Death Becomes Her
By Julesville
Chapter 1 - "Heart Failure"
FOUR YEARS after Raccoon City…
Time Frame: Late Morning, March 30th
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"Forty-five seconds, Claire, think you can still take it?" Jill loomed in the back ground, her voice jeering and mellifluous.
"I'm fine." Claire groaned, obviously not fine, from behind her arm, pressed across her face as she held them both akimbo.
She'd been like that for around nine minutes and twenty seconds, and Jill could easily see the beads of perspiration on her forehead, some matting down the stray strands of hair like paste. Her arms were quivering, tired from the strain, more obvious in her hands then her stiff elbows. Jill could also see her face, focused, but pained.
Jill smirked from behind, the sight brought back a cornucopia of sweaty memories. She checked the small stopwatch again as it hung from between her fingers.
"Thirty seconds, getting tired?" Jill mused.
"Nope.. Just fine." Claire grumbled, another obvious lie.
The pistol in Claire's hands made rhythmic rattling noises as it jiggled, almost in time with the stopwatch, counting down another fifteen seconds. The strain must have been a lot, that particular pistol was heavy.
"Ten seconds…" She whispered into Claire's ear, like the devil to a prospect. Part of her ribbing was to psych the young girl out, but mostly it was out of boredom, as she had to stand there for ten whole minutes watching her.
Finally, the moment came, moving really close, Jill bellowed in her disciplinarian voice, "Fire!"
Immediately and anxiously Claire pulled the trigger, having already been aiming for the last ten minutes. With such a long period of silence, the shot burst like a church bell up close, everyone had to jump. The heavy loaded bullet popped out in cloud of dust, and reappeared within a poster several yards away. The poster, a fearsome representation of the old Tyrants, with massive bony figure and exposed heart, barely even felt the shot, as it hit just to the right of the hip in the blank, empty part of the set up.
"Oww, no good." Jill cooed finding her volume momentarily lowered, "Look's like you're dead."
Claire growled under her breath, and dropped the gun onto the table in front of her. Immediately she curled up her arms and held them close to their body , each one stroking the other the best it could, "Ahhh, this drill is dumb. I've killed a whole bunch of Tyrants before. This proves nothing."
"What it proves is, that if you're holding a gun for ten minutes strait you couldn't hit jack." Jill smirked.
"But when would that ever happen." Claire said stepping back and wiping her drenched forehead on her sleeve.
Jill shrugged s she circled around Claire, "It's not so much how useful this exercise is, as how you would be prepared if the situation occurred. Say you're hiding in a broom closet, and any minute a Tyrant is going to bust in and kill you. You have to be focused and ready for as long as possible, or end up Zombie butter."
"Bah…" Claire grumbled as she observed the poster.
"You see, this is the kind of training you get in S.T.A.R.S., situational preparedness, I went threw it, your brother, Barry, even Rebecca. You still need to learn a few things despite how many Tyrants you've killed."
"Yeah, I get it, the all too subtle hints from you and my brother to go back to college."
Before Jill could offer a rebuttal, Claire, with practiced speed, grabbed the pistol in one hand and emptied the rest of the clip into the Tyrant across from her. Her gun roaring and breathing fire in steady intervals of a half-a-second each. When she finished the barrel fumed a tiny wisp of smoke, and several large holes were bored into the exposed heart section of the Tyrant, the back wall of the shooting range fully visible through the wound. Claire pursed her lips and blew the wisp away, then coolly place the pistol back on the table
Claire turned to Jill with a coy, cutesy smile, "And that is my not so subtle reply."
Jill shook her head and chuckled, "Let's go, trigger."
With Claire in tow, the former member of Raccoon City's finest, strolled casually away from the shooting range, hands in the pockets of her blue slacks, leaving behind the way to familiar smell of fire and gunpowder, and into the wide open front portico of the FRO headquarters, which had the delicious smell of recycled air and fichus.
FRO, also known as the Free Reign Organization, was the culmination of four years worth of Anti-Umbrella activities. The name had two meanings, one for the obvious choose by it's creators to weather the storm without the use of an umbrella, and two, for the wide sweeping powers that other sovereign nations had given it. In the epoch follow the American President's choice to nuke Raccoon City to stop an intra-state epidemic, the world had been scared shitless by the idea of another outbreak. The whirlwind of political action that resulted not only blew the skeptics out of their seats, but instilled thousands of laws and executive decisions in every country, ranging from sanctions against bio-chemical weapon's research to anti-corporate laws to ordinances for cleanliness.
