A/N: Two things. One, sorry for being MIA and Two; has anyone played RE7 yet? How is it? I can't play it because I get horrible motion sickness doing so. I've been living vicariously through various YouTubers for the moment (I haven't finished watching the game so no spoilers) while I try to figure out a way around this. I normally don't feel ill playing video games. Ah well, enough of my whining. Leggo.


Disclaimer: Resident Evil is owned by CAPCOM. I only own Alma and any other OC's not prevalent in the RE universe.


Leon had filled the awkward silence between their first encounter with the 'Not-Zombies' and two mile-long hike down the road to the village proper with what he knew about Umbrella and their bioterrorist ways with the T and G-virus.

Alma had been mostly silent, only interrupting him when she had something pertinent to add to the conversation. She seemed to be taking the news surprisingly well (that or she was very good at hiding her shock and disbelief).

She hadn't asked what had happened to him that night in Raccoon City and for that he was grateful. He relived it enough talking to therapists and psychologists throughout the years.

They hadn't encountered any other hostiles along the way, only a wolf with his paw stuck in a bear trap. Leon had gone to its aid, managing to pry the steel jaws apart so the animal could get free. It darted off, only pausing to let out what he assumed was a grateful yip before vanishing into the brush.

"Ever the white knight, huh?" he glanced over his shoulder at his partner, seeing a wry smile on her lips. He was unsure of how to respond, instead giving her a smile of his own.

"Only when it comes to animals and pretty women," he finally replied, seeing a bit of color stain her cheeks. She regained her composure quickly, however, and turned her attention back to the road.

"I think I see someone up on that hill," she informed him, nodding her head in the direction she was looking.

"Where?" he asked, squinting his eyes a bit.

"Past those trees, by a bit of broken fence," Alma said, pointing ahead.

After a moment he spotted an old man holding what looked like a pitchfork on a small rise. He was shambling back and forth, pausing to look around for a few moments before continuing his patrol.

"You've got good eyes," he praised her, rubbing a hand over his forehead before glancing sideways at her. "Think you can hit him from here?"

"Is that a challenge, Agent Kennedy?" she smirked, withdrawing her Picador from its holster.

"Just an inquiry," Leon replied. "It actually looks like he's guarding the path."

"Let's not disappoint him then," Alma murmured, thumbing the safety off before starting forward.


"Leon, Alma, how're you holding up?"

"Bad question Hunnigan," Alma stifled an annoyed snort, brushing twigs and dirt off her jacket and out of her hair (courtesy of her nearly walking into a trip mine ten minutes earlier).

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'll let you know when I have more information."

"Understood," Leon replied, ending the transmission before withdrawing his binoculars from its pouch. Alma exhaled soundly, resting a hand on her hip. "You okay?"

"I'd be fine if we were better equipped for this," she sighed, removing a box of handgun bullets from her ammunition pouch. "I've only got about twenty rounds left, plus two in the chamber. Maybe we should adopt a stealthier approach?"

Leon frowned, raising the binoculars and peering through them. "Doesn't look like an option," he murmured, eyes narrowing when he saw something burning in the middle of the square before he swore in realization.

"What? What is it?" Alma asked.

"They killed one of the officers," he said quietly, handing her the binoculars. "And I saw at least five villagers milling around but who knows how many are in the houses."

Alma swallowed past the lump in her throat, raising the binoculars and focusing on the burning pyre. Sure enough one of the cops was burning in the middle of it, a large hook protruding through his chest.

"Poor bastard," she muttered, sweeping her gaze around the area and seeing three villagers working. "Shit, I'd give my left nut for a Barrett M82 right now."

"Overkill much?"

"But that's just it; no kill like overkill, right?" she tried to joke, handing him the binoculars back. "What now?"

"We run."

"Why-?"

"¡Allí están!" she heard a woman call out. Alma's head whipped up, seeing a woman in a dirty blue dress and ratty bandana pointing at them. She saw four people turn from their chores and begin advancing on them.

"That's why. C'mon," he ordered, running forward and taking the left fork in the path.

"Um-kay, yeah," she agreed, racing after him and narrowly avoiding having her face rearranged with a sickle.

'They're fast,' she thought to herself, glancing back over her shoulder. 'This is not good.'

"Shift it, Ngyuen!" she heard Leon bark over his shoulder, eliciting a huff of annoyance from the brunette.

Alma grumbled under her breath, nailing the woman that had called them out in the head. She cried out, staggering around for a moment and clutching her head. Alma seized the opportunity, kissing her opponent's jaw with the heel of her boot via vicious reverse roundhouse.

The effect was…surprising, to say the least.

