The Ghost Survivors: Last Escape

by antihero276

Emerging from ground zero of the T-Virus outbreak and the destruction of NEST stumble two greatly differing corporate spies believed by the world to be dead. U.S.S. Special Agent GHOST and Organization operative "Ada Wong" cross paths and are forced to work together to survive and escape the infested Raccoon City. Short story. Aftermath of RE 2. RE 6 Ada/Agent origin story.

3. Chapter 2: The Hard Way

Jinero: Probably wouldn't depict any of that stuff, would happen off screen between RE 5 and Revelations 2/RE 6. I try not to get too sappy with the romantic aspects of stories, balance them out, and some things are best left to the imagination, so however you imagine it happening works.

Don't really have a gender in mind for the kid/kids, or names. Might change, but for now you can decide that for yourself. HUNK can't tell Jill his surname because doesn't know his surname. Only the Spencers do, and they never told him. I think it was part of Lady Spencer wanting to mold him into how she wanted him to be, let go of the past. I get the feeling HUNK won't find out from Bella before she dies what it is, so when he's with Wesker confronting Oswell before 5 he'll ask his name, among other things. Spencer will give him something like a contemptuous look, and say some variation of "Did you think I would remember the surname of a termite?" So he never learns what it was. Learns to let go of that instead. Can see the kids and himself taking on the Valentine name instead.

Echo Five: Human rights aren't exactly up there on the list of Resident Evil villain priorities, to put it mildly.

Anonymous: That's life. People are more complicated and aren't 100 percent good or evil, have human nuances, don't believe themselves villains, even Oswell Spencer, Marcus, Birkin, Wesker, Carla Radames, and Lady Spencer would be, in my depiction of them. As I depicted Colonel Vladimir with his soft spot for his Tyrants, seeing them as his children, his father issues and wanting Oswell's approval. Even Alfred Ashford with his issues over his sister and twisted kindness to HUNK, same with the Comtesse. They're still villains, so is HUNK, but I'm not out to write Saturday morning cartoon villains. And as I stated in the reviews of Their Last Escape, I'm not for guilt by relation. The money of the Spencer Family would be the wealth they already had, an old rich family with investments and many properties already, not the resources Oswell acquired through Umbrella. You think a man like him was sharing a cent of that Umbrella money with the rest of his family, or using it all to bring about his Utopian vision for the world? I lean towards the latter, for all his talk about how much the Spencer name matters to him and Bella is shaming it. In his own words Umbrella was a means to an end for him to bring it about. If the kids were donating to Blue Umbrella it wouldn't be with their grandfather's Umbrella money anyways. The rest of the Spencer Family would wisely distance themselves even further from Oswell and Bella once the shit hit the fan over Umbrella, and don't even really have a role in the company anyways.

Vong: Never seen that character before, not into Borderlands. But HUNK would probably be annoyed by a robot, doesn't take much to annoy him. Especially those who can't shut up.

Gotham could use the S.T.A.R.S. alright. Or to just start executing their supervillains. Little wonder it's such a cesspit.

Spartan: MOBIUS was very Umbrella, and STEM was just the kind of shit their tech division would love to get its hands on and experiment with. Spencer would probably find it an interesting side project as well, Lady Spencer would probably see more potential in it than Oswell does though. HUNK would be right at home in a world like that, would be a very interesting story, a sort of Resident Evil/Evil Within crossover/blend story. I liked that series overall... the second game was very nearly a perfect game until the ending for me, sadly. They went with the irritating Keystone Army trope, where if you do one thing, say push a button or blow something up, and all the villains die at the same time. It robs the antagonists in a story of all their menace in an instant. There's probably no trope I hate more than that one, Game Of Thrones pissed me off that way as well. It is a lazy tool of hack writers, saving themselves the hard work of writing a problem, threat or villains. Implanting chips in every single member of MOBIUS around the world so it could be easily hacked and hijacked at the same time and everyone killed made MOBIUS so damn stupid it was too ludicrous for me to buy, to suspend my disbelief over. A better ending would have been Kidman getting Sebastian and his daughter out of STEM, then them having to shoot their way out of the facility and fleeing for their lives, going into hiding. Would have been a perfect bittersweet ending, I like those, MOBIUS still out there and dangerous, but the heroes got away and have a chance in a third game. Alas, the writers of that story tripped right in front of the finish line instead.

Arios: I'm glad you like the story, and the differences in the characters, GHOST being a different sort of protagonist from HUNK. Leon's doing just fine, he made it out with Claire, chose the good girl over the bad one. Which just leaves the bad girl with the bad rookie, a more fitting duo in my opinion lol. I prefer pairing Leon with Claire, or at least they'll eventually end up together, they go their separate ways for awhile. GHOST is sort of a cautionary tale of how things would have gone for Leon if he had gone with Ada, wasn't the hero. And I enjoy writing opposites attracting, finding their common ground, while having huge differences, developing a dynamic, as I did with Jill and HUNK. Thanks again for the review, hope you enjoy what's coming ;).

Nightroad816: Fear not, all your worries will be addressed in the story and answered.

loonaismyworld: Means a lot you would make an account over my work, and like it as much as you do, much appreciated, especially such a big and thorough review where I can talk about this story and characters, many of my reviews for this one so far don't really delve or ask much about it, aren't as interested as you. I certainly tried to write the definitive HUNK in Their Last Escape, layer him more than other versions had. Yes indeed, there were no Agent or GHOST stories, and I wanted to do something different that hasn't been done, an origin story and actual character to Agent from RE 6 being one of my goals. I don't like retreading the same thing countless others have done. I saw more potential to explore an Agent/Ada thing, since her and Leon have already been done to death, countless stories in fan fiction, and canon, and I happen to prefer Leon with Claire. Ada and Leon to me felt like a 'could have been, if Leon weren't a good guy'. But the fact is he is one. They work better as a sort of tragic ship that never was. Not as an actual couple, they're too different and opposite. Hence GHOST/Agent, who is not a good guy, sort of a dark parallel/cautionary tale of rookie Leon, what would have happened if he'd gone with Ada at the end of 2. Yes indeed, there's a great deal of complicated depth Capcom never explored in Ada that Id like to, more than the femme fatale thing, as GHOST will gradually learn. She served as sort of the HUNK role of this story, the mysterious, dangerous, experienced one. Like HUNK I figured out more of her background, came up with an origin story, though in her case I wanted GHOST to be the primary POV in this story instead of switching back and forth often like it was with Jill and HUNK. The context of this story works better from the outsider POV of GHOST, inexperienced and sort of pulled along by Ada into something he never thought he'd be involved in. Seeing her from the outside and letting the reader decide what she is thinking instead of spelling it out. A mystery to the reader and to him.

I liked the differing character dynamics between GHOST and Ada compared to Jill and HUNK as well, different personalities, especially in the context of them meeting when they do, in the aftermath of RE 2 after all the shit they just survived, basically collapsing with exhaustion and needing to recover, instead of meeting early on fresh and healthy. A lot of factors and dynamics change based on the circumstances of the plot. Ada to me isn't nearly as bad as Bella... but she will never be a good girl type, so there will definitely be some corruption from her. That said GHOST is also not as innocent at this point in his life as young HUNK was, especially after what happened at NEST. Part of why he worked better with Ada to me than she did with Leon, Leon like Jill chose to serve and protect, had a good moral framework and grounding, in Jill's case she learned one after being a former criminal, GHOST meanwhile joined Umbrella Security Service, attracted by the power, danger, thrill, and cool factor, which should say enough. He's ripe for corruption and is already slipping into it. Yes, for the ladies man thing I liked making him an antithesis of HUNK, who is highly sought after by women, where GHOST is a rookie in that regard too. Though while GHOST actually wants all that attention from sexy ladies, thinks HUNK does too and is a player, the irony is HUNK secretly hates it, along with the fame, and would give it up if he could. Would rather be alone most of the time at Umbrella, or among the few figures he respects. I liked playing off the contrast between the two U.S.S. Agents. GHOST is still young and naive compared to HUNK... but he is learning some lessons the hard way, now. And unlike HUNK he has a non traumatic past he fully remembers, a last name, and a family and has had a normal life, more stable and sociable, not introverted, which makes him very different from the emotionally stunted HUNK who never led a normal life, is up to his eyes in mother issues, an identity crisis, bad at socializing, filled with regrets and bitterness. And HUNK was trained differently too as an agent, more hands on with Lady Spencer (literally and figuratively lol) there wasn't a Rockfort Island when HUNK got the majority of his training and much of his experience, he only did Tyrant and advanced B.O.W. training in 1996, whereas GHOST got the full Rockfort Island training experience. GHOST wants to be more like HUNK, not knowing the cost of being how awesome he seems to be, while HUNK would rather be more like GHOST if he could choose, a nobody. Though HUNK had a sympathy towards GHOST, given who his father is, the circumstances of him joining U.S.S. Part of why he allowed GHOST to fill the vacancy on Alpha Team, the call came down to him and he picked GHOST, leading to what happened, hence him being done with rookies, won't be taking any more on to Alpha Team. And I think after RE 2 Ada is in a more vulnerable place, especially when her epilogue in 3 shows her alone, recovering from Raccoon City and crying, so I went with that. In the context of that epilogue, she would latch to someone like GHOST coming along, didn't want to be alone, both needed one another at that point and met at the perfect moment. Not going to be easy between them, considering their personalities and setting, mistrust... but who knows? ;).

I can see GHOST, by RE6 at least when he's Agent, being the puppy following her around. There is some art of the two of them that amused me in that regard, I looked at all of what little there was of the two of them while writing the story. That said I wanted to give him his own character and dignity, not make him a complete pushover, especially not this early in their relationship, and after what they just endured. It's early yet. Just took them wearing down each other's defenses gradually to get to that cuddling point lol I like things to be earned, instead of forced or rushed. The context worked well for the cuddling thing. My approach to Ada will be something similar and different to that manga, and more of her will be featured in the epilogue of this story and story notes on my take on her, where I will reveal how I see her past. Suffice it to say, she did not have a happy early life. For now though I want her seen from a pair of outside eyes like GHOST's. GHOST will definitely have a sappy side down the line, but like I said I wanted to also give him some dignity, not make him a complete fool... though he will certainly be a fool as well lol. Don't want to make him a complete clown, but there will be a sad sort of humor to him where he is a bit of a joke. Also reality ensues a lot for him, he's someone who thinks he is the hero of an action movie when he is really the kind of dumb, but badass in his own way, sidekick. He's just lucky enough to survive, to hook up with Ada and certain things to go his way, but everything else he's kind of bumbling and unlucky, clearly not cut out to be protagonist material. He'll definitely end up Ada Sexual, is not surrounded by women like HUNK, and she's obviously the dominant one of the relationship lol. There would be a funny interesting dynamic there with the Carla factor in 6, though part of me thinks GHOST would be the first to see that she isn't Ada, having been with her as long as he has by then, dumb as he is he is also smart in his own way. But there would be a good deal of fun dynamics to work with if I did a 6 adaptation. As for the more intimate matters between the two of them, there is a time and a place for everything ;) bear with me. Yes indeed, I like writing that about him, he is not a tough guy rock solid badass who isn't afraid of death like HUNK. He is a sarcastic, inexperienced rookie who pretends to be tougher than he is, is rightly afraid of monsters unlike HUNK, like all of us would be... but does have some badass points, just more subtle than HUNK's. Basically GHOST/Agent to me is what TV Tropes calls the Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass. As for ages, Ada is indeed 24 here, and GHOST is the same age as Leon, born in 1977, in keeping with the parallels between the two being good and bad counterparts of each other. Similar height as well I think, in the 5'10" to 6' range I think.

Not a problem at all, I'm glad you enjoy the story so much, more to come ;).

Akira-Hayama: I have enjoyed writing and figuring out their dynamic as well, glad you like it too lol. A big difference in the relationship is that Jill's effect on HUNK is a positive one, he starts a colder bad guy with a death wish and rediscovers at least part of the man he was, doesn't want to die anymore, improves a bit from where he started, despite being deeply involved in Umbrella and all the evil stuff he has done. Meanwhile GHOST is a rookie, not innocent, but also not nearly as deep in Umbrella as HUNK or has done as much awful shit, while Ada will 'corrupt' him into her world, not make him a better person. Corrupt him further, at least, to me GHOST is a young man drawn to the allure of power, danger, wealth, glamour, like HUNK once was after killing Marcus. And ironically HUNK's status as U.S.S. poster boy, the stories about him, helped draw GHOST into joining the U.S.S. in the first place, admiring a man who ended up hating what he was doing and who he worked for. He like many of the agents hero worships and puts him up on a pedestal, the way HUNK once did to Lady Spencer. GHOST has yet to receive character development that HUNK did, because it's too early yet. Where Jill/HUNK is about a good person working to redeem an evil one and the evil one trying to do better, Ada/Agent is really two bad people finding one another under the worst of circumstances, and her pulling him in to hell deeper, alluring and seducing him, and him slipping into it. GHOST to me feels like a more natural fit for someone like Ada, similar enough in morality, both bad, but still different, not exactly like her. Still young, naive and innocent... comparatively, at least. Compared to her. There are certainly far worse people than Ada and GHOST, but I want it clear these are not good people, just sympathetic from their circumstances, nuances and what they are involved in at Raccoon City. The way I see them they are dark parallels to the hero characters. Ada has some HUNK and Carla Radames to her (I'm setting up aspects of Ada's personality that are later imprinted on to Carla to explain how she was), while GHOST has some HUNK, Jill, Carlos and Leon to him, similarities but dark differences.

GHOST will definitely give her a harder time than Leon did, is more sarcastic and abrasive than Leon after his NEST experiences. If I had written GHOST before those days down in that hell, he would be a much different character. People can change a lot in a matter of days. This poor bastard has been trapped underground for a long time among monsters. Traumatized. That and he's had the Rockfort Island training, endured and survived it, so he does probably have a bit more badass cred there than rookie cop Leon does at this point, even as a fellow rookie. I personally never fully got into the Leon/Ada thing, I was more Leon/Claire, I can see the draw, it's similar to how I play Ada/Agent, the rookie relatable agent and experienced femme fatale spy dynamic. I thought the Leon and Ada dynamic said all it needed to in RE 2, to me it was clear by the end they would never be able to end up together, a doomed, tragic romance that could never be, I liked it from that angle. Because Leon is a hero and Ada is a tragic villain at the end of the day. Her epilogue in RE 3 really sold that interpretation to me. She is the lonesome sort, has led many lives, and Leon can't help her. Not everyone can be saved or redeemed or changed, 'fixed'. Can't save someone from themselves, more often than not. I work not to disrespect the Leon/Ada thing, even as I pursue another different sort of ship. But there is plenty of Ada/Leon material, in games and fan fiction alike, and I wanted to try something different here. I'm glad you like it even as a Leon/Ada shipper.

I wanted that fixing scene to parallel the one of HUNK and Jill, patching up the injured woman. But where we were in Jill's head for that scene, we are in GHOST's for this one, not Ada's. Where HUNK's motives at that moment were inscrutable and we discovered them later, for GHOST it's a mix of concern, sympathy and not wanting to get his head blown off lol. GHOST isn't wrong that HUNK could have walked away and left Jill or Ada to die without a second thought... if he were younger, at least, before his character development when Lady Spencer left. But there is a definite sexual attraction to it for GHOST as well, for obvious reasons.

She's definitely more vulnerable here at the moment, given her state, but that will change. This was the aftermath of her injuries, losing Leon and leaving NEST alone... only to bump into GHOST while in such a weakened state, a factor she hadn't accounted for. She still slips into the cautious and icy mode, not fully trusting him as he doesn't her, but given the hell they are in, and that neither are entirely dumb, of course they would work together. I had to write both of them at the end of their rope, basically, after what they had just survived, wanted to show the effect is has had on them. Ada is not an invincible badass like the later games showcased a lot, she's still a human being with limits. Sort of like I showed the drawbacks of being HUNK, and that he isn't a machine. Now they need to recover, learn to trust each other, and escape together, get some of their old selves back, get their heads on straight if there's any hope of surviving. Ada is indeed 24 as of this story, and GHOST is 21. She's certainly young in the career we know she has, but Ada as I see her is more professional in personality and experience than GHOST. She's been doing the spy stuff longer, learned and got involved in the criminal world quite young. Lol GHOST is still at the stage of resisting being a simp... but, as we know, by the time he is the bumbling, disrespected but somehow badass Agent of Resident Evil 6, he will be THE favored Ada simp. Probably be part of what drives Simmons The Simp batshit insane, that a blundering, idiotic, foolish, obviously inferior simp like Agent won her over yet Simmons couldn't xD. GHOST/Agent was there at the right time and place through sheer coincidence or an act of God, that's just where he was, there when he needed to be. Her charm and seduction has its power, and unlike Leon, GHOST is not strong willed or good natured enough to fully resist her. But he will certainly try. Ada wouldn't respect complete simp behavior, weakness, someone she can entirely walk over, so there will be many arguments, shit tests to see if he stands up for himself. GHOST is not as big a simp as Simmons and never will be. He'll always have a bit of dignity and defiance, enough to keep someone like Ada interested, that's for sure.

Rest stops were important for me to depict in these stories, for realism's sake. I'm not doing a video game where the characters are unstoppable, just keep going and need no rest or necessitates, I'm writing a story about two people who just went through hell, and need to recover before wading their way out of the rest of it. And it gives the perfect time for bonding and character development, getting to know one another better, which is vital of course. Sometimes the characters just need to breath, can't always be action, just like how I restrain the action at times to make it have more of an effect when it happens. Like individual monsters being more of a threat, instead of them always battling their way with ease through hordes. Would lose it's sense of weight and danger if that were the case. So I show the characters limits, and give them the rest and treatment they need. Otherwise Ada and GHOST would have face planted from exhaustion at some point lol. And yes, them at their breaking point helped break down the barriers, where they could lower their guards and just talk like two worn out people in a world of shit who are simply done with fighting. At least for that moment.

Yes indeed, the character development and changes will be less drastic and overt than HUNK and Jill, especially given the differences in characters, personalities and story scope, but will certainly be there. No story has weight without growth and development.

Thank you kindly, glad you like the story and hope you continue to, friend ;).

Storm: Well, depressed enough to say "Fuck this." And cut ties with Blue Umbrella, leave it in SENTINEL and others hands. Leave America and become a wandering independent mercenary/agent/assassin. So quite depressed. Not so sure about the drinking, he doesn't seem to be the type to me who gets addicted to substances, doesn't want his mind clouded, doesn't dull his pain. Doesn't want to drown pain. His addiction is death. That of his enemies, and the death wish he will have for himself. Not literally suicidal, but not caring if he lives or dies anymore, just like he didn't after Lady Spencer abandoned him and before he met Jill. He'll revert to that mindset. Hard to say about the Samurai Edge. Think she lost it off the cliff at the Spencer Residence tackling Wesker... or dropped it on the floor. If I decided it were dropped on the floor, not a chance Chris allows HUNK to have it. He would take it. As for the blue jewel, get the feeling it is on Jill when she takes that plummet out the window. I think the only thing of Jill's HUNK would have is her memory, burning away, which would be more than enough to motivate him to try to assassinate Wesker in my version of 5, once he finds out from Excella that Wesker is still alive, and she hires HUNK to Tricell. I think her manipulation will be pretending to be afraid of Wesker, her company's new partner, so wants to hire the best man to protect her, just in case, hence HUNK. Pretend that the disguised, brainwashed Jill is an evil agent of Wesker's who might try to kill her at some point at Wesker's command, so she wants a protector she can trust. HUNK will know she is using him, but his desire for revenge will have him overlook how intricate the game playing is, that she and Wesker deliberately brought him back into the fold, the events of 5. Sort of he'll know she's the femme fatale type, try to play her a bit, but underestimate how batshit crazy she is, wanting to destroy the world with Wesker, while HUNK thinks she's just another executive after profits. One of his flaws, underestimating the villains. Cue a HUNK with a green tie for his suits and green lenses on his gas mask, one of the Tricell company colors, symbolically when he's at a place between the red of his villainous past and blue of his heroic future. Villain Umbrella/Red Umbrella HUNK, Anti hero Tricell HUNK and Hero Blue Umbrella HUNK.

I could see Joseph Kendo designing the weapons of Blue Umbrella, in Jill's memory. HUNK probably going to his shop and asking him to, convincing the master gunsmith, with Leon probably vouching for him, a mutual friend who also knows Joseph and has had his weapons designed by Kendo. This would be before HUNK abandons Blue Umbrella.

I'm sure they would. Then it would segue into HUNK telling the old man what he's going to do to avenge her, and Richard wishing him luck, approving.

FL4K: I don't understand, what do you mean?

G. Fawkes: The weapons GHOST entered NEST with were not all the same ones he left NEST with. He was down there for days fighting to survive. If anything he's carrying less weapons now than he did during his time in NEST. And many of the weapons he scrounged up were from his dead fellow agents, from dead NEST security officers and from armories around the facility. Almost certainly where he got the grenade launcher. Likely he went through quite a few weapons, ran out and threw them aside. Would be an entire story explaining all the crazy shit that happened down in Birkin's facility when the shit hit the fan, and the over a week afterwards. Chaos and warfare, fighting between U.S.S., Nest Security and the spreading T-Virus infected and B.O.W.'s, etc. The vending machines are of course non canon, but I selected from the available weapons in them to GHOST in that minigame and decided upon the ones that I did for him to have in the story. If anything he's quite under armed, given it's Raccoon City. And yes, HUNK did scrounge up other weapons and supplies, both him and GHOST were under the city for over a week, around NEST. Their initial armament was simple, as I pointed out in Their Last Escape, MP5's, TMP's, pistols, shotguns, etc. Why he regretted not arming Alpha Team with heavier hardware, and won't make that mistake again.

The story will be short by my standards lol and in terms of the number of chapters, but they will be long chapters. I tend to write until I'm satisfied, do a first draft than add a bunch when I'm editing the chapters individually, and go back and add things now and again when good ideas come to me. I try not to drag on or anything, but depict what I feel I need to. Glad to hear you're satisfied with it so far as well, enjoying my work.

Ada will take over the story in the epilogue ;). I thought it better to tell a story like this from GHOST's POV, the rookie who is the bad guy equivalent of Leon essentially, with Ada as this mysterious presence to him, him seeing what she can do when in action, sort of like I did a bit of in Their Last Escape, seeing HUNK from Jill's perspective. Them trying to figure out who this mysterious person is. Also GHOST is the more relatable 'normal' character compared to her, like Jill and Carlos were compared to HUNK. Ada and HUNK are complicated as hell and carry a lot more personal baggage, angst and tragedy than the other three, are in some ways a male and female version of each other. Cold, professional and bitter about their pasts. Though Ada is much better socially than HUNK is, even if she's faking it most of the time. Also, GHOST as I see him is the bumbling sidekick who thinks he is the protagonist/lead of this story, when it's really the more experienced and professional, dominant Ada. He just happened to run into her first at a vulnerable time.

GHOST is Leon's age, 21, HUNK is 11 years older than him, so that certainly adds to the gap in different personality types, interests, likes, etc. GHOST is more normal as I said, had a normal family life, friends, school, has a surname, etc, so is more into pop culture of the 90's, 'with it' than a man like HUNK, who although 32 as of this story is mentally about 60 from his experiences and introverted as hell personality lol. Though HUNK would probably revert to being GHOST's age or younger if Lady Spencer showed up in his life again. HUNK is an 80's man, GHOST is a 90's one. Ada is a 90's gal as well and 'with it', (though also a bit older mentally like HUNK from past trauma) and more about her will be revealed and hinted at, bits of information, but things take time to develop. This is about GHOST learning more about her, and she still obviously has a guard up. Or will. She's an enigma to him. They have to start trusting one another. Them both being exhausted and injured, the Florence Nightingale thing, definitely was an important in for their dynamic to me. Important. And it made sense too since they meet before NEST is destroyed, basically in the aftermath of the harrowing events of RE 2, everything they both went through. Them collapsing in that monitor room was well earned. They've been through hell. And it was something that would draw them together, an opening to develop their dynamic that came to me.

