Chris lay panting in the bay of the bomber, catching his breath and hurting. His body was sore, his energy was low, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just left Alyssa to die alone, curled up cold on the deck of an enemy ship, after she'd put her life on the line to save theirs.

And all of it was because of Wesker.

He stood up. He knew Wesker wouldn't just lock himself in the cockpit to spread his virus, not after everything he'd said. This was about more than just control, or power. This was a battle of wills to him. He was on a crusade, and he would want to finish it off properly. He'd come for them soon.

Sheva stood beside him, and they were silent as they waited, watching the door across from them. Chris considered all that Wesker had told him. Wanting to save the world, to save humanity from itself…he understood the rationale. He'd heard it before. It wasn't uncommon. Albert Wesker wasn't so different from those who had tried to conquer the world before him. They'd all believed the same thing – that humanity was too ignorant and selfish to know what was good for it, people would destroy themselves if given freedom and autonomy. It was for the powerful and enlightened to decide the best route for their species to take. And for people like that, the end always justified the means. No matter how many people had to die, it would always be worth it.

It was usually the anger that gave it away. When angry people took charge, bad things happened. It was why he'd opted to remain an SOA instead of becoming an SOU leader after losing Jill. He didn't want a team to lead. All he wanted was a partner who would stand beside him, remind him what he was fighting for…and keep him in check if he ever started to go too far.

The door slid open, and Wesker came through. The door closed behind him. "It seems I may have underestimated you, Chris."

Chris drew his gun, ready for the final fight. "Save it, Wesker. There's no one left to help you now."

Wesker bared his teeth. "I don't need anyone else." He slammed a fist into a small console on the metal wall behind him without warning, producing a deep dent and a shower of sparks. "I have Uroboros."

Sheva stepped up. The bomber's bay was wide and open, with only a few pillars for cover. Wesker stood opposite them, skin glistening with sweat in the low golden lighting. "In less than five minutes we'll reach the optimal altitude for missile deployment," he explained. "Uroboros will be released into the atmosphere, ensuring complete…global…saturation."

He let out a low, hissing sigh of contentment as he said this, the imminence of his success having a clearly euphoric effect on him. But he was still in pain, still sweating, and it was obvious that if Chris could get that second syringe into him, this fight would likely be over.

But it wasn't over yet. Chris barely managed to dodge as Wesker shot forward, closing the twenty foot distance between them in a heartbeat and striking with lethal force. He was still just as strong and still just as fast.

Hopefully something's changed, Chris thought as he dodged, blocked, and was sent flying away as Wesker landed a hard hit. Otherwise this fight will go as well as the last, and we won't have Alyssa to bail us out this time.

This thought brought him back to himself, and he started firing at Wesker as Wesker started firing at Sheva. She got to cover. He and Wesker were both out in the open.

But Wesker's speed was just as unmanageable as ever, and every dodge brought him closer to Chris, their eyes locked even as the man maintained sideways fire to keep Sheva pinned.

"Your feeble attempts only delay the inevitable," he said as he drew closer and closer. "The entire world will be infected."

And now he was right in front of Chris, the barrel of his Samurai Edge between his eyes.

Chris stared past it calmly, his own firearm aimed up at his old captain's heart, and the two stared each other down for a long, silent second.

What happened to you? Chris wondered briefly. Were you really always like this? Were you ever anything else?

He found no answer in those empty serpent eyes, and he decided, no. What Wesker was now…this was who he'd always been, from the very first day Chris had joined S.T.A.R.S.

A monster.

"A new Genesis is at hand," Wesker said. "And I will be the Creator."

His pupils slimmed as he prepared to end it. But with a hoarse cry from Sheva, a stream of silver shot through the air. Wesker spotted it just in time to dodge back, and Chris rolled away as the bullet pinged against the floor behind where his head had been.

