The lower tunnels of the complex were mostly silent. The drip of water from the ceiling in a few places, the natural erosion which the mine below had broken into. And which they had made use of once the upper structure had been completed. At first it had been enough to just use improvised tents and mobile structures outside of the town, but as time had marched on and the length of this operation extended more and more they'd expanded considerably.

He wasn't sure exactly who was funding BlackQuill with so much money that they could afford something like this. But then there had been plenty of rumors that the Umbrella trials had been more for show than to exact any kind of justice, with the true powers behind the bioweapons research of Raccoon City slipping into the shadows to continue their work unimpeded and wiser from the past mistakes.

Put it further out of the way, if the press come looking then find them a shallow grave not some fancy memory altering drug or ticket to the next lab trial, and don't let personal egos drive policy.

Or at least that had been the plan…

This business with Graham had left a bad taste in his mouth, and it wasn't the slight response of the Plagas after another shot of inhibitor. Obviously there was no love lost for the past administrations refusal to use the resources they had instead of paying groups like BlackQuill to handle things. BOWs were starting to become commonplace in war zones but they'd been told to fight with one hand behind their back despite this, for fear of an "International incident."

So killing him?

Not a problem as far as most everyone was concerned. Hell, there'd been a competition to see who would be assigned to the Carrion Eaters unit to set up and carry it out. Though someone had obviously screwed up as the whole operation had turned sour almost as soon as the boots hit the ground and-

"Hey, what's that sound?"

He turned towards the noise, the guard beside him aiming his weapon and attached flashlight down the tunnel. The small fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling flickered as he hit the switch and flooded the passage in harsh, bright light. There didn't seem to be anything, but as he turned away he heard it too. Like a scraping sound, as if someone was dragging something or sliding something across the boards laid over the floor in this lower part of the complex. But there was nothing there, just a rolling cart off to one side…

Which had moved, wheels slowly turning as it slid from one side of the tunnel to the other. He stepped closer, feeling the heat of his breath in the mask. Reaching up to unclip it, sucking in the stagnant moist air of the underground. The red eyes of the Plagas control parasite showed in his eyes as he stepped around the cart, aiming his weapon down the tunnel deeper into the mountain. And seeing nothing, only long shadows cast by his own flashlight.

"Shit," his partner said, still masked behind him as he set his weapon at his side. "Got us jumping at ghosts now?"

He chuckled a bit as he turned around. "Probably. The civvies down in that town had a thousand stupid ghost stories before we told them to shut up about… it-"

Something rose behind his friend, a distortion in the air that he could only just see now that it stood in front of one of the lights. Foul liquid dripped from the split jaw of its mandibles as it faded into view. Mottled gray-green exoskeleton on the insectile head, reddish glowing eyes empty of intelligence and full of malice leering down upon him. A slow, groaning hiss from the depths of its throat as the antenna twitched and its malformed wings buzzed behind it.

"Step. Back. Slowly…" he said, keeping his gun aimed at it, but turning the light off. He had no idea how the hell one of these things got out of the locked off sections of the lower tunnels. Maybe they'd found another passage in the mines they had sealed off or started tunneling up. He knew they should have just put a few slugs in their heads when they started to change instead of saving them for further analysis later. But then he wasn't the boss, didn't have some high and mighty college degree from an ivy league school and a nice suit to show for it. The red glow from his own eyes strengthened, pained spikes echoing through his head as the veins stood out, red and bloody. "Stand down… you hear me freak. Stand down and head back to where you belong."

The mandibles clicked, opened again as its tongue hung out and licked at the hair. The slightly acidic drool bubbling where it landed on the floor as it hunched down and seemed to inspect the two of them. But it didn't move and didn't respond to him at all.

"Did you hear me? I said stand down and go back to your cage," he shouted, the pain spiking sharper as he drew close, the Plagas crawling up his spine and roaring in his ears. Yet still it did nothing. "Shit, I'm going to call this in and get someone down here to help us."

He reached for his radio but felt something grab at him from behind. His friend dared to move quickly then, reaching for his gun and aiming it towards whatever had come up behind him, but the BOW got to him first. The scream was muffled by his mask as its mandibles bit into his neck and the creature pinned him to the ground. He struggled against it, managing to get to his gun and fire randomly up and around the tunnel. The bullets striking the light, a shower of sparks proceeding the enveloping darkness that left only the red glowing eyes of the creature before him visible.