Bits of blood, skull, and gray matter went flying as Alma's foot knocked the other woman's head clean off her shoulders. Her eyes widened when the woman's body lurched forward, falling onto the ground before melting into a puddle of blood and yellow goop.

"Um-kay-," she swallowed tightly, whirling around and evading an axe swung her way. Reflexes honed by years of training immediately kicked in as Alma brought up her gun, blowing a hole in the man's left arm.

He growled, clutching his shoulder and glaring back at her. Her hand flew up, grabbing the axe out of his right hand before burying it in his skull. He too fizzled into a puddle of goo at her feet, the axe sticking up from the ground.

"Well then," she breathed, turning to face a small group of villagers advancing on her as she struggled to dig an ammo box out of her pouch. "This is shaping up to be one fuck of a bad hair day-."

"Get down!"

She took a knee instinctively, feeling something whiz past her cheek. She watched it explode into flames upon contact with the villagers. They stumbled around, batting at the flames with their hands before falling to the ground in mounds of ashes, the scent of burnt flesh lingering in the air.

"Where did you-? Fire grenade-?" she gasped out, lurching to her feet and giving the other agent a wide-eyed stare.

"House," he grunted. "Here, take this." Alma caught the ammo box he tossed her way. "This too."

"What-?" her eyes widened a fraction when he tossed a frag grenade her way. "I really don't think you should entrust me with the exploding doodads."

"Don't really have much of a choice sweetheart," Leon replied, grabbing her by the back of her jacket and hauling her along with him. "Let's go!"

Alma didn't argue, racing forward and into the house he had gestured to earlier. Leon kicked the door shut behind them, shoving a cabinet in front of the door and taking a step back.

"Now what?" Alma finally asked , watching him barricade a window with a toppled bookshelf.

"We stay here," Leon said, reloading his handgun and getting ready for the second wave.

"Um, I don't think we should-."

"We need to bottleneck them into one area," he stated. "Then we can start picking them off."

"In case you weren't paying attention this place has a second level," Alma said snippily. "I get it, believe me. Backing ourselves into a corner leaves us nowhere to run but also makes us more aggressive because we're forced to fight. But this seems like suicide to me-."

"Quiet," Leon snapped, eliciting a growl of annoyance from Alma. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what-?"

"Shh!" he hushed her once more, pressing his ear against the wall and closing his eyes.

"Why you-!" Alma bit out angrily before hearing a faint whining sound. "What…?"

It grew in intensity before deepening into a familiar low, throaty grinding sound as the smell of gasoline filled the air.

"That's a-."

"Chainsaw," Leon finished grimly, grabbing her hand and hauling her upstairs behind him. "Out the window."

"Out the what-!?" she wasn't able to finish her thought as Leon slammed his elbow into said-window. Alma was amazed at the ease that the dirty window broke, almost like it was sugar glass you'd see in action movies.

Alma jumped through it after Leon, careful to avoid the bits of glass still clinging to the frame. They landed on a sheet of metal connecting the house they were in to a neighboring rooftop. Alma saw a wooden ladder had been propped against two parts of the roof. She glanced over at Leon who nodded in silent agreement.

He took up post at the one closest to the house they had taken refuge in and Alma headed across the roof onto the neighboring house. Each villager that climbed up the ladder received a round in his or her head, tumbling down to the ground with varying yelps of pain before melting into puddles of goo.

"Like shooting fish in a barrel," she remarked to herself with a satisfied smile. There was a lull in gunfire as she and Leon reloaded their guns at the same time.

She had never been so grateful for the timing because had they continued shooting she would've gotten her head torn clean off her shoulders from the chainsaw-wielding villager…

He had been approaching her from behind while she had been suitably distracted, climbing through the window Leon had broken a few minutes before. The metal roof groaned loudly under his weight, alerting her to his presence. She had just enough time to throw herself into a sloppy roll just as he revved up the chainsaw and brought it down upon her with a bloodcurdling scream.

Alma lay on her back, raising her gun. It took five shots in the head to stagger the maniac and he regained his composure quickly. Alma used the time to get back on her feet, putting space between them. He was much stronger than the villagers they had been fighting and Alma weighed the pros and cons about blowing him to Kingdom Come with the grenade she had on her hip.

"Te voy a matar," he growled as he revved up the chainsaw. She shot him four more times, sending him reeling backwards. Alma took three steps forward, drawing her leg up to her chest and prepared to deliver a vicious uppercut via twist kick to his jaw-

-only to see him going flying off the roof to her right. She looked at the spot he had been to where he had flown off the roof and finally back to Leon-

-who had apparently come into possession of a pump-action shotgun somewhere within the past five minutes…

"Where did you-?"

"It was hanging on the wall in the house. I thought it was a prop or antique at first but it's not…obviously," he shrugged, rotating it in his hands.

