Sheva and Chris had made it past the gunner, as well as a trio of Majini that had been outfitted with rocket launchers, which had sadly detonated after their wielders had died. They were now in an elevator, making their way up to a higher level. They didn't know where they were going, but they both agreed that Excella was likely to try to put as much distance between them as possible, vertically as well as horizontally. And they hadn't found anything more interesting than Excella's miniature lab below. Hence, they were heading abovedeck again.

Sheva, for one, was feeling good. She'd taken cocaine a handful of times in her life, always from the guerillas for special tasks, to keep her alert and moving fast – and once for recreational use after they had succeeded on a major mission. She hadn't felt comfortable taking it recreationally, but they'd been her family. She hadn't said no.

Now she had no qualms taking it. While their break for dinner earlier had been refreshing, their mission was now going on nearly forty-eight hours factoring in travel, they had been pushing hard almost the entire time, and they were both going on less than four hours of sleep for the time period. She did not consider a little pick-me-up out of order. Anyways, she'd thought it safe to say that a man like Irving would spare no expense in getting the good stuff, not the shady junk that dealers cut with God only knew what. And she'd been right. She was feeling just fine.

"How are you feeling?" she asked Chris as they started up.

He'd been wiping his brow a lot, and now began shuffling back and forth absentmindedly. "Fine. Actually, I can't feel any of my injuries, and I might have just woken up from a full night's sleep. How long does this stuff last?"

"Fifteen to thirty minutes, sometimes longer depending on your metabolism. The high shouldn't be lasting much longer, but so long as we keep moving when it drops off, the adrenaline should compensate for the crash. We'll be fine."

"You know an awful lot about cocaine," he said drily.

She popped her lips and began inspecting her nails. She had a hangnail, which would no doubt be very annoying if it got caught on anything. She cut it off carefully with the tip of her blade, putting the knife away as they reached the top and stepped out into the cool air. Chris didn't push the issue, which she appreciated. Perhaps she'd explain a bit more after all this was over. They could exchange tragic backstories.

The thought made her smile sadly. Wonder whose will take the cake?

As soon as the evening breeze hit her, she gagged slightly. Something nearby smelled like decomposition, and a lot of it.

They came across the source quickly enough. They were back in storage, but a large area had been left clear…and filled with a twenty-foot tall mound of human corpses. This probably wasn't a good omen, so they both drew their weapons and approached cautiously.

"What the hell happened here?" Chris asked tightly.

The lights were on out here, huge floodlights shining down from multiple directions, and they had been pointed at the pile. Each individual corpse stood out starkly, no side in shadow, and all were dark-skinned people. Locals, in civilian clothing.

Before she could speculate, they heard something approaching, and both turned, ready to deal with whatever had built this gruesome altar here. But when the figure emerged from behind the pile, staggering and gasping, they did not shoot.

It was Excella – and something was horribly wrong with her.

She was doubled over, clutching her stomach, and she paused, putting her hands on her knees as though she might otherwise pitch over. Pain was evident on her face, and in the short panting that they could hear even over the loud, low song of the wind whispering over the deck.

"Excella," Chris said, stepping up, gun out. "What's going on!?"

Sheva reacted more hesitantly, gun lowered, watching the woman closely. Something about those movements struck her as familiar. Had she seen this somewhere before?

Plaga infection? No, that was different…and how would she have been infected, at any rate? What could have happened to her…?

She raised her own gun after a brief delay, ready to fight. Whatever was wrong with Excella, it likely wasn't good news for them.

As she thought this, the woman spoke, the words eking out of her in a tight groan. "Why…when I've done so much…all for you…" She gasped and clutched her stomach again, stumbling a few steps closer.

Then, over the loudspeakers, calm and collected as a host gathering his guests for dinner, came Wesker's voice.

"Chris, how nice of you to join us."

Chris looked up and around, eyes coming to rest on a megaphone overlooking the clearing. "Wesker," he growled.

"Don't worry, your mission is at its end. Uroboros is on the eve of its appearance. Six billion cries of agony will birth a new balance."

Sheva shuddered. Chris continued looking around, searching for the real source of the voice, and as he did he yelled loudly, "Sorry, Wesker, but not on my watch!"

Silently, Sheva thought that was a little cliché, but she wasn't about to say anything. Given that Wesker was engaging in some villainous monologuing himself, she supposed Chris was entitled.

Then Excella interrupted, straightening up as much as she was able to in her pain and howling in clear agony, "Albert! You said we would change this world together! Why!?"

With this she dropped to her hands and knees, unable to remain upright any longer. The expression on her face went beyond physical pain. It was an expression Sheva recognized well: the expression that came when someone you loved, trusted, devoted yourself to, had betrayed you.

She had seen it on Hatsa the night she had turned him and the other guerillas in to the B.S.A.A.

This did not settle well with her, and she wondered what expression was on her own face as she turned to Chris and asked, "I thought they were partners?"

Chris looked only angry and disgusted. "Wesker doesn't give a damn about anybody but himself," he said, glancing at her before going back to scanning the area. Both of them spotted, at the same time, a narrow, tinted window far away at the top of a building across from them.

"Soon, even you will understand, Chris. One glimpse of my new world, and it will all make perfect sense."

"Show yourself!" he shouted up at the window.

"Unfortunately, it's too late for you. You will not live to see the dawn."