Wesker leapt up to the ceiling, hitting it on all fours and propelling himself off it towards Chris. Chris fired several times, knocking the strike off course, though Wesker's legs still twisted and managed to catch him in the crook of his neck. Pain shot through it, but the adrenaline was pumping too hard for the damage to register. He pushed through.

I am going to be in so much pain tomorrow, he thought as Wesker sent him slamming into the ground once again.

Sheva came again as the dance continued, scooping up her knife and going for Wesker with it. Perhaps mistaking the weapon she'd chosen, he brought up his arm to block a hit or knock aside a muzzle, and ended up with an inch of steel in his flesh. Blood spurted out and sprinkled the horizontal silver flat.

He stood, staring at her for well over a second, which was a considerable delay in a fight. His teeth had been almost continually bared through the combat, like an animal in the grips of severe aggression, and his ferocity did nothing to dissuade this comparison.

His fist shot forward, hand wrapping around her throat before she could even flinch, and she gasped out a cry that was quickly silenced as his fingers cut off both air and blood flow. Her head started swimming right away.

He isn't the only beast in this room. Show him why you must be careful about how you grab the viper, my little desert snake.

She threw a punch, and as he tilted his head to avoid it, her body twisted up the other way, contorting past his arms and wrapping around his own neck. Wrenching her whole body into a twist designed to snap a snipe, she managed enough force to at least make him drop her.

She sprang away, gasping for air, and Chris roared, "I've had enough of your bullshit!"

As Wesker staggered back, Chris got a chokehold around his neck, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the last syringe. He slammed it home, right into the jugular, and Wesker's snake-slit pupils widened once again, the irises briefly becoming a thin red ring around the empty pits. And his expression twitched past fury and into—

Fear? Was that fear?

Wesker grunted and tugged himself free, stumbling away before dropping to one knee. Chris stood up, tossing the empty syringe aside, and said, "You're just another one of Umbrella's leftovers."

Wesker remained kneeling, facing away from them, and Sheva turned back towards the door leading to the cockpit and nodded. "You know what we have to do."

Chris nodded back. They would have to make sure this bomber landed somewhere where no one would be hurt by it.

"The door is sealed, the entire system on auto-pilot," Wesker panted. "There is nothing you can do."

They looked at each other, then at the door. She hadn't noticed before, but the fist Wesker had slammed into the wall earlier had crushed the console that was no doubt designed to open it. Wesker had sealed them in here, ensuring that only his strength could get them out. And he wouldn't do that unless they were both dead.

Sheva's heart grew cold in her chest. That meant there was only one option.

Crash the plane.

Chris seemed to have reached the same conclusion. All he said was, "I'll go for the override lever. Cover me."

Sheva wasn't sure where the override lever was, or what it would override, but she knew Chris was ex-Air Force. If anyone would know how to bring a bomber down from the inside, it would be him. "Go."

Chris ran for a lever near the door. Wesker looked up, incensed again, and charged for Chris. Sheva took careful aim, tracked, and fired.

CRACK! CRACK, CRACK!

She missed. But her shots did the same thing they always did – they drove Wesker to dodge. It gave Chris just enough time to reach the lever before Wesker dove at him, and…

He made it. Barely. The lever was pulled, Chris jerked away, and Wesker's fist punched a hole clean through the metal, making a gaping hole. That would have been Chris's head if not for the distraction.

The lights went off as soon as the lever was down, and Sheva's eyes widened as wind began ripping through the room. The override lever was opening the bomber's rear door. It was really happening. The plane was going down.

"You'll pay for that," Wesker snarled as red lights began flashing overhead.

Chris ignored him, running for a pillar, and he yelled out, "Hang on!"

Sheva looked around, and flung herself towards a pillar as the wind began to tug at her. Wesker, meanwhile, was lifted gently off his feet as the air pressure and their altitude dropped abruptly, and his arms began pinwheeling as he started to drift back.

