Resident Evil
The Seraphs
By:
Xenogears
Chapter two
In no way do I own the characters of Capcom's
legacy, Resident Evil. They are used for non-profit purposes, only for
entertainment.
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Next Day...
Ryan hawked and spit. To say the
least, he was frustrated. He had gone out to look around the small town,
because it had so far been deserted. So far he had checked every room of the
six houses and two apartments, and he was cold, tired, and hungry. Even the
winter coat he wore didn't fully protect him from the Alaskan weather, and the
three-and-a-half-foot deep snow didn't make it any easier.
"Goddamnit," Ryan cursed under his
breath. "If this last house at the end of the block doesn't have anyone in it,
I'm goin' back."
A short trudge through the snow
brought him to the doorstep of the last house at the end of the block.
He
pulled out his newly acquired Colt .45, and knocked on the door.
No
response. He tried again. Still no response.
He
kicked at the door, but it held its ground.
"Wise
guy, huh?" Ryan said crossly. "Eat this!"
He
placed his Colt .45 at the door lock, and pulled the trigger.
Pow!
The door gave, cracking open a
little. He pushed it slowly, and scanned the room with his gun. He was in the
living room. He could see that most of the house was on the first floor, the
living room connected to the dining room by a large archway, and the kitchen
beyond it. White walls and plushy, deep royal blue carpet set off a few good
pieces of expensive furniture in the front rooms. A winding walnut staircase,
carpeted in the same plush blue, rose at his right to the second floor, and
under the risers was a closed door leading, Ryan assumed, to the basement. He
walked slowly, his footsteps hushed on the soft carpet, through the front rooms
into the kitchen.
'Might
as well fill my stomach,' he thought.
He
opened the fridge, and in the cold light surveyed the well-stocked shelves.
'Let's see,' he thought. '2 percent
milk, orange juice, instant food, peanut butter, jelly, more instant food,
carrots, salad, cabbage, butter, Chinese-'
His
thoughts were stopped by a sound coming from the pantry.
Cautiously he walked toward the
sound. Images of a Hunter leaping out of the pantry flashed through his mind.
"Shut
up! I know that that won't happen!" Ryan chided himself.
He
rested his hand on the pantry doorknob.
'All
right...One...two...three!'
And he
flung open the door.
"YAAAAHHHHHH!"
From inside the pantry came the warlike cry.
The next thing he knew, he was on
the floor, staring up at a girl with green eyes and long untied black hair that
fell halfway to her knees, in a red T-shirt and blue jeans and a gold chain
around her neck. She looked very edgy, and she was hefting a frying pan
threateningly in her right hand. Ryan gaped at her, waiting for her to make her
move. Then she spoke in a touchy voice:
"Daré
desu ka?"
Ryan
realized that she was Japanese.
"Ryan
Davidson," he answered in the calmest voice he could muster.
The young woman looked skeptically
at him for a moment, and Ryan thought that he saw her eyes change color for a
second. "Nihon-go-o hanashimasu ka?
"Hai,"
He replied. "Ei-go-o hanashimasu ka?"
"Yes," she replied in English, but
with a slight Japanese twang. "I suppose you do, too?"
"Yeah. May I ask who you are, and
why you came at me with a kitchen utensil?" Ryan said, slowly rising from the
floor.
"Sorry about that. I just thought
you were another one of those men in masks with machine guns. My name's Anna.
Anna Yamaguchi."
Ryan
froze.
"Wait a
minute, you said men in masks with machine guns? Do you mean Umbrella?"
"Umbrella?" She asked, puzzled.
"What would the international drug company have to do with a bunch of
terrorists?"
"Uhhh...nothing.
Do you know who they were?"
"No. All I know is that they found everyone but me and my friend, Mark, and
sent them to the school on the north edge of town."
"So that's where everyone went..."
Ryan thought out loud. "Hey, why didn't anyone fight back? And where's Mark?"
"They caught us off guard, and there
were so many of them. About a hundred and twenty-five. The town population is
only four hundred. I think Mark went to the school. He wanted to explore it to
see if what the men were looking for was in the building. He left about an hour
ago."
"So they
appeared out of nowhere and marched the entire town to the school?"
"That's
just about it."
Ryan
looked hard at her, seeing if she was lying or not.
'Something
just doesn't add up here...' he thought.
"So how
did you avoid them?"
"We
hid."
"Were
your parents taken to the school?"
"Yes, my mother at least," she said,
and her face darkened. "Everyone's dead. They took them in there and shot them
all. Execution style. From the oldest woman to the youngest child."
'Those
sick SOB's...' Ryan thought.
"How do
you know?"
"After we came out of hiding, we
checked everywhere. When we came to the school, we found them all there, piled
up in one big hallway. Riddled with bullets. Not a single one was left alive.
My mother was among them."
"What
about your father?"
"He works for Umbrella in the L.A.
branch. Thank God he wasn't here when this happened."
"Wow...I'm
sorry."
"Don't
be. You just leave things that happened alone and don't regret it."
"Does he
know what happened here?"
"No. All the phone lines are cut,
and all the vehicles in town are either buried in snow, or just plain not
working."
Ryan
considered all this news. "One last question. How long have you been here?"
"Five
days."
There
was a thick silence.
Regaining
some of her composure, Anna asked, "You look hungry. Need anything?"
"Hai,"
he replied.
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Back
in Sherry and Ryan's room...
"He went
looking around?" Chris asked Sherry. "Did he take the .45 I gave him?"
"Yeah. I
think so."
Chris
looked off into the distance.
"Well,
at least he's protected," Chris said. "How's your gun training going?"