Glad you're enjoying it and wanting more. More on the way ;) hope you enjoy this chapter, friend.

bakaultima: Glad you're enjoying the story so far ;). And yes, I heard about that, the working title for the game seems to be Resident Evil Hank. Probably a typo in the report or a mistranslation... Hanku means Hunk in Japanese. Cross your fingers they really are making a HUNK game, but I'm not holding my breath at this point. So I'll be surprised as everyone else if it happens. And if they are, they are more than free to plunder my stories for ideas for HUNK's character, past and mindset if that is the case, or contact me for ideas lol. I'm a fountain of them. I could imagine a more stripped down version of my backstory for him working well in a game, probably if I were adapting my HUNK into a game format it would keep Lady Spencer, introduce her and a relationship, and keep his extensive training and the assassinating Marcus aspects, while keeping a good deal of his past mysterious. If there is a HUNK game, I sure as hell hope it's a prequel, with Umbrella still in its prime. Or maybe a bit of both, flashbacks to before Umbrella's end, and HUNK in the aftermath of it. The possibilities would be endless. Especially if they took my idea for a story of Resident Evil Meets The Thing, set in an Antarctic Umbrella facility, with HUNK and Rebecca as the protagonists, and Dr Cameron as the shapeshifting Thing villain trying to escape out into the world. Well, at least with the remake of 4 on the way, we'll hopefully get the return of HUNK's Neckbreaker Ballet (see the Youtube video), breaking all the Ganado necks in Mercenaries Mode. Assuming Capcom doesn't stupidly leave that out, cut corners, like they did in the remake of 3.

Random Person: Much appreciated, glad you enjoy my work and hope you continue to.

VECTOR as I see him was born 1969, three year gap with him and HUNK, like the gap between HUNK and Nikolai. I could see a respect, believe they've already met by this point, probably even had a fight on Rockfort Island that impressed HUNK. That said I don't see a mentor/student thing happening with HUNK as I see him. He has enough baggage to deal with as it is, and doesn't excel at leadership, nor really want to shape anyone to be like him. But if I did a Code Veronica sequel, it would involve Vector and Wolf Pack forming half of HUNK's new Alpha Team. They are canon in this universe, but not so unprofessional and over the top as they are in Operation Raccoon City. I would ground them a bit more, flesh them out. I would have HUNK call them out for their customized, unique outfits too lol order them to wear the same uniforms and armor as the rest of Alpha Team.

The UT Commander as I see him already has a love interest who is more his type, and Ada is creeped out by him anyways, like most normal people are. More of him would be in a Code Veronica sequel, have some ideas floating around about him and his past, who he is. I will say he is only moonlighting as Umbrella's cleaner, for his own purposes. There is a reason he is disguising himself so heavily. I did indeed like fleshing out and including the characters more that Capcom barely touched, like him.

There would be a good deal of awkwardness between Agent and Leon, if they met in my take of RE 4. But they are also good and bad counterparts of one another, which would be interesting to delve into. Agent is a cautionary tale, what Leon would have become if he had gone with Ada at the end of 2, if he wasn't the hero. I'd probably have HUNK point that out as a sort of backhanded comfort to Leon. "Look on the bright side, rookie. You made the right choice. Could be worse. Take a good long look at him. That idiot would have been you." *Both men watch Ada nagging Agent and Agent following her around like a dog*. On the contrary, Simmons will be jealous of GHOST/Agent, and Agent will be baffled why the extremely famous, powerful and wealthy Secretary Of State/President's Top Advisor and Head Of The Family (basically the RE Illuminati) has such animosity towards him of all people in the world xD. Would be a lot of entertainment value from that, writing that. The John thing I think is a bit less jealousy on GHOST's part and a bit more guilt, thinking she's with somebody but being attracted to her anyways and using her while she uses him. And the idea Ada was just using John and GHOST is the next easy mark she has moved on to, which ties into the difficult to trust each other thing. GHOST has a conscience and inner struggle, just more overtly than HUNK, he is still quite young and not as jaded. But getting there at this rate, and is taking the path of corruption, as he already was in joining U.S.S. He'll only go further down it with Ada.

As for GHOST/Agent, and Ada, you will find out by the time this story is over what will become of them. Can't go spoiling everything ;). Glad you're eager for more, though.

HotPocket: Lady HUNK is a non canon character in this universe, just as she is in the actual canon. At most I might make a joke about it at some point, like I did with Tofu in Their Last Escape. As for the Ada thing, wait and see.

ssj4warriors: HUNK as I see him would get a bit rusty between his departure from Umbrella and the events of RE 4, being out of the game awhile. Trying to live a peaceful life in hiding, living with Rebecca, but his old demons haunting him all the while, especially with Bella dead by this point. Until the Feds capture them and throw them into RE 4. On top of that the enemies he would be facing in RE 4 would not be the T-Virus infected and B.O.W.'s or conventional soldier enemies he was used to and trained against, but Los Illuminados and the Las Plaga parasites, and being somewhat out of his element in Spain and having a partner like Leon to deal with, a partner instead of a subordinate he can boss around, and one who does things very differently from HUNK. IE, HUNK would shake down and intimidate the Merchant for weapons and supplies while Leon wants to be nice to him and pay him for the weaponry and supplies, keep the Merchant on their good side instead of pissing off or scaring him over to the side of Los Illuminados. Leon being much better at reading people and social interaction than HUNK. HUNK: "This is a real war going on around you, parasite, not an economic one. If you hadn't noticed. If you're not with us, you're with Los Illuminados. Either way... you're handing over the fucking ammunition, or you're going over that cliff. Take your pick." HUNK would have a lot to adapt to, a lot of challenges. On top of everything else, he would have to rediscover the old HUNK... shake off the rustiness, though he would inevitably return during the journey with Leon and Ashley. Especially finding out Nikolai is involved, hell of a motivator to kill him and accomplish the mission, along with the virus Simmons infects him with, putting him under the threat of an automatic death sentence if Ashley dies and he fails his mission. She dies, he dies. He'd be quite the Snake Plissken in that story. "HUNK? I heard you were dead."

Thank you for all the reviews, as ever. I just want to take a moment to be petty and point out how predictably awful Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City looks. Everyone looking like a cheap budget cosplay version of the characters at best... terrible casting, and let's not get started on the infinite idiocy of combining Resident Evil 1 and 2 into an adaptation, instead of adapting both games into separate movies. There is more than enough material in the first game to be its own movie. Or the insanity of having Jill and Wesker in a romantic relationship xD. I just hope HUNK is left out of all that nonsense. At this rate I think they want us to miss Alice, and compared to what's coming next, I have admittedly softened on her a fair bit.

Anyways, let the last escape of our 'heroes' truly commence... assuming they don't kill one another first.

---

September 16th, 1998, 7:12 AM

Landing Zone, Loire Village Facility, Henri Estate, Loire Valley, France

The past days returned to him, a plethora of memories, in spite of his desire and efforts to keep them at bay. It did him no good. The dreams returned... alongside the nightmares.

The briefing at the Paris Facility... the barracks they had suited up and prepared in. And now on the helipad at Loire Village, all of them assembled standing in formation amid the pouring rain in full gear and weaponry, the droplets bouncing off their helmets, waiting for NIGHTHAWK to arrive for the pickup. Waiting for Special Agent HUNK to emerge from the sleek black limousine with his Countess. The ice queen of Loire and Paris alike... a ranking member of Umbrella's Inner Circle, said to be close to the Spencers themselves. Some of the other agents had been cracking jokes about the two, that their team leader was receiving a special pre mission 'debriefing' while they were stuck out in the cold. Apparently she was a married woman as well... but the other agents had told him that wasn't unusual... Lady Spencer was as well. That hadn't stopped him either. It seemed to be the Alpha Team leader's forte. GOBLIN 6 and FOXTROT had laughed the hardest, all the others on the team more comfortable and at ease, sharing a group dynamic, having been in the team awhile... experienced... but GHOST had had the weight of the mission pressing down on him. His first mission... not wanting to screw it up. Wanting to prove all the training had been worth it. That he would earn his place as an agent... with the chance that was being taken on him for such an important mission. HUNK could have chosen anyone to fill that vacancy, far better agents than him, veterans, but had decided otherwise. Given him a chance to prove himself, to make something of himself and start his career with the U.S.S. He had been more grateful than he could ever say for that, at the time. Now he wished he had been able to select his own posting. Or had not gone through with signing up in the first place. Instead he was locked in, one way or another... in the life of crime and espionage.

He'd merely laughed at the jokes and mockery, pretending to be part of it, in on the joke. Boasting and joining in on it like a loud mouth. Trying to ignore the trepidation he had felt. The pre mission jitters. Wanting to prove himself... that his father had been wrong. That Commander Ashford had been wrong about him... and Instructors Barton and Hadley had been right to give him another chance. Agent Raval had been there along with his men, of course... the 3rd Security Unit, or 3rd Squad, adorned in their uniforms, body armor and brandishing modified AK-47 assault rifles, among other weapons, standing out in the rain around the area securing it, patrolling military vehicles passing by, the barks of guard dogs at the gates with their handlers leading them around the perimeter of the base ringing through the air now and again. Keeping his stern, watchful gaze on the area, standing at attention. No expense was spared when it came to Umbrella's security, especially at the vital facilities owned by the executives of the Inner Circle. Raval had been selected by HUNK as well, or at least he had wisely advised his Comtesse to select him as the head of security at Paris and Loire. HUNK was her unofficial second in command, bodyguard, enforcer, advisor and the Alpha Team leader, all in one. Among other things he was to her. How he could multitask so many roles was a miracle in itself. The two men had seemed to be on decent terms... far better than he had been with SENTINEL, at least. A native of Rockfort Island, Raval had grown up and trained there rigorously, and carried out many missions as an agent, before taking the offered security posting. A disciplined veteran, like HUNK, damn good at what he did. A natural leader as well. And without a reputation for losing many a team on suicide missions, at that. But Operation: NESTWRECKER wasn't supposed to be a suicide mission... so he hadn't been nervous about anything more than disappointing the Alpha Team leader... what would actually happen not even a thought in his mind.

Before long, NIGHTHAWK's jet black Chinook arrived in the distant skies, drawing in closely as Alpha Team prepared to embark, setting down on the helipad, and when given the go ahead they all piled in. HUNK was the last to climb in, making his way down to the Chinook after emerging from the limousine with his blonde lady in her usual long, fancy red coat with white buttons, stocking covered legs in red heels exposed to the elements without a care in the world... his attractive Countess observing him from afar through the downpour, standing next to her limousine and beneath a red and white umbrella her long suffering chauffeur Francoise held for her. Director, Comtesse, virologist and Umbrella's third in command... all in one. A multitasker as well. Drop dead gorgeous, even then and there, just as she had been when he saw her on Rockfort Island in 96'. GHOST had never bothered or tried to speak to the Director, knowing he'd trip over his own words... make an ass of himself... and not even knowing what the hell he would say to her. He certainly hadn't been about to ask her if she knew his father. Besides, from her reputation, HUNK was the only hired help and company employee she didn't look down on. Except when she was on top of him, of course. Even then, she was said to be an improvement over her batshit Comte father who had apparently gone nuts and took an ax to a number of his staff up at the Château de Henri. If that story was true, anyways. For all they knew she had killed her own father and took over his role within the Inner Circle. Either seemed as likely as the other... she certainly didn't lack for ambition, and the Umbrella elites were nothing if not ruthless. Especially after Lady Spencer had supposedly departed the company and back to Essex. GHOST had watched HUNK trade a nod with the watchful Agent Raval as he neared the Chinook, as well as looking back to give his obvious aristocratic lover a single parting gaze before climbing in, nodding to the veteran pilot and giving him the go ahead to proceed. Then they were lifting up and away, the world of France growing smaller and distant below and behind them. Next stop had been the Leviathan, awaiting them in the Bay of Biscay... a nice reunion with the U.S.S. Agents and crew stationed aboard. That hardass Chief SSO SENTINEL greeting them with his heavily armed ship security subordinates upon their arrival, a cool, terse exchange passing between him and HUNK. Former partners and teammates... there seemed to be a bit of bad blood or resentment there. From what GHOST had heard, they'd kicked a good deal of ass together in Africa... but it didn't seem to register with either man, anymore.

Another briefing, from HUNK as well as QUARTERMASTER from the tech lab, was held on the latest gadgets he had come up with and was outfitting them with for Operation: NESTWRECKER. It had been like being in a spy movie... but come to life, and him part of it. Just like his life would soon become a horror movie. Doctor Carla Radames and her staff had checked up on them all over the days of the cruise as well, mandatory before each mission, clearing them. Apparently she hadn't been assigned to the support team too much longer than GHOST had been to Alpha Team. She'd been pretty damn hot... a young, blonde American woman with long legs, in a blue blouse, black skirt, heels and long white labcoat that did nothing to disguise her model-like figure... Umbrella knew how to hire them, alright. Brains and beauty in one. There were a fair few employees like that on the company payroll, from what he had seen. A number of the team had tried to flirt with her, but damn near everyone knew she only had eyes for the eternally reserved and coolly distant Alpha Team leader. It had been rather amusing watching her brazenly flirt with the U.S.S. Grim Reaper, trying to get a rise out of him, receiving so little in return, but unperturbed by either it or his reputation. The stories about him. More civilian in manner than Umbrella employee or scientist... yet a brilliant one all the same. HUNK had gone up to see SHIPMASTER as well, at various times through the journey, sharing some meals, and reporting to Sir Maxwell of U.S.S. Command, Admiral of the Umbrella Fleet, up there on the bridge as well. What they spoke of, GHOST wasn't certain... all that was well above his pay grade, and ranking in the company. He had no doubt HUNK knew a good many company secrets, all things considered... as the 'golden boy' as SENTINEL liked to refer to him as.

And then there had been the UT Commander... stationed on the ship for the time being, in case his cleaning services were required for NEST... skulking around it, with his freaks down on the cryogenics deck. The guy, whoever the hell he was under that getup, made HUNK look like an open book. Creepy son of a bitch... but HUNK had seemed to be on decent terms with him, better than with SENTINEL, at least. Enigmas stuck together, he supposed. During the outbreak he had thought the UT Commander and his Cleaners would show up at NEST... clean out the facility themselves... but it had not been. The facility left to rot instead... until the eventual self destruct sequence set off by some Good Samaritan.

Still, despite all that and the mission that had lie ahead of them, it had been good to return to that ship. GHOST had missed the fine cooking aboard the Leviathan... too much French food in the past weeks since he had come from Rockfort Island to the Paris Facility. His mother's cooking had been enough to last him a lifetime of French cuisine. And they didn't cook it nearly as well as her, giving scraps to the grunts... while HUNK shared fine dining in Loire with his Comtesse. And the familiar faces were welcome aboard the ship, instead of all the strangers in France. From there, it had been on to Raccoon City. When they had finally reached the United States, the Leviathan setting anchor far off the coast of Tall Oaks, all of them had boarded the Chinook, a number of them were laughing and joking about their team leader, who remained grimly silent throughout. Joking that they were all going to be dead by the end of the mission, that he was going to live up to his reputation again. How right they had been proven, in the end. The joke on them all. Under cover of night, NIGHTHAWK had inserted them beyond the Arklay Mountains at the LZ on the outskirts of the city in a forest area, while most of the city was fast asleep. They had breached the outlying sewers from there, close to the Circular River, pushing deeper Downtown toward the NEST, each of them carrying maps and diagrams of the sewer system and facility. It had all taken awhile, but such caution had been necessary... invading U.S. soil, and with the U.S. Government evidently in cahoots with Birkin. It had been surreal to the rookie.

All the same, despite the secrecy, old man Spencer had apparently wanted it all recorded, from the top of the line camera tech QUARTERMASTER had fitted them all with. Whatever had gone down had been personal between Spencer and Birkin, a betrayal of some sort... the old man had probably wanted to watch it himself. While deciding the doctor's fate. Before pressing on to NEST, the team had split up, and some of them, along with HUNK, had gone up and raided the Birkin's family home on the surface in the dead of night, in the hopes of catching them there, or recovering any samples they might have been hiding on the premises. They hadn't found any, tearing the place apart... and none of the Birkins had been present. A pity... the mission could have been much shorter. If they'd found the scientists daughter up there they could have taken the girl, used her as a bargaining chip to bring Birkin in quietly, keep him from resisting. Threatened her life. Then again... given how many orphans him and his wife had gone through in their experiments without batting an eye... GHOST had his doubts they would have given a shit about their own daughter, unfortunate enough to be born to not one, but two mad scientists. Likely they would have called HUNK's bluff. Virologists especially were a repugnant breed that way. He was glad they hadn't found the girl... Sherry, and that he didn't have to find out if HUNK would have pulled the trigger on her or not. Though like the Birkins... from the stories, GHOST believed that he would do so without blinking.

After the fruitless raid on Birkin's family home, they had headed back underground through the sewers, the teams reuniting and proceeding on towards NEST. It had been a small matter disrupting the cameras along the way, hacking the train and taking it down to the facility. Some of the agents staying up in the sewers, forming a perimeter around much of the area. There had been the matter of some snooping maintenance and sewer workers, but they had been easy enough to avoid... or disable non lethally. No different from the cameras they had disabled, where possible. Then they were running through the corridors of NEST, taking down security staff in the way as stealthily as possible. Switching off security cameras. Hacking computer systems. Bypassing doors. Blow torching some down, where needed. GHOST had been sent ahead through the air ducts into Birkin's laboratory to recon the area, for Birkin and the G-Virus. He remembered travelling through them, pausing to look at his map of the duct works now and again... before locating the lab in question, settling over it... watching below while setting up the breach charged as Birkin scrambled around his lab, lost in his own world, rambling to himself about the 'sheer perfection' of his "precious G-Virus"... how nobody was going to take it away from him. Cooing over it like it was his own child. Gathering up a number of G and T-Virus samples in his case. It had been rather off putting, seeing the obsession the mad scientist had for his work. Another scientist fancying himself a God, while having more in common with the Devil. There was no shortage of them in Umbrella or the other biotech corporations. Seemed to be in the job criteria for virologists, apart from Doctor Radames, of course.

Delusions of grandeur... born of an overinflated megalomania.

He should have gunned down Birkin then and there from above... emptied the magazine into him... but orders had been orders. After reporting in to the others, that he had eyes on the G-Virus, before the scientist knew it, HUNK, FOXTROT and STRANGER had arrived, storming the laboratory noisily, interrupting the scientist just as he closed up the case. At the same time GHOST had pressed the detonator, activating the breach charges and burst open the ventilation gratings in his hiding spot above the lab. Amid the smoke he had rapidly dropped down through the ventilation duct, rejoined them in the lab... in the tense but brief standoff that had ensued. One that had ended the only way it could, when Birkin had forced his hand. Refused to stand down and turn over the sample. Opening fire on Birkin... trying to protect HUNK from the idiotic scientist drawing his pistol on the Alpha Team leader. The bloodied scientist collapsing backwards to the floor, red staining and spreading on his lab coat and all over the floor around him. FOXTROT checking his vitals and shaking a helmeted head with an annoyed sound through his gas mask. In hindsight, GHOST realized... the dumbass had checked Birkin while wearing a glove. Of course he hadn't felt a pulse. It felt good to not be the only one who had fucked up, there. He remembered HUNK berating him... the only time he'd ever seen the man lose his temper, and remembered being frightened by it. Half certain he was about to end up like Birkin, by his leader and a man he looked up to. In the end though he'd gotten off fairly easily...a tongue lashing... though was going to pay some hefty consequences for it when they got back to Paris. All the same, the Alpha Team leader had covered for him with Sir Maxwell on the radio, saving him from whatever reprimand or harsh punishment U.S.S. Command would have surely given him for fucking up something Lord Spencer himself had wanted. Something he hadn't expected out of HUNK. They had taken the samples and fled the lab quickly after that. Left Birkin to rot where he belonged, in a hell of his own making... and for his wife to discover, send her a message.

That should have been the end of it... the end of the mission. All that was left was returning to the extraction point outside the city for pickup from NIGHTHAWK back to the Leviathan, with half their mission accomplished, if not all of it, thanks to Birkin. Despite what had gone down, he had breathed with relief on the way out of the facility with the others.

But it was not to be.

In the next moment, everything went to hell around him. Around all of them. Other twisted images and sounds returned to him, surrounded and encompassed him on all sides. Birkin was a mutated monstrosity, bellowing after them, chasing, hunting down and killing the team. One after another. The shit hit the fan. Blaring sirens. Birkin must have done it... or his wife, or both, each with full access of the facility and ruthless, amoral personalities at that. Not blinking an eye at their many child test subjects they'd gone through... why would they give a shit about infecting all the facility staff? He had anticipated their arrival, as he had told HUNK, and either released the B.O.W.'s shortly before they had arrived or moments after he had mutated. Almost certainly to cover his tracks while he fled to rendezvous with his family and contacts in the U.S. Government... assuming he hadn't been leaving his family for dead as well... being true to the rat he was. Regardless, it had been chaos throughout the NEST... through the sewer, the T-Virus spreading into each. Outbreaks at NEST... experiments and B.O.W.'s being set loose from their cryopods and containment and testing areas, infected facility personnel battling uninfected facility security. The RED QUEEN's accented, droning warnings echoing through the facility, shutting off certain sections of it. Various stand offs and barricades, messy battles in the corridors, exchanging gunfire between U.S.S. and the NEST's on site security forces... especially before the monsters had overrun the place, and forced everyone's attention on dealing with them. He'd been forced to gun down a few security guards and panicked scientists who had fired on him or tried attacking him with makeshift weapons, in the chaos of Operation: NESTWRECKER. He remembered at some point down there narrowly dodging a blow from a fire ax of one charging scientist, who ambushed him from around a vending machine... it slamming into the floor uselessly... then roundhouse kicking the pleading figure in a bloody lab coat backwards against a containment window of a lab's bullet proof glass. She had already been bitten several times already, he now remembered, but that thought hadn't even registered in his mind as he did it. Raising the MP5 and firing a couple bursts into the screaming young woman as he cursed back at her, anger burning at the close brush with death or grievous injury at her hands. Tearing her lab coat to ribbons as the scientist jerked and danced backwards like an absurd marionette. He remembered the body hitting the ground and twitching, a pool forming beneath her... and the red liquid running down the now stained glass behind her. While behind it, all the while several escaped freaks banged on the glass, trying to break through it to escape the room... the scientists in there already slaughtered by them, some feasting on them... and as the glass began to crack, he had quickly fled down the corridor without looking back.

At least until days later, when he had spotted her from the ventilation shafts again... shambling alongside the rest of the former employees, still bullet ridden, and staring vacantly ahead with wide, dead eyes. Moaning. She must have survived long enough to change... in an advanced state of infection from the many deep bites she'd had. He had decided to kill her a second time... and the second time he hadn't missed her head.

They had been the first people he had ever killed, and yet all the men and women's faces remained mostly a blur to him. He couldn't remember who had been his first. It had happened too fast, and in the middle of the insanity he had helped unleash, as the adrenaline had coursed through him. He had acted without thinking, as the world had fallen apart, just trying to survive and keep himself from freezing up with the revulsion and horror he had felt. Freezing would mean his death... and he had seen exactly that happen to countless others down in NEST. He had to keep on the go. Still... he wished his first kill had been Birkin, whose face remained sharp and clear in his memory in contrast to the other, faceless employees. The scientist's agony... before and after the mutations of the G-Virus had taken effect. In a way, the arrogant bastard had been his first... he couldn't exactly call that mutated state anything resembling life. GHOST had acted on instinct and the lunatic had deserved it more than anyone else down there besides his wife... yet he felt guilt over how it had gone down that he didn't over the other staff members he'd actually killed. Not because he had gunned down Birkin... but for not shooting him in the head while he was down to be sure. He remembered eventually losing track of everyone on Alpha Team in the madness... including HUNK, somewhere ahead of their position, everyone going their separate ways, the shouting and screams over the radio in his ears, before he had damaged it, or lost the signal. He felt his heart racing again, heard his exerted muffled breaths in his ears, as he had before. Felt the sweat running down him under the bodysuit as he ran, boots sloshing through the sewer water. He was running again, running for his life, trying to outrun death.