She hooked her arms around the pillar just in time. Had she realized what was going to happen, she would have run for the furthest pillar, but this was all she'd been able to manage before the suction had started, and it was the one closest to Wesker. He went flying back as the draw increased, and crashed into the pillar above her. He grasped for it, missed, flew past, began to fall…

His hand clamped around her ankle at the last moment. She shrieked and tried to jerk it out of his grip, but to no avail. His hand was like iron. The suction became far greater as the door finished opening and the plane began to drop more starkly. Warnings blared through the speakers about depressurization and dropping altitude, but they hardly even registered. She was slipping.

Her arms gave way so she was only clinging on with her hands. But the extra drag Wesker was putting on her was too much. Her hands started to slip, fingers screaming as they were forced to bear more than two hundred pounds of weight.

She looked up. Chris was on the pillar in front of her – above her, now that the bomber was tilted so far back – and he was looking down at the scene, frozen in the glare of the moment.

Sheva stilled inside as Wesker's hands began clawing their way up her leg. If he reached the pillar, it was over for them all. The pillar would anchor him here, give him another chance to survive, to escape, to plan this all again…

And he would kill Chris.

She stared up at him. He was strong. He could survive this. But for his sake – for everyone's sake – she could not. She wished she could explain. Apologize for this decision. But she knew he would understand. He would accept it, even if it hurt. He would move on.

He has Jill again, she reminded herself. He doesn't need me. He'll be alright.

I'm sorry, Chris. I'm so sorry.

She let go.

Chris stared down at the scene beneath him. Wesker was crawling his way up Sheva's leg. If he got a hand on the pillar, he would shove her off and that would be the end of it. He couldn't let that happen.

But he couldn't get a clear shot from here. The two were being buffeted by the wind, and any bullet would be more likely to hit her than him. He needed to do something. What?

Then he saw a change in her eyes, and his own widened in response. It wasn't fear. It wasn't sorrow. And it wasn't anger.

It was resignation.

No.

It was the very same look he'd seen in Jill's eyes, just before she'd sent herself over the edge to save him at the Spencer Estate.

No!

He hadn't recognized it the first time, that dread intent, but he recognized it now – and he would rather die than let another partner die for him.

"NO!" he screamed, and let go even before she did.

As she was ripped away, he shot down towards her, arms extended – one for the column, one for her. His arm clamped around her wrist, and though he saw her face screw up briefly in pain as the limb was no doubt dislocated, he managed to catch the pillar and anchor all three of them.

That said, even his arm was going to pop if he had to keep this up for long. He couldn't manage this for long – but he obviously wouldn't need to.

Wesker, on their tail end, was beside himself. His eyes were brighter than Chris had ever seen them, flecks of foamy saliva were on the very corners of his lips, and his shriek lacked even a trace of the calm, cultured persona he always tried to project.

"I'm taking the two of you with me!"

Sheva looked down at Wesker, expression tight with pain, and pulled her handgun. "Like hell you will!" she cried.

She shot him. He screamed as he fell, vanishing into the dark. The impact came only moments later.

When Chris came to, it felt like he was in an inferno. Cool water was being sprinkled over his face, and Sheva's voice was saying, "Come on, Chris, wake up. We can't stay here, we'll burn alive."

He opened his eyes. He coughed. It was dark in here. He didn't know where he was.

But Sheva was there. Thank God.

Her face was streaked with black grime, and she was trying to shake him awake. "Chris, please, we need to move, now!"

He groaned, but managed to sit up with her help. She looped one arm behind him and helped him to his feet. They were still in the bomber. They stumbled towards the back, intent on getting out. There was light outside.

But it was night…how long was I out?

"Ugh…what happened? Where did we land? Oh, shit…the virus…"

"It's fine," Sheva said, heaving for breath beneath his weight, and he tried to take some off her. "We crashed on a volcanic island. Uninhabited, I think. If it leaks, no one should get hurt. Er…almost no one."

