Part One: White Knight Syndrome
A hero hell bent on saving the world. A spy with nothing to lose.
An unlikely duo trying to thwart a conspiracy.
He just might be the key to a future without fear - if she can just keep him alive long enough to get there.
The phone call in the middle of the night surprised her. She rolled, her hand skimming the smooth white handset to lift it to her ear. She didn't acknowledge the person on the other end even as the voice intoned, "...I need your help."
Her eyes blinked blearily at the clock across from her bed. Three a.m. - hours before dawn and yet hours after acceptable social hours. Three a.m...the hour you called to bring news of the dead, or the hour you called to invite someone to your bed.
Booty call hours.
But it wasn't a booty call.
In response, Ada murmured, "Good to hear your voice, Leon. You sound tired."
There was a shuffle of noise from his end before he answered, "I'm sorry to call so late. I didn't know who else to call. You left this number on that card. I thought-"
"It's alright." She sat up and the moonlight spilled across her bare breasts as she cradled the phone between shoulder and ear, "What do you need?"
She heard him hesitate and encouraged, "I'm on your side here, Leon."
"Are you?"
Sighing, Ada rolled to light a cigarette, "Unless someone pays me not to be. So far, the price to help Umbrella is too high. Tell me what you need."
"A girl I escaped with Claire Redfield?"
"The redhead?"
"Yes. Yeah. She's...she's in trouble. Big trouble. She tried to infiltrate an Umbrella compound...alone. She was working off a lead that her brother was there."
It would never fail to surprise her how impetuous youth could be. Incredibly, terribly, desperately stupid of a girl with no training to try to go alone against an army of trained assassins...but she admired the balls.
"I see. And this concerns me how?"
She heard him shift. Her head tilted as she listened to the noises outside whatever phone booth he was calling from. It sounded like a train passing. Not a subway train. A real train. She checked the caller ID on her base and determined the area code was Boston. He simply wasn't good enough at covering his tracks yet.
But he'd get there.
"They took her. She emailed me from some server that bounced four times around various mirror sites before I could stop it. The prison she's being held in is infested. It's lost. She says its completely compromised. I need-" He trailed off and Ada arched her brows, listening to what he wasn't saying.
"...are you involved with this girl?"
The quiet stretched for a handful of moments before he came back to her. "I don't know. I don't know anything. I can't find her. I need Chris. I need her brother. He can track a fart on a foggy day...I need to find him to find her."
Curious, Ada tapped her nails on her knee. He didn't say it, but this girl mattered. Girlfriend? It was irrelevant, given what she needed from him, but the little tug of jealousy amused her. It was like finding out someone else was coveting the car you were buying. It wouldn't change who drove it, of course, but it surprised Ada to find she wasn't fond of the idea of another woman in his bed.
Amused, Ada replied, "I'll find him. Where can I reach you?"
"Uh...I probably shouldn't s-"
"I can find you too, Leon. Or you can tell me. You prefer I relay classified information over an open line?"
She heard him shift in the booth, "Of course not. Right. I'm in Boston at the Biltmore. How long-?"
"I'll see you in six hours." She hung up the phone. She already knew where he was. She'd tracked him perfectly during their phone call. His location was flashing on her palm pilot even as she rolled to her feet.
He didn't like coming to her for help. She could almost taste his disdain at the idea. But he'd done it. Why? To help the same girl he'd sold his freedom for.
She flipped on her laptop and tapped keys, digging up information on Claire Redfield. Pretty girl - young and eager eyed like the boy who'd escaped that city with her. She had notations on the file The Organization had on her about her survival training. Training? The girl was barely out of highschool. But the notations told a story about a brother with military training that raised a sister after a parental passing. It said Redfield had wiped her tears and taught her to kick people in the balls when they made her cry.
According to the data, she was likely more capable of survival than Leon had been during that whole ordeal.
It listed her as the likely source of the demise of Birkin.