In the vivid memories, GHOST cursed at and fired on Birkin again, the mutated thing he had become... the roar of the mutation and submachine gun alike pounding on his eardrums. The bullets in the MP5 had been next to useless against its now thick, malformed, hide-like flesh. Mutated muscle, an inhuman amount of it, covered in thick veins... tumor like. Half its body seemingly mutating, growing and twisting, while the other half, or at least a good portion of it, was almost still normal, still clad in his bloody, bullet ridden lab coat, pants and shoes. The additional bullets had torn open the flesh and bled and just as quickly began mending itself again before his very eyes. Regenerating. Changing. The impact of the shots not even knocking it backwards on the spot, the way they had dropped Birkin before the mutations. The scientist had become a hulking, damn near unstoppable juggernaut, bearing down on him... and he remembered the hatred in its face as it set eyes on GHOST... as if the Birkin thing recognized the U.S.S. Agent in particular, to his horror. Regardless of wearing the same uniform and mask as the others... as though it could smell him, and simply knew. But as it charged, it had exposed the giant eye that had formed on its hulking, malformed shoulder in the lights of the sewer section. A malevolent yellow and red, pustule-like eye watching him as hatefully through the muscle tissue as the two still normal ones on its face were. Even now that stare bothered him to see again and remember, to think about... it was like an eldritch or demonic being had been growing inside Birkin... trying to force its way out into the world as it grew, taking control of the berserk former scientist. Something with intelligence, in the way it stared. Who knew... maybe that was the case. Either way, it had been a point of vulnerability, he had realized, and quickly put it to the test, hoping for the best.

As it started to swipe a giant, clawed arm towards GHOST, he had managed to bullseye the eye, a thick, glowing, yellow and orange pus-like substance spurting and pouring from the mutated part, streaming down it giant shoulder, causing it to scream and grunt in pain, taking it off guard. Not by much...but enough to slow the swiping claw as GHOST had jolted backwards to try and evade it. Instead it had caught him at an angle that had shattered his lens and scratched up the front of his mask and helmet, sending out a spray of flying sparks. The awkward swipe and dodge backwards were the only reasons he hadn't lost his head in the process, he was certain. Though even with those factors, it struck with just enough force to knock him back to the ground on his ass, stirring there, stunned. Watching the blinded, grunting abomination flailing, breaking steam pipes and sections of wall, brick and concrete flying about in the fog that began to form. Smoke filling the area, a hissing mist from the pipes. His miraculous luck had bought him just enough time to recover enough to flee... he scrambled to his boots... had looked about for HUNK, the Alpha Team leader having been somewhere nearby during the exchange with the now flailing Birkin thing... but GHOST couldn't make out HUNK's figure in the smoke. Not bothering to look for long, GHOST had turned on his heel and ran until his lungs burned and nearly burst, and then ran some more. Nearly tripping along the way, including over the mangled, mutilated bodies of his fellow agents. Catching flashes of images along the way, including of one of them being eaten alive by a swarm of infected rats, all climbing atop the infected, dying agent. He saw the pulverized vials of T-Virus as well, the bioweapon containers broken under Birkin's foot, streaming their ominously glowing green viral matter from them, the rats consuming it, even as it dripped into the sewer water. The Birkin thing had been eating more samples of the glowing purple G-Virus as well, mutating itself further, without a doubt. He hadn't heard it, over his gasping breaths, but had been convinced it was right on his heels. Ready to tear him apart and get revenge for what he had done to Birkin. Or smash him into a pulp with that makeshift weapon it had pried off the wall as it recovered from its injured eye... one of the steam pipes.

When he did eventually stop and take cover, another stroke of luck... it had given up chasing him... likely gone to find other agents... or other members of the facility staff. He heard the echoing gunfire back down there behind him... not in the least bit tempted to go back there and try to help the others... even as they screamed over the radio for backup... even as he knew he should have tried. He had been shaking all over by then, trying to recover from the shock. He felt guilt and shame for that... even now.

He remembered his harrowing journey out of the sewers and doubling back to and through NEST in the days after. He had gotten lost in the chaos, lost his maps and couldn't find his way out to the surface... had given up on that eventually. Instead he had realized he had to return to NEST for another sample, frist... realizing he needed to find another G-Virus sample if his ass was going to have any hope of even surviving once he returned to Umbrella... returning empty handed would have been a death sentence. So, he'd walked straight back into hell willingly, once he had recovered enough of his wits to go through with it... to think rationally. Even as he knew what he was doing to be insane. Moving from place to place, trying to stay discrete, taking shelter to eat and rest the few times he could. Raiding corpses of security officers for weapons and ammunition, along with supply lockers and armories he could access. Scrounging up all the supplies he possibly could, needing all of it. Trying to plan out a course of action. Avoiding the growing number of monsters as much as he could... though forced to fight them now and again, more times than he had wanted to... along with the remaining hostile NEST personnel down there. They had known he was a U.S.S. Agent on sight, of course, and that he had been involved in the outbreak. He could hardly blame the way they had reacted to him... but didn't regret returning it in kind, either.

He remembered encountering nastier and more vile mutations around every corner, it seemed... including G offspring of Birkin... both in the sewers and down in NEST. Some smaller, easier to deal with... others had had longer to grow, hulking, like their father, every bit as hideous, but not as powerful. There had been further brushes with Birkin... close calls... but no head on encounters, like the sewers. He had hidden from it instead... watched it mutate further over the passing days. Stuck down there for days that felt like years, when he had believed everyone else on Alpha Team to be dead or infected, that he was the last survivor. No allies to count on... only himself. He had watched the last of the surviving security and employees barricades overwhelmed by the zombies and mutated freaks... order and cooperation breaking down rapidly, becoming every man and woman for himself... among other horrors from start to finish of his time down there at ground zero. Eventually, it had only been only through another sheer miraculous stroke of luck, during the sudden, blaring self destruction sequence that he had found the G-Virus sample at the base of the facility when and where he had. A miracle he had managed to wade through the horde of abominations between him and the train back to the sewers... that he had made it in time. But for all the memories that came back, above all he still saw Birkin, bearing down on them... on him... even as he hoped NEST's destruction had consumed it. Had consumed the other thing in the hat and coat that had been lumbering around down there in the facility's final hours as well. Burned away every last fucking freak in the place to ashes.

How much further must have Birkin mutated since the last time he had seen it? He didn't want to know... but it was chasing him again now... all over again, running faster and faster, while GHOST slowed, as if running through a bog, and it through air. He ran through a flickering blend of the burning NEST facility and dark recesses of the sewers, death surrounding him on all sides, corpses everywhere, lying, crawling or shambling after him. Their shadows cast along the walls, writhing. The lights shifted over and over as the two worlds joined, suspending him in darkness in one moment and in the light of fire in the next. Then the Birkin thing leading the other abominations was upon him... seized him with its claws, gripping him tight and looming over. And not just it... hundreds of infected and mutations from the NEST, swarming and suffocating him... smothering him, pressing him down on both the concrete corridor floor of NEST, and the murky piss and shit water of the cold, dark sewers. He heard the squeaking of the infected rats... felt them crawling all over his body as well, slipping inside his undersuit like insects. He heard all the monsters screams and moans, gnashing of teeth... the terrible croaking of the plant-like infected experiments with their massive ravenous maws running along their bodies and whipping, tendril-like vines. Frost coated Hunters freshly escaped from their cryopods hissed and the inside out looking freaks screeched, their talons clacking on the ceiling and walls alike. Not infected, or mutants. Demons... every last one of them. All of them were reaching for him, grabbing him, feasting upon and pulling him to bloodied pieces in every direction. Consuming him. He felt the pain of it all, felt the rats gnawing on his flesh. And all the while, somewhere above, looming over him... was that inhuman eye that mutated on to Birkin... watching him again with satisfaction... triumphant at last. A figure in a dark grey shroud overlooked the struggle from off to the side, a silhouette in the mist pouring from the steam pipes, glowing red eyes burning in the depths of its hood... and a glinting, jagged, red stained scythe of the Reaper that bore it slung across its back from a leather belt. Waiting to claim his soul, perhaps, when the horde was done with him. The flickering lights of the sewer revealing blood coated skeletal hands at its sides and a bone white gas mask on the figure beneath the hood, with two eyes on the mask like red stars peering pitilessly back at him. Eyes that should have been a cold, piercing grey burned him instead. He shouted for help from the shadowy figure of Death, from his team's leader... called it by its codename... and none came.

Not from it. Not from him. That simply wasn't in his nature. And why should it? How many teams had he led to their graves already... and how was GHOST any more important than the other dead, faceless, expendable henchmen? He saw their corpses flickering into existence around him in those sewers, with the flashing of lights. Twenty three others... all that remained was the two of them. The veteran and the rookie. The Reaper's survival was guaranteed... whereas he would not last much longer, all on his own. Instead it looked down to its left bony wrist, to an audibly ticking watch latched there, its chiming echoing through the sewer, looking slowly between it and him. Another flicker of light and its right hand held the handle of the blood stained scythe. Waiting on the inevitable. Another flicker of the lights, and the figure of Death stood beneath and in the center of a blinding spotlight of red and white light amid and atop a mountain of corpses, dozens of them... hundreds of them. Thousands. A throne of his making, comprising of agents, scientists, soldiers, mercenaries, civilians and infected alike, it made no difference to the one bearing it which of them its dripping scythe tore asunder. Its mask and head were moving slightly... speaking to him in the voice and tongue of his father... even as he couldn't make out the exact words, muffled and too far away. Another flicker of light, and it sat upon the rotting bodies... and now it pointed a skeletal finger to GHOST... beckoned to him, to rejoin the Grim Reaper amidst the corpses and the red and white light that shielded the Reaper from the horde. A red wraith sat behind him amid the throne of corpses as well, now, a being like a feminine shape made from glowing vapor... wearing a brilliant white crown of mist... long arms wrapping around him from behind, leaning in and whispering intimately in her Reaper's ear... silent to GHOST... words for Death alone to know.

Though whatever the words were... the cold, cruel laughter that poured from the red wraith's lips could not be mistaken... nor could it be mistaken which of the two was calling the shots. GHOST screamed through his mask beneath their crushing weight, then, and struggled against the horde, and just when he thought it was all over... within moments, his vision broke apart, replaced by another, hazy one altogether. Another distorted red shape, looming over the sewer from high above, through the smoke of the fire and mist of the broken, hissing steam pipes. High above even the looming Birkin thing, and the pitiless, silently observing figures of Death incarnate and his Red Queen from their throne.

A woman's silky voice spoke to him from somewhere above and around him, emanated from the red entity... the words incomprehensible... but soft. Gentle. Caring. Not cold and cruel. Descending down to him. Reached down for him, to pull him away from the abyss he had been cast into... had fallen into himself. A voice that gave him strength... made him believe all was not yet lost. Reminded him he still had a chance. A reason to keep going. He looked between her and the beckoning figure of Death... and made his choice between them then and there. He grunted and tore free of the horde, kicking aside, elbowing and punching the abominations... drawing his combat knife and stabbing wildly at them all. Plunging the blade into the mutated Birkin's eye, making it scream again, splattering the sewer in its inhuman, glowing orange blood... slashing and severing the vines of the plant-like infected, cutting himself free as that voice continued to pull at him. Pull him away from the sea of the dead that would have him be like them... one of them. He ripped and teared his way to bloody freedom... to escape, rolling and crushing the rats inside his suit, ceasing their gnawing. Then with a burst of effort he swam up through the air as though it had become a fluid around him... towards it, reached out for it... for her... trying to leave it all behind. To escape. Seizing on to that soothing tone like a life preserver. Fighting to reach the surface and pull from the grip of the monsters below holding on to his ankle. He could not go backwards... couldn't look back at that hell of his own making... only forward. Whatever it took... to be with that voice again... to be safe. He saw her hand extend down towards him... from within a red, silk-like cocoon, thick around her, encasing all of her but her bare arm extended to him. He took it, gloved fingers intertwining with her smooth, bare ones... feeling the gentleness and power of the grip. Exerting his strength to pull her free. In the light, he saw her head break free of the cocoon first... saw that she was faceless below her short, black hair shaped in a bob cut, like the smooth white blankness of marble... but still she looked at him, and still she spoke to him.

Still she saw him.

The moment her grip tightened on his hand, the rest of the cocoon burst around her, freeing her, and she pulled away from it all, emerging entirely nude, pale form perfect, unmarked, unblemished. Full, sizable breasts thrusting forward towards him as she rose up from the cocoon, rearing free of the red strands clinging to her body. Something heavy formed between their hands... materializing into existence, cool and metal, a familiar titanium cylinder... until a glowing purple light turned on from within it, the ominous light encompassing their hands. The same screams as the horde below them emanated from within the container as well, trapped within the malevolent contents. Then it burned his hand as though he didn't wear a glove... and soon he wasn't, it burst into flames and ashes right off his hand... his flesh melting next, exposing the red muscle in it... and before long that burned away as well, leaving his hand charred, blackened and skeletal. He screamed in agony as it burned layer by layer, hand smoking, smelling the burning flesh, and tried to let go of it and her hand, but she was unaffected by the vivid purple light, holding on to his hand tighter... too strong to retract back from. Too late. He was hers. He was claimed. He had made his choice. As it burned, a giant pair of vivid red and black butterfly wings burst from the faceless woman's back, tearing off the bloody flesh there and emerging, unfolding, spreading behind her. The wings ethereal... otherworldly, with red light pouring from them and washing over him and the monsters below. Where it burned them, their screams growing as the light touched them... it rejuvenated him. Cancelled out the radiating violet glow of the container they held together... the weight of it. The muscle and flesh of his burnt hand regenerating, knitting back together, becoming whole again, the pain receding. Giant eyes opened on the spots of the wings, a pair of calm, steady irises... one brown and one green, each watching him from them calmly, blinking slowly. The brown one calm, gentle and warm... the green one passionate... alluring... and cool. He felt all the wounds they had inflicted on him healing over beneath the suit... and the pain evaporating... felt whole again. Taking flight, then... arms enfolding around him and his around her... the faceless, feminine figure flew him away from the deathly, burning pit of the dead and the damned below, away from the Birkin thing's enraged bellows and dark, damp sewers, away from the Reaper's ticking clock and illuminated throne of decaying corpses... and with her amid the beating of wings into a red eternity above.

The distorted woman's voice grew louder, and the words more clear... crashing down upon his ears while a blinding light did the same upon his eyes. Driving back the darkness below and encompassing him like a shield. Bringing him onward... pulling him back to where he was meant to be.

To the only place where someone like him still had a chance left.

---

September 30th, 1998, 10:16 PM

Monitor Room, Sewers, Downtown, Raccoon City

"Agent...? Agent... welcome home."

A jolt like electricity slammed through his chest and spread through his entire system as his eyes snapped open once more, emerging from the nightmare, body jerking, and he screamed... and screamed some more, the echo pounding against his ears. Screamed until he was overcome by a fit of coughing, gagging. nearly retching. Sweat soaked, gasping and panting as if he had run the hellish marathon of NEST all over again. Run the gauntlet. Outrun death. He may as well have, as the vivid images of that memory crashed down on him. Heart pounding in his ears when the echo of the screams fell silent, at the memory of that place he had just escaped again. Certain death, smothering him... if he hadn't been able to flee. Still, his mind was both oddly dimmed and racing at the same time... the panic spreading over him as he tried to remember who the hell he was and where he was. The world alien. Feeling himself weighed down. Feeling arms around him and hands gripping him when he tried to rise, keeping him from doing so all the way, thinking they were rotting hands for a moment, pulling him in to devour him... fighting and struggling against them... until hearing that voice wash over him again... with urgency in it, now.

"It's ok! Just breath! It's me. You were having a nightmare. Still is one, here... but not a hopeless one. Just try to relax, now."

"What's... going on... have to... didn't meant to... they're going to... Birkin... I...-"

"Shhh. You're panicking. Breath, GHOST. Slowly. That's it. Take your time. You're here. You're still alive. I'm the only one here with you. You're safe."

With the strange woman's languid, soothing voice and touch, his babbling ceased and a bit of clarity came back... sharper images and familiar surroundings. The sewer monitoring room around and above... the ceiling. Dried blood stains over on the floor leading to the closed metal door not far away, broken pieces of concrete where bullets had impacted, glinting shell casings and pieces of skull, hair and brain matter around the dried blood. But, leaning into his vision, hovering over him, the source of her voice became clear as well. A young Asian woman with a bob cut... her exposed, familiar eye studying him closely. Maybe it was the dizziness... his head not on quite right, yet... but even bruised and bandaged as she was... the bruises having worsened since the last time he'd seen her... swollen... GHOST couldn't recall seeing anyone more beautiful than her, just then in that moment. Her brown iris almost green, he noticed, in the light. A shade somewhere between the two. Hazel eyes... he realized, now that he looked at it at this angle closely. Not brown. The woman calling herself Ada, he remembered. A spy working for employers unknown... a dangerous woman who had pointed a gun at him before... and who held him now. All the same... he couldn't bring himself to move... to retreat from her or her touch. Finding it welcome, appreciated, even somehow knowing he couldn't tell her that for some reason. He breathed deeply, clearing his throat, trying to return from the nightmares. He had emerged from the sewers, only to find himself in them again. But not alone, nor surrounded by monsters. She helped lower him back down again as he opened and closed his eyes... realizing where he lie now... on the floor, with his head in her lap, while she ran a soothing hand through his hair. He looked back up at her speculatively, silent for a long moment, before finding his words slowly, voicing his disbelief.

"You... stayed. Here... with me..."

"It certainly appears so."

Her lush red lips quirked faintly at that observation, tone quiet but coy. Though not unkind. As the moments passed, he realized something else as he woke as well, getting more of his head together, the dizziness ebbing a bit... though much of the nightmare remaining a blur, images returning... but not all of them, he somehow knew. And too much of it confusing. And at her touch that did not cease, he reached up, gloved hand lightly touching his bare face, the stubble there, and his hair, where his mask and helmet should have resided... instead finding both pieces of equipment gone. And the touch to his face drawing some soreness in it... lingering bruises from his encounter with the Birkin thing. Not the only aches he felt returning to his body as he woke... but they remained bearable, for the moment. Had been worse. Could have been worse, considering what he knew he had survived to get here, where he was. He looked back up at her again, confused and seeking an answer.

"My mask... you... where the hell...-"

"You fell asleep with it and your helmet on. Couldn't have been very comfortable. I remedied that for you."

"Yeah. Right. Bet you took it off... just to help me sleep. That sounds like you... all heart. Couldn't be any other ulterior reason..."

"You really are back. Sounds like someone woke up on the wrong side of the sewer."

"Real funny, red..."

GHOST heard his groggy voice grumble back at her wry amusement sarcastically, a spike of irritation flitting through him, muttering under his breath, still trying to shake his senses awake. Releasing a groan of pain at the throbbing reforming in his skull... her cool touch against his brow soothing and welcome, about now. Remaining where he was in her lap, unable... and not wanting... to move. Though it was silently embarrassment he felt more of, then, rather than irritation that she saw what he looked like while he was out. Too deep in sleep to have been woken for it, or to remember it, at least. He'd not been planning on showing his face to her either... the less she knew about him the better, and him her. She merely looked back at him calmly and silently, not bothered in the least by his irritation. He uttered a low breath, trying to gather himself, looking back up at her again, half dazed still. Though having enough of his faculties back to form a question. To speak again.

"Well... your curiosity was sated. What do you think of this mug, then?"

"The truth?"

"No. Tell me I look like a movie star. I like comforting lies over truth. What do you think?"

"You're no HUNK or 'lover boy'... but you'll do."

"Gee, thanks. I always aim for mediocrity. Difficult to fail when you do. Looking half way decent yourself, for someone's punching bag. And how are you doing... this oh so fine day? Or night. Morning. Whatever."

"Evening. And I am as well as I can be... under the circumstances. Alive and mending. Feeling better... thanks to you."

"Yeah? Well... least that makes one of us, about now..."

"You'll feel better, give it some time. You've been in and out of consciousness... though never for long. Been talking in your sleep as well."

"I don't remember any of that..."

"Just take a few more minutes. Let it all come back on its own. There's no hurry, yet. We're still safe down here. Nothing came for us while we slept."

"Safe... for now, maybe. Either way, we're trapped in here like sardines in a can..."

"Fish in a barrel. But none of that negativity, GHOST. Been enough of that as it is. Just breath... and get your head back on. One problem at a time. We'll get to the others soon enough."

"Alright... I just... yeah... fine. Gotta point... there..."

GHOST sighed deeply and wearily, relenting and obeying his fellow spy at last, trying to gather his thoughts and failing for the moment. Remaining where he was against her lap, closing his eyes again off her alluring visage, though still feeling her tender touch, trailing along his hair and face. The familiar sensations of life all came back gradually with his consciousness... he was not tired in mind, just overwhelmed, the memories of the past blending with those of his nightmares, and he couldn't tell which were real and which were not. But the pain came back even further as well, the sore throbbing throughout his system. Aches. The foul scent of the sewer not far away as well... he had forgotten the awful scent of his surroundings, wearing the mask as long as he had been. He couldn't put it off, he knew deep down... as much as he wanted to stay here, like this, with her. Feeling her touch... not a worry in the world. He had no wish to return to the sewer... the infested city. To the monsters. To reality. It was grim, painful... and bound only to get worse in both regards and more. But he couldn't hide from it... from any of it. Even if he tried, it would inevitably find him again... find them. They had lucked out that nothing had found them, as they slept... of the many things out there lying in wait. They were still alive... they had weapons, supplies... perhaps some means of getting out. More than he'd thought to emerge from NEST with, thanks to their paths crossing, despite the strange circumstances of it. He didn't want to die... and not down here, cowering and hiding away in a sewer like a rat. Even if dying down here wouldn't be alone, now. He had not come this far for it to be all for nothing. To never see the surface again and breath in the fresh, cool air.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

The U.S.S. Agent opened his eyes slowly again at last, the monitoring room returning... and his eyes rose to her neck as she peered down at him... to the black choker she wore. The glinting red and black butterfly pendent resting there. He studied it in silence for a long moment... considering it... then, shaking his head, with a pained grunt he slowly began to sit up from her lap. She wrapped her arms around him as he did and helped him up gradually, and he turned, leaning back against the wall, sitting beside her. Breathing slowly, filtering out as much of the pain as he could. He felt a slight dizziness, spinning in his head... along with a return of the aching throbbing there. Not as bad as before, but still unpleasant. He reached up and touched it, feeling the goose egg there, from the strike Birkin had given him, along with landing on his helmet. If it had been dead on, with all the abomination's enhanced strength, and not a glancing blow, he knew the thing would have taken his head off. He had seen what it had done to a few of the other agents, to say nothing of what it did to the NEST scientists and security, not sparing any who crossed its path. He should be grateful he had not been among them, but right now, wasn't. Was in little mood to count his 'blessings'. They were minuscule, compared to the world of shit he now resided in. Hell on Earth. One that he was going to have to try getting out of. His bad mood returned along with everything else, worsened by the pain, slowly but surely. He drew another deep, slow breath... glancing down at his watch, checking the time... noting the glowing green ID Wristband he wore... for NEST... like one she wore on her own wrist... before lowering the sleeve down again and finally looking over the woman in red's way. They'd been down here together, resting, for quite some time, he knew. Most of a day. She had been watching him silently since he woke... remaining close, hand on his shoulder, waiting for him to return to the world of the living. He was back again now... more or less.

In spite of the pain there in her features, there was a resolve just as present as well. Strength that had returned after he had treated her. The treatment, medicine and sleep had clearly done her some good. The mixed herbs especially, he was sure, with the boost of the yellow ones in particular. Less sickly looking and pale... not entirely out of the woods, but decently better, like himself. She already had a plan of escape in mind for them, he was certain, super spy that she was. And by still being here, was clearly more than willing to let him in on it. He felt a strange gratitude for that... that she could take charge, knew what needed to be done. He wasn't a natural born leader in the slightest... not like HUNK... and preferred being directed by a professional... and preferably not at the point of a gun. At least that aspect of her seemed to have relented... being in the same boat as they now were. At least for the moment. He couldn't watch his front and his back at the same time... and didn't need an armed opponent on top of the sea of monsters between them and escape. He would gladly defer to whatever course of action she had in mind... there was no pride in that for him, all he wanted was to survive. If that meant obeying her... he could and would do so. Not that he had to sacrifice his dignity... that much he intended to hold on to, around her. She was still dangerous in more ways than one... even if he appreciated her taking charge. For now. She was clearly a professional, wasn't her first assignment, like Operation: NESTWRECKER had been for him. Though he highly doubted any of her other assignments had been much like this one. He wondered who she really worked for, her employers, who wanted this G-Virus bioweapon so goddamn badly that a full scale outbreak didn't deter them. With Umbrella it had made sense... it was legally old man Spencer's property, Birkin had signed away the rights to his creation the minute he joined Umbrella and used Spencer's funding for the project... along with accepting the NEST facility for the research, also provided by the President of Umbrella. Just as every U.S.S. Special Agent signed their life... service... away, and swore a verbal oath of loyalty to the company and silence for it. Another of the codes for U.S.S. that Lady Spencer had set down for them before her departure. Discipline, obedience and unity... three of the primary core values of the company... expected of all its employees.

