Village: Resident Evil VIII
Chapter Sixty: Something's Wrong
Now that he had shaken off the full effects of that shock baton, Chris had a much easier time of following Tobias's tracks up into the mountains surrounding the village. The soldier's plan was obvious, he was going to shoot Miranda with a bullet coated in his own highly infectious blood in an attempt to weaken her just like he did with the Megamycete, and that explained why Tobias hadn't gone directly to the site. Making a shot like that was easiest from above, and pretty soon the Captain had traveled so far upward that he was close to the back of Castle Dimitrescu.
"Night Howl to Alpha." The radio crackled, forcing him to stop and get out of sight. "We've marked an extraction site, and Mrs. Winters is safely aboard a BSAA chopper that we, uh… borrowed. You need to see this though, Captain; we found the body of one of the soldiers fighting the Lycans, and uh… hold on, I'll just send you a pic."
It didn't take long for Chris's phone to receive the message, but when the Captain looked at the photo, he was stunned. The body lying on the snow was wearing a BSAA uniform and equipment, but his it's skin was pure white, eyes heavily glazed over, and black fluid was dripping from its wounds. Anyone could see that this wasn't an ordinary soldier, hell it looked more like a compressed version of the T-103's that Umbrella deployed to Raccoon City during the outbreak. But why was it wearing a BSAA uniform? The agency would never use something like that… would they?
From the start of the mission, Chris had ordered his team to go radio silent from everyone except each other, including HQ, but under the circumstances there didn't seme to be any choice but to check in. It was possible that this was a fluke, or maybe even a contained experiment, but he had to make sure. So he switched over to HQ's frequency, and gave all the coded information needed to make contact with the Director, himself. Ever since Barry Burton retired, the BSAA was never the same again, but that was fine so long as the new one could explain why a God damn BOW was in the field.
"Hi Chris, long time no see." A cheerful, peppy, and very familiar woman's voice answered. "You were probably trying to reach what's his name, but he's busy… somewhere… so what's going on?"
"Gillette?" The Captain asked in a shaky voice after hesitating. "What are you doing at Branch Headquarters?"
Never one for keeping secrets, the peppy woman started telling him exactly what she was doing there, sounding all bubbly and excited to explain that she was infecting everyone in the building. Apparently everyone seemed so unhappy and stressed out both before and during the infection process, but now everyone was happy, with her even asking someone else inside the room to confirm their feelings. Instantly someone in the background started screaming how happy they were, over and over again, and there was the sound of something hard hitting… a wall? Glass was heard shattering a second later, and that person continued to scream about how happy they were, even as their voice quickly got farther away… until a muffled impact sound.
"Gillette, sweetheart, I need you to really listen to me, okay?" Chris asked, trying to remain calm. "I know you think you're helping them with your spores, but you're not. We talked about this, so I need you to stop infecting people, just don't do it anymore, and then I want you to pick up the phone and call Alexia to come and get you. Just tell her where you are, and then just sit there and wait for her… can you do that for me, Gillette?"
"Aw, I'm sorry, Chris, I wish I could." Gillette replied, sounding a little sad to disappoint him. "But I have to keep making these things to help my husband fight those monster things… tell you what, just for you, I'll stop for a while as soon as he tells me the fight is over. Okay gotta run, hugs and kisses, bye-bye, Chris."
With that the radio call was ended, leaving the Captain just standing there like an idiot while his brain tried to process everything that was happening. If Tobias's wife was really making all those BOW's that were attacking the Lycans, maybe so many of them would be killed that there was still hope for Branch HQ. Couldn't focus on that right now, would have to contact one of the other branches for help once the thing with Miranda was settled, maybe one of the African Branches, but first the war here had to be finished. Continuing up the mountain trail to where the boot prints ended, there was nowhere left to go, with Castle Dimitrescu right above him, and the war zone that used to be the village down below.
As for Tobias, he was there in plain sight, not hiding or trying to avoid Chris at all as he aimed the rifle from a kneeling position. From there the two of them could see past the Megamycete's black tendrils, right down into the ceremony site where Miranda was doing something with… wait, was that Rose? Taking out the compact binoculars from his weapon belt, the Captain looked down and watched as the brunette finished reverting Ethan's daughter back from crystal into a normal child. She held Rose lovingly, rocking her back and forth before setting her down on top of what looked like a fountain of black fungus… kid didn't sink, just stayed floating on top, and…
"What the fuck?" Chris asked in reaction to the next thing he saw. "I don't believe it."