Excella was now heaving and thrashing on the ground. Snippets of words were gushing out of her, but she couldn't manage a coherent sentence. Whatever was happening to her, the process was nearing its culmination, Sheva thought. As if to confirm this, Wesker spoke again, this time to the woman writhing on the deck far beneath him.

"Sorry, Excella, but it appears Uroboros has rejected you…though you have been an excellent asset. I have one last task for you."

Excella went rigid. Her eyes became wide. And she looked up at the sky, as if to God, and cried out one last desperate petition.

"Albert!"

What followed was nightmarishly poetic. In the immediate wake of that name, viral growth burst from the woman's mouth. It made her throat bulge, her muscles twitch and spasm. Black, dripping tentacles pushed their way out, writhing grotesquely, as she was consumed from within by the monster created by the man who had forsaken her.

"What the hell?" Sheva exclaimed before she pieced what Wesker had said together. Uroboros has rejected you. They were about to be dealing with another one of those things like they'd faced in the lab. But this time, she probably wouldn't have explosive tanks and a flamethrower handy. This was going to be a retreat.

"Farewell, old friend."

The feed cut off. As it did, she saw something even worse happening. Those black tentacles had erupted from more places along Excella's body and were now snaking across the deck. They began wrapping around the few bodies that hadn't quite made it to the pile, drawing them in, and as they started to dive in and consume them, she realized that they were about to be dealing with a problem of titanic proportions. A single corpse had spawned a monster five times larger than a human being. There had to be a hundred corpses in the immediate vicinity alone.

A sudden stream of tentacles streaked towards the mountain of corpses, and she said, "Chris, we need to get out of here, now!"

He nodded sharply, and they began sprinting even as those tentacles thickened with all the biomatter they had accumulated. Before she and Chris even started into the crates surrounding the arena, the constructs had each become as thick as a tree trunk, and they twined together into limbs like ancient redwoods…and turned to seek a new meal.

They hit a corner and threw themselves to the side as a limb shot out at them, missing by feet and crashing against the wall. Chris's arm came up behind her, helping her to regain her momentum and shielding her from any worms that may have splattered them. They kept going, but the next limb came sweeping over them seconds later, and they were barely able to duck it. Then another dodged blow, and they were amongst the crates.

He didn't hesitate when they hit a block, merely lacing his fingers and vaulting her up when she saw what he was doing. She knelt down and helped him up, too, and he barely got his feet clear before the next punch came in. Again, his arm came up to shield her, and when she fell on the next set of stairs, the B.O.W.'s slamming blow rocking the whole ship, he stopped to help her up.

She had no breath nor time to spare to thank him, but she trusted that he knew as he pulled her to her feet and they took flight again. They needed to get out of that thing's sight, inside somewhere. She spotted a door, pointed it out, and they ran for it.

They got inside and paused to catch their breath once well away from the outside. But before half a minute had passed, black ooze began leaking into the hall – not from one place, but several.

"Persistent son of a bitch," he commented.

"So now what?" she asked as they began running again. "Do you think our weapons can hurt that thin—"

She broke off and jumped back. Chris ducked, dodging a thin black limb that snaked through the vents and burst down out of the ceiling trying to get to them. It had little control, though, and retracted when it sensed that it had missed. They moved along.

"I dunno, but we've gotta get the hell out of here before it destroys this place."

She thought about that, uncertain what Chris meant. They couldn't retreat from the tanker, not if it meant leaving Wesker to his plans. They could not trust this thing to halt them. For all they knew, Wesker had a way to control or deter it, to keep his own interests safe.

But as the black ooze gushed more strongly from the ceilings and walls, and as more black tentacles began bursting in and blocking paths, she realized they might not have a choice. It was tearing apart the ship to get to them. And when they passed a window, her eyes went wide. Fear and despair crept into her heart, if only a little.

"My God," she breathed. "Look how big it's become."

It was like a tree, wide at the base with two or three main branches coming out of the middle and numerous smaller ones branching off of those, but no tree in the world had ever grown this large, not even the Redwoods of California. Each limb must have been eight feet in diameter, the base far, far thicker. It was at least a hundred feet tall. Two huge branches were bent over, spreading across the part of the ship they were in. A few were tangled elsewhere, but most were on a mission.

They pulled themselves away from the window and made their way to a control room of some sort, dodging new attacks and circumnavigating blockages where black growths had crept in. The walls here were more solid, and no blackness had penetrated them. There were papers and files of all kinds scattered across the blinking, beeping consoles, but they had no time to rifle through them. They moved along, and the next room was the Bridge.

Again, too well-constructed to allow any of the Uroboros sludge to leak in. It was empty, and the complexity of the controls was daunting. Chris may have had some experience with it all, but she didn't, and at any rate it all looked to be on emergency lockdown anyways due to the current assault. They passed it by.

They spotted a whiteboard covered in notes and notices, and as he passed he scanned it all briefly, just in case there was some kind of emergency protocol for a situation like this. She did not expect to find anything, so she was dubious when he expressed interest in a paper titled Satellite Laser Shango Operating Manual.

Chris frowned and plucked the paper off the board. It was a short set of instructions for what looked like some kind of weapons system aboard the ship. Chris shifted the paper to allow them both to read it.

The Shango satellite laser is operated by using a rocket launcher-style targeting device (L.T.D.) that sends targeting coordinates to the satellite. The satellite is then capable of firing a highly concentrated laser to within centimeters of the target.

Operation Procedure:

Aim L.T.D. at the target to relay coordinates to the satellite.