The best outcome however had to be the complete and utter destruction of Umbrella Incorporated, faced with criminal and civil class-action lawsuits, war crimes accusations, charter violations, as well as the hatred of everyone on the planet, the outfit not only folded, but had it's feet cut out from beneath, crumbled to the ground, crumpled into a ball, imploded, then exploded, and had it's rubble burnt to the ground. Yeah, life was good.
The surprise was the power that FRO had gotten, the organization once made up of the limited recourses of a hand full disgruntled RC survivors, was now a UN sanctioned, first-world funded, well supplied and staffed, strike force equipped to handle pretty much anything.
The FRO headquarters was a testament to that, built with a fraction of a billion plus dollar annual budget supplied by nearly every country and philanthropic organization on the planet. The heptagonal building, nestled in the hills close to the town of A Coruña, in the Galicia region of northern Spain, was known to the public as "The Coffin" or sometimes "Evil's Coffin," because while plenty of bad things were shipped in, they never came out again.
The Coffin was a veritable fortress, the nerve center of the global intelligence network that could make George Tenet cry, staffed with not only the best and brightest of the day, but also most of the survivors of Raccoon City, all having witnessed first hand the terror of a Zombie ripping a loved one to pieces, FRO openly employed them in whatever job they qualified for. FRO's para-military unit was the foremost authority in combating zombies, equipped with the best arms designed specifically to the task.
In addition to the militia force, were the countless researchers who toiled in the Coffin's state-of-the-art labs on better vaccines and weapons, there were the analysts and information people who kept FRO updated on the possible epidemics, intelligence on ex-Umbrella employees, and going threw the endless amounts of seized data from the government raids on Umbrella's hard-drives. The lawyers played their part too, in a constant war with Umbrella subsidiaries, the public relations people kept FRO in media long enough to be adored and respected.
It was quite a venture, and Jill was determined to remain a key part of it.
Setting a brisk military pace from one of the many shooting ranges of the complex, onto one of the tiny suspension bridges that cris-crossed above the Front Portico, the Coffin's main lobby, she took a moment to look down at the sight. The massive three story bay windows that looked out over the city of A Coruña and the Atlantic Ocean were breath taking, but the view was dominated by FRO's tribute to Raccoon City, an elegant four pointed star cast in silver that nearly touched the ceiling, with it's base on a massive polished wood cylinder, on which where tens of thousands of tiny gold plaques for each person that had died there. There weren't nearly enough for everyone who'd died, because sadly, they just couldn't remember everybody, whole neighborhoods and suburbs having been wiped out, but still, there were more that were added each day.
From around several administrative desks, people scurried across the marble floor, coming in and out. Some where business folk and unremarkable, but a few of the FRO troops patrolled the place in their standard Raccoon City blue uniforms, each with a FRO patch, a rectangle of a pale yellow star in a rain storm, homage to the old S.T.A.R.S. symbol. However the most remarkable were the laborers who wheeled in massive crates all day, one might think it odd that they'd go in the front and not a service entrance, but there in lied the reason. Where they were going there was only one heavily guarded entrance.
Beneath The Coffin was "The Sepulcher," a massive hallow metal egg that was buried beneath the complex with one elevator leading to it. The Sepulcher was the storage facility of FRO, where all those dangerous vials of T-Virus and Nemesis Parasite were kept, catalogued, and completely disappeared from the world. It was Chris Redfield's idea, he wanted to make sure the things that went in would never be able to get out.
Turning back to the path she was treading she turned her head back to Claire. The young Redfield sibling was also gazing off at the front portico, kept in check with business ponytail and thick white leather jacket that had the words "Stone Cold Crazy" stenciled in on the back in red. In truth, Jill admired the girl, even if she tended to fly off the handle.
"You know Claire, you actually did pretty well on the exercise. Most of the other recruits could barely hold the pistol up for the whole time."
Claire lazily turned her head back around to watch Jill as she moved, "That's not that comforting."