Curious, Ada tilted her head. Had she gone toe to toe with mutated G and survived?
She wasn't just a girl - she was a bad ass.
Impressed and respectful, Ada jotted down notes in her palm pilot about the girl. Ultimately, it meant Claire Redfield couldn't be directly involved with Leon Kennedy for any measurable amount of time. Eventually, she'd begin to sniff out the association between him and Ada. She was smart enough to find out the whole game before it even began.
Which meant?
Claire had to go.
Was it best to leave her marooned on whatever island she was on to meet her own demise?
Probably.
But Leon would never trust her again if she didn't help him locate the girl. She needed his trust. She needed him in her pocket. But she could keep him from being the hero that chased the girl. She could send the BROTHER after Claire. Maybe it would net her a sample of whatever was happening there at the same time it took care of the threat of exposure.
Ada tapped keys, tracking the location of the email Claire had sent.
It bounced servers like a ping pong ball, avoiding her detection.
But not for long. What had Leon said? Find a fart on a foggy day? She'd been playing find the fart for as long as Chris Redfield had been alive. Ok. Maybe not that long. But she was good at working the system to locate a mole.
Ada pinpointed Claire Redfield in eighteen minutes of skimming off layers. It was like someone wanted her to be easy to find. The moment Ada clicked on the last barrier and dropped the location, she caught the ghost in the system tracking her.
Someone was watching her find Claire Redfield.
Interested, Ada let them track her. She led them a merry chase for a moment, bouncing the signal around to see how far they'd follow while she found her way back to them. After a handful of minutes the trace turned up a familiar IP address - a masked IP out of Switzerland. A familair country to use to code interest from The Organization.
Her own employers were looking into Redfield?
Why?
A shiver speared over her spine. Not The Organization. No. Not directly...but one specific member operating on his own agenda.
Albert Wesker.
Curious, Ada tilted her head again, "What game are you playing?"
To find that out - she had to let him locate Redfield on Rockfort Island. She needed to know what he was after there. All the data told the story of the once genius Alexia Ashford and her viral legacy. Wesker was after whatever she'd been breeding there in that prison. What was it? Ada knew she'd let him find it and bring it back.
Why?
Because she needed it. And the easiest way was to get it from him.
And if Redfield and his sister survived? Well they'd know that Wesker had too. They'd be on to him. She'd had another pair of people working indirectly to help her toward victory against her own chains that bound her.
Win...win...win.
She just had to keep Leon out of it.
The best way to do that? How else?
A distraction.
It was time to tell him about Sheena Island.
Boston - 1998
The cafe at the corner of Wilkes and Biltmont was little more than a greasy spoon with good fried latkes. A german flair for flavor had inspired the cook to bring her home cuisine the palates of the Americans that littered the faded booths at nine in the morning before work.
Leon was sipping coffee when Ada slid into the booth across from him.
She glanced at the plate of potatoes and back at his face. "Your cholesterol won't thank you."
He shrugged, watching her behind the polarized sunglasses he wore. "My stomach will. Right on schedule, Ada. What do you got?"
Ada, in a trench coat and sunglasses herself, crossed her long legs beneath the table and shrugged. She slid a small manila envelope across the red table top to him. "I tapped into your email and forward the location to Redfield. Surprisingly, he wasn't hard to find. He's operating with a paramilitary group off radar in Russia. He's sniffing around after the Caucasus region over there and the rumors of an Umbrella stronghold where they're amplifying strains of the tyrant initiative we thought they'd destroyed in Raccoon. I ghosted your account to get him the information."
Leon tapped his fingers on the table, looking irritated. "Why? I said to get me the location. I could have gone after her myself."
"You could," Ada tapped the folder, "But I need you for something else. Let Redfield get his sister. This can't wait."
Leon inhaled sharply like he was gearing up to argue.
Ada lifted a hand to halt him. "Please. Read the file. You'll see I'm right here. Do you have someone you trust? Someone out of the loop here? You need to get in touch with them and go. There's no time to waste."