Once the target has been ascertained, the coordinates will be relayed. During the transmission, the target ring will appear red on the targeting scope. Note: If the targeting sensor's AI perceives that the target is no longer being tracked by the targeting scope, transmission of the coordinates will be cancelled.

When LOCK ON appears in the scope, it means the transmission has been successfully sent. Pulling the trigger will now activate the laser.

Allow time for the firing cannon to recharge before attempting to fire again.

"A satellite laser," Chris said almost disbelievingly. "We just might have a chance."

"The targeting device is on the roof," she said, noticing a small sticky note that had been attached to the instructions explaining as much. "Come on, there's no time to lose."

They found their way up and out. The platform they emerged onto had high safety rails, which was comforting given how badly the ship was rocking. The wind, too, was vicious. They wasted no time scanning the platform for the targeting device.

They spotted it easily. Sadly, Uroboros also spotted them.

Chris ran for the L.T.D. – it looked too large and ungainly for her to wield accurately – and as he reached it, their enemy appeared. It rose up like a many-headed beast, a trio of thick, slowly twisting black trunks swiveling about to face them. Taller, thinner, more maneuverable tentacles slithered up into the air as well, and for one of these, its first order of business was to sweep across the platform and wipe out most of the safety rails.

She and Chris both leapt back to avoid the tangle of scrap metal as it was brushed away. It wasn't all bad, though. Out of the tips of two of the thick growths bulged those same orange pustules the last Uroboros had, so its weak points would not be a problem to hit. But the size, the strength…

"That thing is huge," she said as Chris inspected up the L.T.D. "Do you really think we can kill it?"

Chris did not answer, except by taking immediate aim. As three tentacles reared up slowly to crush him, he flipped a couple of switches on the device, braced it, looked through the scope, and aimed it straight at one of the orange pustules.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. BEEEEEP!

He pulled the trigger. Sheva looked up and saw a bolt of blinding light shoot down from the heavens like the fire that smote Sodom and Gomorrah. Unfortunately, 'blinding' was not a frivolous description – she did not see what followed, as the light darkened her sight her instantly.

She gasped and reeled away, and Chris's shout of victory soured into a swear as he ran over to her and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Sheva, this way! Move!"

She was already blinking sight back into her eyes, though she couldn't tell where he was dragging her. She felt him take her hand, place it on the rung of a ladder on the back wall, and say, "Climb!"

She did, fast, hoping she wasn't about to bash her head into anything. She didn't, and she managed to reach a second level to the roof in just a few seconds. By then she could see again, and she looked around into the darkness to see what had happened.

The spot Chris had hit was not completely destroyed, but it was an oozing, smoking wreck, and as she watched it fell back into the main mass and was reabsorbed. Still another orb hung in the air, and the tentacles were shuddering in shock. But as she watched, some black projectiles shot through the air towards them. There weren't many, but when they hit…

"Oh, come on!" she griped as the masses resolved themselves into small, difficult-to-discern bundles of tentacles. She drew her weapon and began firing at the little creeps that Uroboros had sent at them. It seemed the giant had some foot soldiers.

"You hold these things off, I'll man the L.T.D.!" Chris shouted. It was still recharging, and he kept glancing at the loading bar on it as he moved around the platform avoiding the small black offshoots. Sheva fired at the two pursuing him, stealing away their attention, and began pumping everything she had into them. They had their work cut out for them; but they could get through this together.

The L.T.D. droned softly as the satellite above became ready to fire again, and Chris took aim once more.


Alyssa braced herself as she felt the floor begin to tilt once again, as though some giant monster was walking across the deck just above her and shifting the ship's weight from port to starboard – or starboard to port – or stern to stem. She didn't have a good grasp of sailor lingo. Anyways, she'd already felt such shifts twice, and this time she wasn't sent careening to the side when it happened. The Majini in front of her had not caught onto the trend, though, so over they went.

The four of them, which Alyssa had been certain were going to rip her to pieces, were all sent toppling, their angry red eyes widening as they fell. They were slammed into the wall as Alyssa stood in a wide, leaning stance to keep her balance, and as soon as the tilting stopped, she scuttled forward and crept around her enemies, which were still in a pile against the wall struggling against gravity.

She'd left the safe room almost half an hour ago, and so far she'd found no trace of Chris, Sheva, or Reynard. She was starting to get very scared. She'd only encountered a handful of single Majini, and had been able to kill them all herself, but she was pretty sure she was lost by now, and most of the doors she'd tried were locked. She had nowhere to retreat to if she met an enemy she couldn't handle. And what was worse, the ship seemed to be badly damaged. Oil was leaking through several walls and pooling here and there. Rancid oil. The smell made her want to puke.

She got around the corner as the ship began tilting slightly back the opposite direction, and she kept going, running as fast as she could as she heard the Majini behind her howling angrily. She turned a few more corners, hoping to lose them in the process, and soon the sound faded. That was one danger down, but her heart was still hammering in her chest at what may lie ahead.

Something was going on abovedeck, though she had no idea what it was. She was afraid she would need to go and see. If there was a monster up above, then it was probably there for a reason. And if Chris, Sheva, and Reynard weren't that reason, she didn't know what would be.

She was looking for either stairs or an elevator. Preferably stairs, as she knew better than to use an elevator in an emergency. She hit a crossroad, and was half relieved and half disheartened to see a stairwell sign on the wall pointing left. The ratio skewed more disheartening as something heavy slammed down overhead with jarring force, making her stumble on the still-uneven ground. She would need to be very, very careful.