"You're not upset, are you?"
"No, it's just… I've worked just as hard as everyone to get here, but I'm stilled treated like a kid."
"Claire, that's not true."
"Of course it is," Clair bellowed, throwing up an indignant finger, "And it's all because of big brother Chris, who thinks I'm too young for everything, and everybody else just goes along like a bunch of robots."
"Claire…"
"Don't deny it, Jill. You walk around behind him all day like a love sick puppy."
"Excuse me!" Jill said turning on her heel and staring the younger girl in the face.
"Oh please, Jill, a sister knows when her brother is being baited."
"I am not baiting you're brother." Jill bellow with her own indignant finger point.
"Well, then why are you always following him around and doing what he says, and being so perfect so he'll notice you." Claire groaned putting her hands on her hips and arching her back.
"First off, it's my job. Second, in case you haven't noticed, your brother is a good man, who's saved my life and has helped me out at every opportunity. You should know something about that, right."
Claire averted her eyes, knowing all too well it was true. Jill smiled on the inside, but remain resolutely heated on the outside, once again the subject matter about her and Chris could be changed without suspicion. It was kind of funny actually, she'd told herself so many times her reasons for sticking with him was to repay a debt, that it seemed like some boiler plate speech to prevent herself from thinking otherwise.
Gripping Claire around the shoulders and continued on, she lightened her grimace, "Look, I'll level with you, your brother does want you to go back to college, and we, all of us, feel the same way, not because Chris says so, but because you shouldn't be wasting these years stuck here, you should be having fun and realizing your potential. We were forced into this work, you don't have to be."
Claire lowered her head and her tone became somber, "I was there, Jill, I saw Raccoon City die, I outran the tyrants and hunters, and I was nearly blow up by the nuke. You can't tell me I'm not a part of this too."
Jill sighed loudly, "You know you're just as troublesome as Chris says."
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"This is it?" Chris finally uttered like small pebble falling from his pursed lips, eyes lowered and brow slightly furrowed.
From his casual stance next to the steel case, Leon Kennedy whirled his head around to look at his associate. "What?"
Chris held his inquiry at bay before, out of courtesy, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was getting gypped, "This is all of it?"
Leon smiled casually at the questions, a trait he'd developed only after several years of inexperienced grimaces. He leaned down and unclasped the thick latches on the case, opening it to reveal several neatly packed rows of tiny pencil-shaped vials tucked in cozily in gray packing foam.
With that pardoner's smile, Leon began his shill, "With the three other cases I brought you, that makes 576 vials of T-Virus."
Chris looked down at the vials, their contents mostly clear liquid, each containing the most deadly plague known to mankind. The only way Chris could ensure it stayed confined was to ensure all of it was under his lock and key in his Sepulcher. Right then, the three other containers were being carefully shipped by containment suited technicians to their separate cells to be locked away from the lives they could destroy forever.
"That's not what I asked, Leon." Chris stared down at the man with emotionless eyes, imbued with martyr-like confidence from the worn S.T.A.R.S. wind breaker he wore, a relic from the past he now used all too often like a concentration camp tattoo.
"Then maybe you should ask you're questions a little straighter." Leon mused.
Chris smiled and obviously fake smile, "You know, Leon, we really appreciate the US government's help with rounding up stray Umbrella resources…"
"And we're happy to give it…" Leon interjected.
"Yeah, but it was understood when the UN gave us our powers that FRO would have the first crack at anything related to Umbrella. Now the US sent you in to where ever you got it, and I know you risked your neck for us getting it, but I've got to wonder what exactly you all decided to keep out of that treasure haul."
"Chris, 576 vials of the stuff we found lying around in a vault, we're giving all this to you, isn't that enough."
"Enough is all of it, and it's not a gift, we're the ones charged to handle it, not the US government."
"The US is footing the bill of all this, remember," Leon said using his hands in grandiose gestures, "Them and a bunch of edgy countries who are worried about putting everything in your hands, Chris. We trust you enough, but not enough for your standards."
Chris pursed his lips to prevent a cruse, "So how much of the T-Virus do you have?"
"We took 4 vials from this haul." Leon said flatly.
"That could be termed a breach of the international agreement to let FRO do it's job."