"Pretty
good. I can hit targets at longer distances now."
After a pause, she asked, her voice
deep with concern, "Do you think that we should go looking for him?"
"Naw," Chris replied in a tone that
suggested he wasn't worried. "He'll be fine. He's a tough kid, you know."
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Ryan sat
with Anna in the living room sipping a cup of hot chocolate.
"Quite a
story, Mr. Davidson," Anna said.
"It's
Ryan. I HATE the title Mister."
Ryan
picked up a Nutter Butter™ from
the coffee table between them.
"Okay,
'Ryan'."
Anna
glanced at his gun, which he carried in a leather shoulder holster.
"I've
been meaning to ask you," Anna began. "Why do you carry a gun around?"
"I
usually carry three. Why...I can't tell you. Sorry."
"Can you
let me see it?"
"Sure."
Ryan took out his Colt .45, ejected
the magazine, and unloaded the chamber. He then handed the weapon to Anna.
"It's a
little heavy..." she commented.
She aimed the weapon at an imaginary
target, and by the way she did it, Ryan could she that she knew what she was
doing.
"Know
how to use a gun?" Ryan asked.
"Kinda."
She
handed him back his firearm, and reached over for some potato chips.
"So how do you manage to stay
occupied in a town out in the middle of nowhere like this?" Ryan asked.
"This place actually has a few kids,
and a park," she replied between munches. "Not to mention an arcade. Besides,
every kid in town has a Playstation™ or something like that."
"I know
that I would be bored out of my mind in a place like this," Ryan said.
"City
kid, huh?"
"Yeah.
You look like one yourself."
"Well,
to tell the truth, I used to live in New York City."
"One of
the most dangerous cities in the world?"
"I lived
in one of the good parts of town."
"What
made you want to come here?"
"Not me. My mother. She wanted to
get away from my father in L.A. Now," she looked down, "they're separated more
than ever."
Ryan
checked his watch. 2:32 PM.
"Shoot, I gotta get back to the
others. Wanna come with me?" Ryan offered as he stood up.
"No. I'm
fine here," she replied.
Like a
good hostess, Anna escorted Ryan to the door.
He
turned from the doorstep. "Hang tight. I'll be back later."
With a
raised hand she motioned goodbye.
Anna closed the door. She waited
until Ryan was out of sight, then she started chuckling to herself.
'Ah...it's
him for sure...' she thought. 'I should tell Vickers...'
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Ryan walked into the lobby of the
hotel, to find the whole group gathered in low conversation. They turned to
greet Ryan and he sat, heavily. As well as he could he described what had
happened to the town. When he finished, Chris spoke up.
"This is
some pretty heavy stuff here."
"Ten to
one Umbrella's involved." Claire put in, with a hint of malice.
"Yeah,
that's why I say we stay and figure this whole thing out," Ryan said.
"What?" Leon was a little baffled.
"Whatdya mean 'figure this whole thing out'? We need to get out of here.
Don't you remember that we're trying to run from Umbrella?"
"Yeah, but the troops are gone. I
don't know where to, but I think that there is a lab in the basement of the
town school."
"So we'll be faced with at least a
hundred and twenty-five heavily armed soldiers? Nuh-uh. We're outta here,"
Chris said.
"Come on, guys! Don't you know when
people like that devise their most hazardous inventions they do it out in
deserted places like this? This could be something big." Ryan waved his arms
dramatically to drive home his point. "We have a moral obligation to stop this!"
"The answer is no," Chris said,
standing up to leave. "We find this new friend of yours, and then leave.
Everyone get everything packed and ready to go for tomorrow."
Ryan's
shoulders slumped in resignation.
"Since
when did we elect you as our leader?" He mumbled under his breath.
"I heard
that," Chris, preparing to leave the room, shot back to Ryan.
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Later
that night...
He could see the hotel in the
distance. Not very far away. He knew that this would be his only chance to keep
them here, and not blow his cover about who he was. He ran over to the minivan
that the so-called outlaws owned, careful to stay out of sight from the
streetlights and windows.
Taking a deep breath, he crept over
to the vehicle, and concentrated. He found the gas tank and then set to work.
He ran around the corner, then looked back at the minivan. He pointed his right
index finger forward, then raised his hand, and the van exploded into a fiery
ball of flame. He turned from the inferno and ran in the direction of the school.
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Leon was awakened by a violent
explosion. He didn't need to awaken Claire, for she was instantly up and out of
bed. It was a trait that seemed to happen on reflex after being on the run for
so long. They quickly dressed and went outside, and were soon followed by
Chris, Sherry, and Ryan. What they saw scared them. Their only means of escape
was in front of them, destroyed.
"I could pick many words to describe
this situation," Sherry said ruefully. "But It just think I'll go with, 'This
sucks.'"
Leon gazed out into the flames, and
reflected that he was at least partly relieved that they had brought most of
their equipment inside; there was no move left for them but to regroup and
readdress their task of stopping Umbrella.
Author's note: My thanks go out to,
once again, my proofreader, F. Buckley, my copyeditor, Mayumi_H and my beta
readers Catalina, Red Kat 9, and Jack the Ripper.
Hai
(said to same way as, "Hi" in English)/Yes/fine etc.
Dare
desu ka? (Da-ray-des-ka)/Who are you?
Nihon-go-o
hanshimusu ka? (NI-hon-go-o-hana-shi-mas-ka)/Do you speak Japanese?
Eigo-o
hanashimusu ka (EE-go-o-hana-shi-mas-ka)Do you speak English?
Draft:
2/6/01
Final:
3/13/01