They're back in Raccoon City before she knows it. They enter as discreetly as a helicopter can, but in the flourishing city she doubts anyone will think much of it. It's nearing midnight when they reach the intended coordinates, the patch of barren forest and looming murder castle that makes Jill's muscles tense at the very sight. She hears the voice of her father in the back of her head, "don't be the kind of woman who needs to be helped."
"Target in sight, are you ready for deployment?" Allen asks through Jill's earpiece, shocking her back into reality.
"Ready." She returns, brutally aware of her thrumming heart and stiff muscles. "We shouldn't land the chopper. I don't want anyone else in trouble."
"Just us, right?" Billy scoffs.
He does not have access to HQ, for obvious reasons, but there's still a bitter edge to his tone.
"Shut up." She rolls her eyes, throwing the ladder down before looking to the co-pilot. "Keep in contact with Allen. The second we need a pick up-"
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am." He gives her a thumbs up as a way of pushing her out of the helicopter.
She grits her teeth as she descends from the air to stand before the hulking mansion. Her heart threatens to stall completely, but the weight of her gear keeps her grounded.
"Stay sharp." She tells Billy the second she hears his feet hit the ground beside her.
Positioning her gun just so, she takes the lead, wasting no time in approaching the grand doors before her.
"Yes ma'am." She hears Billy grumble while following close behind.
Jill still isn't certain how she feels about this guy, but part of her wonders if he's going to stab her in the back. The other part of her trusts Allen's judgement more than her own. At the very least, he wouldn't deliberately put her in harm's way. Still, she longs for the security of Chris's presence, to know that her partner has her back.
The building is clearly abandoned and has been for some time judging by the layers of dust on the long unattended furniture. The place reeks of age and water damage, but the scent is the last of Jill's concerns.
"We're in." She reports, eyes still sweeping the area for any sign of danger.
"Good. We're still tracking you, you know the drill. Reconnaissance and information only. Do not engage if you're able."
Jill smirks, "You say that like I'm trigger happy."
"Covering my own ass." He snorts from the other end.
"Hey, Valentine, which way?" Billy asks, motioning towards one hallway or another. Just as he finishes the movement, there's a creaking from the right and a bark from outside.
Nearly panicked, Jill turns towards the sounds, "Guess this choice is made for us."
"Yeah, love it when that happens." Billy's unnervingly close as they wander down the narrow hall.
"So, break the ice, tell me about yourself." Jill says, even with her breath on edge.
"What's there to know? You read my file."
"Yeah, and you read mine, but my favorite color is fucking blue." She snickers despite herself.
"Are we really doing this?" He asks skeptically.
"Look, if we're gonna be partners, I need to know you have my back, alright?"
"I have your back. You don't need to know my favorite color, that's dumb."
"Such a sour sport. You don't get out much, do you?"
"Prison does that to you."
"Yikes, a bit sensitive, are we?" She kneels before a looming door and works her magic, unlocking it in seconds.
"You sure you're a soldier?" Billy asks tersely.
"I have confirmed kills that the military actually wanted me to have. Any other questions?" She asks, pushing the door open.
"Yeah, what the fuck?"
The door opens to reveal a foreboding main hall, a large painting of some man, and a glaring Umbrella symbol. Approaching the painting, Jill takes in her surroundings. The staunch air about the place leaves her unsettled, to say the least.
"I've got something for you." She comms in to HQ.
"Already?" He sounds surprised.
"Guess who's just wandered on into Umbrella Executive Center Training."
"You're shitting me."
"No, sir."
"Fucking Christ…"
"Coen."
She nods him over to grab one of the files just laying there. It's ominous and unsettling, but so is the fact that she doesn't find herself surprised. Not even when she looks over Billy's shoulder and spots a person… an undead person.
"Duck."
He complies as she raises her gun and nails the fucker right between the eyes.
"What the-" Before Billy can ask, the zombie is twitching towards him. Three bullets later, it lies still.
"Okay, I hate this."
"Allen, we've got a problem." Jill says.
"Perfect, what is it?"
"Turns out the dogs aren't the only undead around here."
"Dogs!?" Billy asks incredulously.
"Good… you think you can handle this, Valentine? We can send in back-up."
"Who do you think I am, chief? I've got this handled."
"I do not." Billy says getting up from the ground, "What in the fuck is going on?"
"If you're sure, I trust you." Allen sighs, clearly uncertain as he ends the connection.
"Look, Coen, you read that report. Zombie dogs and now humans. Our job is to make sure this shit stays in this fucking facility. Got that?" Jill barely stands beneath his nose, but she really doesn't give a shit about their size difference. She's clearly the one in control.
"How did you even find this place? This shit's insane."
