At that moment, looking at the group of animated corpses, all of them chomping at the bit to eat her face off, Buffy knew that she could happily go through the rest of her life without fighting anymore zombies. She accepted that a part of becoming an adult was dealing with a variety of complex issues and situations, but she was now confident that the zombie issue, well, she had that one figured out.

Her injured arm, though the leaf Leon had given her seemed to numb the pain a little, was throbbing in synchronized rhythm with her accelerated heartbeat. She was also beginning to feel a little queasy and feverish. She had a clear mental image of the D-Virus overthrowing, one by one, her cute little healthy cells in a violent, microscopic coup d'etat.

The evil Dr. Wesker began to speak. "I'm disappointed that neither of you grasp the importance of your role here."

Buffy said, politely breaking the bad news, "Yes, well, Leon and I discussed it and we feel it's just not the right time for either of us to become mindless, blood-thirsty zombies, so if you wouldn't mind handing over the antivirus, we'll just be on our way."

Wesker scowled, and the pupils of his beasty eyes contracted. Buffy couldn't imagine why, if a guy had the chance to physically modify himself, he'd choose to go with the reptilian look. But then, she'd never had the urge to create an army of soldier zombies, so, hey, guess she and the doctor weren't operating on the same plane of… sanity.

Wesker said, "I'm sorry but you're just too valuable to our research. Units… restrain them!"

The zombies, clearly part of the Zombie Reserve Unit in Wesker's army, lurched forward. Buffy and Leon gripped their knives, which they had kept after the fight with the dogs. Before the zombies had time to get much closer—

BOOM!

There was an enormous explosion from somewhere outside the lab. Buffy instinctively covered her ears, and ducked, forcing Leon to do the same. One of the walls adjacent to the entry door to the lab crumpled in a cloud of dust and broken concrete. Immediately, four masked, uniformed SWAT-team-like people streamed through the hole, carrying reassuringly large weapons.

"Contain the area!" came a shout from one of the officers to his comrades. Then, to them, "Everybody put your hands up! Stars!"

Buffy, putting her hands in the air, wondered what stars had to do with anything.

It clearly meant something to Wesker, though, who was backing away rapidly. "Stars! Damn you, Stars! Then he screamed, "Gary, shoot them! Units… attack the intruders!"

The zombies, who had taken little notice of the explosion, began to lurch in the other direction. Gary, loyal henchman though he was, clearly thought the better of attacking four armed soldier types. He put his gun down and threw his hands in the air. He was quickly restrained by one of the star people.

Leon and Buffy watched as the rest of the team make short work of stopping the zombies. Ten shots to the head… ten zombies down.

Wesker made a panicked run to one of the doors on the opposite side of the room. One of

the agents yelled, "Wesker, freeze!"

Wesker obviously felt that wasn't his best option in this particular situation, since he kept running. The agent stepped forward, took careful aim, and shot Wesker in the leg. He went down with a cry of pain. The agent who shot him rushed over and handcuffed the writhing doctor. He took off his mask. Wesker groaned at the sight of his face.

"Wesker, you sonofabitch, can't say it's all that good to see you again. You ran off so quickly after our last meeting, I didn't have the chance to speak with you. I have some things I'd like to say to ya…" The big, reddish-haired man leaned over, whispering something to Wesker, who paled.

One of the other operatives came over to Buffy and Leon, tearing off his mask. The man was brown-haired, attractive, and looked a little older than Leon.

"Leon," the man said, grinning, "Man, are you lucky we got here in time. Claire called me and told me you hadn't checked in with her last night. Barry and I were in L.A. checking out an Umbrella facility there, so we thought we should stop by and save your ass."

Leon was grinned at the man, "Chris, I've never been so happy to see someone in my life." He grabbed the man and they gave each other a guy-hug, with many slappings of backs.

The red-haired man, Barry, walked over to them. Another operative was looking after Wesker. To Leon, he said, "We told you this plan of yours to check out this place had a couple of flaws, namely, the chance of ending up dead," Looking at Buffy, he said, "And how'd you get this poor girl involved?"

Buffy spoke up. "Actually, sort of did the involving all by myself. I stumbled onto a plot between Wesker and Gary over there to do something with this nifty virus of theirs. Leon and I bumped into each in the sewer."

Leon looked at Buffy, smiling, "Buffy here contributed to the saving of my butt many times tonight. Yeah, I would have—"

Before he could finish, Leon collapsed on the floor.