Happy New Years~ lol 's finally 2019 within the story. 2 years down 2 ish to go -rolls up sleeves- spent some time writing up more ideas and plot so should be good for long enough to get the rest of 2019 planned out. CapCom really didn't give me a tone of lore to work with so. by the seat of my pants I shall fly!
Song suggestion: The Villain I Appear to be by Connor Spiotto
Disclaimer: I'm just writing silly wholesome fan fiction, I have no connection to the IP. /o/ please don/t sue me CapCom
Another year was about to come to a close. Once more the floor decided to celebrate the start of a new year. Similar to the year prior the Russo's put out a record player that played a tired tune. The effect of the passing year was clear enough to see. The Russos were starting to feel their age as they gently swayed compared to their more lively dancing of the year prior. Bastion was happily held in Travis's arms as they leaned against his open doorway while waiting for the count down. in the background on Bastions table sat a vase of flowers with a card that read From: Chris+Emma.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Hallway, Chris and Emma stood side by side, leaning against the wall space between the two small shelves by their doors rather than standing in either doorway. Emma gently nodded her head to the quiet older music as Chris sipped at a drink.
Eventually, the countdown began. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. "Happy New Years," the radio announced as the Russo's gave each other a peck and nuzzled their faces against each other's, while Bastion and Travis kissed. Emma stood on her toes to give Chris a peck on the cheek which caused his face to flush as he was still not quite used to public displays of affection.
Mrs. Russo walks back into the apartment only to return with a plate of Pizzelle while Bastion grabs a bottle of wine to share from his apartment and Emma gathers 6 glasses from her apartment. Once everyone had their glass in hand Mr. Russo stepped forward "Well, it's been a year since we last gathered here. A lot has happened." he says as he shifts his weight a bit to be more comfortable. "We have new additions to our community," he says making a gesture over to Travis. "Growing relations between those of us who were already here" he adds making a similar gesture over to Emma and Chris who chuckle in response. "and some that were always here to being with." He adds as Mrs. Russo walks over to place a gentle hand on his shoulder as they smiled at each other. "Despite some rough patches throughout the year, in the end, I think we're all stronger for it," he says with a nod. "So I hope you'll join me once more in raising a toast. since it did us so much good in the year to past, let it carry us again into the new year" he coughs slightly but does raise his glass. "Cheers, to a year of good health and prosperity."
"Chee-" the group starts as they raise their glasses only for Chris's cellphone to cut them off.
[INCOMING CALL - DIRECTOR]
"Sorry, I need to take this" Chris says as he puts the glass down on his door side shelf and heads back into his apartment before answering the call. "Hello?"
"Redfield, pack your things, Wolf squad will be heading out in the next 3 hours" the director states causing Chris to frown. "You'll be heading to the deserts of Europe, Hound Squad is in a bit over their heads and could use a few extra hands"
Chris bit his tongue. he wanted to point out that he warned the director this would happen "I'll be right there," Hearing that they were in trouble had him worry and thoughts racing a mile a minute.
"Excellent, we'll have the chopper ready for your squad to make the red-eye." The director says before hanging up.
Great... Chris gave a tired sigh and put his phone away after locking the screen. he packs up his usual olive drab bag and puts on his coat and scarf before heading back out.
"You have to go dear?" Mrs. Russo asks with a disappointed frown.
"Afraid so, it sounded serious," Chris replies with a nod "I'll be flying out as soon as possible."
"Well hopefully it's nothing too dire," Bastion says concerned.
"it will probably be a couple of weeks as usual," Chris says as he adjusts his bag to rest over his shoulder.
"Stay safe man," Travis replies with a nod.
"Have a nice trip," Emma says with an attempt at a smile. This did seem to happen to him a lot. Chris nods at that as he's not sure how to reply at this point he walks over and gives Emma a quick peck on the forehead before going on his way down the stairs hearing a distant cooing sound from Mrs. Russo in response to seeing the returned affection.