Leon tapped his fingers twice more before he spun the folder toward him to open it. He set down his sunglasses to read the information. He read, swiftly, pursing his lips as he went. His gaze lifted to hers and Ada nodded.
"Yes. Exactly."
Sheena Island was Umbrella's breeding ground. It was a city entirely owned and operated by the corrupt pharmaceutical company. Where Raccoon had been in their pocket, Sheena was their Mecca. The island contained a facility dedicated entirely to evolution of the T-Virus. An outbreak recently had signaled that someone, or something, was digging around in their archives and trying to get their research.
Ada suspected Wesker but there was nothing on that island that would point Leon to the former S.T.A.R.S. captain. So for now, it was safe to send him there to investigate. His training would keep him alive. And the outbreak needed squashed.
Leon murmured, "They're taking hostages to experiment on."
"Yes. Without compunction. You don't know what you'll find there, Leon. But I suspect you'll see something even worse than that idiot with the bowlers cap we encountered in Raccoon."
Leon tapped his boot on the ground, looking torn. To encourage it, Ada told him, "Redfield can get to Claire. You know that. But we're the only two people in the world that know about Sheena Island. Help me like I've helped you. I need you."
That worked.
She watched it echo on his face. He couldn't say no to the need. The hero in him just had to help. All the faces of the people dying she'd left in the folder were the kicker. He picked up a picture of a little girl turned into a zombie and shook his head.
Sadly, he remarked, "I'll handle it."
"Thank you." She slid from the booth. "I'm glad you called, Leon. I want you to know that if I can help you, I will."
He glanced up at her beside him in the booth. "I wish I could believe that, Ada. I really do." He looked it. He looked like he wanted to trust her. But he was too smart to do that. "I wish I could figure out what you want from me. What does helping me get you?"
He was too smart to believe she was on the right side here.
Ada leaned down, testing him. He tilted his face back like she'd anticipated. Their lips touched, soft, harmless. Telling.
He even managed to look annoyed by it.
Ada smirked a little, leaning back. "That's why I'm helping you. It's as simple as that."
Leon studied her, searching her face from where he sat, "Is it? You helping me to get in my pants?"
She laughed, musically, "Do I need to?"
Annoyed, he drummed his fingers on the table again. "What's your game here, Ada?"
She dropped the sunglasses, winked, and shrugged one shoulder. "Play it and find out. See ya round, handsome."
He stayed sitting at the table, drumming his fingers. After a handful of moments, irritated, he lifted his hand to touch his mouth where she'd kissed him. And it pissed him off that he kinda missed her already.
Starlight Cruise Liner -2001
She was too late.
Too late.
Too late.
He was dead. She knew that the moment she watched him go down on the deck of that massive mistake set to the water by Umbrella. An infested nightmare, the lab was breeding things that left a sour taste in the mouth of anyone who was attempting to stop them. The rumors of what monsters they were making were scattered and unsubstantiated.
The moment she learned that Barry Burton had recruited Leon to board the ship and liberate data to help end Umbrella, she knew things were worse than she'd imagined.
Damnit.
How had she dropped the ball on this?
She'd been tracking him so well since Sheena Island. He spent some time in Uruguay doing heavy weather training. He was on a special attache mission in Peru to escort a dictator to custody. He was attached to the detail of a clean up in Mozambique.
How had she missed the moment he averted orders and struck out on his own to help an old friend?
Burton and Kennedy were friends through Redfield. When Chris had survived with his sister on Rockfort, the two had connected with Kennedy remotely to begin working behind the scenes to flush out Umbrella. They'd met up with Burton and Jill Valentine in secret to start formulating a take down on Umbrella.
At what point had Burton decided Leon was the right choice for an operation like this?
The ocean liner, code name Starlight to discourage would be eyes from looking beyond the facade of a luxury cruise ship, was rumored to be carrying a new type of B.O.W. Leon went in. Leon went in alone.