Not that he had much time to inspect that. He was pulled sideways, thrown into the rolling cart, test tubes and flasks breaking across the ground, a bio waste container of old blood samples dripping into the loose soil as he kicked it away and aimed into the darkness. A figure, larger than the one tearing out the throat of the guard on the floor loomed over him. It snatched the gun from his hands, the security strap catching on his wrist as it did and snapping. Along with one of his bones as the sharp crack echoed through the tunnel. His scream of pain strangled off as the creature kicked him away holding his weapon still. Not with the dull animal intelligence he'd expected from these things, but with an awareness, a knowledge of how to use it and of what it was. Almost like it knew it held a weapon…

He could feel the bones knitting back together as the Plagas dutifully worked to rebuild his body as he wanted it and not as whatever nightmarish mishmash of flesh and chitin it might have preferred without the inhibitor. But not fast enough and it would hardly matter. He yanked at his radio, managing to turn it on as he did so. Just as the gun moved towards him, the thing in the darkness showed five bluish tinged eyes as it aimed towards him.

"THE BOWS ARE OUT AND-"

The first bullet hit the radio, silencing the transmission in the burst of static for whoever was listening.

Next dozen or so made sure there wouldn't have been another anyway.

"You got it?"

"YESSIR!"

The guard captain checked over his men one more time. A dozen, heavily armed and in a fortified position. They'd fallen back out of the tunnels after the second patrol sent down had gone MIA. Clearly the entire hive of those bug freaks had gotten out and started looking for more meat. He'd preferred to gas the lot of them with Ɣ and be done with it, but it was far too dangerous to doze that stuff out before they were ready to close this operation up and terminate their little friends in everyone's torsos. So instead he'd raided the armory of some heavier weapons before locking it up again and moving back to the last tunnel before the main storage area in the complex. The labs and freezer to their left, those upper levels that lead to the part of the mountain they'd blown open and built all this into once their investors had decided the project was worth a bit more money.

As it was, the BOWs would have to come down a long hall, into entrenched gunfire behind packing crates and empty chem barrels. With motion sensors and thermospecs there was no way for them to sneak up on them like they had been deeper in the tunnels and the mine beneath them. It was a shooting gallery and now all they had to do was wait for the targets to appear.

"Come on you stupid bastards," he said, glaring down the long passage, looking for any sign of motion so they could start and finally end this stupid bug hunt. They'd lost too many men already, and just when they were about to finally cut out of this operation for some large paychecks and semi-permanent retirement to a tropical island. Hell, he'd been in that last meeting where they'd presented the report to their investors about the pacification project.

They'd been very impressed, and just wanted to see how they pulled out from all this. Of course that's when it had all gone to shit. Whoever had been put in charge of cleaning up the donor and making sure there wasn't anyone to look into it later had somehow still failed to find one freak girl even with a statewide manhunt on her.

Or was it a 'bug hunt' there too?

In any case, once she was taken care of and the doc finished his business with her dear old dad, there wasn't going to be anyone left to care or any genetic history to track where their new Plagas line had originated from. They'd be able to put it on the market, the unique genetic marker simply their own bit of proprietary genetics work and nothing more. The grunts might be happy with their payoff and signature on a nondisclosure agreement with teeth, but he could see that profit that came from sticking with this for the long haul. Every two-bit dictator around the world would be jumping at a way to utterly stop rebellions, merc companies and NGOs with private securities would love a new method pacifying populations and, hell, there was probably even a business for smaller uses.

They were already close to a non-Plagas control vector using synthetic pheromones, and once they ironed out those last few hiccups with the non-dominant strains it would be ready for market. With BlackQuill holding manufacturing secrets of the inhibitors that made the whole program work. Real mutagenic/virus inhibiting, not that near-placebos that the BSAA handed out to assuage the fears of their UN backed stooges before they were sent into another hot zone to get eaten by a licker or end up turned into one. Hell, when you considered that the Plagas was supposedly territorial with Progenitor-Virus descended strains, it almost made him want to request to keep the implantation just in case…

Something moved at the end of the tunnel, or looked like it did. He checked the motion sensor and looked down the long passage. The distance kept it from being easy to see with thermals, and the light wasn't too good that far down. Honestly, while he appreciated the extra space to keep the security affairs away from the labs and chemical manufacturing facilities they'd built, it was annoying that they'd put the barracks and armory so far down in the complex. In fact the armory itself was-

The motion again, but it was way at the far end, not approaching. Almost like there was something down at the far end, barely visible in the low light.