Chris snorted, then coughed. "Volcano…that why it's so hot? We're lucky…Uroboros is vulnerable to fire…"

The bomber was filling up with smoke, but as soon as they stumbled out, the air cleared – and became ten times hotter. He looked around in bleary awe. He'd been to a lot of wild places, but an active volcano hadn't yet been one of them. It was a hellscape, but it was beautiful. Orange-red flows bubbled and seethed in pools and rivers broken up by stark black rocks. Little geysers bubbled up and spewed more molten stone into the air every now and then, and in the distance, narrow streams so hot they looked more white than orange trickled down rockfaces and into the pools, red and yellow heat-colors mixing until they became a stunning, molten mess so bright it made his eyes sting. Then, maybe that was just the sulfur in the air.

Then he noticed something far more important than the literally eye-watering view – Sheva's other arm was dangling limply at her side.

He swore, and forced himself to stand on his own. "Sheva, your arm. Let me see that."

She winced and turned to allow it, and he took a look. Yup, dislocated. "Can you fix that?" she asked shakily.

He nodded, and got her braced for it. "Yes, just hold on. It'll take me a minute to—

As soon as he said this, he felt her arm relax as her brain registered that he wasn't going to do anything just then. That was when he moved, wrenching the arm in the right direction and shoving it back into its socket.

She screamed in agony with the suddenness of it, but it worked. She sagged against him, and he held her up as she panted, regaining her breath. "Sorry," he apologized. "Are you alright?"

"I will be," she gasped, trying to sound optimistic. He could see tears in her eyes, though. A dislocated arm was nothing to scoff at, whatever the movies said. "Now, let's try to get out of here. Hopefully the B.S.A.A. will send someone to investigate soon."

"Yeah," Chris sighed. "And we certainly won't freeze before they get here. Food and water might be tough, though. If only we had some marshmallows to toast."

"Ha."

They began struggling away from the wreck. Chris, for a reason he couldn't place, wasn't feeling the same hollow tiredness he often got after a mission. All he felt was disquiet, as though things weren't quite over yet.

He stopped, closing his eyes. He never felt that way without a reason. This wasn't over yet.

"I should've killed you years ago…Chris."

He turned, gun already up and out, to see Wesker standing atop the bomber. He narrowed his eyes as his wearied glands pumped the last remaining vestiges of adrenaline into his body, and said, "Your mistake. It's over, Wesker!"

That much was true enough. Uroboros wasn't going anywhere. If he managed to kill them, though, he might escape himself. That meant that right now, the game was survival. If they could hold out until help got here, then Wesker wouldn't stand a chance. He'd call a tactical nuke on this island if he had to.

"Over?" Wesker scoffed. "I'm just getting started."

He raised a hand and thrust it down into the metal beneath him. That was when Chris noticed what was printed on the side of it.

UROBOROS

His eyes widened and his heart sank as the seal on the missile was ruptured, spewing some strange mist into the air. Moments later, black worms shot out of the cannister, slithering up the piercing arm and diving into the flesh.

Wesker watched, enraptured, as the worms traveled up his arm and across his neck, his chest, down his other arm. He growled and yanked the limb out of the tank, but the worms had attached to some of the metal, and he tore a huge sheet off in the process.

Chris watched, Sheva tense beside him, as the worms' growth slowed. The ones on Wesker's arm semi-solidified into a huge black mass, the metal shrapnel jutting out like a giant claw. The blackness was seeping into his skin, but only to a certain degree, and black patches spread across his face, making his eyes look like molten patches in a plane of obsidian.

"Time to die, Chris," he rasped.

He leapt from the bomber and landed before them, stepping slowly forward. Chris looked at Sheva, she at him, and they came to the same conclusion.

"Run?"

"Run."

Wesker could feel the virus in his body, bubbling and seething, trying to break his genome down and reconstruct it, but it was unable to overcome the other virus present in his system. Perhaps given time, unable to consume him, it would stabilize, but that was not what was on his mind now. All he cared about was that it was obeying him for the moment. He could control it, and he once again had the brute strength and stamina necessary to end this once and for all.

