I'm not sure how the scene with the machine-gun fire in the "communication tower" goes, so I sorta had to improvise. Just bear with me, please...Anyway, hope you enjoy the surprises to be had in here. Cheers, and please please please review!
S.T.A.R.S. Girl
"I suppose you'd like to know how all the supervisors have been dying?" Wesker asked impassively. "You would, wouldn't you?"
"How do I know I can trust you, you BASTARD!" Jill screamed, voice seeming to echo in the small room. "You killed them ALL!" Tears flooded down her cheeks, making them shine ruddily. "ALL OF THEM!" Claire reached out and gently wrenched the radio away from Jill. The other girl crumpled to the floor, wailing.
"I would like to know," Claire said directly. There was a pause. "Who are you, my girl?" came Wesker's voice, unemotional. "Claire Redfield," she asnwered, as impassively as she could. In reality, her legs had begun shaking. If this was Albert Wesker...And it had to be. She knew what he'd done... She shuddered, but didn't let it come through in her voice. "Now. Tell me about Nicholai?"
There was an apathetic sigh. "Zinoviev had great plans, you know," Wesker continued after a moment. "He was the one killing the other supervisors, simply so he could get more bargaining power when it came time to negotiate his bonus with Umbrella. You know..." there was a dispassionate yawn, then: "He was planning to collect the bounty on Valentine's and Vickers' heads. Not a modest one, at that." He chuckled a little. "And---"
"NO!" Jill cried suddenly, whipping the radio away from Claire. "HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?! HOW CAN YOU BE HUMAN?!" she shouted into it.
"My dear Jill," Wesker scoffed, a tone of amusement in his voice. "What makes you think I AM human anymore?" he laughed. "In fact, I've gained a lot of power; more than you'll ever have...bitch!" he laughed again, loudly this time. "I hardly gave up anything! And now look at the rewards!" He cut off his sniggering. "And also, I have someone here you might know. Right here in my chopper with me. Someone you have not seen for a while, I'd wager."
Chris! Claire thought wildly. He's got him! She hugged herself, afraid, leaning over a little as Jill stood straight, waves of anger and sadness crossing her face. She didn't say anything. Then.... "Impossible. You're dead. Tyrant killed you. I saw. Who IS this?" But Claire wasn't fooled; Jill believed. She was just trying to deny what in her heart she knew was true... Wesker chortled again. It was at this point that the sound of a chopper became audible. "It doesn't really matter to me if you believe it or not. You'll be dead soon anyway. Look out!"
As if on cue, machine-gun fire racked the tower, cracking and destroying the windows, pouring into the room. Jill and Claire dived for cover, successfully so. Claire gripped her arms together and hid behind a metal desk, listening intently, surging with adrenaline, as the sound of a helicopter died out, vanishing into the misty and desolate night sky. Only then did she move.
Jill crawled out from underneath a control panel, and the two stared at each other. Claire's face was a mask of terror, while Jill's face was twisted with rage and shock. She slumped over. And it was then that they heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside.
Brad and Carlos flung open the door. Both looked very much the worse for wear: Carlos' clothes were torn in many places, shirt hanging way open, hair plastered damply to his forehead in a film of sweat, leg bleeding from some wound, eyes narrowed. Brad's vest was slashed across the side, and blood was seeping out of the tear, plus numerous other bloody cuts and abrasions. In her mind, Claire was tallying up where they were all hurt: Jill: shoulder (stopped bleeding), forehead above her left eye, Brad: left arm (stopped bleeding), side, too many other bloody scuffs to count, Carlos: right leg, elbow of right arm, side of neck (she joked with herself in her mind, but discounted the possibility of it being a hickey), herself: shoulder (from where debris had been hurled into it at the hospital), and...well, that was it for her. She was in the best condition of them all, Brad was in the worst, but what really counted was that they were alive.
"You guys," Jill uttered, aghast, "it was..." she stopped.