She took the stairs to the top, though she didn't come out onto the deck right away, instead emerging into a large room full of cargo and small vehicles. She was aboveground, as she could see the night sky through a high window on the wall of the room she was in, but she saw no immediate way to get outside. The door up ahead was chained shut. She'd need to find another way out.

She spotted a hallway and went for it, sure that she'd find another exit somewhere. She ran past a giant window which allowed one to look down into a huge room, and she paused to scan it. Instantly, she froze. It seemed to be a training room of some sort, with training dummies at one end, a lot of guns and equipment on the walls, and bullet casings all over the floor. They'd all rolled notably to one side of the room.

The room was full of Majini.

Freezing did her no good. At least five saw her almost at once, and half a second later it seemed, the rest of the room was staring at her. There must have been thirty of them in there, and they were all armed. She gasped and jerked back from the window, bringing her arms up instinctively to shield herself as they raised their guns and opened fire.

She stood shivering in a panic, waiting to get punched full of holes, but after a few seconds of muffled gunfire she opened her eyes to see that, though the glass was chipping and cracking a very little, it was withstanding the hail. Bulletproof glass.

She shuffled rigidly further down the hall, facing the window, watching the gunfire follow her. It soon stopped, and she could see from several depressed triggers that they were out of ammo. The whole group stood there, slavering at her from below, several throwing down their guns in frustration, others reloading. She guessed they were all puzzling through how to get at her, and she was reminded of the tiger-feeding scene in Life of Pi, where the dividing door between the tiger's cage and the goat's was raised. The big cat hadn't wanted to move away from the goat, even though it couldn't get at it behind the bars. To get the goat, it had to slink away from it, to the open door.

At last, one of the Majini came to a similar conclusion, and it raised it arm and gestured to its comrades. As one, they all began flooding out the far door. They were still one level below her, but she had no idea how long it would take them to get to her. She had to move.

She ran, hoping she wasn't about to lead a battalion of armed Majini into Chris and Sheva and Reynard, and hit another long hallway. There was nothing in it besides one door halfway down, and a large pair of double doors that she was pretty sure would finally take her outside. She didn't bother trying the mid-hall door, as almost every door she'd found had been locked so far.

She pushed the double doors at the end open and was hit with two things – night air, the frigid kind you always got on or near the ocean; and with it, than rancid oily smell she'd been smelling since the destruction had begun five or ten minutes ago.

She peeked around the open door and stood staring at the strange and incomprehensible sight before her. What was this thing? It was like some huge, pulsing black mass of tree roots, spread out across the deck to brace itself. Its weight seemed to be what was making the whole ship tilt. But what…

Then her eyes trailed up, and her limbs seized in absolute terror. This wasn't a tree. It was a monster. It had huge, waving limbs, and giant, orange orbs sat on the tips of some of these. It looked like it was attacking what seemed to be the whole ship's control tower. Why?

Then she saw a figure near the edge of the high platform it was targeting. The figure looked to be firing at something on the platform. Was that Sheva?

Despair was quickly added to the swirling soup of panic flooding her brain. If that was Sheva, and presumably Chris up there too, then were was no way she'd be able to relay the information to them. What could she possibly do but get killed by that thing if she got anywhere near it? And how could Chris or Sheva even hope to fight something like that?

Then white light filled her vision. A bolt of it had shot down from somewhere in the sky – she had no idea where – and struck one of the big, flailing orange orbs. The orb burst, fluid draining out of it, but as the tentacle that had been supporting it fell away, four or five more shot up in its wake. Several were tipped with smaller orange orbs. And when she said smaller, she meant the size of Volkswagens instead of Pepsi trucks.

The light had been bright, but distant, and she only had to blink for a few seconds to get her shocked vision to return to normal. Some of the tentacles began stabbing and sweeping at the platform, presumable at Sheva and maybe Chris as well, and a torrent of little black shapes was spewed at the pair. Its attacks became more intense.

There's no way they can kill that thing, she thought wildly. Even with that – that thing they fired – they can't kill it, can they?

But they were trying. And if they failed, the world was probably doomed. She needed to help.

But they very thought of trying to get up there, maybe just help kill those black things that were swarming them, was enough to make her muscles lock down completely. She couldn't get any closer. But as she scanned the thing's base, the closest part of which was only about twenty feet from her, she decided that maybe she wouldn't need to.

There was a small pustule here at the bottom, throbbing right above the ground. That bolt of light had hit a pustule just like that, and as she stood watching, another bolt came down and destroyed one of the Volkswagen orbs, too. Assuming Chris and Sheva knew what they were doing, those were its weak points.

Every tentacle it had was fighting Chris and Sheva. If she shot this pustule, maybe it would distract it? Make one of the things peel off and come after her, instead? Then she could just run back inside, and she'd be safe. If she could even get one tentacle's attention, maybe it would help.

She shivered at the thought of drawing a giant monster's focus onto her, but if it was all she could do, then she had to do it. She raised her gun shakily at the orange orb, steadied her grip, and fired half a dozen rounds at it.

She hadn't expected to do much damage, but the orb's skin was very, very tight. After bullet number six, it burst unexpectedly, spewing steaming orange goo across the deck. And the B.O.W. noticed.

The sound that emerged from it defied description, and she looked up and nearly froze again as fully half of the tentacles that had been attacking the platform stopped, turned in her direction, and shot for her like a fleet of semitrucks.