A gun went off, the lights sparking along the passage. As part of the hall was shrouded in darkness more fired off, his men sending a hail of bullets towards the far end. More and more of the lights were shot out. While he screamed over the sound of the weapons, ordering them to stop.

"Stop damn it, stop!"

Slowly their weapons went still.

"Goddamn, amateur hour idiots," he cursed, looking through the thermal scope, seeing the warm spots of their weapon's impact highlighted in the air, itself hotter and hazier from the barrage of bullets which had just passed through it and the broken light fixtures in the ceilings. He couldn't tell what was happening down a the far end but-

There, again! Something was moving. He swore it had just ducked out of the side of the hallway, staring back at him…

He lowered the thermal scope, pulling out his binocs, wondering why it was just sitting down there staring at him. He could feel the sweat on the back of his neck, worry in his gut. But there was no way out from back there. No vents, no other passage into this main part of the complex. Several tons of rock and dirt between them, the lower tunnels…

And the armory.

"Sweet mother of…"

Which had had, of all things, a rocket launcher that someone must have brought in, as if they needed that sort of firepower to keep Plagas infected rednecks in line. And was now being aimed down the tunnel towards him.

"Open fire-"

He didn't get to finish, the rocket propelled grenade at the tip exploding their left flank in rain of wood and blood. The chaos only amplified as he heard gunfire and screams through the ringing in his ears. A horde of BOWs waiting until just then had come screeching down the hall the moment their defense had wavered. They might have been able to deal with three or four. Maybe even six still. But at least ten of the hissing, clicking, insectile horrors leaped out and into the room, more than one for each man left standing.

The last thought going through his mind before one pinned him down, being how one of these things had been able to use the security card reader and fire an RPG?

Ashley looked over the carnage, glad for once that it seemed her senses simply wouldn't respond to the blood and acrid taste of smoking flesh as they would have once. But then these men had chosen their path and over the foul odor of their death she could detect the metallic taste of the Plagas in each and every one. More than that some had reacted, the stress of injury and near death enough to overcome even their stronger inhibitor and leaped up, striking with blades of bone and taloned claws before she and her impromptu army of their victims took them down to a second, final death. Thankfully they'd made their stand after that small weapons cache, though it looked like most of the small arms had been taken out for this defense and were now broken, bent, spent of rounds, or lost among the flames and bodies.

But they'd had the means of their own defeat there.

One of the Novistadors clicked and hissed in her direction, earning a red-eyed stare for a moment before it stood down and went back to searching for survivors to kill.

In other circumstances she'd be disgusted by this… but after what she'd seen, what they had done, she found herself surprisingly coldblooded about it all now. An almost machine-like rationality to it all guided her actions and body as she strode forth, looking around the facility that the tunnels had opened up into. Makeshift wood flooring giving way to concrete and linoleum coverage with dedicated power supplies from something bigger and better than a couple gasoline generators. Large chemical treatment and storage facilities on one side, while the floor above looked like a laboratory, heavy impact resistant glass (a sign of learning from the BOW outbreaks of prior researchers) with drop down shutters in case things got even worse. But no sign of researchers, lights off and only the dead security around her so far.

It seemed almost abandoned at the moment.

Then one of the speakers in the room crackled to life, a man's voice loudly speaking into the chamber around her.

"Well if it isn't Miss Graham… looking a bit different than last time we met.

She looked around, noticing a camera way above the room and locked down on her figure. She decided to speak back, her hidden approach rather finished at this point. "And who exactly are you supposed to be?"

"The big man in charge here is who!" There was a bitter humor to his voice, as if trying to hide some great anger and only being partially successful. "And also the guy with a .45 pointed at your dear old dad's head."

That had her attention. Antennas flat, her hands shaking before clenching tightly for a moment.

"Ah, I see you understand. So here's how this is going to work," the door to the lab above suddenly clicked, popping open as the electric lock disengaged. "There's an elevator at the back. You and only you are going to step inside. And don't try anything funny if you don't want the last thing you hear from your pops is a gunshot."