In this spy woman's case... likely it was one of the many rival biotech corporations at work, here. If he had to hazard a guess, based on her being Asian, wielding a Chinese pistol... Shén Yà Pharmaceutical was making a power play. Them and Tricell were Umbrella's closest competitors that he knew of... but even then, they had little to nothing on Umbrella's magnitude, power and reach. He looked past her for a moment, off to the side of her, to find his grenade launcher and MP5 laying on the floor beside her. Along with his dented, heavily scratched helmet and his damaged, scuffed up gas mask with one of the red eye lenses shattered. Then he looked to his tattered, blood and grime stained, dark grey bodysuit uniform and body armor, black plate carrier and yellow combat harness... and the white military bandages she had placed all over it for some reason, helping keep it together. Slowly he looked back up again to her silently watchful, enigmatic hazel irises, finding himself wondering what he had been saying in his sleep. What she had heard... and if it had been anything incriminating... but her gaze gave away nothing. He had the feeling... if he'd said the worst of it... he would never have woken up in the first place. That was a reassuring thought, at least. At last he nodded slightly, and found his voice once more. He was as ready now as he was ever going to be. Or would be soon enough.

"Alright. I'm here. I'm back. More or less. One problem at a time, you said. So... what happens now? Which one of them do we deal with first?"

"Now? I take it you have food and clean water on you, wearing all that gear? U.S.S. rations? Haven't had any in awhile. Better than most. I know you agents carry everything but the kitchen sink. Not for lack of trying."

"Matter of time before old QUARTERMASTER figures that out. Maybe if he got around to mass producing Battle Suits already. Guess they ain't in the R&D budget, yet. Don't see why not, with Spencer's revenue. Busy focusing more of the funding on his viruses, I guess. And wasting cash on the U.B.C.S. Someone who ain't Colonel Vladimir needs to have a talk with the old bastard about that. Alas. Maybe if Lady Spencer were still the one whispering in his ear..."

"I've been trying to get my hands on one of those for awhile. One of these days, I'll succeed. Just need to find an armorer capable of tailoring a Battle Suit in my colors. Doesn't hurt I'd look good in one."

"Yeah. I bet you would. Got some leftovers on me... scavenged some stuff from NEST as well. Vending machines and supply closets storing their food. Had a number of cafeterias, for how many staff were there. Most dangerous part after the outbreak, having to go on supply runs."

"Good. Get what you have out, then. We'll share a late breakfast. Better late than never."

"Slept together in a sewer, and having breakfast together in a sewer. Not the most romantic of places for it, huh? Cheap date, at least. Was all this your elaborate ploy to get me into bed on the first date? Jump my bones? Only had to ask nicely, red."

Surprisingly, she laughed at that remark, very slightly, at his bitterly amused, sarcastic voice. As though she hadn't been able to stifle it in time. Coughing as well, exposed eye tearing up a bit. He felt his own tired, bruised face smile at her reaction slightly, for some reason finding himself pleased to have drawn it from the red lady of mystery. For her to be unable to hide something as simple as it. And, it looked like she had needed it, more than she'd admit. Coughing and laughter subsiding, and clearing her throat she found her voice again.

"Could be worse. I've woken up in stranger, more dangerous places than this one, believe it or not."

"I believe it, lady. One less than impressive improvised breakfast, coming right up."

He couldn't deny her point though, despite his sarcasm... he was hungry, he realized, the moment she brought it up. As if he had only just remembered he needed to eat. Wouldn't make sense to head out again while famished, without energy. They had enough problems to deal with as it were... no sense in killing freaks on an empty stomach. It certainly wouldn't help his mood any. The last time he'd eaten or drank had been in the NEST, at one of his hiding spots down there in the vast facility, before the self destruction sequence was initiated. Usually the air ducts... or certain smaller sections of the facility... at least the ones he had managed to secure and barricade, remembering the giant tongued things that had crawled around up there in the ducts. Even then, he'd eaten and drank little of what he had scavenged. More focused as he was on staying alive from the much closer, more disturbing threats than dehydration or starvation. A facility of hundreds, thousands of freaks of all variety. He took the time to slip off his blood stained gloves for the moment, tucking them both away into his stained, yellow combat harness, baring his hands again. Then the agent began to open up the right pouches he carried, withdrawing some of the tins of assorted rations, and snacks he had gathered down there at the vending machines, setting them down on the concrete floor between the two of them gradually.

"Ain't exactly the five star restaurant dining you're probably used to... but it's decent for a sewer, at least."

GHOST muttered under his breath as much to himself as to her as he set it all down steadily, her eye examining each food item for a moment. Then he plucked out his canteen from where it sat, and one of the bottles of purified water he had found below, which he handed off to her. She took it at once with no more than a glance, unscrewing the cap and taking a deep drink from it, as he did the same of his canteen. Lukewarm water... but both of them drank it like it was an ice cold alcoholic refreshment they both sorely needed. If they made it topside, the first place he was looting would be the closest liquor store. Assuming the citizens of the city hadn't already beaten him to that. Wiped the places out. He wondered how long it had been since she ate or drank... a good while from the looks of it, too busy fighting to stay alive around the city, most likely. She had been on the surface when it all went to hell... had come down to NEST later, from what she had told him before, not too long before the self destruct sequence had been initiated. Likely she had something to do with it, if not pressed the button herself. She drank half of the bottle in one go, the water tricking down her chin and throat, and stopping, she drew a deep, relieved breath. Exposed eye looking his way again, nodding slightly in gratitude, tone reflecting it.

"It'll more than suffice, all the circumstances considered. Thank you, GHOST. I've needed this."

"Don't mention it, red. Bon appetit."

GHOST drew a low breath of his own, and opened up one of the chocolate bars he'd found, slowly chewing away at it. Savoring the taste. His stomach growling away beneath the armor and bodysuit at the same time. It was welcome, but not easy to eat either, somehow. He had to will himself to eat, even knowing he was hungry. It took all he had to focus on that simple act. To clear his mind of every other doubt and fear of what would come next. Of what had already happened. Of whatever awaited him ahead... the monsters lurking in the dark and on the surface. When he was done with the chocolate, he turned his attention to a can of meat, popping it open and eating it, while she opened a can of peaches, sipping away at the juices, visibly enjoying them. Alternating between it, her water and some canned beets. Eating slowly but steadily. They fell into a welcome, oddly comfortable silence... neither seeming to feel the need to shatter it in a hurry. Then he opened up another of mixed vegetables... and he grimaced a bit at the taste of the greens, carrots and corn, coughing a bit. He drank from his canteen again, forcing down the mouthful of mush, and looking at the can with irritation. He'd forgotten how bad that particular item was. He'd rather be eating the grub back on Rockfort Island compared to it, about now... the crap served in the mess hall... the good stuff reserved for that maricón lunatic Ashford and the guests visiting the island he entertained, the upper echelon elites of Umbrella. Nothing but the best for them, and mediocre dining at best for the recruits. It was only after he'd achieved Special Agent status that he was fed better, especially at Paris... though even then, the food could have been better. It was as if it were a deliberate separation in quality between Umbrella's armed forces and the snob virologists other scientists and bureaucrats who called the shots. Slop for them and the U.B.C.S., fine dining for the rest.

Except for HUNK, of course, who had ate at Ashford's residence and the Henri Estate... no doubt from being somewhere between the U.S.S. and Inner Circle... and his past. As ever, he seemed to be the only U.S.S. Agent many exceptions were made for. Some of the guys had resented it, others found it amusing, others had admired it. As for GHOST... he somehow doubted it was HUNK's talent in the field or skill or many successful past operations that had given him the standing in the company that he had. More likely it was all on account of who he had been fucking, years past, and who he was currently fucking. Blue bloods were notoriously petty that way, acting like one of the high school cliques he'd had to deal with growing up, only treating those bumped up in popularity to their level with anything resembling respect. And these were the elite... European nobility. Didn't get much more snobbish than that. Especially Henri, a blue blood and a virologist simultaneously. Sexy or not, he pitied HUNK in that regard, having to put up with that, and especially her staff who she was not nearly as fond of as she seemed to be the U.S.S. Grim Reaper. Her own personal agent of Death, at her beck and call, shaking down and intimidating those she couldn't. The actual power couple of Loire, with the two of them fucking behind her eunuch husband's back. On the other hand, he couldn't blame Raymund for wanting to be away most of the time, abroad, with a harem of his own broads. Leaving poor HUNK to bear the brunt of his wife's nagging and dramatics, most likely. Though the agent at least seemed to bear the personality perfectly equipped to handle that. GHOST and the others had had more than a feeling who trally wore the pants between the two of them. Regardless of their social standing and class differences. He'd seen the way she laughed around HUNK... and followed him around, or was on his arm while acting like he was on hers.

Setting the tin of vegetables down, unable to keep eating the tasteless watery mush contained within, the agent reached for one of the small bags of chips he'd recovered from NEST instead. Before he could grab it a bandaged hand appeared and slapped his away from it lightly. Picking up the half eaten tin of vegetables and offering it to him again to take. Meeting her eye again, her amused but firm tone spoke up again, breaking the silence that had formed once more between them.

"Finish your vegetables first, GHOST. They're not that bad."

"Who are you, my fucking mother?"

"Merely an adherent of the 'waste not, want not' protocol. I've known true hunger before, endured poverty... grew up without the luxury of any food, often. I wouldn't wish it on even the people I hate. So don't be picky. Can't afford to be, right now."

GHOST looked back at her carefully, a silence returning between them. She was difficult to read... there was a grim amusement to her... but something solemn in her eye. She didn't seem to be bullshitting him... about that, at least. An unpleasant, difficult upbringing would certainly explain her choice in careers... though how she had gotten here was anyone's guess. He sure as hell wasn't about to ask... not here and now. But he did speak again, a bit more quietly, releasing a breath.

"Hmm. Guess not. Sure makes me sound like a real asshole... when you put it like that. Have a knack at doing that, don't you?"

"Sometimes. Only works on those with any self awareness and care. A conscience. Fewer of them around than you'd imagine, especially in this line of work. Makes the job easier, at least."

"Be surprised by what I can imagine. Well... that's me. Whether I care or not, I'm quite aware of the clusterfuck we've landed ourselves in. Not gonna delude myself. Fine, then. I'll choke it down. Happy?"

The U.S.S. Agent muttered in turn at her subdued reprimand and steady look, looking between the vegetables and her with mild irritation again, before taking the tin from her. Feeling her bare fingers deliberately brush over his as he did so. Relenting at last though, at the calm, personal revelation she made about herself. He'd not been expecting her to tell him anything about herself... but here she was, lowering her guard a bit. Or at least acting well enough to fool him... he couldn't tell which, even if he leaned towards the former. Accepting it just as reluctantly, forcing himself to continue eating away at the vegetables slowly. He wasn't sure if she was bullshitting him or not about herself, what with being a spy... but it wasn't worth calling her bluff. And something about it had sounded honest. Sounded, anyways. GHOST grimaced as he chewed and swallowed, taking sips of the canteen to help force it down, speaking up again dryly, giving voice to the thoughts he had been brooding over before.

"Beats Rockfort Island grub, at least. French cuisine as well. The slop they give us peasant grunts there, anyways. Only the scientists, bureaucrats and aristocrats get the five star meals. And HUNK, of course. Sleeping with the broad calling the shots has its advantages. Not sure how he does it without freezing his balls off. Guess the cold blooded are made to handle the icy bitch type."

"You haven't been beyond the Paris Facility much, from the sound of it. You could benefit from some fine dining for a change... and a better sort of cuisine.", The woman calling herself Ada's mouth quirked into a visible smirk, casting him a knowing look at the mention of HUNK and the Comtesse. Holding her tongue on the subject. Though not managing to stifle a slight laugh that formed. One that again quietly pleased him to draw from her for some reason, rose a smirk to his own lips. "Anyways, you're going to need your energy. We still have quite a bit of ground to cover. Especially in our conditions. We aren't winning any races anytime soon."

"We? Our? A trifle presumptuous of you, wouldn't you say?"

"Don't be a smartass, Agent GHOST. Or make me have second thoughts about this little... arrangement."

"Arrangement... that's one way of putting it. I would call it a gun to the head, myself. Don't worry. Wouldn't dream of giving you second thoughts, your highness."

"Good boy. Now... finish eating. Before I get cross. Wouldn't like to see me that way."

"I haven't already? What does you on a bad day look like, if this ain't it?"

Her red lipped smirk deepened further still at that remark, but she said no more at the moment. It was just as well... she was right. He was starving. GHOST willed himself to continue, gradually eating away at the can of vegetables, finishing it as bidden, choking it down, really, before moving to the chips. She offered him some of her peaches, and he gladly tried some, finding them delicious. They didn't eat and drink everything he had, of course. There was no telling how long it would be until they found some more food to scavenge. But they ate enough for the time being, enough to be content... and made sure it didn't come back up again, in spite of the sewer stench beyond. When they ate what they could, he tucked the rest away again... before, with a low, exerted grunt, forcing himself to rise back up to his knees, then up to his feet away from her and the wall on the spot. A wave of vertigo hit him all at once when he stood, swaying slightly, the aching pain through his body, especially his limbs, picking up. He drew a labored breath, leaning against the wall, until his head and vision had begun to clear. His sight returning to normal, with his focus... the aches of pain not vanishing, but becoming more manageable. Stretching his limbs, hearing the muscles in them popping... tilting his head from side to side. And finding something else he had to do, when he rose, his body remembering before his mind did.

"I need to use the bathroom."

"Thought you might, by now. Nature calls. Take your pistol in there. Just in case. Didn't check the men's room, while you were out. Just the lady's.", The lady in red returned from below, remaining seated where she was, exposed eye looking back up at him. And glancing down in the direction of the washrooms with a nod towards it. Speaking again quietly but seriously. "Be careful in there. Take the time you need. Shout if you need some help."

"Will do."

The U.S.S. Agent affirmed with a grimace, looking down to his combat harness and removing and sliding his blood stained gloves back on again, then looking to his holster and taking the MUP up in one hand, looking over the quite capable, though unmodified, pistol a moment. Pulling back the hammer and readying it, chambering the round, nodding with satisfaction. Then glancing wryly back down to the spy. Another smirk and a playful feeling reached him, somehow, along with a wry thought... and he knew then he must have been half delirious, from what they both heard escaping his lips before he could stop himself.

"Hmm. Actually... now that you mention it, might need some help unzipping this damn undersuit. Zipper got all rusty, all this time down here in the sewers."

"More tempting than you'd think... but I'm sure you'll manage just fine. If you could survive Birkin, and me, you can survive a zipper. Or is house breaking not part of the basic Rockfort Island curriculum? Must I teach you that as well?"

"Heh. Fair enough. Your loss, doll face. Offer stands if you want to surprise me."

"I'd say we've both had enough surprises to last us a lifetime or two. More pleasant as that one might be. There is a time and a place for everything, Agent GHOST. A sewer bathroom in the middle of a zombie, mutant and viral infested city is most certainly not one of them."

"Tsk tsk. Got no sense of romance or adventure, lady... something for me to teach you, I reckon..."

"You might be surprised yet, soldier boy, where those particular lessons are concerned."

GHOST's smirk merely deepened at her apt summary, at the undeniable unexpected flirtation exchanged... and he took a step backwards as she watched him with some veiled amusement of her own, just as it had lined her voice... gaze lingering at her a bit longer, then shrugged, turned on his boot and strode away from the wall. Past the now dried blood stains from the corpses he had shot and dragged out earlier. Pistol at the ready, he swept down past the item box and beyond the observation windows, past the generators with the missing chess pieces and the sealed security door they were connected to. Taking a moment to study them... shaking his head at the asinine system in place... puzzles of all things, in a generator area. It must have pissed off the workers down here, before the outbreak had happened. Wouldn't be surprising how many of those pieces had gotten lost, and how often that was the case. Batshit crazy city... maybe the outbreak was only showing it for what it had already been. An Umbrella owned lunatic asylum. Making his way beyond to the washroom hall, sweeping inside and finding no corpses there. Pausing to listen for the telltale sounds of the infected. Hearing none, he passed the closed door for the women's washroom, and stopped before the men's washroom. He pressed his ear to the door, listening for anything within for a few moments... and upon hearing nothing, he rose his pistol, drawing a deep breath. He barged through the door with his shoulder, flicking on the light switch to peal back the darkness and raising his sidearm higher, aiming, sweeping inside rapidly. The door closing audibly behind him. The lights flickered on, but it was dim, weak lighting that didn't illuminate most of the washroom... and some of them even continued to flicker or not light up.

"Goddamn it... always something..."

With a grunt of irritation, turning on his vest mounted flashlight, he remedied that problem as quickly as he could. Beam of light flashing on, hovering over the interior, glancing off the mirrors brightly, before falling on the middle of the washroom floor. Nothing stirred in the shadows or moved towards him, made any sounds at his entrance. Nevertheless, the bathroom wasn't as empty as he had hoped it would be. A corpse lie there on the middle of the floor of what had been a big man, a uniformed maintenance worker, laying in a drying pool of his own blood. Visible bite wounds all over him. GHOST uttered a low, slight laugh at the sight... not because he found it funny, but because of the morbid absurdity of the moment. And the obviousness of it all. This was the part where he was supposed to stupidly walk by it on his way to the urinal... it would grab his ankle and he would struggle with it. Like something out of a zombie movie. He remembered back at NEST... that exactly that had happened. When he had been trying to salvage some food from a vending machine in one of the recreation areas. He had thought a bullet ridden corpse of a scientist nearby had been dead... he had been right, in a way. It had been. It had also nearly gotten a chance to bite his ankle... and he had nearly shot his own leg off stopping it from doing so. Kicking it back down and stomping its head, blowing it apart as well to be on the safe side. Then there was the corpse that had woken again in the sewer monitoring room as he'd dragged it out, that she had shot before he could. He had survived it all, somehow, and worse down there in NEST... and while he was no HUNK... Mr Death, the best of the best, merely a rookie... he learned his lessons the hard way.

And he remembered those hard learned lessons well.

He rose the MUP without hesitation in both hands and aimed it at the back of the corpse's head, squeezing the trigger a single time. The round roared out and tore into its skull and flesh and hair, and he was proven right at once... it moaned and jerked where it lie bleeding, trying to rise. It had been slumbering all along, like the others... for God knew how long. Gritting his teeth, GHOST promptly put another pair of rounds in its head, just to be sure it would stay down. Spilling further blood from it, splattering its droplets on the floor.

"Eat this you freak!"

The roar of the rounds echoing within the confined room were painful in his ears, especially without the helmet and mask on, making him wince. Leaving them ringing... the barrel of the MUP heating up. Still... it was well worth it. The corpse did not try to rise again, didn't even twitch, and the moans that had emerged from its mouth fell silent as it bled... truly dead. He almost didn't hear her voice calling to him from outside the door, then, over the combined ringing and throbbing in his head.

"GHOST? Are you ok in there?"

"Yeah! I'm fine!"

The agent shouted back out to her reassuringly at once, glancing back towards the closed door hurriedly. Looking between it and the leaking still and silent corpse in the middle of the bathroom. Watching the formerly drying puddle of blood streaming and spreading, fresh with infected blood, oozing from the openings on the back of its head. He drew a low breath, gathering himself, and clarifying a bit.

"Just cleaning up in here! Gimme a minute, red!"

No response came from her at that... no sounds at all... she seemed satisfied, at least. And so was he. Though her having any concerns for him was strange... unexpected as the flirtation. Likely it was only because he would be no good to her as a corpse... even with what she could do, no doubt she would need a good deal of help getting to the surface. To the finish line. His eyes moved away from the bathroom door again, looking over the entirety of the room. The gunshots didn't raise any moans from the stalls, at least, he heard no movements from them... but still wasn't taking any chances on an ambush. Passing by the bleeding, still corpse, one after another methodically he kicked open the door of each stall, flashlight shining inside and MUP aimed within. Each one proved to be empty... and only when he had checked every nook and cranny of the bathroom, did he relent... lowering his sidearm back down to his side, holstering it. Mercifully there were no ventilation ducts in here that he could see... at least nothing big enough for the clawed mutations to break through. At last the room was safe and secure... and he could do the business he had come here for. He made his way past the sinks and mirrors ahead of him and over to the closest urinal, taking the time to unzip his undersuit carefully. Sure enough, it snagged before he could unzip it to his pelvis, and cursing he continued to fumble with it. Before his bladder exploded. QUARTERMASTER had assured them these undersuits like the body armor were among the best, top of the line. Barring outright Battle Suits, of course. But he had his doubts he would ever be one of the few who got to wear them. Maybe one day.

He only wondered if HUNK shared his undersuit unzipping problem, when he had got back to the Leviathan for his regular 'checkup' from Doctor Goodbody. And his next one when he got back to his awaiting Countess in Loire Village. The thought of it made him chuckle under his breath, despite his frustration with the zipper. The U.S.S. veteran was playing with fire, juggling as many dangerous, powerful and sexy blonde women as he had been and currently was, between the Umbrella President's aristocrat daughter, a virologist, and a virologist aristocrat. Among God alone knew how many other women they didn't know about... all those fancy elitist parties he was forced to attend with the Comtesse... all those Umbrella upper echelon women, European nobility and women of the other, rival biotech companies the Comtesse met with. At this point GHOST wouldn't be surprised if the Alpha Team leader had nailed the Aqua Cure promo girl as well... the model and actress and Umbrella pharmaceutical products spokeswoman all in one. Yet another leggy blue eyed blonde, who wore a damn fine purple swimsuit in her commercials, billboards and posters... stockings as well. All in all, his exploits were fitting for his codename, at least. Living up to it as much as he did the Death title, he did survive everything... so who better out there to be playing with fire? Child's play, compared to what he had dealt with regularly, if half the stories were true. And after the hell that was Raccoon City... GHOST was damn certain that they were more than not.

The rookie already had his hands full with a single femme fatale spy straight out of a Bond movie... one Mr Death had already crossed paths with at some point, if she was telling the truth. Another one he'd survived, it seemed. Probably with minimal effort on his part... while it seemed to be taking everything out of the rookie just to keep up with her. With a grunt, he finally lowered the zipper properly, moving to the urinal, and with a deep, pleased breath began to relieve himself. The pleasure was immediate... his mind drifting, from the hell he was in to the hot Asian spy out there waiting for him... that he had cuddled up with. The way she'd rubbed his hair... touched his face... comforted and looked at him, spoken to him the way she had. Dangerous woman or not... trouble or not... she hadn't needed to do that, but had all the same. There was something at play, there. Whatever the hell it was. Especially under the circumstances. Maybe things finally were looking up for him, more than he had thought they ever would... maybe there was a chance to escape this hell with her... she seemed experienced, and assured, despite her injuries. And perhaps at least somewhat interested in him... from the way she'd taken off his mask and helmet. Called him a 'consolation prize' back on the train. Who knew what that might entail, and what might happen? And then there had been that bit of parting flirtation... he was certain that was what it had been, that he hadn't mistaken the vibe. If she was going to use him some more, in certain other ways... he certainly wouldn't mind using her back some more as well. Getting his mind off all this madness. Despite the gun she had pointed at him, he quite enjoyed thinking about her, far more than Birkin and NEST. He closed his eyes, recalling how good she'd looked in the photograph, healthy and whole, in a red blouse. And who better than a U.S.S. Agent to unbutton and slip it off her sometime, instead of that chump in the picture named 'John'? Someone better equipped to handle her. Even with the injuries she looked damn good... when she was healed up? Perfect ten, he was sure, easily. Higher.