"Why can't you understand, Chris?" he asked as he pursued his enemy. "Do you really believe the world is worth saving?"

He did not, and he'd discovered that the idea that anyone could infuriated him. They knew what humanity was comprised of. Rapists, murderers, droves of sheep who bleated after whichever shepherd most appealed to them. The apathetic, the cruel, and at the top of the hierarchy, those who possessed enough idiot cunning to subvert the powers that surrounded them. All while the few truly brilliant minds in the mix were belittled and shunted to the edges of society.

The pair ran over a narrow slip of stone that served as a bridge, not realizing it would not hold their combined weight, and though Sheva made it over, Chris was left behind when the bridge crumbled. He turned back, saw death behind him, and took off down another avenue.

"Natural selection leaves the survivors stronger and better!" Wesker shouted. He underlined each word with a blow, a lash of his new arm that brought the metallic tip sparking against the stone and throwing up showers of ebon stone. Chris dodge each, but only just, and kept on fleeing, refusing to respond.

"Humans have escaped this winnowing for far too long," he continued, stalking after. Indeed, this was one reason the safety protocols in all of his own facilities was so very subpar. The idea that his employees might be foolish enough to fail to attend to their own wellbeing was laughable. He delighted in watching them kill themselves through their own negligence. He did not want such pathetic specimens contributing anything to his new future.

Wesker's vision, already red, deepened further as his oldest enemy fled pitifully from the truth, leaping over narrow rivers of lava and scrambling across scalding stone in search of safety. But there was none to be had. He would die in the end – another genetic sequence unfit for continued existence.

Chris reached a dead end at last – a plateau surrounded by lava. Wesker advanced towards him, ready to end this and knowing that it wouldn't be enough. Nothing would be enough, nothing but the total eradication of the inferior. But another step forward brought a sharp pain shooting through his chest, followed instantaneously by the report of a rifle.

He looked up to see the woman had gained high ground, and she fired another round before he could react. His speed had deserted him, but if she believed she was safe from him up there, she was very much mistaken.

I'll make him watch her die, his brain hissed in fevered fury as he braced his arm against the ground and prepared to leap. Perhaps that will satisfy me. For a moment.

His speed was gone, but his strength remained, and with it, he launched himself into the air. The air grew briefly and blissfully cooler as he drew away from the hellish inferno beneath, then he dropped back into it, landing on the ledge before Sheva Alomar and advancing towards her, intent on hurling her into the fire at Chris's feet.

Sheva lined up another shot and let fly, even as Wesker began to advance. A small spurt of orange pus spurted out of his chest before the wound sealed again.

He had fused with Uroboros, and with its strength came its weakness also. That was obvious enough by how he'd reacted to her shots. He had abandoned Chris and come to kill her.

"Damn you," he spat as he stalked forward. She began to retreat, struggling to fire back at him every few steps. "War and pestilence wherever you go. Everywhere, nothing but loathsome humans."

Bit rich of you to be complaining about pestilence, she thought as she turned to gain a bit more ground. As she went, though, she shouted over her shoulder, "No one with such contempt for humanity could ever bring it to anything good. You say you want to save this world, but look at yourself! Destruction is the only thing you're capable of."

He roared incoherently, drawing his arm back and whipping it forward. The ground cracked behind her, sending her flying forward, but she rolled and came up running. She was covered in thick black ash, now, and having a hard time breathing.

She hit her radio, praying that it still worked. "Chris," she coughed into the receiver. "His chest…there's a pustule. I hit it, and it seemed to hurt him. We might be able to kill him…"

She dropped off into further coughing, barely keeping ahead of Wesker now. She saw a raised ledge that she could maybe reach Chris's platform from. She ran for another bridge leading to it. It looked as strong as the last, so she ought to be able to—

No. It gave out halfway across. She leapt for the other side, but only just caught the edge, and with her strength worn so thin she was having trouble pulling herself up. She struggled and heaved as Wesker approached behind her.

