"We found Steve."
Claire didn't believe it.
It had been two decades since she lost her "knight in shining armor" as he jokingly called himself, and she couldn't believe it.
It had been a few years since she had finally given up all hope, and she wouldn't believe it.
It had been months since Chris found her on the bathroom floor... pistol in one hand and bottle in the other, and she still couldn't believe it.
Fanfiction Presents:
How long had it been?
Seconds? Yes.
Claire Redfield had found herself asking how much further, just like as a child on a road-trip with her big brother Chris and her parents... before life happened...
Minutes? Yep.
It had bee a few minutes since reaching the approximate coordinates on the makeshift GPS she had duck-taped to the middle of this ancient/looking dirt bike.
Hours? Yup.
Her plane touched down not long ago from the old dirt runway where she managed to land without crashing.
She was tempted to tease Leon (unaware of his apparent fate), but Claire feared he would only remember those he could not save in the China skies... same with the cop cars (yes, plural) he also wrecked in outbreak zones.
As much as she wanted to laugh... that little light inside her shone only just barely again. She almost let the devil poof it out, as well as nearly snuffing herself out!
"Who could blame her though?" She thought. All these years and so many lost.
Her mother and father, Chris (on multiple occasions), ...him..., everyone at TerraSave...
Just once she wanted to be able to go back and save at least just one, whatever it took, before she could finally die...
This was her chance, and she was taking it!
Days? Technically
She most recently located where Air Force One had crash-landed. While her goal was not to rescue her... Leon... and those who may have also survived, she needed all the help she could get if Claire was to find her true goal.
Plus, there was little to no one out here in this lonely and rural part of Europe... a description she knows someone hd shared with her before. ...nah, it couldn't be.
Could it?
I mean, it had been 15 years exactly since her lost friend, Steve Burnside, had died saving her life. That was the closest she had ever come to bringing Steve home.
Speaking of which: years?
Fifteen long years of her life gone not long after the Raccoon City Outbreak. While she may have eventually found her brother (or rather, the other way around), she had lost so much beyond people. Slowly but surely, her willpower, her determination, her work-ethic, her joy and happiness,
...her reason to live...
Backtracking though: Months?
It had been just over a month since that day where after 15 years or pain and suffering, Claire Redfield had finally saved her self-proclaimed "knight in shining armor" Steve Burnside... only to loose him again.
Weeks later?
Leon had finally been able to locate him. Again. Between everything that happened between them years ago, he still managed to somehow prove once-more how amazing his skills are... and more importantly the man he truly is.
This had led her to New Pueblo. Here.
After picking up a signal from a nearby radio tower. It was meaningless to most, but that was by design. Leon had taught her this way to reach out should they ever need to locate them without anyone else knowing.
He also taught it to one Ashley Graham.
Despite the "letdown," it was so reassuring just to see a friendly face, especially in the middle of this wasteland of a ridge. The radio "shack" (Claire finally allowed herself just a bit of a chuckle at that one!)
looked barely like a building at all despite the clearly-evident attempts at modification and restoration.
It looked more like the place you would store hostages in a movie! Or video game, she guessed.
Claire let the kickstand down as she looked over the enclosed fence surrounding this. Taking off the old dirty motocross helmet she bought off the guy back aways for "cheep," her red ponytail swayed in the breeze.
One bystander took notice.
As Ashley bounced around waiving happily yet quietly, something in her masked friend clicked just the right way.
Or wrong way?
Subject detected!
Claire Redfield
Recommendation: Kill or capture
He shrugged of said "thoughts" if he could even call it that anymore! But if that man; Albert Wesker had wanted her dead...
...who else?
On cue, something besides the strangely familiar young man beside Ashley caught her eye. A glare? Binoculars!? And what else!?
*BOOM!*
Claire felt her mouth begin to open in a yell, but it was all cut out by the deafening swish of a rocket, followed by the all-to-familiar sound of an explosion. In the blink of an eye, the cliff she was standing on gaveway, and the radio tower was flattened and engulfed in flames.
Not as if there was anything to hear anyway. All there was no besides silence was the wind in the valleys, the burning fire, the falling rocks and debris...
...and moaning.
Inhuman moaning.
Coming from off in the distance...
...towards them!
Chapter 3
"Steve?" The woman asks in delirium.
"Steve? My god... I... I can't believe you are alive!"
"What?" Ashton is in a perplexed state. "...Steve?"
"You don't remember?" she asks. "The Island? The Ashfords? The Arctic? The lab? Krauser? Me?"
Nothing... Something about all of this has Ashton shutting down.
"It's me Steve, Clare!"
"Claire?" A sharp pain comes over our main hero's brain. Something in the back of his mind seems begging to be released, but the more he tries to remember these things the more agonizing it becomes. He feels something else trying to unleash too. Something he does know all too well.
"No... I... I can't... Let this... Go..."
The more the Hunter tries to remember, the more the agony intensifies. He starts to feel himself loosing control over he beast inside.
"Sss-Steve." This Claire girl stammers horrified at what is going on.
All Ashley can do is stare dumbfounded at the confrontation taking place right in front of her.
A pit in her stomach tells her to run away. Was it this Steve's secret?
...or something else?
"Look lady, I don't know who this Steve person is, but if you're working with that Wesker guy...!"
"Oh god, Steve, what have they done to you?" Claire reaches for her lost fiend, the one she had failed to save...
...again...
...he jerks away. Backing up towards Ashley... shielding her...
Ashley was always popular, but she had never been in a situation like this... with a guy anyway. The zombies thing was sadly a familiar sight unfortunately. Poor Claire's lip was stammering and her eyes began to water...
A week ago Ashley thought Claire had swept the man she loves away from her... just before her umpteenth "inevitable death." Now here she was in her rugged boots... heartbroken. Did Claire even realize how much Leon meant to Ashley?
To Ada? To Claire herself!? Now she knew what if felt like... and it was horrible! It was the kind of thing you almost don't care about if someone else gets it so long as your heart is unbroken. Now, Ashley's heart broke for Claire's...
...speaking of which...
*BOOM!*