"Let's just say I'm connected even when I don't want to be." Jill takes one last look at the zombie, "You want to tell me your favorite color now?"
"Fine, it's red." Billy rolls his eyes, following after a surprisingly confident Jill.
"Well, you're in luck. I've got a funny feeling we'll be seeing a lot of it."
"Oh, happy day…"
They march on through the building, picking up files and codes to random rooms.
"Who built this place? Rube Goldberg?" Billy can't help himself as they maneuver through the facility.
It's all so strange. Why did Wesker come this way? Did he live here? She wouldn't be surprised if they stumbled upon him in a robe, sunglasses still on, reading a book. What the fuck did Umbrella have to do with anything? Did they really bring back the dead or were they in the business of creating monsters? Allen's whole mission was to expose the dirty corporation, but how dirty were they talking?
She gets an answer to one of those questions on the balcony, when out of nowhere she's knocked off the edge and nearly killed.
"Valentine!" Billy rushes over.
"Look out!" She calls nearly half a second too late.
He knocks the fucking thing back, throwing it off the roof before helping her up. "Jesus."
"Monkeys… Fucking zombie monkeys. Typical." Billy groans while pulling out his gun.
Together, they fight off the group of approaching beasts. Their matted fur and the large, red sores that are left behind in the areas in which fistfuls of fur had apparently been torn away, make Jill wrinkle her nose in disgust. It's an unreal situation, one that Jill acknowledges as such if only to preserve her sanity. She hopes to God that she can't contract some weird disease from this.
"What a Friday, huh?" She asks.
"Yeah, for real." He sighs while assessing the damages.
"Thanks, by the way."
"You're welcome." He smirks at her.
"So… why does Allen like you so much?" She asks.
"I think he likes an underdog." Billy shrugs, eyes locking onto something, "You're shitting me."
Jill glances up to see a mothering fucking bat the size of a dog swooping down to attack them.
"Oh, just what this night was missing."
"You spend your nights some kind of way that I do not understand." Billy chuckles, shooting precisely at the beast and knocking it into a tailspin mid-flight.
"It's called being way too invested in my job." She smirks back, joining in the open fire against the oversized creature. As soon as it's down, she's kneeling beside it and taking notes.
"Leeches, bats, monkeys, humans. God, somebody had some kind of fetish that I could have gone my whole ass life not knowing about."
"Get your head out of your dick and stay on target, Coen." Jill stands up, "I think we have just about everything we need up here, so let's head back down."
"Roger that." Billy takes the lead this time. "I bet there's some real fucked up shit in that basement with our names on it."
"I want you to be wrong, but I know you're right." She groans. "I don't think there's any redemption in this place."
"Really? You don't see any potential for a future summer home? Maybe a boarding school?"
"Oh yeah, let's bait fate a little and just send kids into this place to see what happens."
"What?" He chuckles. "No good?"
"You're a piece of work."
"In a good way?"
"In… a way." She smiles. "What'd you do before all this?"
"My best."
"Oh, haha." She chuckles as they head down, deeper into the facility. "Just keep your head on, okay?"
"I'm trying here."
Banter can't last forever and tonight is most definitely not Jill's night; of course, being in a hell hole (being there of her own volition, don't forget) should have clued her into that. The giant fucking centipede really drives home the point for her if it wasn't clear as glass before. After resolving that she will never bitch about bugs ever again, she blasts the fucker straight into the next life.
"Have I mentioned I hate this place?" Billy asks once the thing is burnt to a crisp.
"What a coincidence, me too." She says, surveying the area.
"We've got a lot in common." He smirks.
"Can't wait to tell my boyfriend about this." She chuckles, briefly reminding herself how much she misses him. And to think that he believes she's at home with a stomach bug instead of doing… this. It's similar she supposes. There is a bug involved…
What will Chris do when he finds out?
"Oh, do tell me how that one goes down."
"It will probably just end with him telling me that next time there's a bug in the bathroom, it's my problem."
"Honestly, the next time I see a non-zombie animal or bug, it'll be the cutest shit I've ever seen."
"We should keep moving. This area's looking a little sparse." Jill looks for the next direction to go in.
"Does that have you on edge?" He teases briefly.
"Of course it does. I'm not totally insane." She scoffs. "I mean, first zombies, now an underground lab. I'm starting to think God either has a sense of humor or thinks he's a fucking horror author."
"I would guess the latter, all things considered." Billy huffs, taking the lead as they press further into the lab. It's cold and dark all the way down, like the sun doesn't want this place to exist and so it's been deprived of such things. The air is thick between Billy and Jill and she knows that technically she's his commanding officer in this instance, but the fear in her heart holds her back. She's only human after all.