He didn't have time to be distracted like this, the squad needed him, he thought as he heads to the parking garage. he made his way to the BSAA, went to the lockers to change into his armored uniform before joining Canine and Night Howl.
"Heya Boss," Canine says with a tired sigh "ready for the new year?"
"Ready as I can be," he admits with a frown. despite being on time it took the director an additional hour to show up and provide the mission details. Hound Squad had set up a research outpost in the deserts of Europe and got pinned down inside of it by a group of mercenaries. They've been bunkered in place for the last two days when hostile forces took over the research outpost. The goal was to get inside, reclaim the post and fortify it so it wouldn't be so easy to be ambushed in the future.
Despite leaving at 2 in the morning, thanks to timezones, it was 11 pm by the time that Wolf Squad landed their helicopter. Another 15 hours that Hound Squad had to hold out without support. and it was going to take longer still. They ended up landing a good 40 miles out at an allied airfield. Who needed sleep anyways. luckily training covered as much. as tired as the 3 were they geared up and started making their way to the outpost using the cover of night to stay hidden.
3 Am. January 2rd.
"Night Howl, what do we got," Chris says quietly as the man in question was looking between night vision goggles and paper where he was mapping out what he could see of the outpost.
"It's not looking great" he admits quietly. "Gotta be at least 20 of them, mostly bioweapons with a few controllers. and those are just the ones I can see. Looks like someone went and recruited Glenn Aris men. based on the patches these are his guys that or they didn't bother rebranding and went solo."
"Not our worst odds," Chris replies quietly as he checks his equipment. "Canine, stay with Night Howl, provide support from here, and see if you can find their radio frequency and tune us in so we can regroup."
"On it Alpha," Canine replies as he readies his weapon to provide covering fire whiles Night Howl hands over the map to Chris and gets to work on finding any sort of chatter.
Chris slowly made his way down, any other time he'd use a grenade and start clearing them in groups but doing that would put the outpost and the squad at risk. It felt like it was going to take ages but by sunrise, the sound of radio static in his headset got his attention.
"Calling all units. repeat calling all units. Distress signal hour... 71. If you can hear please respond," said Umber eyes tired voice.
"Distress signal, this is Alpha of Wolf Squad Calling in. We hear you loud and clear." Chris says as he hears cheers from Lobo and Tundra through the radio.
"Took your damn time getting here," Umber eye says with a tired laugh as Chris takes out another Zombie.
"How are you guys holding up?" Night howl asks.
"On your six, Alpha," Canine says before taking a shot, hoping to either neutralize the threat or at least let Chris know where to look.
"Like Shit," Lobo says with a laugh "out of ammo, no food and we're down to our last canteen of water, the assholes were waiting for us to get back. All we had was leftovers from our quick away mission."
"No injuries?" Chris asks as he continues making his way in, for now, extraction was his first priority, they'd focus on retaking the base in full once they regrouped, resupplied, and rested.
"Minimal" Tundra replied "a couple of scrapes and bruises. The doors have seen better days but luckily they don't seem interested in using explosives either or we'd be telling a very different story."
"Explosives attract attention," Night howl points out.
"That's probably it," Umber eye agrees. "It's good to hear from you guys."
"Let's hold off on that until your safe and back at the airfield," Chris says "Where are you guys."
"Third door on the right, green metal door with a blue paint strip" Tundra replies.
"you could try knocking," Lobo jokes with a half-hearted laugh. even he was tired.
"Yeah sure I'll try and make some inaudible grunts while I'm at it so you think I'm one of them," Chris says back, "wipe the computer systems and pack up, I'm on my way."
8 AM January 2nd.
"Hound Squad Prepare for extraction," Chris says as he slams his fist into the specified door a few times.
Lobo opens the door "Look at that, you knocked" Chris rolls his eyes "Canine we're on our way back, continue providing covering support"
"Easier said than done Cap, We've lost cloaking from having the sundown. and it looks like reinforcements are on the way. Get moving" Night howl says in response.