Carlos ran over to them first, and bent down close to Jill. "What was?" he asked, hand on her shoulder. Brad walked hurriedly over to something on the control pannels. Claire watched him, still sitting on the floor. He flung papers around frantically, until an old-fashioned looking radio was unveiled beneath the records. He began searching the frequencies on it speedily.
"What was, Jill?! What was?!" Carlos kept begging her, as she leaned over her head so that her hair fell over her face, looking straight down, back rolled over as she sank further. Carlos still gripped her shoulder, face cloudy with distress and concern. Suddenly she sat up, loose strands of hair still flung over her ashen face. "Brad!" she said, looking at him, her voice both hushed and loud. He turned back to look at her, crouching close to herself on the floor, but face clear now, ready to tell him something major. "What?" he asked, setting down his headphones. "What is it, Jill?"
"Wesker. He's alive. That suniva bitch is alive. He spoke to us over the radio. He...he said he wasn't human any longer." She fell back over, ran her hands through her auburn hair, then sat up again, staring at him expectantly. He stared at Claire with a scrutinizing look, but she nodded. He turned pallid, stared at her. "But that's..." he began helplessly.
"Impossible?" Jill spat. "One would think so. But one would be WRONG." She slammed her fist on the ground. "That bastard! I despise him! I hate him!...There aren't any WORDS...!" she fell over on herself again in frustration, indignation and anxiety.
Claire stood up and wandered over to where Brad was standing as Carlos tried to comfort Jill, who kept shaking her head ("What can I SAY....?!"). She put a hand on top of his head and turned it towards the radio. "Keep checking the stations," she ordered authoritatively. He nodded, wan-looking but determined.
Claire turned back to look at the other two. A wave of terror swept over her. Where were Leon and Sherry? How could they find them? Were they...they couldn't be, oh no, please...dead? She tugged at her ponytail, which she realised as a forming bad habit. She didn't give a damn. She turned back to Brad, who was pressing one headphone to his ear. Suddenly---"I've got something!"
A familiar voice came over the system, speaking to them gruffly. "I'm coming now, in a helicopter, for Jill Valentine and Brad Vickers. I repeat, I am coming in a helicopter for Jill Valentine and Brad Vickers, and any survivors they might have picked up. I am coming for the S.T.A.R.S. members. All you must do, if you can hear me, is meet me at the chemical plant's helipad...repeat, you MUST meet me at the chemical plant's helipad. You know who this is, you two, if you can hear me..."
Jill's head shot up, Brad brightened. "Barry!" they cried together. Claire already knew that. Barry Burton. So he was coming for them....good ol' Barry. She shook her head. He was their ticket out of here. But...Leon and Sherry? "What about my friends?" she asked the others. They all turned their heads to her.
Carlos stood up. "I'll go look for them! Jill, Brad, go ahead to the landing pad! Claire, will you come with me..?" He held out a hand, palm up, in her direction. She grabbed it. "Let's go!" Jill and Brad turned. "Wait!" Brad called. "Will you be able to find the helipad?" Claire nodded. "After spending two days in this dump? I can find ANYTHING!" she flashed the "V for Victory" sign at them, smiling. Jill nodded; Brad gave the thumb's-up gesture. So she and Carlos sped out of the room, down the stairs and into a formerly unexplored section of the factory.
Claire watched as Carlos flung open a door she had missed. "Let's check it out," he said back to her. She nodded, and they stepped inside. It smelled musty, but it appeared to be an office. A desk was in front of them, and behind it was a door. Sherry and Leon obviously weren't in here, but she glanced around anyway. To their side, a few cheap-looking water color prints hanging on a pale grey wall. On the desk, a few family photos: a smiling amber-haired woman and small child (girl or boy?), an older man and his grown son, a dog and a baby, that sort of thing...A stapler, files she didn't care about anymore, whatever. She stepped forward, as Carlos pointed at the door with a questioning look. She nodded and he tore it open.