She gasped, spasmed in terror, and barely managed to jump back towards the door as the three tentacles all bashed into the deck where she'd been standing. She heard metal scream as one punched straight through the hull, and the other two left huge dents on the walls of the building. One of the tentacles had been orb-tipped, and orange goo spewed across the deck as the force of the blow against a corner of the building ruptured it.

She fell from the impact, scrambled to her feet, and ran back into the building. There was no room for thought in her mind. She hadn't anticipated the speed and ferocity of the attack, and she was entirely caught in the grip of panic. She had no additional room for fear – it had completely filled her head.

She took that back as she hit the midway point in the hall. She'd been planning to head back the same way she'd come, wait for things to quiet down, and maybe go back and repeat the procedure until…until the fight was over. Now all she could think of was getting away, but she stopped in her tracks as that option was stripped from her as well.

The Majini had caught up to her.

First one appeared around the corner, then two more, and in seconds the rest of the mob was filling the hall. Thirty Majini, all of which paused when they spotted her, flung themselves immediately forward, arms out, fingers clawed, bared teeth bright in the low light. A few had weapons, and were trying to get to the front of the mob so they could shoot at her. Behind her, at the same time, the doors were torn off their hinges as one of the monster tentacles figured out where she'd gone.

Trouble ahead, trouble behind, and you know that notion just crossed my mind…

Darkness touched the edge of her vision as death came for her, rampaging ahead and slithering behind. She was going to faint. She was going to die.

The strength started going out of her muscles. She stumbled against the wall, and something dug into her side. She looked down – it was a doorknob. There was one door in the hall, and she was next to it. But all the other doors had been locked. Why wouldn't this one be?

Still, with a last gasp, she twisted the knob and pulled.

The door came open. She swung around and fell inside, pulling it shut as she toppled onto something hard and plastic. The frame of some object that caught her ribs and filled her with exquisite pain. She'd seen only a hint of bright, plastic yellow before the door had closed, sealing her in darkness, and when a splash of foul-smelling water surged up and over her face and clothes, she registered that it was a mop bucket. She was in a janitor's closet. No wonder it hadn't been locked.

Outside, the Majini's screams turned from furious to terrified in a single second. An odd, fleshy slithering filled her ears, and the sound of impact and tearing flesh began echoing in the hall.

She laid there, no longer on the cusp of unconsciousness due to the pain in her ribs. She curled up in fetal position and began dry-sobbing in the cold wetness of the spilled mop water. She bit down hard on her hand, drawing blood in an attempt to stay quiet. Could that thing out there hear? Would it find her? Of course it would. How couldn't it?

The door rattled as the tentacle thrashed outside. Gunfire erupted, and the thrashing increased to an intensity that would surely tear the building apart if it continued much longer. To add to this, the building shook as a tentacle outside began hammering on the walls and ceilings as well, trying to get in and add to the carnage.

Alyssa lay there, crying in the dark and the wetness, and waited to die.


"What the hell was that all about?" Chris grunted as he took aim at the last pustule. Six tentacles had been on their asses, as well as countless black masses. Yet the last two waves of those had been shot not at them, but at the deck. Three of the larger tentacles had been drawn away as well, and though one had returned, orange orb severely damaged, it seemed like only half of its attention was on them. The other two were attacking a building below.

"Someone must be down there," Sheva called back, finishing off the last attacker on their platform. "They must have attacked it and drawn its attention."

Chris bared his teeth in something was wasn't exactly a grin, but wasn't entirely without positivity, as he readied the next blow. "Reynard, that crazy son of a bitch. Well, if the tentacles are still attacking down there, he must still be keeping them busy."

PEW!

He had to admit, this laser module was freakin' awesome. He could get used to it, he really could, and he resolved to get a price check on one of them at the next B.S.A.A. budget meeting. Probably wouldn't be in the cards, but there was no harm in asking. The sound it made was satisfying in the extreme, the power behind the strikes infinitely more so. He was ripping this monster into pieces, tearing it apart limb by limb. And with Sheva covering the platform and Reynard drawing the focus of some of its tentacles, the rest of this would be a breeze.

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but their odds of success had certainly jumped up considerably.

The tentacle that had been wavering between them and the threat below peeled off again and started angrily bashing the roof of the building, trying to tear the whole thing apart and tearing itself apart in the process. More pustules erupted from the main body, and he set down the L.T.D. to help Sheva as it recharged. A new stream of those little black monsters had been shot their way, and she had her hands full.

Clear the foot soldiers. Pick up the L.T.D. Take out another pustule. Dodge a swing or two. Rinse and repeat.

There was a giant orb right in the middle that had emerged a couple of times already. Both times he'd hit it, it had withdrawn back into the thing's core. But though it seemed to be mending itself to some degree, it retained much of the damage he dealt. Now, as it emerged the third time, he sensed that this battle was just about over.

He took a deep breath and lined up the shot. The red circle on the scope locked onto the swaying orb structure, and grew smaller and smaller as the coordinates were relayed. The instant LOCK ON appeared above the pinpoint circle, he pulled the trigger.

It hit perfectly. Not only was the orb itself annihilated, but the stalk had been more or less straight on impact. The beam shot straight down through the Uroboros monstrosity, roasting it from the inside, and fire and steam burst out of the base in a wild haze of light.

Chris watched in amazement as the handful of tentacle masses on the platform instantly went dead. The other tentacles, too, did something peculiar, something the last Uroboros had not done. A reddish color spread up from the base through the tentacles, and as it went, the flesh petrified, going totally rigid. The three that had been off to the side tried to withdraw, to return to the central fight and continue it, but they only had enough steam to curl into the central mass before freezing as well. The red color spread until it covered the entire B.O.W.