It was about that time, that the U.S.S. Agent heard the tapping of feet behind him, through that haze of pleasure and arousal. He opened his eyes again, startled at first... but a realization hitting him, along with a smirk. He looked slowly back over his shoulder, certain it would be her, coming to investigate the gunshots maybe... or maybe to mess around a little after all. Wanted to surprise him... had more of a sense of romance and adventure to her than he'd thought. He assumed the latter. Time and a place for everything, alright. He uttered a low chuckle under his breath as he did so, speaking to her, voice echoing through the washroom.

"Reconsidering that offer after all, red? First you wanna kill me, now you wanna kiss me. Yeah, I can hardly blame...-"

His words were cut off by what he saw... instead of spotting her, he watched numbly as the maintenance worker's corpse was lurching towards him, like a marionette. Blood pouring down it's rotting face and onto it's stained uniform, shuffling a trail of blood towards him. Mouth opening and closing, arms risen. This one was not like the common infected... the ones he was more used to... but it had mutated into a nevertheless familiar form. He had seen them, down in NEST. Flushed crimson skin from blood seeping into it... eyes gone milky white, glowing back at him... claws forming where the nails on its hands had been. Light steam or smoke... something heated pouring from its nostrils and mouth of razor teeth, especially in the coldness of the washroom. Excess muscle growth... strong, faster... superior to the common freaks. In a flash realizing each of the rounds somehow had not struck its brains, inhuman gurgling sounds escaping it's lungs as the blood kept dripping and running, falling to the ground, dripping about. Snarling ravenously, releasing then not an expected moan, but a hoarse roar, a scream carrying through the bathroom around him. Heart nearly bursting in his chest, GHOST instinctively screamed right back at it at the top of his lungs, cursed and jumped on the spot, unable to stop pissing, a spasm seizing through him and reaching down for his MUP again, nearly dropping it in the process. He whirled around away from the urinal and towards the mutated zombie, leaking on the front of it as he rose his sidearm just in time at its face, lit up entirely the instant the flashlight's beam caught it. Its gnashing teeth snapped at him, blood stained, rotting, clawed, crimson hands mere inches from seizing him by the throat, when the MUP roared through the washroom like a thunderclap and kicked in his hands again, knocking it backwards, staggering it and taking it off guard, as it had him. The shot struck it in the mouth, blowing its jagged teeth all over the floor, a fountain pouring from its gurgling gullet. The sight heartening, encouraging, and the anger joining in with the alarm and fear by now. At it and himself for letting it take him off guard... but just then, he focused all of it on the thing.

"Swallow this!"

The moment he had forced it back with the first shot, GHOST fired again and again, ignoring the pain it did to his ears, shooting it in the head, knocking it to the floor and aiming downward and continuing to fire, stepping towards it, heart racing. Shells flying about and audibly striking the floor... standing over it and squeezing over and over. Before he knew it he had emptied his entire magazine into the oozing pulp its entire head had become, brains, bone and blood leaking freely as it twitched uselessly on the floor, the clicking of his emptied MUP echoing through the place. Smoke rising from the tip of the barrel in the cold washroom. Only then, when it registered that he had survived, had made it, wasn't infected... did he stop, breathing deeply, heart still hammering in his head and ears ringing even worse than before. His own leaking bodily fluid gradually ceasing its flow down the front of his bodysuit's pants as well as on the floor, while the twitching corpse's showed no sign of stopping. Gradually, his breathing began to relax, heartbeat slowing and the shock of the surprise subsiding partially. Not daring to take his eyes off it, just in case. He cursed at himself under his breath, gritting his teeth. What an idiot he had been, not making sure the rounds had pulped its brains... underestimating skull density... and how resilient these things were. Especially if they had been infected awhile. He knew the way the T-Virus mutated them after some time, became more durable... or like the clawed things that crawled along the walls. God knew how long this one had been lying here on the floor, hibernating. Growing stronger. Even knowing the way they could suddenly rise again... he had made a mistake that had nearly been his last one. Somehow... he'd made it... escaped another brush with death... where most of the rest of the team hadn't even survived one brush with it. Maybe he was starting to understand how the Alpha Team leader felt... a taste of it, at least... and it tasted like shit already.

It was only then, from the corner of his vision... he spotted a familiar red and black dressed and white bandaged figure, standing in the open doorway with a Chinese pistol aimed at the corpse as well. GHOST looked back up at her, meeting her exposed eye... lips parting... then he laughed slightly, feeling a desperate embarrassment pass over him. Face and the back of his neck flushing warmer. Casually running a gloved hand through his hair, lowering the spent MUP to his side. Forcing himself to break the silent stillness that had settled over the washroom in the wake of the gunplay.

"Uh... hey... how you doin'?"

"Flattered, Agent GHOST." The bandaged woman in red smirked visibly, her exposed eye lowering from his face and down along his body. Slowly raising her exposed, perfectly manicured brow. Head tilting very slightly, and lowering her burst pistol back down to her side. "Not doing so bad yourself, from the look of it. Is it me, killing infected, or a bit of both?"

GHOST stared at her blankly a moment, not understanding what she was getting at... before following her appreciative gaze back down to his front. Seeing what she did and remembering in an instant. Mortified. He jumped again as if electrocuted, moving backwards and whirling around so his back was to her, holstering the emptied pistol and facing the mirror instead. Looking back at her reflection in it as he fumbled with his undersuit, trying desperately to tuck it away within again and zip it back up. She shook her head slowly from the mirror, and he heard her silky, thoroughly amused voice speaking up again before he could form any fumbled, hasty words.

"Doesn't look like you need my help, here. With the infected. I'll be waiting outside. Like I said... take your time. Freshen up a bit. Looks like you'll need it."

GHOST kept his back to her and bit his tongue, didn't say a damn thing, watching her red from withdraw slowly, turning and leaving... waiting for the sound of her tapping heels to move again. Back to the door and out of the men's room, the door closing behind her. When it had, he could hear her muffled voice burst out laughing loudly out there, and coughing... unable to repress it, before falling silent again. GHOST felt his face and neck burning hot even in the cool interior of the washroom, embarrassment and shame, and continued to struggle with the rusted zipper of his undersuit in front of the mirror, burrowing away his hardness carefully first. At last, it responded, and he quickly zipped it back up again all the way, but the damage was done. He groaned out loud with irritation, burying his face in his gloved hands... before wincing and hissing at the thrill of pain from the contact with his face. Looking back up at his face in the reflection at once. The assessment on her part about his features had been her being generous after all. He was a fucking mess. His stubble lined, tanned, olive complexion was covered in bruises, swollen in places, like the goose egg on his head... looking worse now than they had the last time he'd looked in a mirror... and had several healed over cuts among the swelling. Great. He wondered what he had done to deserve all this shit, of late... but only wondered a few moments. Grimacing at the memory weighing down on him. Birkin, that sick son of a bitch. All it had taken was a burst of submachine gun bullets, and everything had gone to hell for everyone. And he yet lived to pay for his mistake. To suffer. All the same, he felt his temper reaching its limits, sick of it all. Sick and fucking tired of Raccoon City... the monsters ambushing him and trying to eat him. All the many close calls... with this as the latest one. And now he had a femme fatale around who had seen him exposed and might kill him any time she pleased, after getting whatever it was she wanted out of him first, of course. Pain and humiliation. Even if he got out, he would never see his family again, estranged as he was, unable to return to them or to Umbrella, now. U.S.S. had been his new family, from the moment he'd signed up... and now he didn't even have that any longer. All the while HUNK was many miles away, kicking his boots up on the Leviathan, treated like a King, no doubt, with a G-Virus sample in tow, while his own had been taken from him. Stolen. His only lifeline. While he was in the middle of a sewer, and a washroom coated in blood, rotting brains, skull and his own piss.

Great, just fucking great.

His temper snapped in that instant like a fine thread being snipped, and he didn't bother trying to reel it back in. Drawing back his glove, balling it into a fist, he slammed it into his reflection in the mirror with a grunt. Not expecting what happened to happen.

"Ow! Fuck!"

Reinforced glove or not... the mirror was harder than it had looked. No cracks appeared in it, and his knuckles bounced off it uselessly and began to ache and throb. He cursed again under his breath, wincing, opening and closing his hand and waiting for the pain to abate at least a bit. Dampened slightly by the glove. Certain it was going to swell up before long, bruises, like he had on damn near everything else. When the pain became more manageable, he grunted under his breath, and remembering, drew his spent MUP again and ejected the empty magazine, hearing it clatter on the floor at his boots, before sliding in a fresh one from his belt, securing it into place and drawing back the hammer, all in a series of fluent, practiced motions. He lowered the pistol loosely to his side, looking at his miserable, bruised, disheveled features once more. He looked a hell of a lot older than he was, in his eyes especially... weathered... and felt equally decrepit, even after his lengthy rest. If bizarre, half remembered nightmares could even be called rest. Even at his age, he would be old before his time, if he even survived this. But that was what he needed to focus on now... his continued survival... not his growing pain and humiliation, and many regrets. It wasn't getting him anywhere. Regardless of her motives and intent... for the moment, he wasn't alone, had backup... who likely had a plan. He would have to keep an eye on her, take precautions as best as he could. Whatever else she was... she was a stranger to him, and he couldn't afford the luxury of dropping his guard around her, especially with his luck. Still... her help was more than he'd started with... even if it cost the G-Virus, and almost certainly his status at Umbrella... and whatever inevitable unseen costs she would charge him with.

Status? What a joke. What status? He was finished there... just as he had finally just gotten started. Three years of rigorous training, all down the drain on his first mission. He was just some rookie who had blown his first mission in a way so spectacular it had never been rivaled, in Umbrella or anywhere else ever... and they probably believed he was dead anyways. All things considered, it might be kinder if he were, in the wake of the disaster. If he'd made it back empty handed he would have been chucked in the brig of the Leviathan. Or something far worse. Sent back to Rockfort Island... and not as an agent. His father's standing and power within the company would not get him off the hook... and right now he was half sure the old man would want to wash his hands of him altogether, give the go ahead himself. As he had turned his back the day he'd signed up with the U.S.S. With how badly GHOST had fucked up... a hundred thousand dead or worse, all because he couldn't finish a kill... he probably deserved it anyways, imprisonment on the island, at the hands of Doctor Death. As it stood... he needed to get to work. To force aside his regrets, self loathing and bitterness, for the time being. Or he'd be no good to himself... much less to her. The longer he was useful, the longer she would keep him alive for... not make her move to kill him, if that was part of her agenda. The longer he could use her just as she used him. Before things turned sour and murderous, as they did in the spy movies when two spies on separate sides inevitably tried to kill one another. If he even had a side left anymore... all he seemed to have was himself... where she had employers still. Looking back at his weary features again, he nodded to himself, and muttered under his breath at the stranger's dark, irritated eyes that were looking back at him.

"Hell with it all. Ready as I'll ever be. Back to the grindstone..."

On that grim note, looking away from the stranger, turning on the spot, he moved away from the sink and mirror, the splatting sounds of his boots tapping through the thick infected blood and his own piss staining the floor returning. As he passed the still twitching corpse, he took aim at the pulp of its head and fired again one more time, the roar echoing in his ears and the confined space, worth the additional painful ringing, the shell casing bouncing upon the floor behind him. Muttering under his breath, he made it back to the door, pushing through it and out into the short corridor. Leaving behind the smell of rotting flesh and piss behind him, for the moment... and instead returning to the scent of shit that was the sewer. Life was great, alright. Emerging out into the well illuminated generator area again with the missing chess pieces, he flicked off his flashlight and moved past them into the monitoring room. When he did, coming to a stop, he saw at once that the bandaged lady in red no longer lay against the wall where they had slept, but had vacated that spot where his weapons, mask and helmet lie. Taking a seat again in one of the chairs of the observation room they had sat in when they'd first come in here, he recalled. A coffee break station for the former workers down here. Attempting to keep his embarrassment at bay, looking back at her, he breathed deeply, shaking his head and speaking before she could open her mouth first.

"Not a word, red..."

"And who would I tell? Trust me... I know the value of discretion."

"Yeah... I just bet you do."

"Well, yes. From experience. Comes with the territory. Besides... it would be low hanging fruit."

"Son of a bitch..."

"Just a little teasing, GHOST. Don't worry so much... you'll get an ulcer. My lips are quite sealed."

And so they were. Sealed in a knowing, teasing smile. Looking thoroughly tickled, in spite of her pain. Just what he needed right now... he had little doubt she was going to bring it up again at some point. GHOST merely grunted under his breath and looked away from her, back over to the spot where they had slept. Where his weapons, mask and helmet remained waiting for him. He made his way over to it, and with an involuntary pained sound, knelt down, limbs aching, and reached for his grenade launcher first, slinging it rapidly. Then he reached for his scuffed gas mask, looking at the intact red lens and the shattered one for a moment, his reflection in it. Turning it around he pressed it to his face, going back into that half faintly red tinted world again, strapping it to his head securely. Breathing through the filters... the scent of shit fading away at last. Next he scooped up the dented, scratched, battle scarred helmet, fingers tracing absently over the three jagged claw scratches that ran down from the top and over the front. Remembering the swipe that had nearly ended everything. Forcing it aside, he put it on, adjusting the strap under his chin firmly. The MP5 was last, and he picked the submachine gun up off the floor in both hands, putting the strap over his shoulder and rising to his feet again with a breath. Forcing himself to ignore the aches, and studying the weapon a moment, making sure it was ready to go, before nodding with satisfaction. Looking at his reflection in the observation window. Tattered, scarred up, damaged and bandaged outfit or not... it felt good to be armored and properly armed again... empowering. Felt right, like he belonged wearing it. Had felt that way from the moment he had first put on the uniform. There was no denying the look of the U.S.S. Agents uniforms and attire was intimidating, dangerous... especially the masks... likely chosen for that very reason, or at least in part.

He felt more like the kind of badass he wasn't, some action hero or superhero, looking back at that red lensed mask and his own dark eye. Remembered how he had felt the first time he got to put it all on. The psychological impact of the look as beneficial to the agent, as it was detrimental to their enemies seeing it in battle. No doubt Lady Spencer had set down that mandate somewhere in the U.S.S. books, knew the importance of psychological warfare, Sun Tzu and military history. Certainly sounded like her, from what the many rumors about her said. Her father had assigned her to the job at a younger age than he was... and in turn she had organized and built something special, painstakingly, from the ground up back in the late 60's. Now the Umbrella Security Service was the envy of all the rival corporation's own paramilitaries that had blatantly copied her work. And she had been next in line, her father's heiress for the leadership of the company, his second in command. How and why she would just walk away from it all after so long remained a mystery that rankled at many to this day. Though almost certainly none more than her third and final, closest protege, whether he knew the reason or not. And now, given what had happened... it seemed GHOST had got into the U.S.S. at the end of a great thing... or the beginning of the end. The best for Umbrella was surely over by now, with Raccoon City. In no small part because of him. Mega corporation or not, he did not see how Umbrella could last after this, whether there was an apocalypse or not, it's days were surely numbered. People would be baying for blood, the scrutiny of the world turning their way. This couldn't be swept under the rug. And all it had taken was an idiotic mad scientist in a lab... and some rookie quick with reacting. Another reason for his father to hate him, he supposed... probably putting him out of a job. Probably even get him in trouble, depending on what he had known and been involved in. Probably a good deal of it, at his level. His jaw tightened bitterly within the mask, slowly shaking his helmeted head. Destroyer of a city and a mega corporation... at the very least. Hell of a legacy he'd already carved out for himself.

All because he'd been in the wrong job and the wrong place at the wrong time.

Still... it was good to again be fully armed, suited up, nourished and having rested up... it was better than nothing, better than he had been before. And could always be worse. Best he appreciated what he had before it was inevitably gone. With a sigh under his breath, GHOST spoke again at last, muffled through the gas mask. Muttering to himself and looking away from the reflection and back around to the red clad spy who had been watching him silently throughout from where she sat.

"Ah. There now. Much better."

"Don't sell your looks so short, GHOST. Like I said, you'll do. Girlish scream and all."

"Funny. I was referring to not having to smell the sewer any longer. And that scream was a hundred percent manly, red."

"If you say so, soldier boy. Now, be a gentleman and help a lady up, will you?"

"She must have arrived while I was sleeping."

GHOST's dry voice shot back, but nevertheless, felt a trace of a smirk touch his lips, despite himself, and moved away from the observation window and over to the chair she sat in. When his shadow fell across her, she held out her right fingerless gloved hand for him to take and he did so gently, helping her back up to her feet carefully. She winced a little as she rose, breathing deeper, but managed the pain. To remain on those heels of hers. As before. Gripping his shoulder tightly until she was steady enough to remain standing on her own, her exposed hazel eye returning to his mask and eye as he spoke to her again.

"Not pointing a gun at a fellow doesn't necessarily make one a lady, you know."

"Perhaps not. But I'm sure even you would agree it's a good start. Could always point it at you again, if you'd prefer."

The woman calling herself Ada returned languidly with a playful red lipped smile. Patting the front of his armored chest appreciatively, fingers trailing along it teasingly, before lowering to her side again. She drew a slow, steadying breath, still working to remain in control of herself, her manner measured, despite the pain. She must have been experienced with pain alright, to handle what she had been, even with the painkillers. It was impressive... not that he had to tell her that, stroke her ego. His treatments had done wonders, thanks to Umbrella's medicine.

"Thank you, GHOST. You certainly have a way of rising to the occasion."

"Mhm. Punny broad too. Just my rotten luck I hitch my wagon to a part time spy, part time comedienne."

"Licence to pun."

"I bet. Where to, then, 'partner'? You got a plan, or do we have to make it up as we go along? Maybe shoot our way out of the city? Quarantine Zone and all?"

"This isn't an action movie, agent. We need to be careful. Take this one problem at a time. We're in sorry enough shape as it is, and have an army of infected between us and the next safehouse."

"Safehouse?"

"Well... safe hotel room. I have a liaison of my employer's company staying in the city. I was to meet him once I procured the G-Virus. I tried radioing him earlier, while you were out. Didn't get an answer."

"He's probably dead by now. You know that, right?"

"Probably. He is not one of you soldier types. But he was alive the last time I called him, before entering NEST. And if he isn't, I still have weapons, ammunition and equipment at the room where I was staying in, and was supposed to meet him there. Supplies. Tech. A laptop. We could use it and find another way out, if need be. We need to get there first, see if he made it, then come up with a plan of escape. Contact my employer if necessary. Figure out our options."

"Well... it's a start. Hell of a lot better than nothing. Where is your contact?"

"The Apple Inn. A hotel, Downtown, close to Jack's Bar and the highway out of the city."

"Never heard of it. This is my first and last time in Raccoon City."

"Mine as well. But I did my research before I came here. Maps, locations, everywhere I needed to go. Got the lay of the land. Surface level and underground. Before the outbreak."

"So did we, aboard the Leviathan. The lay of the underground. Had maps of the sewers and NEST. That was all we were supposed to need. Apart from raiding Birkin's home at night, we were to avoid the surface at all costs. Retrieve Birkin and the virus and withdraw through the tunnels to the outskirts of the city for evacuation from NIGHTHAWK. None of this was supposed to happen... we should be back in Paris by now."

"Indeed. Instead you're stuck here with me, in the middle of this hell, at ground zero. Life has a cruel sense of humor like that."

"So I've noticed. Downtown? Place must be crawling with those freaks. No way we're getting to your hotel room without any close encounters with them."

"We'll take it slow, be as careful as we can. Only fight the battles we can win. What became of the maps you had of the sewers?"

"Lost, in the fights around NEST and the sewers. Mine were, anyways. Found one for the NEST facility while I was down there... no such luck for Raccoon City."

"A pity. Fortunately for you, I took the time to memorize mine."

"Say what?"

"Photographic memory."

"No shit? Heard Lady Spencer has one. Bet that's handy, in you gals lines of work."

"You have no idea. Chin up, GHOST. I'm here now. I'll protect you from the big bad monsters. And from taking a wrong turn."

"Well... isn't that a load off my mind? Because you've been so trustworthy so far. Why not just trust you with my life too while I'm at it, huh?"

Her red lips merely smiled at his dry but resigned tone, and she moved away from GHOST at last, heels clicking in the concrete floor. Making her way back to the observation window where they had slept, looking at all the blood, a good deal of it hers, and through the window to the garbage containing chamber beyond. Lost in deep thought for a time, it seemed. Being what she was... enigmatic. GHOST remained where he was, giving her the time she needed, examining the MP5 and his other weapons. Rechecking his ammunition and equipment. He still had a fair amount on him... but if there were as many freaks as he thought there were now on the surface... it wouldn't be enough. Hopefully she had more than a few supplies... an outright goddamn armory set up in her hotel room. Otherwise they were probably fucked. He was going to have to keep his eye out for more weapons, just in case. Maybe there were some fallen cops or soldiers up on the surface. The dead U.B.C.S. mercs. Every weapon counted, and could make a difference... likely one of the only reasons he had survived NEST, all the armories down there in the facility and fallen weapons of the security forces. He had not survived as much as he had, for as long, just to go down the second he reached the surface. Rookie or not... he had his training. It had gotten him this far. Or maybe that had been dumb luck... mixed with his bad luck. Didn't matter... he would do what he had to to get out of here. Even if it meant having to shoot his way through the horde and U.S. Military and Umbrella troops of the Quarantine Zone alike. Compared to staying here to rot or worse, he'd sooner take that chance. Even if it got him blown up for his troubles. He was not dying down here, whimpering and cowering in the dark. If he were ever planning to do that, he would have done so by now. He would not let that happen.

Though it wasn't long before he felt his focus on the weapons he checked faltering... eyes shifting over her way again. Looking down along her form... her back presented to him. Some of it bare and smooth or bruised, some bandages. He looked down along her slender form in the red silk dress, quite unable to help himself... downward to her shapely ass the dress was hugging up against. Feeling an appreciative smirk touch his lips beneath the gas mask. She was... gifted, alright. Had to make the job go easier for her... seducing her helpless marks, them not even suspecting. Still, he couldn't imagine many men minding being taken for a ride by her. There were sure as hell worse ways to go. When she finished considering whatever it was she pondered, she turned back around to face him again, and he hastily looked downwards at his MP5 again, pretending to still be adjusting it. Looking back up at her again only when she spoke, her bruised features resolved to what they had to do. More determined than pained now, it seemed to him.

"Time to move out... but first, I know two routes we could escape from. A longer, slower but safer route to the Apple Inn... and a possible very dangerous shortcut."

"No kidding? Well sign me up for the shortcut."

"That's it? You don't want to even hear the details? Weigh and compare both options?"

"Not really, no. But go ahead, get the feeling you were going to tell me anyways. So... indulge me."

"The shortcut is fairly near... there is an elevator down here in the sewers that can take us up to the R.P.D. To the parking garage there, and from there back out into the Ennerdale Street. We could cut through the back alleys and through the Kendo Gun Shop, as well. Restock on weapons and ammunition perhaps... if other survivors haven't raided it all by now. Or the owner hasn't cleared everything out and took off. He was still holed up there before with his daughter. Last time I was up there, the parking garage was fairly secure. Few infected... and cleared out. But on the other hand... admittedly, that was awhile ago. And the gate was left open into the streets. Place could be overrun by now, as the precinct undoubtedly is. We could be walking right into a horde of them, for all we know."

"But we don't know."

"That a risk you're prepared to take?"

"To get out of here ASAP? Fucking A. There could be a million of the freaks waiting for us in that parking garage and in the streets. Wouldn't make a difference to me."

"U.S.S. is turning out real tough guys, it seems... especially these days. Even without Lady Spencer running the show.", The woman in red smiled thinly at the boast, hazel eyes observing him carefully. Pursing those red lips of her. Seemingly sizing him up. "Tell me, are all the rookies from Rockfort Island such loud mouthed braggarts?"

"Nope. Just me, baby. Just me. And the other option?"

"Hmm. As I said, it's going to be rather slow going... especially so in our conditions. But I know a route through the sewers, past the Sewage Treatment Plant that comes to a manhole on the same street as the Apple Inn. It's longer, but probably safer."

"Define safer."