"How do I know he's still-"

"Ashley? Oh god, how did you-UGH!" She heard the pained grunt and a hard impact over the speaker cutting her father off.

"I've got a chopper on the roof and weight sensor on the elevator. Come alone if you plan on rescuing more than a corpse Ashley…"

"It's a trap. I know it's a trap." Ashley thought, climbing up the ladder to the second floor, hissing down at her throng of murderous and near mindless accomplices to patrol the area and kill anything that looked or smelled like the dead men on the floor. Hopefully that would be enough to distinguish these Crows as she'd been thinking of them from anyone else around. It was clear that their Plagas had been producing some pheromone or control signal that had kept the BOWs passive around them.

At least till she showed up and overpowered it.

Idly she wondered if that might have worked with the one she killed down in the mines. It would have been helpful to have that creature helping her now…

"No. It seemed too smart… probably would have ignored me and gone back to trying to rip my head off."

She stepped into the elevator, reinforced glass doors closing around her as she did. She had her gun from before, a light machine gun. Which probably would do more harm to her than the bullet proof glass in front of her if she had to guess. But it was better than nothing. And she could still… feel the others below her as she rose up. Once she had this man distracted she'd call out to them…

And let them rip him apart for her.

The elevator came to a stop, looking into a control room for the facility at least three floors above where she'd been before. Rows of monitors showing the lower floors, her hijacked BOW forces… and the town of Ravenscroft outside as well.

Including one camera which was looking down over the main street and showed-

"Leon?!"

He looked much the same, striding into danger once more, coming to try and rescue her.

Though much like before, he might be too late this time.

"And the prodigal daughter returns!" The man speaking revealed himself, stepping away from the screens. A sharp, white suit with brown leather gloves. One holding an engraved, pearl handled revolver which was pointed at times with an almost absent disdain towards her father seated and secured to a chair in the middle of the room. Slicked back blonde hair above a pale and slightly freckled face. He was young, perhaps only a few years older than her at the most.

"Ashley you shouldn't have-"

"She should have died when we sent the kill teams," he yelled out, moving towards her father and pushing the gun under his chin as he did. "Was that what you were going to say… if not, how about you shut your mouth you incompetent fool."

"Let him go…"

"And then what, let you and dad hug it out. Father and abomination against nature? Nah… I've got a captive audience and you are going to listen!"

Ashley glared at him through the glass. Watching a wide and maniacal grin split across his features, white teeth showing as he stood up and walked towards her slowly. Still holding the gun as he did, fingering the trigger as he approached.

He looked down at it with mock surprise. "Oh, don't worry, this won't go through that," he said, tapping the glass once he got close enough with the barrel. "But it will definitely paint the walls with the ex-President if you decide to be uncooperative."

"Fine… what do you want?"

"Just to ask a few questions dear old Ashley, can't I do that?"

The familiarity with which he spoke to her put her on edge, even more than the unstable way his voice and emotions were shifting from one sentence to another. But still she nodded, even as she looked around the elevator trying to see if there was any way out.

There wasn't.

But maybe her friends below could do something about that…

She risked calling to them, letting the amber shift to red for a moment in her eyes as he turned around and stepped away from her. Speaking back as he did.

"So, what I'd like to ask first is… why?"

"Why what?" Ashley said, the flat disgust clear in her voice as she did.

"Why'd you bother running? You'd think you'd relish the chance for someone to finally put you out of your misery."

Her mandibles hung open, eyes still amber and wide even if she had tried to call to the swarm again.

"What."

"Too much of a coward? I mean, I could understand not having the guts to kill yourself, and honestly, looking at the security you were under you probably didn't have much of a chance to do so until now… but really, that was a perfect chance to escape all this and you threw it away." He shook his head, turning around to face her once more. "But then you always were like that weren't you?"

"What… what the hell are you talking about?" Ashley said, futile pounding on the side of the door as she did so.

"You don't remember me? I'm insulted, really I am. But it has been over six years since we met. Ah, I was younger then, just entering my post-doc. And you were that spicy undergrad at… god, and here I am not even able to remember the fraternity we were at."