"Sheva, hold on!" Chris implored in her ear. He started shooting, and though all he had was a handgun, she was willing to bet from the pained yelp behind her that his accuracy was spot on. It was enough to make Wesker pause, and she managed to crawl up.

Wesker howled behind her, and shards of stone flew up again as she rolled forward out of the way and began sprinting for the ledge, and for Chris. They could do this together, but alone, Wesker would tear them apart.

She got to him, jumping over the dividing flow. He grabbed her arm and swung her onto the plateau when she fell short, and he said, "Good spot on that weak point."

She panted, nodding. Then Wesker's writhing black form flew by over their heads, landing in the center of the platform. This was the final battle, truly.

They both raised their weapons and braced for the onslaught.

This…ends…here.

Wesker lashed out. Every blow was aimed to kill this time – no more delay, no more pulling punches. He was through with these vermin.

"The human race requires judgement!" he bellowed as he struck again. Chris rolled to the side, and Sheva fired several shots at his chest. Pathetic.

As Chris came up, he said, "And you're going to judge us? Do you get all your ideas from comic book villains?"

YOU WOULD DARE MAKE A MOCKERY OF THIS?

He roared and attacked again, raising his arm over his head and bringing it crashing straight down like a falling tree. When it hit, he swept it to the left, attempting to take Chris's legs out from beneath him. The man leapt over it and began firing at his chest.

Wesker snarled. Did Chris really think he could do anything do him with weapons so meager? His paltry blows stung, nothing more. Uroboros would not be overcome by a simple handgun. That Chris would even entertain such an idea was—

CRACK!

A rifle round dug into his back, and singing pain shot through his spine. He gasped, reaching back automatically to feel for the wound, then dismissed it and whipped his arm around again to crush the insect that was daring to sting him. He missed again.

Die! Die! WILL YOU JUST GIVE UP AND DIE?

A red haze permeated every inch of his vision as he spun and lashed, expecting with every strike to feel the satisfying sensation of their bodies being crushed beneath the dual strength of the viruses raging through his system. Every attack brought a brief flare of endorphins, the anger flowing out of him through the short channel of violence, and every missed blow brought that anger flowing straight back – with interest. How dare they. How dare they oppose him still, WHEN THEY KNEW HE WAS RIGHT?

He thrust his arm into the ground, hardly even noticing the scream of fury pouring from his throat. He felt Uroboros digging through the brittle stone, splitting apart, and it came up in a pattern even he had not anticipated – red-black pillars of flesh that began rotating as they emerged, blending up the rock beneath them. Faster and faster they went, and his furious energy flowed out of him and into the viral whirlwind he had made.

His fury was, at this point, a physically oppressive force, seething in his brain and burning in his heart. He needed to let it out.

My chest will burst with this if its purpose is not realized, his brain rambled madly. There is no other way. Chris dies, or I do. And gods do not die!

When the dust settled, he saw Chris crouched before him, covered in soot and bleeding from half a dozen small wounds. Shards of rock stuck out of him here and there. Tiny things. Irritants, nothing more. Chris needed to be crushed.

Wesker wound up to accomplish this as Chris shook himself off and wiped the grime from his eyes, unaware of the approaching blow. The mutated limb came up, hesitated at its apex, and then came down in an ecstasy of power.

Chris rolled away at the last moment, without looking, and a second later the thunderous sound of a shotgun went off immediately behind, bringing with it a stunning burst of agony. Wesker turned, lunging with his more human half for the bitch who had snuck up behind him, but she was already dancing away.

Uroboros was shifting on his body. He could feel it moving to cover his back, but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything besides killing these…these…

Nothing sufficed. No word was enough to encompass the hatred, the contempt he felt as he struck again and again and again, failing to hit them each and every time. And all the while they kept fighting, firing useless shots at his chest and back.