"Keep the engine warm then," Chris says into the com device and starts slowly makes his way with the 3 following behind him.
by 10 Am the extraction effort was successful, the place was crawling in Bioweapons now, they'd have to clear it out. but for now they focused on getting back to the allied air field. "Where in the world are they coming from." Chris asks as Night Howl drives the now reformed unit through the desert.
"my guess is the new lab is sending out test vials." Tundra says "We picked up some chatter a few days back, the target here is the same as the one in the states, they have a group of scientist in the states for developments but by the sounds of it they export testing to Europe and move it around to make it harder to trace it back to one source."
Umber eye nods. "Yeah, Something set them off and they've been increasingly active as of late," he says with a sigh.
"You'd think with the holidays they'd figure out how to take a break," Lobo says as he leans back in his seat to get comfortable for the first time in 3 days.
"They mentioned setting up a new lab stateside, I got the co-ordinance on our run last week," Tundra says and hands that over to Chris. "Did the Director not mention this?"
"No... no, he didn't." Chris replies with a frown. "... Start reporting back to me with your findings as well during downtime... on either front, the mold or the virus. Something isn't right."
'*'*'*'*'
Chris walked through the halls of the BSAA headquarters with a clear scowl on his face. 3 weeks. 3 weeks he spent over in the European deserts, 1 clearing out the waves of Bio-Weapons sent to specifically attack that one base. Another week spent guarding it while the BSAA sent in a team for repairs of the current installment and the last spent guarding it as another team made additions to the outpost to prevent this from happening again.
'Strike one'. You're not going to like what happens if you get to three.
He was pissed. The co-ordinances that Tundra provided showed the new shipments and signals were coming from a recently build highrise on the outskirts of the inner city where he lived. This was still right under their nose and it was being ignored. Chris aggressively opened the door to the director's office and slammed it shut behind him.
"Redfield," The Director says with a tired expression that reads 'oh lord here we go' as if he was a parent about to deal with an upset child. "Always a pleasure to see you."
"The hell is this?" Chris asks as he slaps the co-ordinance onto the director's desk with the flick of his wrist.
"It appears to be an address," The Director says as if he was playing along with a game.
"For a stateside lab you've known about since December," Chris adds as anger is still very much so evident in his tone. "Why was my team not mobilized, this is a ticking time bomb to have a lab in this populated of an area."
"The risk was assessed and deemed insufficient, as such the investigation for that location was closed and set to a Reactive only protocol" the director replies which just pisses Chris off more.
"Insufficient? they're testing the virus on cadavers just 30 miles down the highway in an area that's highly populated with civilians. This is going to be New york all over again. how much more of a risk does there need to be?" Chris rebuttals.
"Sometimes in a game of cat and mouse, you got to let the mouse think it's the cat. Let them think that they're not being watched" the Director explains. "For this mission, as far as stateside is concerned we're sticking to reactive protocol. We'll send troops if an incident occurs and take action from there." the Director explains once more as he moves to stand up and look Chris in the eyes "You'd do well to keep your temper in check. Am I making myself clear enough this time?"
he was about to mention the warning from Veronica and his belief that the attack against the outpost was related to it but he held his tongue. it wouldn't make a difference even if he did tell the director. he had no intention of doing anything about this. "...Crystal," Chris replies still frowning. He would be taking those words to heart, something was wrong inside the BSAA, he knew it the second umbrella showed up in their ranks... he'd stay put and follow orders if only to keep an eye on this and continue to do what he knew was right.
"good, now. get out of my office. and try not to slam the door on your way out." the Director says as he sits down once more and takes the paper with the address on it and puts it into the shredder next to his desk.
Chris walks out and does as he is told. he hated this. His debrief with the director, Night Howl and Canine occurred the next day and by nightfall, they were released to go home.