This door led into another passageway. The walls were highly reflective metal, and she found herself wondering whether they were two-way mirrors. The thought made her shudder. Carlos was already walking down one way, and she hurried to catch up, latching onto his arm. He raised an eyebrow at her but she stuck out her tongue and didn't let go. "I'm scared, OK?" she said defensively. "Uh huh," he said passively. Her face burned---what she said was the truth---but she didn't feel like dealing with it right now. He stopped at the next door and glanced at her. "Whatever you want!" she hissed, still defensive. "Just remember we're running out of time," he said, and yanked it open.
A pretty plain room. It looked like an abnormally large janitor's closet. Implements for the upkeep of the factory were leaning on the leaky, damp walls, resting as if weary from a long days work. Shadows were in every corner of the closet-room. A perfect place to hide, she realised. She let go of Carlos and meandered over to a different side of the tool-room. She looked around. Beside her, something moved. A whimper. "Sherry?" she asked quietly. "Is that you? Are you there?" There was a creaking sound, and the little girl jumped out of a chest full of different bottles of cleaning supplies. "SHERRY!" Claire cried, clinging to her. The younger girl kept whimpering, shaling. "What happened?" Claire asked.
"Papa came after us."
Claire raised an eyebrow. Was Sherry alright? Surely this place hadn't...driven her out of her mind? "Sherry, what do you mean?"
"My papa was an Umbrella scientist," Sherry sniffed. "He was working on some kind of drug. I think he may have accidentally made himself sick, like Jill was sick, only past that, and worse than what would have happened to her...He's not really my papa anymore, he's only a shell, but he keeps calling my name and screaming for me..." She sank her head into Claire's shoulder, bawling.
Claire stared at Sherry. So then... Sherry's father was a scientist?! She gripped the little girl closer to her. What could her deformed father possibly want?! She looked over at Carlos, who was shrugging again and again. "Where's Leon, honey?" Claire said quietly. Sherry looked up at her. "I dunno," she said through large tears that were gushing out of her eyes and down her soft cheeks. "He said he'd go look for him, but I think that was about an hour ago. He said he'd fight him..." Claire shivered. "Carlos!" she said. "We've got to go and find Kennedy!"
"Time...it's..." Carlos stopped. "The nuclear missiles are coming fast. We've got to meet your friend Bear at the roof in minutes. How can we find him in this huge factory?"
Claire smiled a little in spite of herself. Bear? Well, Barry and Bear were pretty similar, and the S.T.A.R.S. had always teased Barry, calling him "the bear man," and such. But there wasn't time to think of that now. "Carlos, we have to go! WE CAN'T LEAVE ANYONE BEHIND!" he stared at her. Then he grinned a little. "You're right, of course. But we only have a few minutes. Grab the kid and we'll go check some more sections of the hall."
Brad and Jill wandered around the bodies of the U.S. Special Forces men. Paraclesus's Sword, a huge Rail Cannon. The body of some kind of monster. These men were sent by the government...unreal. Jill shook her head again and again, and Brad kept chewing at his lower lip. "We have to go up, still, I guess," Valentine said at last. She'd recovered a bit from the shock of hearing Wesker's voice. While she had reacted with extreme emotional displays (to be expected), Brad had reacted not at all, because THAT was his reaction: numbness. Jill punched him on the shoulder. "Earth to Brad," she said loudly. "We have to GO." He looked at her, surprised, as if he hadn't expected to see her there. "Oh...yeah." He said, glancing once more at the bodies, both human and inhuman. "But...Jill. That Rail Cannon must have been too large to sneak in. What's going on here?" "I really don't know," Jill sighed. "We don't have time to figure it." He nodded, and they went on ahead. However, in the room ahead of them, there was someone waiting....someone who had always been waiting....
CLIFF-HANGER! Well, not really ^_-. You all know already how Jill fights Nemesis in the original game, so I won't go into detail on that. Carlos and Claire (and o yea Sherry too) are gonna be facing off with big bad Birkin, however, so stick around.