"Well, as safe as this city gets, really. We'll avoid the bulk of the horde on the surface, with luck, away from Main Street. But... these sewers are probably still crawling with them. Especially this close to NEST. They were the last time I came through here. That's where you come in, GHOST. We'll have to work together. If we take that route, be sure to conserve ammunition. Make every shot count. I'm not going to lie to you... either route we take, this could well get uglier than NEST... but I favor our odds taking the longer route."

"Only have a hundred thousand zombies and mutated freaks between us and an escape that may or may not even exist. We can face them up on the surface, out in the open, with room to navigate and places to retreat to, alternate paths... or down in the cramped, dark sewers where we could easily be cornered. Have nowhere else left to run. Whatever could possibly go wrong there? Looks like HUNK ain't the only one who likes doing things the hard way. I bet you two got along swimmingly."

"I told you it was the longer route, and it is probably safer than the shortcut, and I believe safer than moving up on the streets, after what I saw up there. I did not promise it would be entirely safe. There are no guarantees in this business even under far better circumstances than these."

"To hell with that, red. Maybe you've seen the surface, how it is up there... not sure how long you've been here, but I've been underground for over a goddamn week. Right in the middle of this entire clusterfuck before it even started. I saw how it started. I want out. Now. I'm done with this shit. We're going with option two."

"GHOST...-"

"Look. I need to get the hell out of here, ASAP, and so do you, just as much as me. Don't bullshit me on that. Whether it's worse up there or not... it's just not right, staying down here in the dark. Losing my fucking mind as it is. I'll take my chances topside."

"Yes... I do. And I understand how you feel... really. But just because one wants something, needs it... doesn't mean they should be foolish about attaining it."

"I'm sure I read that pearl of wisdom in a fortune cookie. We're going to that elevator shortcut, and that's that. End of discussion. Now... I'll lead the way. You be the eyes on the back of my head. Or eye."

GHOST's muffled tone replied dryly, receiving a cold, sharp, silent stare from her in return for his equally sharp words, eye narrowing... looking more green than brown in the angle of the light, then. He had to will himself to smother the regret that suddenly hit him at being rude with her... reminding himself this was the same woman who had pointed a gun at him not a day ago, disarmed him and ordered him around... and was still untrustworthy. Regardless of them cuddling together. Rookie or not, he wasn't some idiotic high school love struck dope. That love at first sight shit. The cuddling hadn't changed anything... she could still murder him yet. Try to, anyways... and he wasn't about to give her the chance. Make it easier on her. But after a moment or two, the coolness of her look and manner mostly lifted, and she nodded at last, relenting on the matter, while GHOST adjusted the infrared scope of the submachine gun and the sights on the grenade launcher, tweaking each. There was no putting it off any longer, as much as he wanted to. Well, as much as part of him did. The other part wanted out of here and wanted it days ago. Finishing adjusting his primary weapons, he took up the MP5 and made his way over to her and past her where she stood by the observation window, following the dried blood trails towards the closed door, hearing her clicking heels tapping behind him. Reaching for the door, he tugged on it to open it... but it didn't respond, remaining stuck fast. Startled, he tried again, kept trying, pulse quickening... dread coiling itself through his stomach in an instant. Had they accidentally trapped themselves inside? There was no other way out of here that he could see. In the corner of the room, away from the door, there was an open part in the ceiling, a drop off leading to another observation room a floor above, connected to the train platform, but no ladder or means to climb up there. Safe or not, if the monsters didn't get them in here, starvation almost certainly would.

"What the fuck?"

GHOST's baffled voice muttered, and he slammed his shoulder against the metal door, put his weight into it... but it did not budge. He bounced right off it again, irritation and unease growing further. It was then, before he could do anything more, that she moved to his side as he kept tugging at the door handle, sliding back the lock above the handle... and only then did he remember locking it when they had first come here. Uttering a low, irritated breath, feeling his face and neck flush again, thankfully hidden away this time. She wore a thin smile at that, but thankfully didn't remark on it as she opened the door for them and drew back out of his way again. More ammunition for her to use against him at some point, he was certain... and he just kept right on providing it to her without trying. GHOST merely grunted and nodded at her slightly, looking away with irritation, then looked back through the open door, rose his MP5 to his shoulder and scanned the walkway outside by the sewage pool below with the floating, rotting infected corpses in it. Deeming it clear of hostiles, at least as far as he could see from here, he looked back to the red clad spy and nodded his helmeted head her way again, stepping back from the door and gesturing for her to go through it ahead of him.

"And on that reassuring note... wannabe ladies first."

"Wannabe gentlemen first. You wanted to lead the way, remember? Why change that now?", The woman in red smiled back at him instead, drawing her Chinese pistol again and lowering it down to her side. Fingers tightening around the handle of it, remaining standing where she was behind him. Tone low and thoroughly amused. "So go right ahead. I insist."

"Yeah yeah, I get the picture. I'm going, I'm going. Just remember who pulled your high heels out of the fire here, Nikita."

"However could I forget, GHOST?", She returned simply, hazel eye looking between him and the open door. Gesturing to it with her pistol lightly, though not pointing it directly at him. That was an improvement, at least, by her standards so far. God knew how long it would be before that changed. "So long as you don't forget who let you. Fall out, Agent GHOST. And kindly stow the belly aching along the way. Nobody forced you to still be here, with me. It's not like I put a gun to your head..."

GHOST's head snapped back in her direction in an instant at those words, to find that wry smirk touching her red lips... seeing some of the whites of her teeth... considering her. And what to retort with. Something witty and cutting. But just now, he couldn't think of anything... just his luck... being somewhat better with hindsight comebacks than ones made up on the spot. An eternal curse. Instead he uttered a low, muffled, resigned sigh under his breath through the mask, raising his MP5 and taking his point man position at the door. Looking through it again and sweeping out onto the walkway rapidly, combat boots tapping against the metal walkway, moving out of the monitor room. He looked down to the corpses floating below again, before making his way around towards the central bridge over the pool. Coming to a stop upon it once he was in the middle of it. As he did, the door closed loudly behind her, behind them, echoing throughout the treatment pool area. Leaving the monitor room behind. And he heard the clicking of her heels on the metal, following him closely. Her light, pained breaths. The effort she was exerting. He couldn't deny how impressed he was with her, to still be standing, moving, despite all of it. Even with the boost of Umbrella's medicines. He looked upwards as she drew closer, joined him on the bridge, to the higher sections of the sewer... spotting again some of the shambling infected walking along the balconies in and out of view up there. Former maintenance workers and civilians, rotting away, no different than the corpses floating down in the pool below. Too high and far to notice the two survivors watching the freaks above, as it had been before. She followed his gaze to them, watching the unsuspecting zombies as well... before he released a quiet breath, his gaze meeting hers, and speaking quietly, before lowering again.

"Time to get to work, red."

Flicking on his vest mounted swivel headed flashlight once more, the bright light shone, illuminating the way for them. The path ahead. Once more, they started off together. Moving deeper into the sewer system... deeper into the nightmare. In an effort to leave it behind. The bridge, treatment pool, monitor room, cable car and train platform vanishing, leaving them behind as well, with all the corpses and shell casings littering the area. They passed through another metal door, left the area and continued on through it into the sewers, going up and down weathered, stone and concrete stairs now and again... pausing occasionally to scan the vicinity for any of the freaks... avoiding those they could, and rapidly taking out the ones they couldn't, the blood and corpses falling into the sewer water, the current gradually drifting some of them away, or falling and twitching on the concrete walkways of the sewer. Conserving ammunition, as she had advised. Stopping now and again, listening to her instructions on where to turn and proceed next, to keep them moving in the right direction. But it wasn't the zombies GHOST was concerned about, just now, even in these cramped, darkened surroundings... but the mutations, the B.O.W.'s that had escaped... and above all the G offspring... it was them he kept an eye out for most of all, hulking, malformed freaks... but fortunately they didn't discover any along the route to the R.P.D. They found bullet ridden corpses along the way as well, thankfully, assorted ones, mostly zombies but some mutations as well... shell casings, of a variety of weapons. Survivors that had moved through here in the past days, almost certainly... had done a good deal of hard work for them, at least. He was tempted to ask her if she knew who the survivors were, had encountered any of them on her way down to NEST... if she had cut a path through all this mayhem herself... but had opted not to. It didn't matter... he sure as hell wasn't about to tell her what he had done to Birkin.

There was no sense in prying for the secrets of a spy. And just now, he didn't really give a shit. Just wanted to get out of here.

They scanned their vicinity now and again... it was all the same to him, all of it... her memory definitely came into handy. She knew every corner to take, when to stop, pause and scan their surroundings. When to be slow, when not to be. When to stop to listen. They moved together carefully, passing beneath the occasional lights of the sewers, shadows cast along the walls... keeping to the steps and concrete walkways, out of the water. It was a mess down here... even more so than it had been before the outbreak... all the corpses flowing through here, ones he occasional shot in the head to be sure they were dead... sometimes proven right, sometimes not. Garbage and decay were everywhere. According to her it was even worse closer to Downtown and Uptown... beneath Main Street especially. Something about 'biomass', hives and organic 'pods' being set up by other kinds of mutation that way. Eggs and offspring... like something out of fucking Aliens. She spoke of mutated worms and fleas. Same with the city's subway system... in the days since the outbreak the mutations only worsened, becoming even nastier and more horrific than before. God knew what was going to grow here a month from now, with how mutagenic the T-Virus was. She confirmed his fears... what he had known deep down, of more kinds of monsters he never wanted to see. He listened to every word that came out of her on the state of the city... she didn't reveal much, but she did more than enough for him to get a nasty picture. She had been in the city for awhile... but didn't let on how long exactly. It was clear down in NEST from how much time the freaks there had to mutate... the same had happened here, probably worse, with more organic material to reach... more organisms to infect and mutate. With each step, despite how much he wanted to get out of this cesspit... he found himself dreading the prospect of reaching the surface... to the goddamn apocalypse that surely awaited. The one he had unleashed, with the squeeze of a trigger. He tried to force the guilt from his head, to focus on everything else, the present, watching their asses and making sure they weren't ambushed... but it kept right on coming back. He knew it would follow him over and over, no matter how long or short the rest of his life proved.

Every maintenance station they passed along the way was either abandoned, like everyone had dropped everything suddenly, or inhabited by infected workers. No sign of survivors beyond the occasional corpses and shell casings... but then, what did he expect? Who in their right mind was going to stay down here? If there were any survivors, they would be on the surface, battling it out, holing up in buildings, fortifying them... just like the movies... if not outright escaping. How many were even left, after all this time? And how many were out in the streets shambling about, or mutating in some dark corner of the city? She had informed him the U.B.C.S. had arrived in force and had been defeated... was it even more like the zombie movies, with the inept military, but inexplicably capable civilian survivors? He'd never liked that cliche... and with his luck, no doubt it was true. He wasn't sure about the prospect of encountering any survivors... most likely they were crazed and paranoid by now... would open up on them, given the chance. Awful as the underground had been, ground zero that was NEST... he couldn't imagine having been on the surface during the outbreak... surviving all that, not only the freaks, but the chaos of the humans. He had little doubt there had been riots and madness, a city wide meltdown... humans killing humans, order breaking down... as it had been in NEST, but on a grander scale. He supposed being below it had its advantages... just as it was worse in other ways. But above all, he wondered how long the military could possibly contain it all... quarantine the city... and what the hell their plan was about all this. The idiotic left wing secretary fucking President in the White House had probably shit himself by now, when he received the call. Assuming he had even been able to stop inhaling reefer and blow long enough to pick up the phone. More likely his control freak wife was running the show... as she was everything else. What he'd give for access to a working television or radio right now, to see the news. How batshit the country must have been going by now. What was happening on the outside. If the truth had even leaked out, yet. If the T-Virus remained contained. Maybe it was everywhere, by now. It was not a thought he wished to ponder... not now. Focusing ahead, and doing his job to get to the surface. Before long they had reached another section of the sewer together... and her voice stopped them in their tracks.

"There it is. We've made it."

GHOST looked at her for a moment, then followed the point of her gun, across a flowing section of sewer water, streaming from a bunch of grating further down a darkened tunnel, and to a gap between their position on a concrete edge and across to another maintenance area. To the visible, illuminated twin metal doors of an elevator with a glowing call button on the side, and a sign above it denoting it belonged to the R.P.D... access to the surface... with a nearby R.P.D. maintenance office reflecting this as well. He scanned with the submachine gun for any hostiles, any corpses down there or within sight of where they stood, fortunately finding none and hearing none. He aimed his flashlight down into the water as well as a precaution, seeing no shapes in it of bodies... before looking back the woman in red's way, smiling in spite of himself. Escape and safety at last within sight, and reach. Or at least some freedom... one hurtle jumped over, before they had to deal with the others. He would take the small victories where he could... from how few of them there had been since this insanity began.

"Finally. Was starting to lose my mind.", GHOST breathed through the gas mask, stepping off the side of the ledge and down into the warm, murky, flowing sewer water without a moment's hesitation longer. It rose to his waist as he waded into and through it, towards the middle, shining his flashlight down into its depths again as he moved, making doubly sure there was nothing down there lying in wait to grab him. Thankfully, again, it was all clear, for the time being. "Come on, red. Let's get topside. Pronto."

"Wait.", The woman in red ordered him abruptly, pausing where she was and remaining still at the edge of it. Looking down between the water, and to him where he came to a stop in the middle of the flowing pool. Turning back her way with confusion. "I can't."

"What's the matter?"

"Run out of ledge... no way to go around it from here either. Can't make it across to the elevator."

"And? This a Vampire thing where you can't cross flowing water? Climb the fuck down and wade through it. You've got the perfect outfit on to be moving through shit and piss water anyways. Clearly."

"Charming. Believe it or not those are probably the least foul substances that are in that water. You can bet the T-Virus lies within it as well, by now. It already infected the city reservoir on the surface... and it spread out through here in the first place. To say nothing of all these infected corpses around the sewers, the blood and the rats."

"Fair enough... don't need you turning zombie on me, down the line.", GHOST returned, though with a stab of annoyance, looking down to the water around him and the length of the gap between the two sides. Measuring it mentally, and looking back at her once he had. Offering a suggestion. "Doesn't look too far... what, you can't get a running jump?"

The woman in red stared back at him pointedly in silence, grip tightening on her pistol down at her side, irritation flitting across her bruised visage, mouth tightening. Standing there illuminated in his flash light... covered in bandages, and standing on high heels. At his realization of her state, a sheepish feeling washed over him immediately, speaking up again quickly with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Ah. Right. Good point. Well, what the hell do you expect me to do about it? Build a boat or a raft? Double back and strip off one of the zombie's maintenance uniforms for you to wear? Look around for some spares? I didn't design the layout of the place, or choose your shoddy outfit for sewer crawling. I like a nice eyeful as much as the next man, but did you really need to wear a cocktail dress and stockings to a zombie outbreak? Don't think you're liable to get many compliments outta them."

"Fortunately, I have a far more simple solution in mind for this problem. Get over here, turn around, and I'll climb on to your back. You can carry me across."

"Carry you? Me? You gotta be joking."

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"Hard to tell, from where I'm standing."

"Well, I'm not. Be a good boy now, make yourself useful and get back over here and turn around."

"Famous last words. The hell if I will. I agreed to work with you to escape... I did not agree to play fucking Sir Walter Raleigh for you. Find your own way across the puddle, your highness. I have."

"That's enough of you and your smartass fucking remarks for five minutes! They might put up with that shit back on Rockfort Island but I don't have to!" The woman in red snapped at him at last, the annoyance and anger that had been visibly deepening from her bruised, bandaged visage, exploding outwardly, voice ringing through the sewer, taking him aback slightly. She drew in a slight pained breath, visibly gathering herself... tapping the side of her burst pistol against her leg, trying to hold the anger at bay. But it was there, amid the pain and slight disorientation... bandaged hand rubbing her temple tiredly, before speaking again, with slightly less ice in her voice... though no less steel. Speaking words that only returned and grew GHOST's feelings of defiance and anger in turn. Gathering himself again quickly, jaw tightening within the mask, blood feeling like it was on fire. Coursing anger. Who the hell did she think she was? Who named her Queen of Raccoon City? "You can stand there hip deep in shit wasting time bitching about it, GHOST, or you can help me across the gap. You wanted the shortcut out of here, I've brought you to it, made it possible, and all I want out of it in return is a little help and cooperation, here. So stop whining and get it done."

"Oh! The language on you! You blow HUNK with that mouth? I'm a strict Catholic you know. Got a cross on under this gear and everything."

"What did you say?"

"Heard me just fine, lady. Fuck you. I won't do what you tell me. Thought all that water would have cleaned your dirty mouth out, earlier. Better clean your ears out too, apparently. I could always just go ahead without you. Leave your ingrate ass down here to fend for yourself, like I should have. You're only standing up there nagging me like a spoiled cunt to act like your personal pack mule because I made that possible. Save one crazy bitch in the middle of nowhere and she's a fucking albatross around my neck already."

"And I can always empty this magazine into your back, and then go off and fend for myself. See how well that little cross protects you from me. Between your faith and my Broom Hc... I'll take the Broom Hc. Do not tempt me. Not after what I just went through. What I've gone through all my life. You're nothing compared to what I've survived."

"That a threat? Whatever you've been through in an entire lifetime has been fucking child's play compared to what I've been dealing with for the past week."

"Take it however you want, rookie. Don't fuck with me. Keep talking like that, and I'll stop playing nice. Cease cooperating."

"Because you've been so cooperative so far, shoving a pistol in my face or pressing it to the back of my head. Ordering me around like your pet. You point that fucking gun at me one more time, and I'll feed it to you, Princess. Who's to say you weren't already planning to do that anyways, if we even do get out of here? Have me whacked the minute you're done using me... when I outlive my usefulness? Get you where you're going. Rookie or not, you think I don't know how this shit works by now? You're using me and I'm using you. Nothing more. Like you used that John asshole of yours, the mark in the photograph. How much do you want to bet he's waiting for you back home by the phone like a chump, an obedient whipped dog of yours, however many of those you got... all while you were busy stealing fucking bioweapons and getting all touchy feely with me in a goddamn sewer?!"

GHOST hadn't meant for all that to burst out, heated, muffled voice carrying through the sewer, in his growing anger, but in an instant it was out and he couldn't put it back in the bottle. Falling silent in the wake of it... regretting it at once... again his conscience bothering him over making such nasty remarks... and again he had to smother it. To stare back at her defiantly. He couldn't afford the luxury of weakness... especially now. It took more effort than he'd thought it would. She looked at him like he had struck her across her bruised face suddenly, stricken... like she was about to retort, sharply, but caught herself mid mouth open... closing it again, lips thinning... fingers opening and curling on her pistol. His own grip tightening on the submachine gun in turn, instinctively. A deeply uncomfortable silence descended over the section of sewer, save for the trickling of the water, and the quickened, racing, beating of his own heart inside his head. There it was... out in the open... perhaps he'd said too much, more than he should have, but it had burst out of him anyways. Still... he felt his anger replaced by shame he wished he weren't feeling. Over her... and over the poor fool in the photograph he had partaken in wronging. He saw some conflict of her own in her features... before she closed her troubled eye and took a breath, gathering herself. When her eye opened, and she spoke again, it was clearly with effort... not from the physical pain... but from something else. Something less cold... something that troubled her, maybe... but no less difficult to read than before. Even as she spoke quiet words that sounded honest.

"It's not like that... I didn't... look. We can't keep fighting like this. We have enough enemies, in this city. Enough danger. I... need your help, GHOST. Again. I don't want to die down here... and I don't want to go on alone, if I don't have to. Any more than I know you do. I'm know you've been solitary for some time now, here under the surface. I understand how it must be getting to you. This... is enough to have driven most people insane. This is... insanity. Pure and simple. This would be Hell, if it existed. As close to it as I've ever seen. What we're trapped in, together. We need each other, for similar and different reasons... but above all... to survive. And need to try to trust one another. Otherwise we both may as well just kill one another right here and now. Perform a murder suicide. It would be quicker, and far less painful to the alternative we'd find down here and up there."

GHOST studied her in silence for a time as she went quiet again... pondering her and her unexpected words. He wasn't sure how good a judge of character he was... how good at spotting deception. He had little experience with it... and maybe she was just a good actress... but there was an earnestness there. Along with a fear. What he had seen before, as he treated her injuries. Maybe he needed his head examined... but he believed her, in that moment. Though it was difficult to admit to... and to find his own words and voice again. He studied the glinting red and black butterfly at her choker... illuminated in the light. He shifted back and forth slightly in the sewer water uncomfortably, looking about their surroundings again as a precaution, to make sure all the noise they had made in their argument hadn't drawn any of the freaks... but more importantly to break that eye contact for a bit. Not meeting her eyes again when he managed to speak once more. To return her seeming honesty with some of his own. His fear and troubles... his unease. Fair was fair. She wasn't wrong... this was hell itself... one of his own makings... something prayers were not going to get him out of. There was no getting out of a deserved punishment for a failure of this magnitude. Birkin had paid for his sins already... now GHOST would pay for his.

"Well... yeah. When you put it like that. Been on my own since... it all went to hell. Even when there were survivors down in NEST... on site security... they were hostiles. Had to avoid them... or kill them myself. Tried to go for the former more often than not. They weren't in a talking mood... and after our infiltration... what happened... could hardly blame them. I... don't know this city. I would get lost if I went off on my own. And on the off chance I made it back to Umbrella... I would almost certainly be executed for going back empty handed anyways. I don't want to kill you to steal that sample again. I don't give a shit about that sample anymore. I've had enough of that goddamn thing... enough trouble has been caused by it... you can keep it, for all I care. I'm just... fucking tired of it all. I'm not cut out for this... I'm not like HUNK. I wanted to be... but I'm not a hero or some super spy. Just another forgotten soldier..."

The U.S.S. Agent fell silent after that, still not making eye contact with that hazel, piercing gaze he felt watching him... despite the temptation to. Wanting to say more, knowing he should, but not knowing what to, listening to the streaming water, and falling droplets from the pipes around the walls and ceiling. Swallowing. Fortunately, she didn't have his problem. Took up the reins again with ease, her tone as quiet, earnest, and solemn as before. Seemingly speaking from the heart... or again, acting so convincingly it took him aback either way, soft tone echoing around them. Speaking with visible effort and consideration.

"Look at us... what a pair we make. Two of a kind. A couple of ghost survivors. I've been forgotten as well... know what that is. How it feels. Many times. Thought dead by those I... have cared for. It's better off that way, I think. I could have only hurt them, in the end. Changed them... made them into something they weren't. But... I'm tired of being alone. Just because I can be, in life... can handle it... doesn't mean I want to be. I can't... do this alone. Especially not in this state. Can't get close to many, for long. Can't always... be who I want to be. But I'd like to try. You and me. We're in the same boat down here, in more ways than one. We could make a hell of a team... but we can't do that if we're at each other's throats. More worried about and focused on one another than on what we are fighting against. Even without the monsters out there... I have made enough enemies... don't need another. I need someone I can trust... can count on. And I'd like them to trust me as well. I want that to be you, GHOST. You've saved me already... I want the chance to do the same for you. Put us on an even level. The least I can do."

At those words he was drawn up to her eye again like the pull of a magnet. Staring back at one another quietly... seeing a trace of a thin smile touching her full red lips. More beautiful than before when she smiled... the bandages and bruises seeming to fade, to become less so. And when she looked at him and smiled like that, said what she had... he felt his pulse quicken... looking back over his shoulder to the elevator doors... to the surface... to escape... and looking back to her again. Releasing a muffled breath through his gas mask... nodding his dented, battle scarred helmet again at last. Swallowing his pride, for the moment. Relenting. She was right, despite his misgivings. He'd been alone long enough... had been starting to forget human contact, interacting with another. Every survivor he'd encountered trying to murder him or fleeing. But here she still was... here she stood... offering him a chance for something else. Something more. A way out. Perhaps more ways than one. And all it would cost him was a bit of trust... a bit of team work. What he'd shared with Alpha Team, before it had all been torn asunder. Maybe they could help one another, in the ways they needed to be. He would not blindly trust her... but he would offer her a rope. And hope neither of them ended up tangled and hanged in it.

"Fine, then. I'll... try to. Will give you a chance, at least. One chance. I sad that I would help you. Don't know about you... but I try to keep my word. Going to get me killed... sooner or later, in a world like this one."