His body thrummed with strength and energy, pain in his core aside. He did not understand why they continued their attack. The idea that they might still consider victory within reach was perplexing to the point of fury, but almost infuriating enough to come full circle back into confusion.

How? How can they still think they can defeat me, when I am more powerful than I have ever been?

And yet, even as he thought this, he felt a strange sensation. A rivulet of tiredness, of weakness, pulsed through him. He shivered, stumbling, and for a brief moment, his vision swam.

It came back in sharp definition as he felt the hateful sensation of physical contact – and no little contact, either. Chris had jumped on his back, and was trying to hold his limbs in place.

"Sheva, now! Shoot him!"

Before him, the woman held her shotgun, but she did not fire. "I can't without hitting you!"

"Then shoot through me!"

Enough, Wesker thought, shuddering with hatred. He arched back, ready to rip his arms out of Chris's grip and bring them crashing down on the woman, but as he did, he caught sight of something below him, on his chest. Its glow and color had failed to attract his attention in the red haze that had been clouding his vision, but now he saw it fully – it was a pustule, a cyst, and it had been damaged nearly beyond repair. And as he stared at this, a knife snaked out and damaged it further.

That pain. That deep, searing pain that so many of their attacks had caused; this was why. He had a weak point.

He tried again to wrench himself out of Chris's grip, but that first slash racked him with so much pain that for an instant, he was immobilized by it. But the agony did not have time to fade before she slashed again – and again – and again. She was butchering him, and he was powerless to stop her.

Powerless.

Fear. Despair. Doubt. These were things that any mortal would feel, looking down and seeing seven inches of steel being driven into their heart. But he was no mortal, and all he felt was rage.

Fear? For these vermin? These insects? These…these…

At last the word came to him – the word of highest contempt. No more loathsome a descriptor could he think of for such an organism, and it passed his lips in a silent breath as he felt Chris let go behind him, draw back…then drive forward again, shoving his blade in until the pain faded into a searing, thoughtless heat.

Humans.

When Chris pulled the knife out, he knew it was over. The slack flow of that orange fluid combined with the way the pustule was no longer able to regenerate itself told him that much. And that was to say nothing of the fact that he'd just kept Wesker in a Nelson hold for nearly half a minute.

Now for the finishing touch, he thought, and stood up, squared his leg with his body, and delivered a perfect sidekick to the dying man before him, sending him flying to the edge of the platform.

He didn't go over, though, which was what Chris was hoping for. Lava bubbled and broiled beneath him, ready to annihilate the virus he'd opted to take into himself. If Chris tried shoving Wesker off, he may very well get pulled in, too. But he was as close to death as he'd ever been. They couldn't stop now. He prepared to finish it.

Sheva put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back before he could. That was when he noticed the crack appearing in the stone in front of them. Wesker had done so much damage to the plateau that it was literally breaking apart.

He stood, glaring at them with malice, but as he took a step the chasm widened abruptly, and a new crack appeared directly between his feet.

Those red eyes widened as his ground was lost. It happened so fast as to be shocking, but before the man could move, his feet were already sinking into lava. He screamed, not in anger or shock, but in plain agony. His expression matched this, and Chris thought it was maybe the first time he'd seen that kind of look on his ex-captain's face.

They watched him sink, thrashing into the fiery pool, though he didn't die, and after a few moments Chris became aware of another sound – the low, harsh roar of a helicopter closing in fast.

Sheva turned and saw it first. It came to hover just overhead, and someone leaned out of the open side door, a hanging ladder in her grip. It was Jill.

"Grab on!" she shouted over the thunder of the blades above her, and tossed it down to them.

"Good timing," Sheva gasped as she looked around. The whole plateau was starting to crumble. They did not want to be here anymore.