The fight was done.

Sheva stared at the thing for a long moment. "So that's Uroboros. I fear for the world if it ever gets out."

Chris shook his head. "God damnit, Wesker. He's actually serious about destroying the entire planet."

They looked at each other in silence for a minute, catching their breaths, then Sheva's eyes widened. "Reynard!"

Chris could have smacked himself. They needed to go check on him, make sure he was alright.

There were ladders leading back down to the main deck, and they slid down these. Chris slung the L.T.D. onto his shoulder in the hopes he'd be able to use it again, but when he traveled about a hundred feet away from the console he'd taken it from, it said PROXIMITY ALERT – OUT OF CONSOLE RANGE. POWERING DOWN. He sighed in disappointment and abandoned it.

They ran over to the wreckage of building that Uroboros had been beating on, which was surrounded by dead tentacle masses. They found a door - or at least a doorframe - and went inside, stepping over the remains of the door as they went. The whole hall within was covered in reddish-black slime that was already drying to a crust, and all along the hallway…dead Majini.

He stared at this in confusion. Majini? What the hell? Why would Majini have been attacking this thing? As he wondered, a couple at the far end poked their heads out, snarled, and raised their weapons to fire. He and Sheva took them down, one more emerged and was taken out, and after that, things fell silent.

No, not silent. As they made their way down the hall, another sound became prevalent. Muffled sobbing was coming from a closet halfway down the hall.

Sheva looked alarmed, stepping around with her gun out but aimed at the ground. Chris, also uneasy, took hold of the handle. She nodded to him, and he opened the door.

Sheva aimed at whatever she saw, then her eyes widened, and she lowered the gun. "Oh my God."

Chris poked his head around, and his jaw dropped. Huddled on the floor in a tense, heaving little ball was…Alyssa.

He dropped to one knee and reached out, putting a hand on her. She shuddered and choked, drawing in tighter. "Woah," he said. "Alyssa, is that you?"

Her gun was lying on the ground beside her, ignored. One of her arms was wrapped around her middle, and the other was covering her face. She lowered it, peeked out at him, and opened her mouth to answer. Instead, she burst into more tears.

Damnit. He didn't know how she'd gotten here, but if she was injured, he didn't know how they would handle that. "Watch the hall," he said to Sheva, then scooped Alyssa carefully off the ground, leaning back and pulling her out of the closet.

"Hey," he said, cradling her. He didn't see any injuries, though he'd need to look at her stomach, which she was still holding tightly. "Alyssa, are you alright?"

She sniffed wetly and wiped away some tears. "Ch-Ch-Chris?"

"Yeah, it's me. Sheva too. Are you alright?"

She nodded. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, as though not sure what she wanted to say. Then she started stammering, "I had to f-f-find you. And I saw you f-fighting that th-thing and I d-didn't want t-to just leave you…b-but I had to g-get to you to tell you about the s-s-serum, and I…I…"

Even she looked confused with her story. Chris sighed and set her down in front of him, going over her for injuries. She had a small mark on her hand that he was pretty sure a self-inflicted bite, but when he lifted her shirt to take a look at her stomach, all he saw was a red mark. Looked like she'd gotten hit by something, or perhaps had fallen on something hard. Not a serious injury, so long as the ribs weren't broken.

"She's not badly hurt," he confirmed to Sheva, and though she was keeping her eyes tensely on the end of the hall, he saw a slight relaxation in her features. She gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

Alyssa hiccupped, and Chris pulled his canteen off his hip and popped the top, putting it to her lips. "Take a drink," he said. "Then let's try this again. That thing outside is dead, we have a few minutes to talk. First things first, why did you leave the safe room? Is David okay?"

She took about seven slow sips, and by the time she was done she looked much calmer. She hiccupped one more time and said, "David's fine. He'll be glad to know you asked about him."

Sheva laughed quietly, and Alyssa relaxed even further. Chris sighed and rolled his eyes. At least she was calm now. He motioned for her to continue.

"Um. We were in the safe room, it was quiet, we were playing minesweeper. Then my radio went off. The person on the line said she was with the B.S.A.A., that her name was Jill Valentine, and she wanted – needed – to talk to you, Chris."

He sucked in a short breath. "Jill? Damnit, I forgot to give her the new frequency…what did she say?"

Alyssa looked relieved at his response. "So you do know her? Is she cool?"

Chris snorted at descriptor. "The coolest."

"Cool. She said she had information that was vital to beating Wesker, and that she needed to relay it to you as soon as possible. Apparently there's some kind of serum that gives Wesker his strength – it's called PG67A/W, and you guys need to keep an eye out for it."

Sheva started in surprise. "What? PG…wait a minute…"

She knelt, still watching the end of the hall, and pulled that silver case off her back to check. She pulled out a syringe and held it out to them.

Chris read it. "You mean that PG67A/W?"

Alyssa's eyes widened. "Yeah. That's the stuff, I think."

Chris felt a brief flare of triumph – then it drained away. "Shit. If this stuff gives Wesker his strength, then we might have been able to keep it away from him – toss it in the ocean, maybe – and wear him down until the crap wore off. But Excella had a whole 'nother case of it, and I didn't see her carrying it before she turned. Wesker must have it."