"Maybe... maybe not... but not by me, GHOST. You have my word as well... for however much it is worth to you."

"Heh. We'll see together... now won't we?"

On that grim note, with a low, weary breath, he activated the safety and slung his submachine gun back over his shoulder. Slogging back through the flowing, murky current towards the ledge she stood on. Reaching her, he glanced up her way, coming to a stop and turning his back to her, remaining there, looking ahead to the far elevator on the other side. He felt one of her hands press against his shoulder gently... then felt and saw both her pale, bruised and bandaged arms wrap around his front, as he felt her weight settle against his back... and watched her long, slender legs wrapping around him tightly, holding on, safely above the likely T-Virus infected waters. He watched her hand holding the burst pistol rise, moving somewhat off to the side, to the corner of his eye... hovering close to his head, but aimed ahead in front of them, covering him just in case... at least for the moment. His gloved hands settled against her legs as well, bracing and supporting her as a precaution. Last thing he needed was her weakening and slipping off into the potentially infected water. With another breath, he reluctantly marched forward, slogging slowly through the sewer water and carefully towards the ledge ahead, leading to the R.P.D. Sewer Maintenance Office and the elevator. Feeling a trace flustered by the closeness, the feel of her against him... and simultaneous embarrassment. Behind and above him... and leaning in to murmur in his ear, he heard her wry, amused, silky voice teasing him. Saw the satisfied smile again touching those red lips, even as he didn't.

"My hero. Don't worry, GHOST. None of your fellow agents can see you now, like this. It'll be our little secret. Promise."

"Small favors. Don't get used to it. This is strictly a one time deal. Just hope I ain't the frog to your scorpion, here. Make sure you stick to focusing that stinger on any freaks, instead of on me..."

"Scorpion, huh? I like that. Thought for sure you'd consider me a black widow. Other men have."

"Don't count your chickens. Night's still young, your highness. Or morning. Whatever."

Nevertheless, GHOST felt a trace of a smile touch his as well within the mask, in spite of himself. Glad she could not see it. She had done enough as it were to him... didn't need to know she had that power too. What the hell was wrong with him? What was coming over him? Maybe he did need his head checked... he'd thought the sleep would help with that... but here he was now. Playing Sir Galahad for some crazy dame out of a noir film or Bond movie. He shook his helmeted head... however long he'd spent here, fighting freaks... somehow this felt more surreal than the monsters. Helping her out this way... the closeness. It would take some getting used to, to say the least. Their joined shadows cast about them courtesy of the lights about the section of the sewer. At last they reached the ledge ahead, and he turned back around for her in the water, facing in the direction they had just come from. Eyes watchful, as he saw and felt her weight and presence retract backwards, gun and limbs vanishing from his view, heeled feet clacking on the ledge. Once she was off him, he turned back around, to find her pistol down at her side, and her other, bandaged hand extended down to him, to help him up and out of the water. Meeting her sole visible eye, as her amused tone washed over him again, silky, the pain clearly a bit less so. Lush red lips smiling knowingly.

"Why thank you, Sir Walter... such a gentleman, as ever. Allow me return the favor."

"Whatever you say, Princess. You got what you wanted. Ain't getting on my knees down here and kissing your hand, while I'm at it."

"Such a pity. So much for that sense of romance. A girl like me enjoys a bit of it in her life. Your loss, GHOST. But really... thanks. Take it, and let's get out of here."

"Mhm. Don't mention it, red. Seriously... don't mention it."

GHOST's low, muffled tone returned wearily, taking her hand, her fingers intertwining through his, gripping it tighter, digging his boot against the side of the ledge, and with a grunt of exertion starting to rise over it, with her help, pulling him up on to the ledge near the maintenance area with her. The sewer water fell freely from his waist, soaking the ledge area, that part of his bodysuit sleek and more black than dark grey, now. She visibly wrinkled her nose at the scent... but did not make an unkind comment on it, remaining close, while he unslung his MP5 again and took it up in both hands, drawing a steadying breath through the mask. Meeting her watchful hazel eye and offering her a nod. On that note, they both turned towards the nearby elevator to the surface, and to the R.P.D... making their way towards it. He took a moment to scan the maintenance offices for any zombies... mercifully finding none. Likely the men manning these posts had been among the first to split, being in contact with the R.P.D. and close enough to safety to flee to... at least until the virus rose up from the sewers to the surface after them. The offices were cluttered though, everything looked like it had been dropped at the same time, all the work. And sure enough he spotted more typewriters and item boxes, like the ones back at the monitor room they'd held up in. Something about this town, typewriters, storage containers and puzzles. The first two were bizarre but bearable... and he would probably end up shooting himself if they ran into any puzzles. That shit was not for him. Even sewer crawling in an infested area would have been a more welcome prospect, avoidable at least thanks to the shortcut. As they reached the door, the woman in red went up more closely to it... but he froze in his tracks, a thought hitting him, and voicing it at once, stopping her in her tracks as well. Raising his submachine gun and leveling it at the pair of metal doors at the same time.

"Hold up... stand back. This is right out of Dawn Of The Dead. Elevator opens and a dozen of the fuckers lunge out at us. Happened down in NEST already. Ain't letting it happen again. You hit the button and draw back towards the office... clear the line of fire. I'll greet anything that comes out with an appetite. Sound good?"

"If you say so, GHOST... but I wouldn't count on those movies so much. There are movies, and then there is reality."

"Trust me, I got this scenario pegged, red."

The woman calling herself Ada looked back at him from where she stood near the door for a moment, and he gave her a nod of his helmeted head, one that was returned despite her visible skepticism. She went over to the control panel, free hand going to the call button on it and tapping it. The button lit up, and they heard the rumbling of the elevator as it began its descent down to the section of the sewer maintenance area. At once she drew backwards from the doors, off to the side away from the firing line of his submachine gun. She rose the Chinese burst pistol as well in both hands from where she stood while GHOST drew a breath, peering through the MP5's infrared scope at the still metal doors while the elevator drew down closer to them. He felt his heart quickening again, the coiling dread, grip tightening on the submachine gun to brace himself for the inevitable. The freaks could only be avoided for so long. Part of him welcomed the prospect of mowing them down... the other part, one that would never vanish, was the fear of them. Unnatural things. He would never get used to monsters. Especially the things worse than the zombies... God forbid they were what lie in wait within the elevator, instead of the living dead. At last the elevator reached the sewer level, and GHOST held his breath, grip on the MP5 white knuckled. The door dinged and the metal doors automatically slid open. The only thing that emerged from behind the metal doors was the sound of upbeat elevator music, pouring over them where they stood in the sewers, echoing through it. Yet nothing stirred within or rushed out at them, made freakish sounds. The metal interior of the elevator was entirely illuminated and empty. The woman in red lowered her burst pistol first... and reluctantly GHOST did the same with his submachine gun... seeing the way she was looking at him, that thin smile and risen brow. An "I told you so" look if he had ever seen one. He grimaced within his gas mask and shrugged his shoulders sheepishly.

"Yeah, yeah. I could have been right about it, though. Better safe than sorry."

"Won't argue with that. Better luck next time, handsome."

His head snapped back her way at the silky remark. Looking for signs of mockery in her features at calling him that. Given her remark earlier on his looks when he woke. Unable to find them... either because she hadn't intended any, or was a good actress. He couldn't tell which... and she smiled, hazel eye winking at him, and spoke again before he could ponder it long, gesturing to the open doors of the elevator.

"Come on. Let's get topside. Be ready for anything."

"What for? I'm ready for some freedom. To breath some fresh air. What are you ready for?"

"We'll see. I heard you praying earlier, on the train out of NEST. Said you were a Catholic."

"Not a very good one, admittedly."

"Better one than I am... was. Best start praying that I'm wrong and you're right."

On that somewhat disquieting, ominous note, the bandaged woman turned and moved through the doors of the elevator first, moving to the doorway and standing in it to keep the doors from closing, beckoning for him to join her inside it. Taking once more look around the area of the sewer, he complied, drawing a muffled breath and marching inside the elevator after her as well, boots echoing about. Entering the steel interior, the music growing louder on his ears, he looked up, to the grating vent section on the top of the elevator, and to the points where the music of the elevator was pouring out of. As he did so he heard the metal doors sliding shut behind him automatically, sealing them in, and turned to find the woman standing at the control panel of the elevator. Tapping the button to the parking garage for them. The elevator lurched into motion, then, rumbling around them as it made its ascent. As it did, she drew back to his side in the middle of the elevator, glancing his way, and the two trading a nod and a look, but no words. None were required, just now. They shared an understanding... even as the argument before continued to bother him. He was glad for the mask disguising most of his features... no sense making it easier on her to read him, to see how bothered he was. His regrets, writ large on his features. He wasn't her type of spy, the blending in type dressing up fancy and using social dynamics and interactions as a weapon. Reading other people. He was more the special operations corporate henchman sort. Like the Weyland Yutani commandos, suited up goons. The dirty sewer water continued to fall off his armored form, soaking the floor, along with his boots tracking it in. In the enclosed space she visibly wrinkled her nose again at the smell, but as before made no comment about it. He felt another stab of embarrassment washing over him at that, face and neck flushing, and he looked away from her quickly. An embarrassment only compacted by the inappropriate upbeat elevator music surrounding them. Clashing with the hellscape the city had become, underground and above it. He looked to the control panel but saw no button to shut it off, of course. He'd sooner take an awkward silence or just the rumbling of the elevator before having to listen to it. He needed a damn hose to wash off with too... but with the reservoir infected, as she had informed him, he would be unable to, wasn't about to take the risk, even in the bodysuit. Better to smell like piss, shit and garbage than to be infected, he supposed.

Unfortunately.

Still, he felt her lone hazel eye watching him silently the entire way up... saw it too, in the reflection of the steel doors, their vastly contrasting forms in it. Hers was red, black and white from the bandages... his own grey, black and yellow and white from the bandages as well she'd insisted on wrapping him in as well... but he forced himself not to look over at her. To prepare instead. He tilted his head from side to side, popping the muscles and joints with a grunt, before rising the submachine gun to the door, readying himself, while at his side the woman in red did the same thing, raising the Chinese burst pistol in both hands. He glanced at the control panel again, denoting the floors that led to the R.P.D. itself... half tempted to go up there. Maybe rummage around for supplies, weapons and ammunition... if there were any left... but the problem was exactly that. It was a big, dangerous unknown. Likely the place had been cleaned out of their arsenal, by now... and with his luck was overrun with the freaks or abandoned. Better they stop by the gun shop she had mentioned earlier, and hope for the best. Find a good liquor store for them to drink up at and make some Molotov cocktails in the bargain, a two for one special with the five finger discount. Hell, do a little shopping at other places, if the looters hadn't cleaned out the city by now. Swing by the local bank and make some withdrawals... or find some cash registers. Make all this aggravation at least somewhat worthwhile. Again he wondered about how many survivors remained in and around the city... where they might be holed up... and if it would be wise to try to work with them, look for them. Probably just end up getting shot at by them, with his luck, as it had been down in NEST. He would sooner fight the monsters than be forced to kill more people, in a situation as dire as this one. The living would need as many of themselves fighting back against the freaks as possible. Working together... that's what should have happened at NEST... maybe if they had they could have contained it all down there. Kept it from spreading. Instead it had been madness and chaos. Groups and individuals splitting up... quickly turning into damn near every man for himself. Both the facility staff and Alpha Team. The world down there had gone quite insane... as it surely had up here as well, on a far larger scale. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise he'd not been topside to witness it, be apart of it.

The downfall of the city.

His musings were interrupted as the elevator drew closer, his pulse quickened again, the looming dread... but prepared to meet it. Already feeling some relief to be out of the sewers. Their weapons risen, side by side, in respective combat stances, door beeped audibly as it reached the parking garage floor, and the doors slid open. Revealing a single infected former police officer in a blood stained blue uniform, just outside, turned to the side, that was the first thing to greet them, standing in front of the door, alone... its rotting face and dead eyes slowly turning and staring back at them blankly and unblinkingly in the spotlight. Ruined, pallid features illuminated by GHOST's flashlight, blood smeared jaw opening and closing as though dumbfounded... and before it could even moan or lurch towards them, lunge, they both met it with a burst of gunfire each, blasting it down on instinct, the roar of their weapons carrying through the elevator and echoing about the parking garage, blowing its head apart and toppling it back to the concrete of the parking garage. It lie there, twitching and bleeding away, a puddle of red gradually forming around it. Amped up by the kill, heart beating quicker, the two started forward at once, reaching the doorway of the elevator... but before they could emerge from it, freezing in their tracks at the same time as they caught sight of what lie beyond it, waiting for them in the parking garage. Everything that lie beyond it. The only lights within, few of them, were scattered, most of the place fairly dark, save the shining in headlights of a squad car beyond the open gate at the end of the garage, leading to the road up to the street outside the R.P.D. There was a smoking, heavily burnt SWAT van crashed into the broken concrete wall of the western side of the garage, the smoke billowing off it freely and spreading like a mist through the garage, adding to the ominous ambiance of the place. The fire looked like it had burned out only recently. The few lights illuminated the squad cars, other SWAT vans and a few civilian ones, along with a number of orange and white traffic cones at various points. Some of the squad cars with their hoods up or on ramps, having been worked on by nearby tools and mechanics equipment, before the outbreak had put an end to those repairs. From where he stood, GHOST could also catch sight of the various glinting steel pipes and air ducts running around the ceiling of the garage... to say nothing of an open manhole down to the sewers in the middle of the garage and a number of doors along the walls of the sizable parking garage, leading elsewhere around the R.P.D.

Though it wasn't to the vehicles their gaze was drawn, his eyes widening within the gas mask.

"Holy shit."

They looked instead to the many figures and shadows lurking about the vicinity, shambling and shuffling about. Or kneeling upon the concrete, feasting on the mutilated corpses strewn across the pavement, too fixated from slurping down their repugnant meal to notice their arrival, as it had been with the group of former maintenance workers back down in the monitor room. While a corpse of an infected dog with half its head splattered on the concrete lay further down in front of the control panel to the open gate of the garage, in a puddle of its own vile blood, the green light on the panel signaling the gate was unlocked washing over it. Dozens of figures and shadows began to stir, many of them clad in stained and tattered R.P.D. police uniforms, mechanic outfits and SWAT gear... emerging from the darkness around the edges of the parking garage, and from behind cars and concrete pillars, shambling in that familiar gait... some of them with familiar glowing yellow eyes lighting up in the dark, like cat's eyes... the mutated infected that released airborne toxins upon true death. As well as the glowing white eyes of some more of the fast crimson faced bastards with the clawed hands... like the one in the washroom. Running zombies. All that he needed, right now. His vest mounted flashlight helped illuminate them... common infected mostly... but a variety were here, scattered about the parking and maintenance garage. Including them... to GHOST's silent horror... the pale bastards... tall, stark white, naked, eyeless, emaciated. Salivating acid from their mouths that hissed and rose smoke when it fell to the concrete below its feet. Like the ones that had been down in NEST. More alien and vampire fused together than a zombie. Regenerating from their wounds... fast when they wished to be... and oddly taking command of the other infected around them. He didn't know how... pheromones? Whatever it was, it troubled him. They troubled him. He had hoped them an isolated mutation... experiments of Birkin's that had burned with the rest... and was unhappily surprised otherwise. No shortage of nasty surprises, in this city.

As many of the freaks as there were down in the garage... countless more infected lie beyond the open gate, out on the road tunnel up to the street outside the R.P.D. Hundreds of them could have been out of sight, up there on the street for all he knew. Mostly former civilians, shambling about. And they saw the shapes of worse sorts of infected... more advanced mutations... the clawed things with the long prehensile tongues, crawling along the ceiling among the pipes and air ducts, talons clacking and running against the steel and concrete, tongues darting about, heads snapping down in the two survivor's directions. The few scattered sounds of them soon became a chorus of wailing moans, snarls and gurgling. Beginning to move down towards them, shuffling inexorably... even many of the infected up on the road beyond the gate did the same, turning their way and marching down towards the parking garage and the elevator. The shuffling of their feet growing, though some of their legs broken or dismembered, outright crawling along the pavement. Absurdly, one of the shambling infected paced over and dropped down unceremoniously out of sight down the sewer manhole... followed by another and another. Too stupid to avoid it. He had to stifle an instinctive laugh at the bizarre sight in the middle of the horror he felt. Not that it exactly thinned their ranks any. Dozens more moved past and around either side of the manhole, following the light of the elevator. The source of the noises. The commotion of the gunfire upon the one infected officer, along with the cheery elevator music continuing pouring out into and echoing through the garage, had drawn all their attention towards the illuminated elevator... where the two survivors stood side by side looking like deer trapped in the headlights. Well... one of them was, anyways. The other, the woman in red at his side, merely lowered her burst pistol to her side instead of opening fire on them, calmly looked into the horde between them and escape into the streets outside the R.P.D., and then to him at her side, gesturing a blood stained, bandaged hand towards the moaning, snarling freaks advancing on their position. Leaning in closer his way, tone dry and wry, lips quirking, all of her suddenly heavy and dripping with bitter irony.

"Well? This is our stop. You wanted this. Freedom, fresh air... and a little more than you bargained for. After you, GHOST."

GHOST's helmeted head looked back at her slowly and silently for a moment, then back to the horde shambling towards them, the sea of moaning, rotting figures. The mutations among them. Somehow he felt both an unnatural calm and overwhelming terror at the same time, joined together as one, then. A sudden clarity of what must be done. Lowering the submachine gun, he held up an arm and pushed her backwards inside the elevator again with ease, clear out of the doorway. She grunted at the push, heels clacking on the floor, and once she was clear of the doors, the U.S.S. Agent drew backwards on his stained combat boots as well hastily, joining her within the steel interior, glancing downward to the concrete in front of the elevator, at the blood soaked, still twitching, bullet ridden infected officer who had greeted them. Gloved hand rising again and rapidly tapping the button on the elevator control panel to the sewer level again at least a dozen times, muttering through his mask.

"Fuck all that noise. Sorry, officer. Wrong floor."

GHOST did not take his eyes off the advancing, closer drawing horde, flashlight illuminating their rotting, mutilated faces, those gnashing teeth. One of the alien looking pale bastards leading the way... the others seeming to defer to it. Except for the rotting, red skinned bastards, seemingly unaffected by the pale things authority... their enraged roars shrieking through the garage... breaking into a charge through the horde... slowed by it, but slashing and knocking aside every common infected in their way to reach the elevator. The long tongued freaks on the ceiling hissing loudly and drawing closer from overhead as well... threats from above and threats from below, all converging on their position. Several of the crimson mutated with the glowing white eyes drew in closer, racing forward past the pale ones. For a terrible moment GHOST was certain the elevator doors wouldn't close... or close in time. They responded slow... too damn slow. But just as the horde drew around to the door in a swarm... feeling his companion's hand grip his shoulder and tighten on it instinctively at his side, he watched her other arm rise, aiming the burst pistol out at the horde again. His MP5 doing the same. Yet before they were forced to open up on the freaks... deliverance intervened, the elevator responded, the two thick steel doors shutting in their snarling, inhuman faces, cutting off the view of hell that had resembled a parking garage... and the machine carrying them away to relative safety. Beginning their descent back down deep into the sewers, amid the rumble of the elevator, and unnaturally upbeat music still pouring from the speakers. Despite it, for a moment they heard the muffled snarls, roars and hands beating against the steel doors, slamming their bodies against it... until the sound of the madness vanished under the music. She breathed quietly at his side, lowering her pistol again... and the grip on his shoulder loosened, while GHOST kept the submachine gun trained on the doors... and released a breath through the gas mask he hadn't realized he had been holding. His heart still pounding away furiously in his chest at the close brush with a gruesome death.

There didn't exist enough space in the world that he wanted separating them from that parking garage.

Adrenaline was still flowing... and his hands were trembling on the shaking submachine gun he aimed at the doors, all the aches and stiffness in his body, including his headache, receding. More alert and awake than he had ever felt, it seemed, but unable to get his shakes under control, silently cursing himself. Breathing slowly, to try and shut out the images they had left behind... the close call. All on account of him... yet again. Her slightly blurry red, black and white reflection in the steel doors at his side moved, then, closer to him. The U.S.S. Agent felt her grip again, elsewhere, and looked to it... seeing her steady, bandaged hand settle over his shaky gloved one on the MP5. Squeezing and kneading it, working to still the trembling in it. Silently bracing him, encouraging him without words to lower the submachine gun again... which he felt himself doing... hands lowering it slowly and obeying her silent request. He looked back sideways to her again sheepishly, his exposed eye in the broken lens meeting her exposed one the bandages didn't cover. And before he knew it he heard his voice speaking of its own accord. Felt his shoulders shrug and his helmeted head shake.

"Uh... well. On the other hand... maybe the sewers aren't looking so bad. No reason we can't take the longer route... do things the hard way. Just glad cooler heads prevailed in time... and I talked you out of this dangerous shortcut of yours..."

The woman calling herself Ada studied him silently for a moment, raising an incredulous brow... then a quirk of her lips and corner of her mouth... and then releasing a sound that might have been a short, dry laugh, a derisive scoff, or both. Whatever it was, she merely shook her own head, and remained quiet... did not give him the hell he deserved for what he had just done. Instead they shared a more comfortable silence between the two of them... or a relieved one, at least. To be steadily away from the horde above... even as he felt more embarrassment and self annoyance at the death trap he'd nearly walked them into. Feeling his face and neck burning again. She had been right... and was an expert at this stuff herself. Surviving. Knew the town better than him. He should have listened to her suggestion properly. The logical points she rose. Instead he had let his wish to be out of the sewers to cloud his judgment... to nearly lethal consequences for the both of them. Let his pride get in the way. He couldn't do that again... had no desire to walk into another horde. Maybe she couldn't be trusted altogether... but she stood to lose just as much as he did, here. And after what they'd shared before, in the monitor room... she deserved a bit of the benefit of the doubt. He felt the temptation to apologize for it, his mistake... and for his outburst at her back in the sewer... but swallowed it instead. He had embarrassed himself enough as it were. And they both knew how much he'd fucked up. No sense making himself look weak too. What kind of world was it now, that he looked forward to the sewers? Especially if the rest of the surface looked like that parking garage. Maybe he had dodged a bullet being underground as long as he had been... even with the horrors he'd endured there. Her hand remained on his, gripping it steadily, twining her fingers through his own. His eyes within the gas mask rose from their intertwined digits and up to her shapely breasts... remaining there a moment, pressing against the fabric of her red silk dress... moving with each breath. He felt his pulse quickening. His eyes rose up a bit further, to the red and black butterfly pendant at her neck, the wings glinting in the light overhead of them. And he looked just a bit higher still... to the red of her lips, smiling back at him faintly... enticingly. Running her tongue slightly over her bottom lip, before retreating back into her mouth. All of a sudden the rest of the world of Raccoon City and the hoard of the garage seemed a million miles away... the music emanating around them growing muffled. Images of the nightmare returning to mind from somewhere afar. The look in that hazel eye his way alluring. Tempting. Interested. Or maybe he was just imagining it.

Either way, before either of them could say another word to each other as the elevator descended, something slammed against the top of the elevator from above, then, the weight shaking it slightly amid the rumbling of the machine. Both of their hands retracted from one another and their weapons snapped up in its direction at once, aiming above, to the ceiling, sweeping over it... him covering the vent grating, illuminating it with his flashlight, heart skipping a beat.

"The fuck was that?"

They both listened carefully, or tried to, over the maddening , cheery music that continued to pour through the speakers. He heard the scraping of metal... the movement of weight shifting about up there. Banging against the metal. Moving closer to the vent grating, and then stopping suddenly. He didn't dare take his eyes or submachine gun off it... drawing a breath, forcing his hands to remain steady on the MP5 along with his aim, while off to his side he heard her disquieted voice murmur back to him.