Like an idiot.
Like a fool.
Like a fucking hero.
He was now M.I.A.
Burton was dispatched to locate him. But the rumblings Ada was receiving from the ship indicated he was abducted at best, at worst he was infected and dead. The water split as Ada emerged into the bowels of the ship, lifting her mask and unzipping her wetsuit as she infiltrated into the sewage hold. The ship was already sinking. Entering remotely using diving gear was easy enough.
The sewage hold was most submersed anyway.
The ship was going to be tits up and mast down in less than two hours.
She had to find Leon - fast.
All the information she could turn up referred to the Gaiden strain of the T-Virus. She was putting the pieces together on what Gaiden was.
The parasites on the ship were nothing she'd come across before. They bled green. They mimicked human nature. What was worse? They mimicked in a way that told Ada Umbrella was messing with more than just viruses here.
They were cloning.
They were cloning human life.
Simmons, that filthy piece of shit, was in it with them. She'd stake her life on it. Simmons was a well known supporter of the human cloning initiative. The stem cell research controversy was still in infancy. What would the world think to find out it was well beyond using your babies cells to cure your own cancer?
What if they knew there was a copy of your baby being turned into a monster?
Ada made sure to put down every last monster with a human face she encountered. If she was unsure, she did it anyway. The crew was best left dead in this instance as well including anyone, anywhere, that had participated in this atrocity. There was no mercy regarding their disposal.
Ada employed a shoot to kill philosophy to guarantee maximum containment.
She ducked into a small antechamber and heard shouting. There was gunfire. There was the pound of feet. The whip of helicopter blades signaled a rescue was coming.
Curious, she glanced out the porthole beside her to see Burton, holding a little girl in his arms, as he ran for the helicopter. Where was Leon? She read Burton's lips as he yelled at the pilot, "Kennedy is compromised. Kennedy is dead."
He was wrong.
She wasn't sure how she knew that.
But he was wrong.
The door to the chamber opened and in walked Leon.
Her gun was on him without thinking. He tilted his head at her. She tilted hers back. "Long time, no see, Leon."
His mouth lifted in a half smile. "Ada. You're a little late."
"Am I?"
"Yeah. I don't need saving this time."
"Don't you?"
He tilted his head again. "Do I?"
She shook her head, "Take that knife strapped to your leg and cut your hand please."
Surprised, his brows winged up. "You think I'm a clone?"
"Would you know if you weren't?"
The amusement flushed over his face. It sparkled in his eyes. He looked unhurt. He looked unharried. He looked fine. If he was really Leon...why would Burton leave him behind?
Shrugging, he pulled the knife in his boot. "You gonna shoot me if I don't bleed red?"
"You kidding? I'm might still shoot you if you do."
He laid the blade against his palm and pulled it. The blood welled up. It plopped wetly to the floor - as green as a shamrock. Ada shook her head, holding his gaze. "...damnit, Leon."
"...apparently we don't know we're the clone, after all. Gonna kill me, Ada?"
It was the first goddamn time she hesitated to put down a monster in her entire life. The gun didn't waver - but she did. Why? Because it was his face. It wasn't him. But it was his face.
She liked his fucking face.
She didn't want to blow it away.
It was a handful of seconds but it was long enough for the clone to flip that blade in his palm and chuck it at her while she hesitated. Instinct, skill, and luck had her ducking as the knife whizzed an inch above her left ear. She went down into a crouch with her leg thrown to side and fired.
But Leon's clone had ducked behind an over turned shelf while she hesitated.
He taunted, "You love me too much to blow me away, Ada? What kind of fucking pussy are you?"
Gritting her teeth, she used the barrels beside her to provide cover while she waited for a chance to shoot him. "At least if I'd thrown that knife, I wouldn't have missed. But...you are just a shadow of your real self, after all. So who can blame you for sucking?"
The clone spat at her now, irritated, "I am the real me, bitch! Come on over here and I'll prove it!"