Something clicked in the depths of her memories, strangely coming not from sight or sound but the smell. A pungent aroma of alcohol and faceless figure, her emotions coloring the recollection with vague disgust as it fell away back into the haze of half remembered times back when she'd been… herself.

"You were that… weird guy that kept offering me beer?" It was ludicrous, absurd even. She didn't even have an emotion to process such a strange series of coincidences.

"Really, 'that weird guy'? That's just mean Ashley, especially coming from someone with too many eyes and not enough fingers," he said, waving his free hand in front of his face to illustrate that point.

"Is… is that what this is about?" Ashley asked, the sheer disbelief clear in her tone as she gawked at this phantom from her pre-Plagas past. "Did you really try and kill me because I turned you down in college?"

"God no, I wish I could admit to being so petty. It is a plus, especially given your father, but no… you're just one unlucky little freak I suppose."

"Then… what the hell was all this about?!"

"It's about my brother… the older Parker son."

The name sent flashes of familiarity through her, but before she could make out where he'd already started speaking again.

"Simon Parker, an ex-green beret and bravely doing the US's dirty work in the middle east. Doing what political scum like him," he said pointing his gun behind him for a moment, "didn't have the guts to approve officially. And in one of those shithole villages some terrorists on one of those long forgotten bounty lists went and blew him up. Hiding among the crowds, slipping back into the anonymity of their families and friends. While we wasted billions trying to pacify the population with drones and tropes when we had the weapons to really put the fear into anyone that would dare oppose us just waiting to be used!"

He couldn't possibly mean…

"You wanted us to use BOWs against… civilians?"

"There are no civilians in war! Anyone that would aid our enemies needs to see that. Not through half measures and CIA tracking. But the only way it can ever matter," he spoke each word, eyes wide, a made gleam in them as he came so close to the glass the spittle from his mouth landed upon it as he spoke. "A total. Biological. War."

"You're crazy," her father said. "The international outrage-"

"Wouldn't matter! We have the nukes and the BOWs and who's going to say how we get to use them? But no, Raccoon City had to go and fuck it all up!"

"You can't mean that. Raccoon City just took the mask off the dangers, but as soon as these things were deployed people would talk and-"

"Oh shut up. Like anyone cares what an insect has to say on the matter. Besides," he said with a sneer, "I've read your thesis paper. Honestly, not impressed."

Once again, she was shocked by how… inscrutably petty this man seemed to be.

"But back to my story… once my brother died I threw myself into biotech research, trying to not defeat the legacy of Raccoon but build anew from the ashes. And when you came back I finally saw my chance. A little bit of nepotism and I had access to your blood work, those contaminated samples, and everything the DSO could find in the wreck of Los Illuminados. Dr. Sera's work was impressive, but so limited in his objective. He wanted to defeat the Plagas… I wanted to perfect it."

He walked over towards the control panel, picking up a remote which had been sitting on the console.

"I need to keep him talking," Ashley thought, worried that he might do something rash. The room below looked empty in the security screen, which meant her allies must be trying to find their way up here. She just had to wait a little longer.

"And then what? Turn some small town into your personal village of the damned?"

"Honestly, it's more of a Night of the Creeps … oh, but I'm just talking for the sake of talking now aren't I. You probably even think your friends from the caves might be coming to rescue you soon?"

Ashley stayed still, not even a twitch from her antenna as she stared him down.

"Not that it matters," he said, pushing down on the control. A sharp hiss filling the chamber as strange, foul smelling green smoke began to pour down from the ceiling.

She tried to cover her mouth, only to feel her tongue snapping in as the gas burned in her lungs.

"I prepared a number of canisters of Inhibitor Ɣ for aerosolized dispersion in case we had a little… episode with our BOWs. Your freak found family down there? They're all about to get bug bombed."

She struggled to stand, clawing at the door as her vision swam with colors and began to go dark.

"I of course made sure not to take our… impure Plagas parasites. Honestly, wouldn't touch them. We only just managed to mature something worthy of being called a Dominant strain last week. With that and the inhibitors finished the project is basically complete."

"Damn it… damn it! Gotta keep him talking, keep him from doing anything else." She struggled up, leaning against the door, as she took slow, shuddering breaths. "So… so why go after me? Just felt… felt like getting payback because of college?"