This metal morgue is daunting and she wants to turn back, desperately wants to pretend their mission is over and get the hell out, but she's not stupid either. She knows there's more down here to uncover. They haven't even found a true motive yet, nor have they found any connection to Wesker at all.
She persists despite her hesitance and maybe that's where her true strength lies. Perseverance is a virtue isn't it?
It's a flash of white at first, then it's Billy's scream.
"Shit!" She shouts, prepared to shoot the primate, but worries about hitting her partner. Her hesitance causes a chain reaction. The whole affair hardly takes seconds to complete; he's attacked, pushed over the railing, and gone.
"Billy!" She calls, knowing it's futile but acting solely on instinct.
"Valentine, what's happening!?" Allen asks from his end.
"Billy's gone! I've lost sight of him… Damnit!" She looks down into the bleakness, a number of emotions walking up her spine, the most prominent of these being guilt.
"You've got enough intel, Valentine. If you have to get out, do it."
"You're about to tell me to use my judgement, aren't you?"
Allen sighs, "It's your call only because I can't stop you, but I think you should get out while you still can."
It's a royally stupid choice to stay, to go further into the belly of this beast alone, but intelligence and heroism rarely go hand in hand.
"Hold on, I'm getting something…" Allen says, but she's already heading down the stairs, "No fucking way."
"What is it?"
"Security cameras are still working. You didn't trip any wires, did you?"
"No, you didn't notice before?" She asks, checking her gun as she goes.
"It's like someone flipped a switch. Be careful…I've got you on my screen."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing. Can you locate Coen?"
"See if you can find records of recordings. My team will handle Coen."
She traipses her way through the halls, if they can even be called that; she feels like she's in a fucking dungeon, a very medical, Nazi dungeon. If Wesker's a fucking Nazi, she swears to God…
"Okay, you're going the right way. He looks to be alive, but we can't be sure on our end."
Relief spreads throughout her body at the sound of that. In spite of darkness and hell incarnate, she persists through the area. Something in the back of her head tells her to be afraid, but she shoves that thought away. Fear will only cause problems.
So, of course, fate tests her theory by throwing some kind of mutated God knows what at her. This giant pale thing with torn skin, gnarled teeth, exposed muscles, and one claw-like mallet hand.
"I am so sick of this." Jill mutters to herself, immediately blasting at the thing with everything she's got. It's a fiercer battle than she had been anticipating and, honestly, she'd anticipated a lot. Nearly every time it falls, it gets back up, twitching and bulbous as ever before.
Her body feels heavy, the weight of the night finally falling on her shoulders as she realizes that maybe she can't do this alone. But determination is a stronger demon than this creature, a Tyrant, she'd read somewhere. It eventually falls before her and it doesn't get back up. Too tired to celebrate her victory, she backs out of the room, ensuring it stays down.
"What the hell!?" Allen asks, exasperated from where he sat, safe and comfortable…well, comfortable might be a bit generous.
"Welcome to my night." She grumbles.
"If I wasn't impressed by you before… Shit, Valentine, you need to get out of there."
She throws herself through the next door, "Not leaving him. I don't leave people behind."
Jill can practically hear Allen's eye roll, "I'm starting to think you want to die."
"Not a chance."
"Listen, I'm having one of my people look into their systems. We've got the cameras and now we're trying to transfer any remaining files. You think you could get to the main systems for me?"
"We'll see." She says, bursting into the next room to find a finally rousing Billy. "Oh, thank god."
"Huh?" He looks up slowly. "Jill?"
"You hurt?" She asks, kneeling beside him.
"I'm okay. Head hurts, but that could be this nightmare finally getting to me." He closes his eyes and cradles his head for a second.
"You're okay. We're going to get out of this." She tells him, looking up briefly and wishing she hadn't.
"What's with that face?" He asks.
"In case you were wondering… Yes, this nightmare could get worse." Jill says, taking in the sight of bones on top of bones before her.
Billy looks in the direction she is, narrowing his gaze for a moment, "They must have been used as test subjects in Marcus's research…"
"Marcus… right…"
It's hard to keep all these evil Umbrella scientists straight from note fragments and photographs, but honestly, she doesn't exactly care. Her priority is blasting this place to kingdom come, getting the hell out, and bringing Umbrella down.
Billy shakes his head ruefully, forcing Jill to step in, "We're going to fix this."
"You believe that?" He asks. Clearly, he doesn't.
"I don't. I know it." She says, offering him a hand to help him up.
"Uh… Thanks for coming after me, by the way." He lets out a sheepish smile which she returns.
"You're welcome."
"Now let's go kill whatever big baddie is waiting for us."
"That's the spirit."