The back door slammed open as the three points of her foot claws collided with it. Wood gashed deep from the impact and the hinges bent. But she'd already lept away and towards the back gate before it started to close unevenly behind her. Only daring to take a quick glance behind as she heard it clatter to the concrete steps. The looming figure from before hot on her trail.
"Shit." A sharp hiss escaped her jaws as she barreled through the gate and into an uneven alleyway behind the building. Cracked asphalt long since in need of repair peppered by holes and muddy puddles. Her pace speeding up, antenna yanked low as her heart pounded louder and she heard the sound of the gate breaking behind her and the slowly increasing footsteps in the distance. She had a lead now, and a growing one, but short of trying to duck and hide Ashley wasn't sure what to do. There were still those armed guards patrolling the area, and while-
"Wow! Slow… down?"
The townspeople, like the disheveled man she'd just passed with sunken cheeks and ill fitting clothes, weren't likely to do much if they had some kind of standing order not to notice the BOWs wandering around; that didn't help her much. For one they might tell the guards, these Crows that Sam had talked about and Ashley certainly didn't need that added into the mix. And on another they might change that order of ignoring to have a big Ashley Graham-shaped exception.
Which she really didn't want.
"If they're still taking something to put the Plagas in remission… or whatever those pills do," Ashley thought, turning around another corner short of a main street and climbing over a pile of boxes that thankfully only came up to her waist. "Maybe we can actually cure them?"
It was a distant, almost impossible hope. Every time before there had only been a handful of survivors if that. Raccoon City was still a quarantine zone and those that had escaped had spent years trying to get their trauma even recognized as real let alone some kind of financial compensation. But they'd been able to talk to her, and even through the haze of drugs and parasite control there had been some resistance. Maybe there was some slim hope for them?
At least as much as there had been for her…
The boxes behind her rattled from an impact, her pursuer leaping onto them and the wood splintering from their weight. Ashley hopped onto a chain link fence at the end of the alley, climbing over it and taking off on a run as soon as her feet hit the ground. And not a moment too soon as she heard the impact upon it as she ducked under some low branches and started sprinting down a hill. The soft earth was torn up by the tips of her foot claws, but then there was no point in trying not to leave a trail. She could still hear the sound of the creature behind her, ripping through the undergrowth that she slipped past and tumbled over.
"Faster," she cried out into her mind, the panic giving way to a grim determination. Ashley saw a dirt road coming up before her, rickety old wooden fence on the other side overlooking a sharp drop. She jumped nearly the entire distance, legs snapping out as her claws dug into the loose gravel and threw it backwards. Lifting them up she hit the wood feet first, clasping tight and feeling it break as she exercised strength she'd barely been aware of yesterday morning. Sparing a quick glance back she saw the trees begin to part before turning around looking down. The tops of pine trees before her, young ones grew up from where the area had been cleared not too many years ago. And past them, piles of gravel and old prefab buildings. She was almost there!
A shiver of tension shot down her spine as her wings flexed out. Ashley ducked down, crouching as the wood complained under her weight and the ax from before went sailing just over her head. How she'd known to duck just then she didn't know and hadn't time to worry about. Then she sprang out, the top rail of the fence breaking apart behind her. Her wings cut the air as they began to beat up and down and she soared over the treetops. Aiming down she landed on the ground past the fence, rolling over as she did and managing to come to a stop as her hands pushed aside the loose gravel of the rock quarry. In the distance, past the pre-fab buildings and security lights set up near long rusting mining equipment Ashley saw the opening carved into the mountain.
"That's too much equipment not to have something interesting in there." She took off in a sprint towards the mine. There was no sign of her pursuer at the moment, but that didn't mean she had time to waste. That creature hadn't seemed like it would give up once it had a scent to follow. But if she could keep the distance between herself and it, perhaps lose it inside of whatever was inside the mine then she might be able to avoid having to fight whatever it was. Ashley shivered a bit as she passed under one of the lights, her motion setting it off where it flickered and popped above her. She stepped closer to rusted hulks of machinery, thinking to herself, "It smelled much stronger than the others… maybe that means the Plagas has been fully matured?"
If so she definitely didn't want to fight something like that with one pistol and a half empty clip. But hopefully she wouldn't have to.
The lights in the mine itself were off and she didn't have time to look for a switch or a generator. Instead she pushed through, around an old cart which had been shoved onto a side track and further passed controls and a small office which were connected to an elevator plunging down deep under the earth. Though that looked in poor repair and likely nothing more than a big pit in the ground. However, on the other path a string of low lights shone bright in her organic night vision, leading up to a steel door anchored to the sides of the rock wall. A keypad and some kind of card scanner built into it at an oddly higher level near her eyes.
"Oh no."
She banged her hand on the door, feeling the sturdy frame and what had to be at least a quarter inch of solid steel. She wasn't going to be able to force her way through something like this. There was the possibility that she could find away around it by heading deeper into the mine or hope that there might be another entrance to whatever this was.