Chris grabbed the ladder and held it steady, helping Sheva on and letting her climb a bit before he started up as well. The pilot held the chopper mostly steady as they monkeyed up, gaining just a touch of altitude to keep them out of the fire below as the stone sank. Wesker had fallen silent below them, and Chris suspected that he wouldn't be surfacing again.

Jill helped Sheva up, and both of them heaved him in when he reached the top as well. "Thanks," he said, panting heavily. He was so ready to go home.

"CHRIS!"

Sheva's eyes widened at the sound that had come from the flow beneath them, cutting through the roar of the chopper and the pounding in his own ears. Jill, too, looked shocked, but at this point all Chris felt was a deep weariness, even when the helicopter suddenly jarred to a halt in its slow drift. Going over to the side with the others, he saw with very little surprise that Wesker was making one last attempt.

His arm had shot out and latched onto them. A ripple traveled up the limb, culminating in a hard jerk in the air, and the metal beneath him groaned and vibrated as the pilot struggled to reassert control and keep them steady.

He was a good flier, and he managed to right them long enough for Jill to struggle over to a weapons rack, pull a rocket launcher off the wall, and pass it along. "Chris, Sheva, use these!"

Chris handed the first off to Sheva, then got another from Jill, and they went to the edge and braced themselves.

"Ready, partner?" he asked.

Sheva was already in position. "Locked and loaded."

So was he. He got a finger on the trigger, and as his oldest enemy's head came into his sights, he said, "Suck on this, Wesker."

"Your time's up, you son of a bitch—"

TSSSSSSSSSSSS—

B—BOOM!

They hit perfectly. Chris's vision was sharp enough that he actually saw the warhead pass through Wesker's skull, erasing the man who had aspired to be a god from existence an instant before the explosion took the rest of him apart.

It was over.

Roughly a hundred feet away, a high-end surveillance drone sat camouflaged on a rocky outcropping overlooking the scene. It had deployed from a nook in the bomber to observe the fight, and now its camera tracked the battle's conclusion. Its lens did not reflect the dull lava light as the rocket blasts sprayed gallons of molten stone into the air. The helicopter swayed, dipped…and righted itself, flying off into the darkness that would soon give way to dawn.

The drone took flight only after the helicopter was long, long gone, and flew down to the site of the explosion. It observed from a distance of ten feet as what appeared to be a chunk of stone floated to the top of the lava pool. Then the 'stone' wriggled, and a small black tentacle rose up out of it to grope at its surroundings.

It took a while, but it at last found land. It gripped this, and several more tentacles reached out and did the same. With great effort, they worked together to tug a melted, faintly throbbing mess out of the pit. The only human features remaining were part of an arm, a chunk of torso, and the lower half of a spine. As the drone watched, threads that vaguely resembled a flayed spinal cord began snaking their way down through the gaps in the vertebrae.

The drone lifted, drew back ten more feet to settle solidly on some flat ground, then began changing with little whirs and clicks. A sort of targeting mechanism resolved itself on its front, several lasers coming on and locking disparately onto the mass. Once they all converged, the drone began beeping.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…BEEP!

A burst of light shot down from the sky overhead. The mass in the volcano was consumed in fire. When the air cleared, there were only a few charred lumps of flesh remaining – and a few more faintly twitching tentacles.

The drone's lasers locked onto the largest portion of flesh, and the process repeated. Another burst of light came down, annihilating most of the remaining meat and leaving only a few more chunks, now moveless and clearly dead. One by one, the drone locked onto these, and the orbital laser fired until nothing remained but ashes.

The drone returned to its previous form. It flew over to the ashes, then tilted sharply back in the air. The tiny rotors, angled at the piles of ash, blew them into the lava in sharp little puffs. The drone continued flying around like this until nothing more could be blown off the shelf. It then settled down on a volcanic edge to continue surveying the area. It would do so until an approaching aircraft was detected, at which point it would fly off to a distant lava pool and dive in, destroying any remaining evidence of the presence of an outside party.