Oh, Wesker, you ask? He's gonna be making a reappearance, so don't miss that. PLEASE review!
S.T.A.R.S. Girl
S.T.A.R.S. Girl
"I suppose you'd like to know how all the supervisors have been dying?" Wesker asked impassively. "You would, wouldn't you?"
"How do I know I can trust you, you BASTARD!" Jill screamed, voice seeming to echo in the small room. "You killed them ALL!" Tears flooded down her cheeks, making them shine ruddily. "ALL OF THEM!" Claire reached out and gently wrenched the radio away from Jill. The other girl crumpled to the floor, wailing.
"I would like to know," Claire said directly. There was a pause. "Who are you, my girl?" came Wesker's voice, unemotional. "Claire Redfield," she asnwered, as impassively as she could. In reality, her legs had begun shaking. If this was Albert Wesker...And it had to be. She knew what he'd done... She shuddered, but didn't let it come through in her voice. "Now. Tell me about Nicholai?"
There was an apathetic sigh. "Zinoviev had great plans, you know," Wesker continued after a moment. "He was the one killing the other supervisors, simply so he could get more bargaining power when it came time to negotiate his bonus with Umbrella. You know..." there was a dispassionate yawn, then: "He was planning to collect the bounty on Valentine's and Vickers' heads. Not a modest one, at that." He chuckled a little. "And---"
"NO!" Jill cried suddenly, whipping the radio away from Claire. "HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?! HOW CAN YOU BE HUMAN?!" she shouted into it.
"My dear Jill," Wesker scoffed, a tone of amusement in his voice. "What makes you think I AM human anymore?" he laughed. "In fact, I've gained a lot of power; more than you'll ever have...bitch!" he laughed again, loudly this time. "I hardly gave up anything! And now look at the rewards!" He cut off his sniggering. "And also, I have someone here you might know. Right here in my chopper with me. Someone you have not seen for a while, I'd wager."
Chris! Claire thought wildly. He's got him! She hugged herself, afraid, leaning over a little as Jill stood straight, waves of anger and sadness crossing her face. She didn't say anything. Then.... "Impossible. You're dead. Tyrant killed you. I saw. Who IS this?" But Claire wasn't fooled; Jill believed. She was just trying to deny what in her heart she knew was true... Wesker chortled again. It was at this point that the sound of a chopper became audible. "It doesn't really matter to me if you believe it or not. You'll be dead soon anyway. Look out!"
As if on cue, machine-gun fire racked the tower, cracking and destroying the windows, pouring into the room. Jill and Claire dived for cover, successfully so. Claire gripped her arms together and hid behind a metal desk, listening intently, surging with adrenaline, as the sound of a helicopter died out, vanishing into the misty and desolate night sky. Only then did she move.
Jill crawled out from underneath a control panel, and the two stared at each other. Claire's face was a mask of terror, while Jill's face was twisted with rage and shock. She slumped over. And it was then that they heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside.
Brad and Carlos flung open the door. Both looked very much the worse for wear: Carlos' clothes were torn in many places, shirt hanging way open, hair plastered damply to his forehead in a film of sweat, leg bleeding from some wound, eyes narrowed. Brad's vest was slashed across the side, and blood was seeping out of the tear, plus numerous other bloody cuts and abrasions. In her mind, Claire was tallying up where they were all hurt: Jill: shoulder (stopped bleeding), forehead above her left eye, Brad: left arm (stopped bleeding), side, too many other bloody scuffs to count, Carlos: right leg, elbow of right arm, side of neck (she joked with herself in her mind, but discounted the possibility of it being a hickey), herself: shoulder (from where debris had been hurled into it at the hospital), and...well, that was it for her. She was in the best condition of them all, Brad was in the worst, but what really counted was that they were alive.
"You guys," Jill uttered, aghast, "it was..." she stopped.
Carlos ran over to them first, and bent down close to Jill. "What was?" he asked, hand on her shoulder. Brad walked hurriedly over to something on the control pannels. Claire watched him, still sitting on the floor. He flung papers around frantically, until an old-fashioned looking radio was unveiled beneath the records. He began searching the frequencies on it speedily.