"Hey, looks like your little buddy is still alive." Tobias said, watching through the rifle's scope as Ethan approached the alter. "Resilient little bastard, isn't he? That's okay, I'll just pop Miranda once she's away from the kid, and then I'll pop Ethan right before he gets to the kid."
What? He wanted to kill Ethan, too? Why? When asked, the soldier replied that it was the best way to get little Rose away from them; he would have to make another blood bullet to make sure that the outsider was dead this time, but that could be done while waiting for the brunette to die from the first one. One last time Chris tried to reason with this man, telling him to call Gillette and stop what she was doing at Branch HQ, but the soldier just shushed him, lining up his shot and then pulling the trigger. Bang! A small muzzle flash and a lot of noise saw Miranda twitch a little down below when the bullet hit her in the chest, but other than that there didn't seem to be any effect.
"Now we just have to wait." Tobias said, ejecting another bullet to coat it with his blood. "Once Ethan's dead, too, I'm going to take Rose and go back to Branch HQ so I can help Gillette finish her takeover… and then we'll go to another Branch, maybe West Africa, and do the same thing there."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Chris asked, his mouth running dry. "Why would you attack the BSAA?"
Smirking a little as he reloaded the rifle, the soldier replied that it was for the same reason that he attacked the CIA after Spain, the same reason he attacked Umbrella after Raccoon City, the same reason he killed over a hundred scientists with ties to The Connections to learn about Eveline, because they were a threat to him and Gillette. There had always been a plan to get rid of the BSAA, but the Captain's little rogue adventures moved up the time table by several years, since the agency practically gave Tobias a key to the front door when they asked for his help with auditing Chris.
"I've been constantly reporting on the progress of this cluster-fuck mission." The soldier continued. "Your erratic behavior plus your inability to keep members of your team alive, made your superiors grant me more and more authority to get the job done. Now I'm going to kill your friend and take Rose away, and there's nothing you can…
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Drawing his 9mm pistol and pulling the trigger, Chris sent four rounds right into Tobias's torso, and sure two of them struck his stolen body armor, but the others struck him. The soldier grunted and fell backwards, dropping the rifle, and the Captain quickly picked it up, determined not to let one of those blood bullets be used on Ethan. So as quickly as he could, Chris aimed and fired down at Miranda, this time hitting her in the leg, but it was better than nothing.
"Ethan!" He screamed. "Ethan, grab Rose, and run! Get out of there, now!"
His plan was to use the rifle to give the outsider some cover, but suddenly sparks flew when Tobias's shock baton struck the side of the weapon. Flung from his grip, the rifle tumbled down the side of the mountain out of sight, so the Captain stumbled backwards while drawing his pistol again. Bang! Bang! Bang! A lot of the bullets missed, but each one that struck Tobias reduced the yellow glow in his eyes, bringing him closer and closer to the abilities of a normal human. However, Chris was quickly running out of bullets, so he aimed the last one for the soldier's wrist, and struck home, making him grunt as the baton fell from his hands.
With his other hand, Tobias was reaching for his own pistol, so the Captain rushed forward and tackled him to the ground, making the pistol clatter somewhere across the ground in the darkness, while Chris used his own empty gun for a weapon. Whack! Whack! Whack! Turning the empty pistol around in his hand, he slammed it into Tobias's face again and again, and this plan seemed to be working until the soldier reached up with his free hand and grabbed the Captain's wrist, squeezing hard enough to make him drop the empty weapon while the soldier started to get up.
Driven back to one knee as Tobias got into the same position, Chris pulled out his knife to stab him, but the soldier's shot wrist wasn't as badly hurt as he hoped, allowing him to grab that wrist as well. Struggling to over power his opponent, the Captain leaned forward, pressing the blade toward Tobias's chest, but this didn't stop the soldier from standing all the way up, bringing Chris with him and then squeezing hard enough for him to drop the knife, too. The only opening was Tobias's bloodied face, so the Captain headbutted him. He did this twice, but was stopped when the soldier headbutted him back, making Chris's vision go white for a second when he was pushed down to the ground.
"You know what I just realized, Redfield?" Tobias asked, picking up Chris's dropped knife, while the Captain scrambled for the dropped baton. "I haven't beat the living shit out of you since about 1994, you know that?"
"You know… you know what I… I realized?" Chris panted, trying to catch his breath as he got up. "You're gonna… you're gonna die on this mountain. Right here… you're never… you're never gonna hurt… anyone else… ever again."
The area around them was lit up with blue crackling light when the Captain activated the shock baton, and the soldier didn't say anything as he slowly turned the knife downward in his hand before moving forward.