Village: Resident Evil VIII
Chapter Forty Two: Across the Waves
CRASH! One second Chris's team had Tobias and his hostage surrounded, and the next the whole building was just gone, vanished in an explosion of water and wood that made the whole world spin around while Ethan was sent flying backwards. Actually, he wasn't sure which direction, since everything got disorienting once the disturbance under the water made contact with the structure that the Captain's team was in, but suddenly the outsider was underwater. Hitting the murky liquid with a splash that was almost unheard over the explosion, he continued to spin around until he wasn't sure which direction was up, but thankfully he was also able to float that way on his own.
Once Ethan's head broke the surface, he coughed and gasped for breath, finding it gradually harder to move while his body remembered just how cold everything was, but where was he supposed to go? In the darkness everything looked the same, so the outsider didn't know where the cave was that he had been brought through, although… what was that? It sounded like gunfire but… where was it coming from? Over there! Yes, there were some muzzle flashes coming from a nearby structure sticking out from the water, and good thing they were bright, because the freezing water constantly lapping against his head made it so Ethan could hardly hear anything around him at all.
The structure in question turned out to be the rooftop of a large house, maybe even bigger than Luiza's, but as the outsider crawled up onto the edge, he realized that the gunfire he heard wasn't coming from Chris's team, at least not all of them. Bang! Bang! A few single shots were up ahead where the roof was more broken apart, sounding like a pistol, and… oh, wait… there was more gunfire coming from somewhere else? This time it was rapid, like those rifles the armed men were carrying, but it was a lot farther away, so… what were they shooting at, and who was shooting closer to him?
Suddenly a deep, booming roar erupted from beneath the water, gurgled at first as if the giant figure that leapt up like a whale had started it before reaching the surface, and more gunfire now, followed by frightened screams that were drowned out by the loud splash that followed. It was so hard to see anything in the dark through the snow, and the dim lights that surrounded the reservoir didn't help much as his feet slipped and slid across the wet wood. All right, so what was the plan here, Ethan, he asked himself. Even if he was to find someone amid all this chaos, the outsider was still unarmed and…
"Get down!" A voice yelled quietly, an arm suddenly pulling him behind what might have been a chimney… once. "Be quiet, Winters, he's right over there."
It was that woman from Chris's team, Tundra he thought they called her, still without her mask and now only holding a pistol in her hands. There wasn't enough light to see very far in the direction she was pointing, so the outsider decided to take her word for it, trying to stay as quiet as he could, and keeping his back against what remained of the brick chimney. From how tense the woman was, it could have only been Tobias that she was trying to warn him about, and Ethan was not exactly eager to run into him again. But what were they going to do? With only a pistol between them, and knowing how much punishment the soldier could take, how were they going to get out of this?
"All right, Winters, the Captain told us all about this Tobias guy." Tundra whispered, trying to keep her own voice down. "If we attack head on, he'll kill us, and it's impossible to outsmart him, so don't even try."
"That's great, so what can we do?" Ethan whispered back harshly. "Look, we're both soaking wet, we're… we're gonna freeze to death if we just stand here."
Both of them tried to think of something that wouldn't get them killed, but the only possible solution was still pretty risky. Tundra knew roughly where Tobias was hiding, so she figured that if she fired off a few shots in his general direction, the soldier would duck down long enough for them to run toward another rooftop. In the little bit of light available, the outsider saw that this wasn't the only place where the top of an old house was visible, in fact they were everywhere, a lot of them even close enough to try jumping over to without having to get back in the water.
The woman's hope was that the trail of visible rooftops would be long enough for them to reach shore, but there wasn't any more time to think about it once she started pulling the trigger. Bang! Bang! Bang! With hope that one of those bullets would somehow hit the soldier in the head, Ethan followed when Tundra started running, getting his foot soaked again during the leap over to the next rooftop, which was a little farther away than it looked, and so far Tobias hadn't started shooting at them yet. Maybe he really was dead, and now they just had to keep going until…
"There you are!" That same deep, booming voice spoke, the first word still gurgled a bit. "How did you get way over there?! You won't make a fool of me in front of Mother!"
On top of how terrifying that voice was, the fact that it was quickly getting closer made Ethan forget all about the cold, starting to run as the adrenaline surged throughout his body. The whole submerged started to sway back and forth as the water got choppier, and then it was like that horrible roar was right behind him when the building broke apart. Making a blind dive sideways, the outsider was lucky to land on another nearby structure, and then something big passed by. Visible only for a second before it sunk beneath the waves, it was covered in the same pale green slime from underground, it had fins and gills, and oh God that stench was worse than the vats below Castle Dimitrescu.