But so far her only lead was the mine and-
A sharp pop came from the entrance, one of the lights she'd passed before flickering on. Ashley turned slowly, eyes still glowing blue as she saw nothing moving down the tunnel towards her. Her antennas laid flat against her head as she cautiously walked towards the entrance, blue fading to amber as the afternoon sun shined down from outside. The lights were on, and as she watched another one crackled to life. Closer to the entrance now, casting more light in the shade as the setting sun started to dip behind the mountains to the west. She tried to listen for anything, anything that could have set those off. But aside from the sounds of crickets beginning to fill the late afternoon there was nothing.
She pulled the gun out, aiming it in front of her. Thankful once more that her new biology made her hands steadier than any surgeons. Not that the knife tips that capped her fingers when they weren't filed down would help with that. One of many reasons she'd switched out of pre-med after coming back from Spain.
"No time for that," Ashley thought, coming up to the entrance, the last light in the line flickering on as her foot stepped out of the door and she looked around the entrance leading back into the rock quarry. A cold breeze came down through the hills, flowing across her now upraised antennas as she tasted the scents it carried. Pollen, the rich aroma of the forest itself… and that metallic taste she now knew to be BOW with an active Plagas parasite. It was close. But where was it?
"There!"
She pulled the gun up and aimed at the cloak she saw just beyond the last old bulldozer at the edge of the row of lights. The bullets impacted straight and true… just as the wind picked up more and the raincoat fell off of the front light and floated to the ground. Empty and now featuring two new holes.
"What the-" her thoughts came to a sudden stop as something clamped onto her forearm, hard and firm. All five eyes locked onto the wavering near transparent claws. Mottled brown carapace fading into view as the spikey exoskeleton of the upper arms popped into view, a sharp hiss from just before her face. The click of mandibles other than her own, now visible a scant few inches from her face. The head smaller, the antenna missing or broken off. The face more like a mantis than her own, with six limbs to her two. Taller, lankier in places, but much sturdier looking armored up exoskeleton.
And apparently just as able to camouflage its body as she was her own.
"Get off of me!" Ashley yelled, lashing out with her feet. The armored legs of her attacker rebuffing her assault where they had torn open the Plagas infected before. Yet still she resisted, pulling back as its mandibles lashed out at her. Managing to aim the gun into the center of its body and pulling the trigger twice more. It screeched out and swung her towards the side of the entrance. Ashley's pained cry a high pitched shriek mixed with an insectile hiss. Despite it she managed to pull one hand free and swing it at the head of the creature holding her. She felt the claws catch on part of its face, ripping an ugly gash before it threw her end of end back into the mine. The gun fell from her hands as she spun through the air. Her back and wings impacting against the old mine cart, the pained shock of the collision numbing her body for a previous moment.
Almost too long at that.
"Damn it, leave a girl alone ugly," Ashley said, jumping over the running charge and onto the top of the old cart as the creature barreled towards her. The metal bent and the wood splintered as its claws smashed through and into mine cart. Rocked off of the braces which had locked it in position it started rolling down into the mine. "Looks like you're stuck, huh?"
Perhaps stopping to mock the BOW, even if it had felt good for a moment, hadn't been the smartest thing to do. It wrenched its arms up, catching them on the metal rim of the cart and swinging it up and off of the track. Ashley only just managed to roll out of the way and off of it before it impacted the wall next to her. "Okay. So, you're definitely stronger than me."
She kicked back, narrowly avoiding having the sharpened claws the attacking BOW rip into her wings or lower body as it stomped closer, swinging wildly at her as she did so. Lunging down at the last moment and catching at the side of her sweater vest and yanking her up in the same fluid motion. She wrestled with it, more like a pair of giant humanoid insects then, all hisses and claws, as she tried to keep it from getting to her neck or the soft flesh of her core. Hell, even a good grip on her arms or legs with enough leverage could probably let it start yanking things off.
She couldn't believe this was how it was going to end…
"But I got pretty far, didn't I?" In fact, she'd only gotten this far thanks to her… new body, hadn't she? If she were still normal, still just human she'd have died the first time it had gotten its claws on her and crushed her arms like kindling, or probably broken half-a-dozen ribs and collapsed after the throw. Even now she was still fighting, still keeping it away if just barely. All claws and spiky armored exoskeleton against another as her five blue glowing eyes looked into its two balefully red. If only she could get away, for just a little longer, maybe she could think of something, do something…
"N-No… let go of me, you bastard!" she swung her claws close to herself, shredding part of her clothes and kicking back off of its mass. Feeling the open air of the tunnel greeted her. And from there the yawning chasm of the mine shaft. She turned to face it, the amber flickering back and then blue again as she saw the darkness open up before her. But as her wings spread out to slow her the colorless spectrum of her vision began to fail, the utter darkness engulfing her as she plummeted further and further down. She couldn't see how far it was to the bottom at this rate or even the sides of the shaft anymore. The blue glow wasn't bright enough, it wasn't enough… she needed something else.
She needed something more.
Her eyes turned green.