"Oh," she breathed, reloading her gun and trying to ignore the way her fingers were shaking. "Okay. I can accept."

"Are you okay Nguyen?"

Alma swallowed thickly. "Not really but I'll manage."

"I understand, believe me," Leon assured her before they heard something that sounded like church bells ringing.

The villagers suddenly ceased their assault on the agents, dropping their farming tools and began shuffling as a unit towards a large stone structure with a strange red symbol etched into the metal of the door.

"Lord Saddler," they heard one man grumble and the bewildered agents exchanged a look of confusion as the villagers filed into the building, the door shutting and behind them with an audible clang.

"Tch, where's everyone going? Bingo?" Leon scoffed, raking a hand back through his hair in an attempt to hide the way his own hands were trembling. That had been far too close for comfort.

"Now what?" Alma said after a few minutes of silence, plopping down on the roof and letting her legs dangle over the edge.

"I need to contact Hunnigan and let her know what's happened."

"That's probably a good idea," Alma sighed, stretching out her achy limbs. "I'm going to take a look around, maybe I can find some more ammo boxes."

"Be careful," Leon told her, eliciting a faint smile from the brunette.

"Always am," Alma replied, hopping down from the roof onto the ground. She could hear Leon speaking with their mission support as she strode across the village center, taking in her surroundings now that she was no longer in danger of being murdered.

Everything in the village looked absolutely disgusting, like there was a layer of grime that had crusted over every surface. Buildings were falling apart, food was rotting in barrels and ice boxes, and the villagers themselves had looked filthy and unwashed. It was the result of neglect over a long period of time.

This…sickness…whatever it was, had taken root and flourished in the small farming village.

Well, whatever had happened, she was in it for the long haul now.

"Buy the ticket, take the ride," she muttered sarcastically to herself, glancing over her shoulder at her partner. "What do you think happened to the people here? T-virus?"

"No, not exactly," Leon stated with a shake of his head. "The villagers could still speak and communicate. They were doing chores when we got here, going through the motions of their former lives," Leon trailed off, a quiet laugh escaping him.

"What is it?" she asked, edging a door open and breaking one of the barrels inside with her knife, revealing a handful of gold coins which she pocketed (it's not like the villagers were using them any more).

"That almost makes them worse," he finished quietly, rolling his shoulders back with a sigh.

"Great," she muttered, resting a hand on her hip while he searched the rest of the house. Their sweep through the village yielded a few ammo boxes and a few herbs that Leon informed her had regenerative qualities when used to bandage wounds.

"How do you know that?"

"I was a boy scout once upon a time," he replied, jury-rigging a length of belt he had found in a cabinet and a bit of sheet together to make a shotgun scabbard.

"I see," Alma said, watching him do so with a raised eyebrow. "I'm impressed."

"Alright, Hunnigan told us to follow a trail near the watchtower. That should get us out of here. I hope," he muttered the last part under his breath, situating the scabbard on his back and checking that his handgun was loaded.

She nodded, pausing to retie her hair out of her face before following her partner.


They saw the doors Hunnigan had told Leon about but before they approached them, something caught Alma's eye in one of the small huts along the trail.

"What is it?" Leon called, watching her enter it.

"A note on the wall, and some ammo but that's irrelevant," Alma stated, yanking the note down. She noticed a manila envelope had fallen to the ground and she stooped to pick it up, handing Leon the note.

"For those of you not yet informed, the prisoner is being held in the old house beyond the farm. We will transfer the prisoner to a more secure location when we are ready. She is to stay there until further notice. Do not let the American agents find the prisoner," he read aloud, glancing over at the brunette when he heard her swore.

"Look at this. They have pictures of us leaving the hangar when we first got here and when we were staying in Huelva. They've been watching us the whole time," she stated, showing him the photos she had found in the envelope.

"This Chief Mendez guy thinks there's a third party involved aside from us," Leon said, raking a hand through his hair in agitation. "If that's true…"

"Then we've got a lot more to worry about than just finding Ashley," Alma finished, tearing the photos into pieces and letting them fall to the ground. "We have to get moving."

"Couldn't have said so better myself."


So, yeah. That's it. Um, not much to say as I said a bunch at the start. So thanks for reading. Almost 3000 words for your amusement. Sorry if it isn't action-packed enough and there's too much 'telling' rather than 'showing' with the dialogue. I'm going to try to incorporate a RE5/RE6 feel with counters and melee ass kicking a little later on (hence Alma stealing a farmer's axe for herself). That was the only reason I liked RE6, all the over the top wrestling and MMA moves the characters pulled off (don't judge me). Anyways, thanks again. I'll try not to be so far in between updates next time.