"Yeah. Will update you further later... when there's something to report. Radio silence in the meantime. Need to focus inside the facility. No distractions."
"Copy that, HUNK. Be careful in there. No telling what danger awaits... how much of it."
"Story of my life."
"Give Nikolai hell, man. Don't hold back. Long overdue."
"Think of something special. Just for him."
"Good hunting. Hope you find the rat hiding in that maze."
"I will. Around here somewhere. Appreciated, NIGHTHAWK. Agent HUNK, over and out."
HUNK deactivated the radio, lowering his hand once more, releasing a low breath, glad to have peace and quiet on the radio again, that duty accomplished. Some time separate of his support team, now. Alone with his thoughts. Again he was stricken with pain, through his midsection... and a ringing in his ears. He forced it at bay, trying to breath calmly and clear his head. Gradually managing to do so. He looked up and out into the rain, the flowing Circular River and chains of the destroyed suspension bridge swaying in the breeze. Raccoon Park was finished. One final hurtle remained. Though more likely... a final hurtle with many more of them inside it. Jaw tightening, he was at last as ready as he would ever be. Turning back to the ladder, he settled his gloved hands on it and began to climb it, boots tapping on metal as he stepped out of the water and ascended over the gate barring his path. At last, after the long road to the Dead Factory... HUNK had entered it. The potential looming threats, the prospect of the Nemesis, Nikolai, the military unit and batch of five T-103 Tyrants remained at the front of his thoughts. Giving him focus. Clarity, through the pain and exhaustion. Purpose. In a way the G-Virus did not. Wherever Valentine and Oliveira were inside the facility, he intended to find them. Or die in the attempt.
Preferably before any of them beat him to it.
RIP Jill's Mine Thrower, RIP HUNK's Shotgun. In Memorial 1998-1998. Lest we forget. We hardly knew ye. Anyways, into the lion's den our heroes go. Stay tuned ;).