"Again, really? Even when you weren't a freak you weren't worth that much… no, it's your blood. I used Dr. Sera's work and your condition to create the inhibitors. And since we want our proprietary technology to be one of a kind, letting the original keep walking around is really just asking for someone to come along and infringe on our patents."

"And m-my father?"

"Payback for my brother of course. That and we had intended to infect him with a Plagas strain and check for information on-well, it hardly matters now. Your escape has pushed up the timetable and our investors want a successful conclusion sooner rather than later. And with problems like him," he said, gesturing towards the camera still focused on Leon, "I really can't afford to play around anymore."

"And… and what do you plan to d-do with Leon?" Ashley tried to hold her breath, taking in only slow, coughing gasps. A comfortable and alarming numbness had sat in now. She wasn't sure if that was bad or worse, but she figured the way things were going it had to be worse.

"I'm glad you asked Ashley. You see, in addition to the monitoring chip I implanted in our subjects after Plagas infection I added one last… shall we say, insurance policy. A tiny radio controlled capsule of Inhibitor Ɣ."

"That's good? At least… at least they'll get out of this alright?"

"So… so you're going to let them go?"

"Heavens no."

He entered a series of key commands on the console. On screen, through her clouded vision Ashley saw Leon suddenly whirl around gun pointed towards a distance on the seemingly abandoned street.

"A full dosage would kill the Plagas yes… or mutants like you. But a tiny amount is more like… causing a hypoallergenic reaction in the Plagas. Immediately neutralizing the base inhibitor and starting all sorts of fun effects. Shame I can't stay and watch but-"

"No… no!" Ashley wasn't listening, trying to stand, and falling down again, hard, onto her rear and wings. Sucking in a sharp, full breath. Her lungs… numb? The burning wasn't there now, though it still smelled foul. Instead it was almost like nitrous oxide at worse. She didn't feel like she was dying now, merely just kind of drugged and maybe a little high at worst.

"-and once you stop moving I can put a couple rounds in- oh, you're finally dying are you?"

She let her eyes close, drawing in a long, deep breath and going still. The kind of still no human, no mammal, could ever manage. Her antenna no longer twitched but angled just so. She could feel the reverberations on the floor as he approached, tapping the glass with his fingers-no, the barrel of that gaudy hand cannon. "Come on, open the door you smug prick."

"God, no… Ashley?"

She remained still, not letting her father's cries of anguish move her.

"Guess she's joined her dear dead mom. Assuming they let freakish bugs into heaven," he said, reaching to the control panel for the elevator. Tapping buttons one by one, slowly, too slowly for her. The door slid open at last. "Don't worry, I'll send you to met them in just a-

She leaped up, eyes snapping open and grabbing the gun to push it to the side. She felt the explosion of pressure and breaking glass on the floor panel against her antenna as she rose up grabbing at his arms and swinging him around. He was stronger than he looked and she was weaker than she had hoped after laying there in that gas filled chamber for as long as she had. But she managed to push him back as she stumbled out. He took aim, pointing the gun towards her.

"Got you now you-"

As she leaned down, snapping her leg out.

The impact of her foot came with a sudden crack and a sickening thunk of chitinous blade piercing flesh that left him silent, coughing wet and slow as he sank to the floor on the far side of the elevator. The pearl handled magnum dropped onto the floor of the room while she stood up, panting and filling her lungs with uncontaminated air at last. Her hands flew to the controls as she tried to reverse what had begun, find some way to undo it all. But there was nothing to find.

"Come on, think Ashley… think! You read those reports, hell, you've done nothing but read about how they treat and fight viral infections for the last few years. Think!" She couldn't reverse the capsule trigger… and the inhibitor they'd given wouldn't work anymore… and for all she knew the the Inhibitor Ɣ would just make it worse now.

But there was a third one, wasn't there?

Her thoughts were pulled away from the console and back to the elevator, where the man from before remained alive despite the deep injury her foot claw had inflicted.

"You… you bitch!" He said, managing to stand, if only barely, one hand gripped around the rail inside the elevator while the other clutched at his chest. His white suit blotted with red, as he coughed and choked on his own blood. He slammed a hand upon the internal controls, blood smeared palm print overriding the lock out and the door slamming shut. "I'll… I'll get you-both of you for this I swear it, do you hear me I-"

The descending elevator, thankfully, silenced him at last.