"I don't know... but there's something up there. We need to...-"

An inhuman shrieking screech rang through the entire elevator shaft, cutting her and the music off, and the grating of the top burst free in a shower of sparks, downward into the elevator along with the thing that had been perched atop it. In the process it impacted against the lights, damaging some, causing them to flicker, throwing their shadows all around the interior, flickering on and off, his flashlight and the glowing control panel alone fully remaining intact sources of light. Before he could open up on it, caught off guard, his submachine gun flew from his hands upon the impact that knocked him to the floor painfully with a curse and a grunt, and the same happened to her from the force of it, knocked her over sideways to the floor of the elevator, her pistol sliding away on the floor out of her reach. The thick grating landed on top of the agent, and the heavy thing above it perched atop the grating kept him pinned down to the floor of the descending elevator. He caught sight of what it was in an instant, in the beam of his flashlight illuminating it... and knew what it was even as his heart seized in his chest. A bestial, quadruped body of exposed, thick red muscle and veins... its pulsating brain visible through through a thin layer of flesh, devoid of a skull... a maw of razor teeth... jagged clawed hands gripping either side of the grating, a slobbering, prehensile tongue shifting about before it... and no eyes... but still it looked down on him from above. Saw him clearly... its prey, trapped right beneath it where it wanted him. Or nearly, with the vent in the way between them. His arms and legs were pinned by the grating... his entire armored body was from this position... all he could do was push his hands up against the grating with all he had, along with his legs, struggling with it to get out from under the grating and failing. All he succeeded at was causing it to have to exert itself a bit more, rising up a bit higher for leverage and pressing the grating back down against him and hissing furiously... the grating alone keeping its claws from making contact with him in this position, mere inches from his mask, as it hissed and snarled overhead, and his eyes bulged at the thing, unable to even blink. It claws swung and swiped outwardly around it, sparks flying as it shredded against the metal around them.

"That's it! Keep its head up! I'll handle the rest!"

Her voice echoed rapidly through the elevator, and at his side, keeping low, out of the reach of its clawed swipes, the figure in red appeared, scrambled closer to him, drawing his long, serrated combat knife off the sheath on his body armor, all the while he struggled with the grating. The thing hissed at her, claws and tongue swiping for her, taking the attention off him for a moment, but she jolted back just out of the reach of the tongue and talons, pressing back against the doors of the elevator. Raising the combat knife she took aim and threw it through the air, then, the long blade tumbling end over end, a flash of steel right at GHOST... or nearly right at him. It slammed against the clawed thing, and it let out a screech, taken off guard by the blow... and why shouldn't it be, he realized. Seeing the combat knife's blade embedded in its brain, up to the haft, blood flowing freely from it. Even with its brain pierced it did not die or collapse at once as the common zombies did, merely screeched in rage and pain, momentarily drowning out the upbeat elevator music. Made of a tougher stuff than the common infected... but vulnerable all the same. Not as invulnerable as it looked moments ago, at least. He had killed them before he remembered through the haze that was his mind, down in NEST. He could damn well do it again here and now, or at least take the bastard with him. With it taken off guard, no longer exerting as much strength on pinning the agent as before, GHOST saw his only chance not to get himself clawed to pieces. With a grunt he exerted all he had, knocking it off the grate and pushing it off into the corner floor of the elevator. Rising to his feet while it struggled to rise again in the corner, seizing the steel grate, he returned the favor it had done for him, body slamming it down hard against its skinless, mutated body and pinning it to the ground with all his weight, climbing on top of the grating that dug into the mutation's back. But as much as it pained the mutant, it wasn't enough, it became angrier, started to regain strength, or at least awareness of what he was doing to it. Realizing the threat its prey actually still posed to it. He needed to put an end to it, now or never. Reaching for the MUP pistol in his holster as well as he kept it pinned down... but grunting painfully and cursing when he felt her leg impacted with his arm, knocking it aside away from the holster before he could draw his sidearm, and shouting down at him from above somewhere.

"No firing in here! The ricochets will cut us to pieces!"

"THIS THING WILL! FUCK ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?!"

"Keep it pinned! Hold it down! I need to get to that knife!"

Despite his terror, GHOST did as her voice commanded him without thought, trusting its solidness, cold confidence, like the Alpha Team leader had possessed, grunting and struggling with the mutation. Every muscle in his body straining, aching, exerting all he had to keep its arms pinned, and those jagged, razor claws from flailing. If it managed to again, it would be over for the both of them, they were be painted all over the walls of the elevator interior. But even with them pinned, the claws were hardly its only means of defense. As she rushed forward to the struggling pair to retrieve the combat knife embedded in its brain, its prehensile tongue snapped viciously at her, only narrowly missing her... she tried again, but she was unable to get to the protruding combat knife... not with the tongue in the way, and its senses now tracking her. Not unless he did something about it. With its attention again divided upon her, remembering his backup weapon, he took action, pinning its whipping tongue to the floor with part of the grate's edge, dropping his metal knee pad down against it for good measure, he managed to reach for his boot knife, drawing it, and stabbing it as high into the tongue as he could, getting to work sawing away at it. The infected blood poured all over the floor as it screamed beneath the grating, but still he sawed away at it with all his strength, until he had severed the leaking appendage entirely, removing one of its weapon from the struggle. It twitched about on the floor like a being of its own, as the blood poured from the freak's mouth. The damaged lights continued to flicker around them... light and darkness punctuating the chaos, the flashlight alone keeping it from being pitch darkness during the flickers. GHOST put all the weight he had atop it, grunting as it went wild and tried to shake him free... getting closer to succeeding, seemingly stronger the angrier and more desperate it got, going berserk.

With the tongue disabled, the woman in red raced nimbly forward, grasping the handle of the combat knife embedded in its brain and twisting it, causing it further agony, before pulling it free and starting to stab and slash away at every part of it she could get at from her angle in the elevator. Slashing its throat open in the process, its screeches turning to hideous gurgling. GHOST did the same with the blood soaked boot knife, stabbing through the gaps in the grating, stabbing it as hard as he could with a grunt each time, right in the back over and over, rending flesh, twisting and pulling with each stab. By now she had jumped atop the grating as well, side by side, helping him keep the bucking bronco pinned, as together they both stabbed away at it, the blood flying from their knives, staining the steel interior around them. It clung desperately to life, resilient, formidable, fighting all the way to the end... but somehow, thankfully, there was an end for it. Especially as the stabs to the brain took their toll. A little at a time, after what felt like forever, the bestial mutation began to weaken and stop struggling, going still, collapsing back down to the floor all the way beneath the grating and him. Like the tongue squirming on the floor spraying blood, it continued to twitch, blood pouring from its mouth and all over its body, everywhere they had stabbed it and everywhere he continued to stab it, rending flesh and muscle. Puddle forming and spreading below it.

GHOST lost himself in a frenzy of stabbing and slashing, grunting and cursing at it with every curse under the sun, in English and his father and mother's tongues, adrenaline surging, heart racing. Going as berserk upon it as it had on them... returning some of its medicine back to it. Rage mixing with the terror. Willingly losing himself in it... in the madness that had been threatening him for days now.

At least until her voice brought him back.

"GHOST... that's enough. GHOST. GHOST! It's dead! Ease up! It's ok!"

He didn't realize until she gripped his shoulder tightly and shouted in his ear that she had stopped already, gotten off the grating and stood at his side, above him, holding his dripping, blood soaked combat knife down at her side in her fingerless gloved hand. He looked between it and back up at her dazedly, her reassuring expression on that bruised, bandaged, perspiration covered face, and his frenzied mind came to a realization... and finally he stopped rending its corpse. His surroundings and world returning to him gradually. Looking back to find the open doors to the sewer section they had come from, again, spotting the flowing canal water he had helped her across, before. So lost in the carnage he hadn't even heard the elevator beep or the maddening music around them. A few moments passed as he worked to catch his breath, heart racing, and the blood stained steel doors closed again automatically with nobody in the doorway to keep them open, cutting off the view of the sewer and shutting them all inside the elevator once more. Breathing heavily, feeling the sweat dripping down his flushed face and body under the mask and bodysuit, he finally rose to her side again, still trying to catch his breath. As he did, he looked down to the floor, spotting the MP5 and her pistol... before looking down at the soaked boot knife, shaking off what excess blood he could, wiping it off on the pant leg of his bodysuit, before raising his leg and tucking it back away in its sheath there. The lights still flickering on and off around them. After doing so he limped over to the weapons, grunted as he knelt down to a metal knee pad, willing himself to ignore the worsening aches that had returned with a vengeance, the additional pain of it landing on him. If he had no broken ribs by now, it was going to be a miracle. Or he had QUARTERMASTER to thank for the suit and plate carrier design. He reached for his submachine gun's strap and slung it over his shoulder, before scooping up her burst pistol from the floor, rising and handing it off to her again grip first. Her fingers brushing against his glove as she took it silently, looking back at him with a grateful nod... in turn leaning closer to him and sliding the bloody combat knife back into the sheath on the front of his body armor. Murmuring quietly to one another after the exchange of weapons.

"Thanks..."

"Of course..."

They looked back at one another silently for a long moment, catching their breaths, regaining their senses amid the looping elevator music. She rose a gloved hand and settled it on his chest, against the plate carrier there, fingers tracing right over his heart, leaning in close to him and visibly working to regain her bearings. A strange jolt passed through his midsection that wasn't pain, at he proximity. Like butterflies. As if he were some stupid teenager in high school all over again, sharing a dance with her. He felt his neck and face flush in a way that wasn't from all the exertion... felt the urge to draw back from her and her touch, the closeness... but a stronger one keeping him right where he was. The desire... temptation... to touch her back. Slipping off a blood stained glove and tucking it into his belt, he felt himself leaning back closer to her as well, bare hand rising tentatively to brush aside some of the dark strands that had fallen over her hazel eye, exposing it again... watching it look back up at him, into his own exposed eye. Watching the damaged lights of the elevator illuminate her and bath her in near darkness... the light of the flashlight not fully catching her, but outlining her, giving her an ethereal, beautiful visage... before the light returned again, over and over. His hand lingered by her face, tracing over her bruised cheek... before lowering to the butterfly pendant at her choker... fingers tracing it instinctively. How long they remained that way in the flickering lights, he couldn't be sure. But once they had recovered enough, remaining closely where they were, they turned their heads slowly as one back to the bloody, broken, twitching heap of exposed red and pink muscle in the corner of the elevator amid the equally stained grating. The blood flowing like a pool from it... blood that stained a good portion of the floor and the walls. Splatters of the stuff. It's claws had been razor sharp enough to embed into the metal walls and floor at various points it had slashed at, jagged, deep tears in the thick steel, running down and over it, like it had been cutting paper. They looked slowly over as one to the still twitching, severed tongue lying on the floor, flopping about and bleeding like a bisected snake. GHOST breathed heavily through the gas mask, still trying to come down from the high of what had happened, slowly shaking the scarred helmet, muttering through the mask, and glancing her way again.

"Jesus Harold Christ. Fucking mess. That was... too close. Should have just let me shoot it..."

"You should be thanking me... those bullets would have ricocheted off the walls. As likely to hit us as the thing. Seen it happen before. Even with armor piercing rounds. And you're the only one wearing body armor, here."

"Or maybe it wouldn't have ricocheted. Just killed the fucker. Like I said before... maybe HUNK ain't the only one out there... who likes doing this shit the hard way..."

"Very funny, rookie."

"Wasn't a joke, red... did we seriously just wrestle and shank a goddamn mutant to death?"

"Certainly appears so. Rather not do that again... but we're still alive... at least."

"So far. Barely. If it wasn't for that grating in the way..."

"Did it claw or bite you?", She asked him then abruptly when she had caught her breath, looking from its soaked corpse and back to him again, lone eye studying him closely. As though already x-raying him for any signs of infection inside him. A piercing sensation that bothered him as well, the idea she was suggesting that he might be infected. That he was infected and didn't know it yet. "Did it manage to breach your suit?"

"I don't think so... not for lack of trying... but... you should check me out. To be sure. Then I'll check you..."

"Mmm. Pretty sure you've already been doing that, handsome. Can't fault someone for their good tastes. Only fair for me to return the favor. Let's get to it."

With a faintly wry smile on her red lips, feeling his neck and face flush again at her observation... she drew over to him, then, checking him first. Her hazel eye looking him over from head to toe closely, hand rising again and roaming his bodysuit... while he forced himself to keep his eyes trained on the mutated, slowly twitching thing beneath the mangled grating. Jaw tightening within the gas mask... keeping his MP5 trained on it... tempted to empty his magazine in it, just to be sure. But understanding her point about the rounds chasing them around, in here. All it would have taken was one round to put her out of the game... or himself... leave them easy pickings for the clawed thing. It took all he had for him to force his hands not to tremble... to ignore the aching pain in his back after it had dropped on him. Aches all over. His headache returning as well for good measure. All the same, her soft voice at his side offered him some relief, despite all he'd put up with before. Gripping his shoulder again reassuringly.

"You're looking good, GHOST. Got nothing to worry about."

"That's an optimistic appraisal, red. But... thanks. Your turn. Hold still now..."

"I've never been the sort of woman to stay still for long... for future reference... if you play your cards right."

Her silky voice teased him quietly... but, naturally, he found he had no retort when it came to that, flustered yet again. The... flirtation... unless he was mistaking it... in perhaps the least appropriate place on Earth for it. The worst time. Yet here she was, in this blood coated elevator... doing exactly that. When she had finished examining him, he returned the favor while she kept her pistol aimed at the twitching mutant as well... no fool, despite the ricochet danger. Despite her coolness, he had seen the flashes of carefully controlled fear in her eye, before, in the midst of the struggle. Still, she'd not let it get in the way of what she had done... probably saved his life. An idea he began to mull over as he examined her perfect body. He looked over her red dress and bandaged form... flashlight illuminating it, especially each time the light flickered... bare hand rising to trace certain parts as well as he leaned in the check... luckily finding no breaches in any of it, no slash tears in the fabric or bleeding wounds. It had been close, for her as it had been for him. There had been a chance of his body armor protecting him, depending on the circumstance... she was afforded no such protection. Not for the first time he wondered why she had chosen this little number, and not a functional combat suit, given what she had been getting involved in in Raccoon City. Old habits of a femme fatale spy probably died hard, he supposed. Though couldn't deny how good it looked on her. Not that he had to tell her that... inflate her ego... even if she had already noticed his interest. Still... not for the first time, he wondered even more how good it would look off of her. With a nod to himself, satisfied, he stopped examining her, retrieving his blood stained glove from his belt and slipping it back on, worn voice speaking up again.

"You ain't cut up either. Well... any more than you already are.", His dry, muffled tone returned through the gas mask, assuring her, looking back down at the freak's corpse. Then slowly up to the broken ceiling where the vent had been, seeing some of the elevator shaft up there beyond. Grip tightening on the submachine gun. "How the fuck did it get down here?"

"It must have pried open the elevator doors of the parking garage... with its claws. Or did the same on one of the higher elevator doors... or maybe it was up there among the ventilation shafts already. Then again, if it had been the parking garage doors, many infected would have come tumbling down atop this elevator. They're learning to think, hunting. Or are more cunning than I thought."

"The hell are they?"

"Infected... in an advanced state of mutation. Some of them seem to mutate into that. Not many... but enough. Then again... after that... I can say any are too many."

"Yeah... some were down in NEST. Saw a variety of mutations. 'Inside-out Men'... from the look of these bastards."

"The R.P.D. called them 'Lickers', during the outbreak. Umbrella hasn't got an official designation for them, yet. That mutated infected you killed back in the monitor room washroom, though? We saw a few more in the parking garage charging at us? Those ones are well documented in Umbrella's testing, designated Crimson Heads. The V-ACT process at work. That thing, this and the other mutations we've seen are the hideous work of the Epsilon Strain of the T-Virus... developed by Umbrella's Arklay Laboratory."

"I see. Well... you're clearly the expert, here. I'll just take your word for all that."

"Careful now, GHOST. Flattery like that will get you everywhere. But don't let that frighten you off."

"One risk at a time. Lickers, you called them? Damn stupid nickname. Can't see it sticking. Like mine better. Let's just get the hell out of here... before worse than it comes down here after it... there's always a bigger freak, in my experience..."

"Yes. There is. Ever seen a ten meter alligator before?"

"I saw the trailer for that movie, but... huh? What did you say?"

"Never mind. You really don't want to know. Regardless, we're going to need heavier hardware for the surface, clearly. What I've got back at the Apple Inn. Still... you didn't do so bad with this one. Thought you were a goner for a moment, there." The woman in red smiled at him thinly, and held up her left bandaged hand, giving him a quick thumbs up sign. Something genuine in the way she looked at him, distracting him from her strange, wry question. Feeling a trace of a smile form unseen on his own lips right back. "Well done, agent."

"Much appreciated, red. Have my moments."

"Then you're in good company."

No more needed to be said... looking back at one another, they understood each other clearly, and what must come next. On that quiet note and comfortable silence they shared, she went over to the control panel while he turned from the ceiling and went to the doors, readying the MP5 again... looking at his bloody reflection in the blood stained steel doors. The exposed eye in his mask. Like he was looking back at some stranger. Unrecognizable. Glimpsing the remains of the clawed freak behind them, the twitching by now having ceased entirely. Tapping the control panel, the doors slid open again, reflection vanishing, and snapping up the submachine gun he passed through the doors with her, her pistol risen as well, covering one another and all the sides of the familiar section of the sewer. The upbeat elevator music filling the sewer and echoing about, amplifying it, while his flashlight searched the area. Deeming it clear of hostiles, they lowered their weapons again... and an urge passed over him... one he didn't ignore. Half turning on the spot and looking back at the elevator. Back at the inside out freak lying beneath the broken grating cover... scarcely believing he had survived it, even as he stood here with her outside the elevator. He should have been dead many times over... had had a number of close calls since reaching Raccoon City... but that elevator and his brush with Birkin had been the closest he had come to it. The damaged lights still flickered overhead, showing the grisly remains within... the smears, scratches and devastation... then the steel doors automatically closed again, cutting off his view of the blood soaked interior. The cheery elevator music died as well, mercifully... though leaving the sewer eerily silent as a tomb... save the distant flowing water, and sounds of dripping pipes now and again.

Looking back at her, he nodded, and took point again, making his way back towards the canal, flashlight sweeping over it, and both sides of the tunnel it flowed from. Then when he was satisfied it was secure, he climbed back down into the murky, putrid and garbage strewn sewer water... somehow feeling grateful when it washed off a good deal of the freak's blood stains... almost feeling clean again, the irony of that not lost on him. He moved backwards to the ledge for her to climb on to his back again, too preoccupied with his brush with death to be bothered to complain about it. He just wanted them to get the hell out of here. This time he didn't sling his submachine gun, keeping it firmly in both stained gloves as she climbed on to his back, wrapping her arms and legs around him, supporting herself. Her burst pistol at the ready as well to cover him like before, if needed. Hearing her soft, pained breaths against the side of his mask and helmet, pressing close against him and getting as comfortable as she could. Then he began to slog forward, through the flowing water, moving carefully, steadily, making for the opposite side of the canal, the ledge... beginning their backtracking. Reaching it he turned around again, and as before she climbed off on to the ledge, then he turned around and she helped him up on to it again, rejoining her, the sewer water streaming off his frame and over the brick and concrete. With another breath, and silent, exchanged nod, they departed the section of the sewers together, retracing their steps and route from before. As they went along, when he managed to not think about that elevator or parking garage... instead he was left to brood on other matters. Of which there were many.

GHOST remained uncertain of her, as he had from the start... he might have been foolish in many ways, inexperienced, stupid... barely scraped by on his Rockfort Island training... but he wasn't about to underestimate her. Nevertheless... something strange had passed between them, back there... what they had shared. And from it had formed some kind of silent understanding. A silent communication. They went along towards her route in the sewer for a long time, taking their time. They didn't speak much, except when they had to, such as her giving directions on where to proceed next... and even then it was usually shortly and quietly... the rest of the time they seemed to have that unspoken understanding, that didn't shake. Now and again he helped her along, helped her climb stairs or cement sections, carried her over and through more drainage canals and tunnels... or they paused for her to gather herself. Himself needing the breaks just as much, aching all over. Hearing her occasional murmur of gratitude. Taking their time. It was slow going, as she had warned... but necessary. They avoided as many of the infected and mutations as possible, of the ones they glimpsed... and worked together rapidly taking down the ones that couldn't be avoided. And she was proven correct... dangerous as it was... there was no horde of them down here, as there had been above. Falling into a comfortable routine together. Looking out for the other when need be.

He didn't trust her... not entirely... but he wanted to trust her.

She was good... pretty damn good against the infected, when she had to be. Cool. Poised. He knew he should be keeping his guard up, be ready for her to double cross him... as her kind always did to the easy marks in the movies. Those like the man in the photograph. She was as dangerous or more so than the monsters, in that regard. A ticking time bomb... if a visually pleasing one. Instead he felt something he hadn't before. Relief... having someone... having her at his back. She was in it all just as deeply as he was. And he didn't think he stood a snowball's chance in hell of surviving without help the rest of the way, as he'd barely managed to survive the NEST... barely survived that goddamn elevator. Would not have, without her. However this was all going to turn out... in the present, he felt an unexpected feeling of peace that he didn't want to lose. He had already lost everything else, down in the NEST... lost his entire team... lost Umbrella and his place in it... but as much as he wanted to be above ground... he had risen to the sewers. Not alone... but with her. It was something, at least. And he intended to do the same with the surface when the time came... hurtling more obstacles until they reached the finish line. Doing what it took.

He was a rookie... had fucked up the mission with a single mistake. Destroyed an entire city of over a hundred thousand. He probably deserved to die here with everyone else... but he had not. He was still alive and in the game, as fucked up as this game was proving to be. He would not die in Raccoon City... nor go insane... not if it could be helped. He wouldn't let her die either, he vowed silently. He had killed enough people already, and wouldn't have her blood on his hands as well. More than even this super spy would get on her hands in a lifetime. Or however many lives she had led before this one he found her in. She found him in.

Nor, GHOST silently vowed, would he tell her what had happened down in NEST. There was no sense in giving her incentive... more reasons... to add his blood to her hands. Supplying the rope to his own hanging.

Instead, he focused on trudging ahead through the sewer, submachine gun at the ready, leading the way and following the beam of light that guided their long path to the escape that lie beyond.

---

And thus the dynamic continues to flesh out, and the tension and action grows... along with GHOST's Stockholm Syndrome lol. Had a blast writing this one, editing it, hence it taking so long. It's a challenge balancing atmosphere, horror, action, humor, etc, but I think I've gotten better at it, or hope at least, can be subjective. I like playing with the absurdity of the situation the characters are in, playing off it.

GHOST's bumbling with that locked door is an in joke about Agent in Resident Evil 6 being unable to open doors and engage with action icons, take actions, poor Ada having to do it all for them lol. Like he's Kelso in That 70's Show with a locked screen door. Similarly the chapter before joked about him being a figment of Ada's imagination, like the way he would vanish in her cutscenes in RE 6 and reappear as soon as they were over. I enjoy nodding at jokes and memes and funny things in universe for stories, like Ada absurdly wrapping Leon in bandages that didn't even cover any wounds, bandaged up his uniform, hence her doing the same for GHOST while she was in a delirious state and him baffled over it lol. I like playing with the parallels between GHOST and Leon is is essentially replacing, good and bad versions of each other.

And I am further getting GHOST's personality down compared to HUNK, younger, more sarcastic, arrogant, abrasive, less skilled, less experienced, less professional, less mature. More struggle to survive while being out of his element, more human fear in him, understandable fear of the monsters. Especially after everything he's been through so far, at the end of his rope. Reality ensuing a lot for him, making mistakes because he's new to it all. And not as rock solid as HUNK. I like writing HUNK's antithesis who was inspired by him, aspired to be like him, and fails miserably, even as they have some similarities. Especially with both surviving Raccoon City while being on opposite sides of the U.S.S. spectrum. His looks more normal/mediocre/average instead of rugged sexy HUNK or pretty boy Leon. There was no way someone like him and Ada would not be butting heads, even as tension forms and develops between them. I couldn't just have him be a complete pushover, Ada has to put her wiles to work to wear his guard down a bit. And is still silently debating what to do over him, assessing his potential, and why she should bring him along for one hell of a ride. I enjoyed writing the dream sequence, started doing that with Their Last Escape, and was sort of inspired by how it's done in The Sopranos.

The arduous escape continues soon, and our odd couple learns they are not the only survivors about in the Outbreak. Stick around ;). Reviews, thoughts and opinions on the story are welcome and appreciated, as ever.