"I'm only telling you this because you're a friend and you need to know. We're not going to be publishing this info."
Chris watched the man, the tireless civil servant who had saved his sister's life, it looked like he was going to have to trust him again, "Are they safe?"
"Of course." Leon nodded.
"Fine, but if something goes wrong, if whatever experiments your scientist plan to perform on the T-Virus go bad, which they very well may, I'm going to have to pull the plug myself."
"On the US Government?"
"Yes."
Leon sighed and shrugged, "Fine, if you really think you've got that much stroke."
A pair of technicians arrived and resealed the steel case as Leon returned to his feet. His observation of things complete, Chris made an about face and silently walked towards the elevator. Leon soon followed close, silent as well. It seemed the two didn't have much to say after business, they took too many chances on each other to allow for pleasantries. In Leon, Chris saw a hero mired in bad decisions, and in Chris, Leon saw a bad decision mired in heroics. It was a doctrinal conflict.
Leaning against the door to the one elevator that exited the Sepulcher was the one man army, Bruce McGivern, government problem solver. Though scruffy and unkempt looking, the man could probably take Chris down in a matter of seconds, and it just so happened that he was Leon's escort.
"Bruce, time to go." Leon called.
Bruce nodded and straightened himself up, turning to wait for the elevator.
Chris looked to the side where a certain technician, wearing a white face mask and suit, had been waiting for them, "Three to go up, Loren."
"Yes, Sir." He said in a heavy Spanish accent. Leaning down to a microphone on his work bench he spoke, "Storage to Surface, three to ride, repeat three to ride."
"Acknowledged, three to ride." A voice came back with speaker-quality clearness.
Within seconds the heavy doors unclasped giant internal locks and moved apart. The trio stepped into the wide white room, being the only elevator, it was made enormous to accommodate whatever needed to be hidden down there.
Finding another wall to lean against, Bruce yawned and turned his head to the side, uninterested in his job as baby sitter.
This left Leon and Chris to stand fairly close to each other, neither willing to walk away from the other. Not out of politeness or anything so trite, but because they both felt they shouldn't hate each other. They were both survivors, both officers of the law, and yes, Chris owed him everything for keeping his sister safe, for letting him know where he could find her.
Still, practiced words seeped forth like a fresh wound, and Chris found himself shaking his head, "I don't understand, Leon."
"Hmm?" Leon queried, tilting his head slightly.
"FRO was your idea. After Raccoon City you pledged to form an organization to fight Umbrella. FRO is built on the intelligence network you established."
"What's your point?"
"My point is why aren't you working here? Why did you go to them? You've changed too much."
Leon raised his head slightly staring back at Chris, "I didn't change. I was only going to do the vigilante thing until everybody started paying attention, but you, you haven't changed either."
"What?" Chris groaned sensing something bad was coming.
"After Raccoon City you went completely off the books. No one could find you while you were off doing your lone gunman thing. Most people think you came to your senses but I know better. It's still you against the world isn't?"
"What kind of world do you think we live in, Leon?"
The rest of the ride was in silence.
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As Chris turned, he was just in time to see Leon barrel forward with a surprised groan, his arms flailing and feet jerking to stop his decent. Out of Leon's previous shadow was a she-wolf, with a strong arm and iron fist she struck the man in the back with the brevity of a wasp sting and the force of a bear claw.
"Leon! Why didn't you tell me you were stopping bye." Claire yelled when she morphed from her feral huntress persona back into a "normal" human. She smiled with girlish glee as she stood over her prey.
Leon quickly regained his footing and righted himself, rubbing the area of his lower back where he'd been assault, "Because for some reason I always associate you with intense pain."
Moving in for the kill, Claire chose to play with her quarry instead. She spread her thin wingspan around Leon's broad, leather-jacket-covered shoulder and arms, and clasped them across his chest, pulling the noose tighter and laying her head across his shoulder blades, "Ahh, don't be like that, guardian angel. You know I'm just a fan of tough loving. Whacha doing here?"
"Dropping off a little gift." He said captured in her grasp, not looking all too upset.
"Sounds fascinating, let's go talk about it over drinks, ok."
"It's like 10 in the morning." Leon blurted.
"So, we'll drink wine. This is Europe after all."