The crazy part about the whole exchange wasn't the fact that she was facing a clone. It's that she knew, somehow, that the real Leon would never talk to her like that. He was, at the core, not a man who hurled slurs and insults like a filthy mouthed sailor. He was a gentleman...at least he'd always been to her.
It was one of his most charming qualities.
"Please...I was just standing five feet in front of you and you missed. We both know you're just a useless copy of a better man."
"Fuck you, you slanty-eyed cunt."
"I'll pass. I've had the real thing, you understand. So I don't like sloppy seconds."
That worked.
He pushed out from his cover with his enormous handful aimed at her hiding spot. She started to rise and face him head on, confident that he'd miss anyway, and the door behind her was kicked so hard it hit the opposite wall as it flew open.
She rolled to her back instead and aimed down the barrel at another clone. This one was filthy, bloody, beat up and favoring his left side. She didn't shoot him. Why? Why?
Why!?
This one cocked a brow, shifted his gun an inch up from where it was aimed at her, and drilled his carbon copy right between the eyes.
A handful of seconds.
Why didn't she shoot him?
Because the blood running down his forehead was red.
He put his hand down to her, lowering his gun. "Come on. Hurry."
Ada gripped his palm and let him pull her up. She grabbed for him when the motion nearly sent him careening into the wall. "Jesus, Leon. How'd you get away?"
"They stopped taking blood to move me when the ship started sinking. Burton must have activated the self destruct. The second they released my bonds, I killed them both." He kicked the gun from the hands of his dead doppelganger.
She liked the rage on his face. It was very refreshing to see. Cloning might have given the dead man his face, but it didn't give him his feelings. You couldn't copy the human heart after all, it seemed.
Ada snapped open a small tube and scooped up a sample of the dead clone's blood. He watched her, and she couldn't discern his expression. Why didn't he stop her?
She studied the side of his face for a moment until he turned his gaze to her. "...why are you here, Ada?"
She opened her mouth to answer and the ship jerked, hard, throwing her forward. He steadied her as the alarm system began blaring an alert into the air around them. No time for long winded explanations it seemed.
Instead, she shook her head, "No time now. Come with me."
He did, no questions.
The ship caught fire as they burst into the sewage room. It chased them like Mr. X toward their only chance of escape.
She led him back into the bowels of the ship and withdrew the second suit for him to don to escape. They slipped together into the water with respirators and beat a mad retreat toward the neighboring shore.
At the beach, as they emerged from the water, they both watched the ship disappear into the tumultuous tide. Ada felt Leon watching her and turned her eyes back to him as the Starlight ducked under the frothy waves and was gone. The sky was darkening with the threat of rain and the encroaching night.
Quietly, she told him, "I have an evacuation in route. I can't guarantee we're safe until they come for us. You should stay with me."
Leon just nodded, watching her shrewdly. His arm was held to his side in a way that told her he'd probably had his ribs damaged on that side, maybe even broken. But she didn't touch him to find out.
He didn't ask her again why she'd come.
Did it really matter?
In silence, they moved toward the trees. He stumbled once and Ada shifted to bolster him up without asking. He draped his arm over her shoulders and kept moving.
Why had she raced to his rescue?
He was an investment, sure, he was her informant. But she could have dispatched a team to bring him to safety. Why come herself? Even Ada was struggling with the answer.
What was more upsetting was struggling with her own hesitance to shoot him when she knew it wasn't even him.
Why?
Because something in her guts said she needed him alive. He had some part to play she couldn't predict yet. He was important. Until he was no longer useful, she needed to keep him safe.
No. ALIVE. She needed to keep him alive.
She couldn't guarantee his safety. He was in a dangerous business. She couldn't protect him from that. But just maybe...she could keep him among the living until she didn't need him anymore.
If she could just get him to stop being such a fucking hero.
Apparently, keeping Leon Kennedy alive was rapidly become the story of her life.