"What was, Jill?! What was?!" Carlos kept begging her, as she leaned over her head so that her hair fell over her face, looking straight down, back rolled over as she sank further. Carlos still gripped her shoulder, face cloudy with distress and concern. Suddenly she sat up, loose strands of hair still flung over her ashen face. "Brad!" she said, looking at him, her voice both hushed and loud. He turned back to look at her, crouching close to herself on the floor, but face clear now, ready to tell him something major. "What?" he asked, setting down his headphones. "What is it, Jill?"
"Wesker. He's alive. That suniva bitch is alive. He spoke to us over the radio. He...he said he wasn't human any longer." She fell back over, ran her hands through her auburn hair, then sat up again, staring at him expectantly. He stared at Claire with a scrutinizing look, but she nodded. He turned pallid, stared at her. "But that's..." he began helplessly.
"Impossible?" Jill spat. "One would think so. But one would be WRONG." She slammed her fist on the ground. "That bastard! I despise him! I hate him!...There aren't any WORDS...!" she fell over on herself again in frustration, indignation and anxiety.
Claire stood up and wandered over to where Brad was standing as Carlos tried to comfort Jill, who kept shaking her head ("What can I SAY....?!"). She put a hand on top of his head and turned it towards the radio. "Keep checking the stations," she ordered authoritatively. He nodded, wan-looking but determined.
Claire turned back to look at the other two. A wave of terror swept over her. Where were Leon and Sherry? How could they find them? Were they...they couldn't be, oh no, please...dead? She tugged at her ponytail, which she realised as a forming bad habit. She didn't give a damn. She turned back to Brad, who was pressing one headphone to his ear. Suddenly---"I've got something!"
A familiar voice came over the system, speaking to them gruffly. "I'm coming now, in a helicopter, for Jill Valentine and Brad Vickers. I repeat, I am coming in a helicopter for Jill Valentine and Brad Vickers, and any survivors they might have picked up. I am coming for the S.T.A.R.S. members. All you must do, if you can hear me, is meet me at the chemical plant's helipad...repeat, you MUST meet me at the chemical plant's helipad. You know who this is, you two, if you can hear me..."
Jill's head shot up, Brad brightened. "Barry!" they cried together. Claire already knew that. Barry Burton. So he was coming for them....good ol' Barry. She shook her head. He was their ticket out of here. But...Leon and Sherry? "What about my friends?" she asked the others. They all turned their heads to her.
Carlos stood up. "I'll go look for them! Jill, Brad, go ahead to the landing pad! Claire, will you come with me..?" He held out a hand, palm up, in her direction. She grabbed it. "Let's go!" Jill and Brad turned. "Wait!" Brad called. "Will you be able to find the helipad?" Claire nodded. "After spending two days in this dump? I can find ANYTHING!" she flashed the "V for Victory" sign at them, smiling. Jill nodded; Brad gave the thumb's-up gesture. So she and Carlos sped out of the room, down the stairs and into a formerly unexplored section of the factory.
Claire watched as Carlos flung open a door she had missed. "Let's check it out," he said back to her. She nodded, and they stepped inside. It smelled musty, but it appeared to be an office. A desk was in front of them, and behind it was a door. Sherry and Leon obviously weren't in here, but she glanced around anyway. To their side, a few cheap-looking water color prints hanging on a pale grey wall. On the desk, a few family photos: a smiling amber-haired woman and small child (girl or boy?), an older man and his grown son, a dog and a baby, that sort of thing...A stapler, files she didn't care about anymore, whatever. She stepped forward, as Carlos pointed at the door with a questioning look. She nodded and he tore it open.