"I guess I have an hour to spare. Ok, show me the way."
"Sweet!" Claire giggled with schoolgirl obviousness.
Placing two hands on her caged victim's shoulders she quickly ushered him towards the Coffin's grandiose front doors, barely taking notice of anyone else in the area.
Finally as she was almost gone, she threw her head back and beamed, "Bye Chris. Bye Bruce, nice to see you again…"
Then the two were gone.
Slowly Chris wheeled his head around to where Bruce McGivern was standing. The man sported wide "deer in headlights" eyes and half-opened mouth. When the man recovered and saw Chris staring at him, he wiped the look off his face, "Um, where're the helicopters?"
Chris lifted a finger in a general direction and spoke with an equally listless tone, "Back there."
Looking in that direction, he turned his head back and gave a weak smile, "Well, uh, thanks, Chris, I'll see ya round." He said before turning to leave.
"Yeah, so long." Chris mumbled, still a little uncomfortable.
As Bruce strolled off into his arbitrary direction, he crossed paths with Jill Valentine, who had lingered nearby ever since Claire had pounced on Leon, but had gone unseen. She got the drop on the spy by showing that official's smile and griping him firmly on the shoulder as he passed.
"Bruce, thanks for the shipment, we appreciate it." Jill glowed with business manners.
Still looking a little shocked, Bruce managed a smile and nodded, "No problem…" Before he continued on his way.
Train wrecks were nice and all, but you could only take one at a time. As the ever-smiley Jill approached the light house-esque bastion he'd taken in the middle of the portico, he thrust a thumb back towards the door.
"Um, Jill did you see that?"
Always the sane one, Jill nodded and chuckled, "Ah, young love…"
"Yeah, youn… wait what?" Chris groaned.
"Ah, wittle Claire-Bear's growing up. Soon you'll be a grandpa, Chrizzly-Bear."
"Shut it with the snide, surprisingly clever remakes. Besides, he's no good for her." Chris said entering grumpy mode.
Sliding up beside her old war buddy, Jill offered sympathy, among some of the best things she had to offer, with compassionate eyes and puffy lips. In her smart little navy blue slacks and blazer with snappy white button blouse, she looked very much like the voice of reason personified. Just what he needed to get over an uncomfortable debate with a jaded ally.
"I can see it now, we'll have the wedding at the A Coruña City Hall, I'll be the maid of honor, you'll walk her down the aisle, the President could be the best man, Rebecca could be the flower girl, heh, heh. We could have a cake shaped like a Zombie head and when you cut into it, it bleeds red frosting" Jill chose instead to twist the knife.
"Knock it off…" Chris said flatly, in his present state unwilling to take a joke.
Jill continued to smile, "Come on, don't you think it'd be cute. Claire and Leon, boyfriend and girlfriend, after all they'd been through together."
He had to admit the idea of finding love after a horrible crisis might have been nice, but stil he knew it was wrong, "I don't think that would be best for her."
Jill tilted her head in confusion, "Really?"
"Come on, we should go brief the troops." Chris grumbled as he swayed to the left, slowly sauntering towards one of the regular elevators, Jill floating along in tow.
"Hey wait, you're going to have to tell me a little more." Jill injected.
"Look, I just don't think a relationship based on a shared catastrophe is a good idea. You base it on heightened emotions, not feasible relationship qualities. You always end up breaking up."
"Oh."
"When I think about it, Claire and Leon have nothing in common. She doesn't even like cops. She choose us, he chose himself. So honestly, I'd rather not even have him around her, but if I say anything she'll do the opposite, just to spite me."
"Hmm, I suppose I agree…" Jill said quietly, sounding more distant.
Perhaps he was being too critical, he'd had plenty of good healthy friendships with other survivors, but as for romantic interludes, not so many. Using yourself as an example for other people usually ends really bad, and perhaps his situation was unique, but in truth, Chris was just trying to get on with his life.
Leon was wrong, Chris was trying to change, but still be there for everyone left behind. His position of authority, ranking member of a holocaust, meant that he was the shepherd of the flock. It was his job to avenge the deaths of every soul lost to Umbrella's mania, he couldn't give up on his anger, his rage, his tireless struggle. He couldn't take comfort just yet.