The darkness vanished, replaced by hues of cold blue and gray, barely discernible from one another but just enough to tell her there was something there, something in front of her claws as she sped by. She risked it reaching out and feeling the sharp tips dig into the dirt and rock as she started to slow. Her wings working to arrest her fall even more as she saw a dark void in the wall before her come into view. Below it the misshapen shadows and shapes of what must have been the elevator at one point before the mechanism had failed and plunged it to the bottom as a mix of wood and scrap metal.
She fell into it, her knees meeting the ground as she took in deep breaths, not even trying to hide the hiss from her throat as she panted from the exertion and shock of her survival. Looking down at her own hands, her antennas wavered up in shock. She could see cold tips and the warmer, pink flow of her blood underneath her exoskeleton. Even more surprisingly each time she exhaled the color dissipated into the air around her, spreading out and making the walls glow a little more.
This was new.
This wasn't something she'd even heard of any of Novistadors able to do before. A new mutation?
Or something come about because she was now so much older than them, so much longer of her life spent like this?
Regardless, it gave her an idea…
One that perhaps she might need to use, as she heard the creature from before climbing down the shaft. Bits of rock and debris falling down to signal its approach.
Ashley stood up, stumbling forward as she regained her balanced and her strength. Looking about the tunnel before her for something, anything that could be of use. Only for her foot to kick something up. Hard, her foot claws teasing out its shape as she shifted it forward and got a closer look. Her breath heating up the shaft and metal end enough to make out the old pickaxe, long since forgotten where it lay. Snatching it up she moved forward, looking for an alcove, somewhere to hide…
Just in time as the red glow began to illuminate the tunnel. For a moment her vision snapped back, amber eyes panicked as her antenna twitched nervously. But then the green returned and withit the pale colors of heat. She slid against the wall, concentrating on the need to vanish, the need to be invisible. It might have an advantage, being a naked walking tank of a bug instead of a, at least according to what some of the nicer doctors and nurses had said, a lovely young woman with some unfortunate insectile mutations, but with her wings cover her back and pressed into the alcove of the passage it would be all but impossible to see her. Only the rough hewn textures of the wall, painted over her body as she held it motionless and tightly against it. Slowly it drew close, the heavy footsteps and hissing breath from before. The acrid smell mixed with something else, perhaps blood from the scratch she'd made to its face or anger from the same. If she could smell the parasite it wouldn't be shocking if she could tell more from this thing as well.
But for all its advantages it was simple minded, lacking a will beyond what its masters wanted of it. It sought her out as an anomaly, not bothering to report or call for aid as that had never been part of its instructions apparently. And for most it wouldn't be needed.
But as it passed her hiding spot, Ashley turned to look at it, really look at it. The six limbs, two strong legs, two wicked arms, and another pair below, smaller and hook tipped that probably would have gutted her or torn her flesh apart where her body not of tougher stuff these days. No wings she now saw, with some warm spots besides the injury that might have been antennae or another set of eyes in its face at one point. The injury showed up, ugly and red, but already fading as its regeneration took care of it. But what she found most intriguing was the writhing thing along its back. Long and awful, bright, scarlet red among pinks and blues, the tentacles woven around what might have been or still was a spinal column. She saw it move and twist, a serpent of horrific flesh twisting horror in her vision.
The Plagas.
The same damned thing that had stolen her humanity and made her into this.
And unknowingly granted her the power to sense it's presence…
To see it move and writhe beneath the exoskeleton and flesh in which it dwelled…
To hide her own body, make her own no longer human form fade away as if it wasn't even there…
And worst of all, very much worst of all for it …
The strength to hoist the pickaxe above her head and swing it down, straight and true without a moments hesitation into the the back and directly into the parasite.
It shrieked out, clawing out and trying to find her in the darkness, its flashlight and bioluminescent eyes likely enough to find the Ashley of before. But not now. She rammed it against the wall, twisting the head of the ax as the parasite squirmed from where she had pinned it. Trying to free itself and escape the body in which it was sheltered. Only for her to yank out the pickaxe and prompt swing again, harder this time. With all her might.
Through the back and into the cave wall. Pinning the creature as it cried out, blood gushing forth hot and bright from its wounds and jaw. Clicking mandibles striking against the wall in a nightmarish pained frenzy. She grabbed at its chest, her claws finding purchase as it tried to fight her in its death throes and pulled back, watching the Plagas impale itself even further…
Till at last it stilled.
"Bullseye," Ashley said, stepping back, leaning against the opposite wall and taking in her success. Her pursuer dead by her own hands, no help, not even using a weapon beyond her own mind and apparently greater breadth of abilities as an SBOW. Now she only had to get out of this pit, find a way past that gate and-
"What do we have here?" Upon its neck, now visible with the head twisted it was and lifeless she could see a thin metallic color hidden in the recesses of the exoskeleton. A bar code and tiny red indicator light for tracking and… possibly more.
There had been an odd card reader or what she had thought to be one on that door… hadn't there?
"Looks like you helped me get in after all," Ashley said as she worked it off and turned away.