'*'*'*'*'
Emma quietly hummed as she sat in her usual place on the couch and clicked away at her computer to try and finish up an extra assignment. the Parent company wanted to hire up it seemed and needed new 'we're hiring' ads for some sort of new cosmetics division. Something about having an easy time cross-promoting, yatta yatta, that was research and development's job to worry about. She just had to make sure it would appeal to the target audience when they see it on a poster and people found the ads in the first place. from the looks of it, they were thinking about renting out some space in that high rise at the edge of the city. Seemed like a bit of overkill but they were always on this 'best of the best' kick with Veronica at the helm so again not a surprise that they wanted space in the newest inner-city building while the label was still located in the outer city. maybe they'll end up moving everyone over there. "The commute would be nicer..." she says to herself with a tired sigh. She was tired... Emma closed her laptop with that thought. she'd work on this in the morning.
Knock Knock Knock.
RING: [Alert - Motion Detected]
Suddenly she wasn't so tired. she quickly put her laptop down on the coffee table and got up to head over to the door to see a very tired face looking back at her.
"Chris, Welcome home," She says with a smile and moves to let him in. He walks forward and pulls her into an embrace which she returns. he smelled like smoke. Gracious it was that bad?
"Good to be back," He replies before letting her go so he can put his bag down and close the door properly. Emma finally got a good look at his face.
"How did you manage to get a tan in the middle of winter?" She asks with an amused smile and walks with him to the kitchen.
"It was work," he replies as he takes a seat at the Island.
"That doesn't even make sense as an answer for that question," Emma replies amused.
"I know," He says in return with a short chuckle. He looked ready to pass out...
"You know, you don't have to sit at the Island. if you want you can sit on the couch, it's more comfortable. I'll bring food over." Emma suggests. "Something quick this time so you can go get some rest," she adds and he nods getting up to get a glass of water as Emma works on cooking and goes to sit on the couch. It took about 10 minutes since the stove had to heat up but she fried up a quesadilla on the stovetop using leftover ingredients and walked over to find that Chris had already fallen asleep. "Oh dear..."
Duke watched with very acute attention as Emma placed the food down on the coffee table, maybe for dog? he certainly was willing to wait and see as he crawled under the table to wait for something to fall. Meanwhile, Emma sat down next to Chris and supported his head with one hand while gently nudging his shoulder with the other.
"hm?" He replies as he slowly wakes up and blinks a few times while trying to process being awake again.
"Chris if you're this tired you should go to bed," Emma says with a concerned expression.
"I wanted to see you first," he says with a shrug. Emma chuckled at this. He didn't seem hungry at all. she reached down to grab the quesadilla from the plate and ripped it in half offering half to him.
"Well, it's going to be hard for you to see me with your eyes shut," she points out as he accepts the offered half.
"Close enough," he replies with a yawn before taking a bite of the warm food and putting his free arm over the back of the couch. the two sat in silence and enjoyed each other's company while they shared their small late-night snack.
maybe not my strongest chapter but, that's kinda inevitable after that last one lmao X'D some cutes some lore so it a good addition all the same. See you next time for February ;)
Review response:
Stinehegg - lol hey it's totally valid. I usually post here first since it gives me a bit of time to write and get it out there then look it over and make changes to any glaring issues x'D Hopefully, this chapter made up for the cliffhanger, I'll definitely work on putting in some more summer and Chris interactions :3 I have one major plot point revolving around the two coming up in one of the summer chapters but I'll see if I can squeeze in a bit extra in the spring.
InkScribbles - yaaas all the cuteness and much more to come x'D Veronica is definitely a piece of work. I'm kinda leaning into the spoiled, I get what I want when I want. sort of villain who thinks they're above consequences and in her case, she kinda is since she had the nads to go to the BSAA and say Bet you won't. she's been a very interesting Subtle but loud at the same time villain. I had Emma's work stress slowly become more of a building theme over the last few chapters and had her hinted at by mentioning the merger well before she showed up. so she's definitely going to be a thorn in their side even if she's not physically around.
Guest 1995 - Heck yeah the progress will be fun, I'm excited for what is to come.