He hoped Alyssa hadn't come all this way and nearly gotten killed just for this. But she shook her head and said, "That's not the important thing, I think. Jill said that the serum should act as a poison if he takes too much. If you can inject him a few times, maybe you can kill him."

He and Sheva looked at each other. A serum that acted as a poison to Wesker? And they had a whole damn case of the stuff?

Sheva smiled slightly. "Good thing we took it along, hm?"

He shook his head in disbelief at the news. "No kidding. Alyssa, thank you for bringing us this information. You really saved our skins." He clapped her lightly on the back.

"Speaking of saving our skins," Sheva added, "was that you who drew the attention of Uroboros?"

"Uroboros?" Alyssa asked. "Is that what that thing was? Yeah…I saw it attacking you guys up on the platform, and I thought that if I could maybe get its attention a little, it might help. I saw you guys shooting the pustules – that was you with the big light beam thing, right? – so I shot a little one on its foot. I didn't expect it to go as crazy as it did. And when I tried to run away, a bunch of Majini caught up to me, and I got into the closet and the two collided, and…"

She waved her hand agitatedly to make up for the rest of the fight, and Chris tried to imagine what the poor kid must have just gone through. He'd seen the way those three tentacles had reacted to her attack. Having three giant, twisting black limbs shoot after her like a bloody hydra in some mythology movie must have been downright traumatizing. Then running into a horde of Majini on top of that...

But he couldn't spare any more time to think on it. He stood up, picking her up as well since she was a paperweight and didn't look quite ready to stand up on her own, and said, "You might have saved our lives. And you did a great job bringing this information to us. But you need to get back to David and leave the rest to us. Think you can manage that?"

He set her carefully back on her feet, and though her knees knocked a little and she had to hold onto him until she was steady, she quickly regained her own footing. That said, she paused at his words and looked distressed. "I…I guess…"

She didn't sound very confident. Sheva put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "Did you encounter much trouble getting here?"

"Only a few Majini. I was able to run past a bigger group of four along the way. I'm sure I can avoid them again if I'm careful. I just came a long way, and I'm not entirely sure I can…"

She trailed off, then she shook her head. "Nevermind," she backtracked skittishly. "I'll be fine. You guys go ahead."

Sheva looked at him worriedly over Alyssa's head. She didn't know how to get back to safety, and it seemed obvious that there would be danger for her along the way.

Chris clenched his jaw. He didn't typically get stressed out on the battlefield, but this was a hell of a conundrum. Would she be safer moving into the thick of the fray with people who could protect her, or wandering around lost by herself away from most of the action?

"You didn't see Reynard on your way here, did you?" he asked. She shook her head again.

Damn. He really didn't see any way around this, but he knew one thing – if they brought her along and she was with them when they fought Wesker, he'd likely as not tear her to pieces for the pure purpose of riling them up. And it would work.

The thought of that cemented his decision. He bent over, picked up her gun, and handed it back to her. "I'm sorry, Alyssa, but it's going to be too dangerous for you to stick with us moving forward. You need to try to make your way back on your own."

Sheva's eyes widened, and she shook her head infinitesimally, but Alyssa, upon being given the firmer order, just took the gun and nodded. "Alright, I'll try. You'll come back for us once this is all over, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah, promise."

Sheva stood with pursed lips, obviously not happy with the situation, but who the hell was? Instead of objecting, she put a hand on Alyssa's shoulder and said, "Take care of yourself, alright? No one wants to lose you."

Alyssa nodded, hesitated, then wrapped her arms around Sheva in a hug, which was reciprocated warmly.

She let go and did the same for him. He patted her on the back again – he was not a huggy person – and without any more ado, she started off down the hall at a brisk trot, stepping carefully around all the dead Majini plastered to the walls and floor.

They both watched her go, and Chris hoped to God she'd be okay. He wasn't a pray-er, but he shot one off on the off-chance it actually got through.

Hey Big Guy – if you're listening, keep an eye on her, okay?

He mouthed amen, and turned away. They needed to move along.

"Let's head back to the Bridge," he said. "The computers should be off lockdown. Hopefully we can find some information on them."

Sheva agreed, though as they started off, he noticed she kept glancing back over her shoulder fitfully. Their decision was not settling well with her.

They got back to the Bridge. The lockdown was over, though several consoles were still flashing a forbidding red, and their screens reported heavy damage to various parts of the ship. One screen, however, was showing something else, and a low digital voice was droning out some warnings from it.

Sheva hadn't noticed the console, and was walking past it, but he touched her arm and said, "Wait," as he saw what was on the screen.

Drawing closer, Sheva saw it, too. "An assault bomber? When Jill said Wesker was planning to spread Uroboros throughout the world…"

She trailed off, and he finished the sentiment for her. "He's planning to use this to spread it."

They beheld the massive bomber, a sleek black thing with a cargo hold clearly large enough to contain dozens of the missiles they'd seen in the silos below. And each missile, assuming they were cluster munitions, could potentially spread the virus dozens of miles – perhaps a hundred square or more if spread thin, and Wesker would know exactly how thin he could spread it to maximize payload efficacy.

Then the screen changed, showing a figure in black standing on a balcony overlooking the bomber, hands on the rails, unmoving, as though lost in thought.

"Wesker," Chris said, glaring at the tiny figure on the screen. "There he is." He tapped through console options for a few minutes until he found what he was looking for – a way to pinpoint the location of the security feed. He got a simple map, and was relieved to see that the location was not far away. Once he had the route traced out in his head, he said, "Let's go!"