"I won't let anyone hurt you, Mother!" That voice continued, the fish monster surfacing again. "Watch me be the hero, Mother! Watch me!"
There was no time for either of them to react before the structures began to sway again, and then there was a horrible crash when the fish monster plowed its way right through the submerged house instead of going around it like last time. This time the woman was tossed through the air by the force, her startled scream cut of when the side of her head was rammed into a support post, and then Tundra sunk beneath the surface at the same time as the fish monster when it got further away. Maybe it was reflex, or instinct, but Ethan couldn't just let the woman drown no matter what she had helped Chris do to his family, so the next splash that was heard belonged to the outsider when he dove in head first.
Yes, there was a gigantic monster swimming around in the reservoir, and yes somewhere on the surface Tobias was ready to kill him, but none of that mattered as Ethan swam down into the murky darkness, franticly searching for Tundra. His lungs were starting to burn, and the cold was slowing his movements, but still the outsider searched, determined to save someone in this God forsaken place… but interrupted when a pair of arms were felt going around his waist. Now he was being dragged back up to the surface, taking in a gasping breath as he was pulled onto one of the deteriorating rooftops, and then turning around to see…
"Tundra?!" He exclaimed, still coughing a bit. "You… you're okay?! When I saw you go under, I thought… God, you took such a hard hit, and…
"And you tried to save me." The woman replied, startling him with a sudden hug. "Ethan, that was the bravest, most heroic thing I've ever seen… you really, truly are a good man, aren't you? I knew it the moment I first saw you."
The hug went on for a lot longer than he would have thought, even if Ethan had been expecting it from one of Chris's team in the first place, so he just kind of awkwardly patted her on the back a couple times. Once the woman finally let go of him, she smiled a little bit as they got to their feet, but then that roar was heard again, this time from farther away as if the fish monster had somehow lost their trail. Hey, this was great, since it gave the two of them a chance to keep moving closer to the shore, but now there was no sign of Chris or the other members of his team, and there was still the matter of Tobias.
"I'm the best, Mother, did you see?!" The fish monster called, moving back and forth across the water. "I did it all for you, Mother… I'll do anything for you! Did you see?! Mother?"
"I think we lost it." Ethan whispered, the two of them walking as softly as possible to avoid drawing attention. "But how do we beat Tobias? He tracked me through the village like I was holding a flare, and he just shrugged off those shells… come on, Tundra, he's gotta have some kind of weakness."
"I'm not sure, Ethan." The woman replied, grabbing onto his hand while they stepped across to another structure. "I think Chris might know him, but I never met the man before tonight… but if he's too strong for us, maybe we can outsmart him."
The outsider's brain had to do a quick double-take for a second when Tundra said these words, because he was pretty sure she had said something different about Tobias earlier, but… but he was too exhausted and cold to remember properly. Up ahead the next structure looked like the base to one of those windmills, so if they could get inside at least it would give them some shelter from the weather, and maybe a good hiding place for a while. So far the fish monster hadn't been able to track them again, and Ethan let out a long sigh of relief once the two of them climbed up the wet wood onto the windmill's deck, pushing the old, creaking door open and walking inside…
"Hi, Winters." Tobias said, his body visible in blue, crackling light when the baton was activated. "I've been waiting here for, like, twenty minutes, what kept you? Oh, and you even brought Eye-Candy with…
"Ethan, stay behind me." Tundra said when the soldier stopped talking in order to sniff the air. "I'll handle this."
"No, we need to run." Ethan urged, putting his hand on her shoulder. "He's too strong for us, and you got hurt out there, you…
Again, the woman dismissed what the outsider was saying, assuring him that she would handle everything, and then startling Ethan once again by giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, before turning back to face Tobias. Their enemy, on the other hand, was the one who was suddenly not looking very sure of himself, or at least confused by something as he kept sniffing the air. Tundra was unarmed, but didn't look afraid at all, getting into a martial arts stance that Ethan didn't recognize, not that he was an expert, and in response the soldier blinked so that his eyes glowed with dim yellow light.
"Now this is truly interesting." Tobias said with a grim tone, holding up his baton defensively. "You certainly have a way with the ladies, Winters, I'll give you that… but I wonder which one of us is in more danger right now."