Chapter - 4: Sorrow of the Scorned Warrior
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The only sound Vincent heard was a sharp click as the gun misfired; he lowered it down and cupped it with both hands. "How?" he muttered, his voice was shaky, he expected to be dead. If his own gun couldn't kill him, then how could he? Vincent chewed over those thoughts and then decided, the Project must end, he would argue his point.
He dashed out into the streets of the town and hurried over towards the mansion, it was late at night, but he didn't care, just minutes ago, he tried to end his life, common courtesy did not apply to him. When he neared the mansion he heard the front door swing wide open and saw a huge lumbering beast run out, it looked like a man but it had a grotesquely huge right arm and shoulder, it was some form of mutated lab test.
Vincent drew his gun and chased after it, the beast finally stopped running at the top of a short peak, he charged it as he fired rounds off towards it. The bullets sank into the mass of flesh on its arm and it leapt at Vincent, landing a few feet in front of him, the Turk backed up and kept firing as the monster raised its hand and punched him, sending Vincent flying backwards. It lumbered over to the prone man and readied to smash him into the snow, somehow he managed to pull his gun arm up and fire, the bullet passed through the titans head, brain function ceased and it collapsed next to him. He looked at it as the mutation faded and the creature was quite clearly a man.
"Testing on humans is wrong!" Vincent's scream of anger echoed through the halls of the lab.
"We are scientists!" Hojo screamed back. "You wouldn't know anything of sacrifice, you're a hired gun, your job is to kill innocents and you dare question my morals!"
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Vincent grabbed his gun off the desk next to his bed and holstered it, he knew what he now had to do, he had to kill Hojo and stop the insane experiment. He calmly left his room at the inn and walked through the town square, he suddenly recalled the times he would walk through there with Lucrecia, but shook those memories away when he reached the front door of the mansion and opened it. He quietly slipped inside and used the shadows to hide as he ascended the staircase to his right as he had done so many times in the past. When he took the last step, he caught sight of Hojo, standing with his back facing Vincent as he looked out the back window, Vincent drew his gun and aimed at the doctor, he wanted badly to pull the trigger then and there, but he couldn't shoot Hojo in the back without ever knowing why.
"Turn around." Vincent demanded through his clinched teeth, but Hojo stood still and unmoving. "I said, turn around!" a huge lightning bolt flashed through the window and the following thunder shook the building, it was then that Vincent heard it, the faint sound of a baby crying. Hojo slowly turned to face Vincent, in his arms was a baby boy still covered in blood and other strange fluids, wrapped in a white towel; Vincent then noticed that the doctor's lab coat was covered in blood as well as his gloves.
"Go ahead, shoot me." Hojo insisted. "You said it yourself, this baby is an abomination to nature." he continued
"What…did…you do to Lucrecia!" Vincent shouted with intense anger.
"Hold to your principles, you spineless ape!" Hojo shouted back. "I am a man of determination!"
"You're insane!"
"Am I?" Hojo asked as he leaned forward a little, from behind his glasses his eyes gleamed with madness. "Shoot me, kill the child, and save your pitiful little soul you unintelligible caveman!"
Vincent couldn't shoot the child, it was a part of Lucrecia, it was a part of his love, he relaxed his finger off the trigger but still held the gun at his target.
"Real men are men of action." Hojo reminded as Vincent saw him slip his hand under the baby to support it.
"Hojo…give me Lucrecia's child and-" Vincent never finished that statement. Hojo produced a gun from under the folds of the baby's sheet and fired at Vincent, the bullet struck him in the chest and he fell backwards over the railing to the first floor with a loud thud. Hojo dropped his gun then slowly walked down the steps, moved over to the semi-conscious, wounded Vincent and pulled a syringe from a pocket on his coat.
"Ugh…doctor…where…is…Lucrec…" Vincent mumbled as Hojo stuck him with the needle and pumped the drug into his veins. He smiled as he grabbed Vincent's foot and pulled him away with his one free hand.
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Vincent opened his eyes sat up straight, he was in the lab, he scanned the room and saw that most of the supplies had been packed up, then he remembered the bullet and grasped for his chest with his right hand.
"Healed?" he muttered. "Lucrecia?" but she was no where to be seen, he stood up off the table and walked over to a large pool of blood, he couldn't imagine what inhuman sort of birth it must have been, the sight sent shivers up his spine. In anger, he slammed his left hand into the operating table, it was then he noticed, when his ears were met with the sound of steel against steel, that his left arm was plated with a golden claw. He began to shake un-controllably and raised his clawed hand over his head, shaking it at the sky.
"This body is... the punishment that's been given to me...I was unable... to stop Professor Gast and Hojo... And Lucrecia... I was unable to stop them...All that I was able to do was watch... That is my sin..."
Vincent Valentine
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"Vincent you alright?" came a voice from behind him. "You seem distant."
"No, I was just reflecting on a question." he replied to the younger man with the cloak. "Let's go, Kane, people need us."