They headed for the elevator. The below-deck path was their fastest route to Wesker. The bomber popped back onto the screen as they turned away, and Sheva took one last frowning look at it. "A bomber equipped with missiles…he can't fly around in that without getting shot down." Then it dawned on her. "Oh, God!"

"Exactly," Chris said grimly as he hit the button. The elevator started coming up to get them. "The plane can't get shot down. If it does, it'll initiate a biohazard."

She looked pained. "It's just like Jill said, he's planning to spread this virus worldwide."

"Looks that way."

Just as the elevator reached them, they heard gunfire erupt outside. Not the distinct shots of a handgun – the loud, rapid shots of a huge automatic weapon.

Neither of them got onto the elevator. That gun was too loud to be Reynard's auto. It had to be the Majini, one of those gunners like they'd seen earlier, but why…?

Oh, shit. Alyssa.

Chris's eyes widened, and he listened with bated breath as the gunfire continued. He expected it to fall silent at any moment, signaling that the gunner's target had been eliminated, but it continued, drawing closer and closer. Then five short pops went off, the sound of a handgun, and a roar went up outside, followed by more automatic gunfire.

Sheva broke. "We need to help her!"

She ran for the stairs leading up to the platform they'd just fought on, likely intent on getting a view of the arena. "I'll go low, you go high!" Chris called as he backtracked through the halls they'd first taken to get here.

He ran, cursing himself both for not moving sooner and for leaving Alyssa alone in the first place. He wouldn't have, not if he'd known there was anything more dangerous than she'd faced already on her path. This was way out of her league.

He got to the door and saw the problem at once. She'd come approximately the same way they had when they'd been fleeing Uroboros. She was being pursued by a monster of a Majini – another of those red-bereted ones with a damn long-barreled machine gun strapped to its shoulder.

She was hunkered down behind a small metal crate, and she was completely pinned, bullets zipping past her cover in a wide spread. The crate was barely big enough for her. She'd contorted herself to fit behind it, and if her elbow slipped out, it would probably be taken off in seconds.

She was right at the base of the stairs leading up to the door he was leaning out of, but those two dozen risers might as well have been Mount Everest. She wouldn't make it three steps before she was torn to pieces by gunfire. She'd been fighting back, that was apparent from the bullet wounds in the Majini's face. Perhaps she'd been trying to blind it. It hadn't worked, sadly, and now the Majini was advancing towards her cover, maintaining a hail of bullets to prevent her from moving an inch.

Chris drew his handgun, wishing he still had his rifle, but before he could fire, a sniper round found the Majini's head and sent it stepping back. The gunfire ceased.

They'd only have one shot at this. Once it realized it had some real opponents, it would start fighting back ten times as hard. So he pulled one of his last two flash grenades off his belt, shouted, "FLASH!" at the top of his lungs, pulled the pin, and threw it.

It landed right at the Majini's feet, and the result couldn't have been better. Alyssa was behind the crate with her hands over her ears, clearly terrified, and the Majini itself looked down at the grenade with an expression of confusion. The flash went off right in its eyes, the bang right in its ears.

Now was her only chance. "ALYSSA, RUN!" he bellowed. "GET UP HERE!"

She looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened, and she hesitated only a moment before taking to her feet and scrambling up the stairs. He could see the terror in her movements, the expectation that she was going to be shot, and indeed the Majini was already rubbing sight back into its eyes.

It looked around angrily. They its eyes slowly trailed up the stairs and spotted Alyssa's movement. The gun came up.

Chris swore, jumped down the last six risers and grabbed Alyssa's shoulder. She squealed as he looped an arm around her waist and heaved her up like a kitten. He threw himself up the stairs just as the gunfire started up again.

Another rifle round from Sheva saved both their skins. The Majini had barely begun firing before she got its hand, force-quitting it, and his initial burst of speed had gotten them out of the short line of fire. He barreled Alyssa into the room, slammed the door shut, and the gunfire started up a second later, tink-tink-tinking loudly against the metal hatch.

Alyssa was shivering and limp in his grip, and he switched to carrying her bridal-style after locking the door behind him. He made his way up to the Bridge, and as soon as he got there he was met by Sheva.

She ran up and began looking Alyssa over, running a hand over her forehand and asking, "Are you alright? Were you shot?"

Alyssa shook her head, then wriggled a little. He set her down. She swayed on the spot for a few seconds, then stumbled over to one of the desks, braced herself on it, and started throwing up on the floor.

He thought he recognized her reaction, and it didn't have anything to do with any virus. A lot of civilians reacted that way to being shot at.

Once she finished being sick, she pulled a water bottle out of her pack, rinsed her mouth out, drank a little, and put it back. Then she came back over to them, eyes red and face wet, and asked, "Can I come with you guys?"

"Yes, I think that would be best," Sheva said immediately, glancing at him in an invitation to contradict her.

She didn't get any argument from him. "Yeah, just stick with us," he said, shepherding her onto the elevator and starting them down. "So, where'd that thing come from?"


OoO


Hey Rel! I really do have to do Alyssa like that. And yeah, poor Excella - oh well, moving on.

Doug is actually a separate character from the RE5 DLC - you're thinking of Mike! I do like my helicopter guys, though. And it's always more fun to write when you have an extra character or two to work with, even if they're too badly injured to contribute much. Well, Happy Valentine's Day, all! And a warm welcome to MahesvaraST! Hope you're enjoying the story :)

Always Yours,

The Topaz Dragon