This door led into another passageway. The walls were highly reflective metal, and she found herself wondering whether they were two-way mirrors. The thought made her shudder. Carlos was already walking down one way, and she hurried to catch up, latching onto his arm. He raised an eyebrow at her but she stuck out her tongue and didn't let go. "I'm scared, OK?" she said defensively. "Uh huh," he said passively. Her face burned---what she said was the truth---but she didn't feel like dealing with it right now. He stopped at the next door and glanced at her. "Whatever you want!" she hissed, still defensive. "Just remember we're running out of time," he said, and yanked it open.
A pretty plain room. It looked like an abnormally large janitor's closet. Implements for the upkeep of the factory were leaning on the leaky, damp walls, resting as if weary from a long days work. Shadows were in every corner of the closet-room. A perfect place to hide, she realised. She let go of Carlos and meandered over to a different side of the tool-room. She looked around. Beside her, something moved. A whimper. "Sherry?" she asked quietly. "Is that you? Are you there?" There was a creaking sound, and the little girl jumped out of a chest full of different bottles of cleaning supplies. "SHERRY!" Claire cried, clinging to her. The younger girl kept whimpering, shaling. "What happened?" Claire asked.
"Papa came after us."
Claire raised an eyebrow. Was Sherry alright? Surely this place hadn't...driven her out of her mind? "Sherry, what do you mean?"
"My papa was an Umbrella scientist," Sherry sniffed. "He was working on some kind of drug. I think he may have accidentally made himself sick, like Jill was sick, only past that, and worse than what would have happened to her...He's not really my papa anymore, he's only a shell, but he keeps calling my name and screaming for me..." She sank her head into Claire's shoulder, bawling.
Claire stared at Sherry. So then... Sherry's father was a scientist?! She gripped the little girl closer to her. What could her deformed father possibly want?! She looked over at Carlos, who was shrugging again and again. "Where's Leon, honey?" Claire said quietly. Sherry looked up at her. "I dunno," she said through large tears that were gushing out of her eyes and down her soft cheeks. "He said he'd go look for him, but I think that was about an hour ago. He said he'd fight him..." Claire shivered. "Carlos!" she said. "We've got to go and find Kennedy!"
"Time...it's..." Carlos stopped. "The nuclear missiles are coming fast. We've got to meet your friend Bear at the roof in minutes. How can we find him in this huge factory?"
Claire smiled a little in spite of herself. Bear? Well, Barry and Bear were pretty similar, and the S.T.A.R.S. had always teased Barry, calling him "the bear man," and such. But there wasn't time to think of that now. "Carlos, we have to go! WE CAN'T LEAVE ANYONE BEHIND!" he stared at her. Then he grinned a little. "You're right, of course. But we only have a few minutes. Grab the kid and we'll go check some more sections of the hall."
Brad and Jill wandered around the bodies of the U.S. Special Forces men. Paraclesus's Sword, a huge Rail Cannon. The body of some kind of monster. These men were sent by the government...unreal. Jill shook her head again and again, and Brad kept chewing at his lower lip. "We have to go up, still, I guess," Valentine said at last. She'd recovered a bit from the shock of hearing Wesker's voice. While she had reacted with extreme emotional displays (to be expected), Brad had reacted not at all, because THAT was his reaction: numbness. Jill punched him on the shoulder. "Earth to Brad," she said loudly. "We have to GO." He looked at her, surprised, as if he hadn't expected to see her there. "Oh...yeah." He said, glancing once more at the bodies, both human and inhuman. "But...Jill. That Rail Cannon must have been too large to sneak in. What's going on here?" "I really don't know," Jill sighed. "We don't have time to figure it." He nodded, and they went on ahead. However, in the room ahead of them, there was someone waiting....someone who had always been waiting....
CLIFF-HANGER! Well, not really ^_-. You all know already how Jill fights Nemesis in the original game, so I won't go into detail on that. Carlos and Claire (and o yea Sherry too) are gonna be facing off with big bad Birkin, however, so stick around.
Oh, Wesker, you ask? He's gonna be making a reappearance, so don't miss that. PLEASE review!
S.T.A.R.S. Girl