Alternatives

by RapiDe

What If? Possible outcomes of Operation: Falling S.T.A.R.S., my take.

3. Chapter 3

Legal Disclaimers: I don't own the Resident Evil franchise or anything directly connected to it, I'm just writing a story set in the world of RE. However, anything original in the story, plotlines, characters and ideas, are of my own creation.

Disclaimers: This is the third of my What If? "Flash forward" stories covering possible futures for Matt6's "Operation: Falling S.T.A.R.S.". As usual, this is just my take on a possible outcome and can be considered Alternate Universe where it doesn't mesh with anything Matt6 comes up with. I hope that you enjoy it, all Reviews welcomed.

TRACES

JANUARY 5TH 2003-ONE DAY LATER

Umbrella Headquarters, Paris, France

Matt Ryan walked along the second floor main hallway of Umbrella headquarters in the dull, cloudy sunlight of very early morning slowly and steadily, his walk a distance-eating soldiers stride burned into his brain years ago so much so that it was unconscious to him now. The thick, luxurious creamy-white carpet underfoot was still mainly intact, despite several burn marks and the occasional bullet holes, but he didn't even notice the small luxury through his heavy combat boots. He didn't notice much at all, in fact. He was so exhausted that even standing up meant a real effort of will on his part, let alone walking.

His brown hair was messed and matted, his sharp brown eyes were dull and shadowed, his face, forearms and hands were drenched in dried blood that coated the sleeves of his grey-black camouflage shirt. The sleeves of the shirt were shredded and holed, shallow wounds caused by bullets and knives still easily evident in his skin and flesh, much of the blood being his own. His left cheek had a deep gash the length of his face which almost split it to his lip, the whole left side of his face being a mask of blood, his left eye being terribly bloodshot. His left leg was massively bruised as a result of being trapped underneath him when he was thrown against a wall by a Tyrant, one which had fortunately been too wounded to finish him off. The leg should have been broken, but instead he'd strained every muscle, pulled every sinew and jarred every joint. It was agony just to move even his toes, but he kept moving.

He could have taken painkillers, but refused to let any of the sensations his brain was feeding him be dulled at all, in any way. They'd won, he had to stay awake and mobile to remember that or his exhaustion would drop him right back into his nightmares yet again.

He passed by offices with smashed-in doors, the occasional outer window with broken or shattered glass, torn-up wall hangings of some kind and inches-thick walls with blast damage and bullet holes everywhere. Splatters of blood, the occasional severed limb and even one head lay around and about to catch the eye. He only registered it all on the most basic of levels, he'd seen and been through a thousand times worse. Inside the offices he caught glimpses of even worse, blood-soaked toppled desks, scattered files and paperwork with ill-defined things splattered everywhere all over them, the occasional human body-or Mutant-often to be seen as well.

It simply didn't bother him any more-death, that was. He'd seen unimaginable sights and creatures in New York, been forced to watch truly terrible acts of pain and brutality being committed by mutated monsters and Zombies that he couldn't stop everywhere he could think of in the USA. He'd seen whole cities burn in washes of nuclear fire, millions die as a result of Umbrella's insanity backed up by a false US Government after Umbrella managed to install one, setting the real one up for High Treason charges. He'd seen countless mutilated, charred and terribly, terribly damaged bodies laid out in neat rows across miles of fields, seen ten thousand dead bodies laid out ready for mass cremation outside Washington DC alone after the final Umbrella attack there, one which barely failed to ruin the capital once and for all.

He just didn't have it left in him to care for anyone or anything as far as Umbrella was concerned, it and its workers, willing and otherwise, deserved death, destruction and much, much worse. He'd never been so sure about anything.

His F1100 chafed at the edge of his neck where the strap he was using to sling it over his shoulder pushed over his uniform collar. Just another discomfort, like the weight of the heavy Glock 45. pistol he had holstered on his left hip. He'd manage, he always did. He felt a light breeze of cool air on his sweaty skin and realised that the wind had to be picking up again. Good, he could use a lift of some kind and fresh air always helped. Particularly with the headquarters building completely without power following the SOC and S.T.A.R.S. attack that had begun by blowing the hardwired power cables feeding it right out of the ground before sabotaging the generators. He heard the soft pitter-patter of rain striking against battered glass and actually smiled, that very sound made him remember that it was good to be alive. He wondered where the others were-probably downstairs breaking into the staff canteen to get what food and drink was available, he supposed. That actually sounded a very good idea, but he had things to do.

As he walked slowly up the stairs to the top floor, the sixth, he heard the slow, steady thump of helicopter engines again as Police choppers circled the battered building, blue lights flashing from ground floor car parks outside as the French Police maintained the cordon they'd set up to keep everyone out and away from the building. They'd originally wanted to arrest the soldiers who'd attacked the headquarters of a major multinational corporation, even Umbrella, which everyone knew had fallen to depths which were far worse than merely "corrupt" long ago, but the sight of forty heavily-armed and angry SOC Commandos had killed that idea. Negotiations had reached a stalemate when they settled on the "attackers" staying in the building until the situation was resolved via Diplomatic channels, but the Police had warned the Government would send in the Foreign Legion if necessary to clear the area. Matt's response to their warning would never be found in print.

A day later, they still hadn't sorted it all out-hardly a surprise, given the effective collapse of the US Government back home with the extremely violent, bloody end to the Dictator Evan's rule. The Oval Office would have needed to be rebuilt after the SOC and S.T.A.R.S. were through with it for one thing...

The death of "President" Evan's reminded him of the one he kept trying and failing to force from his mind, though: the dreadful sight and sound of his Fiancée, Melissa Jones, being catapulted backwards by a shot to the head from Thomas Walker, former SOC Field Commander and more recent Umbrella Agent. She was in a Vegetative state, a deep Coma she was 90 likely never to awaken from with massive brain damage she should never have survived in the first place. Matt had shot up both of Walkers legs for the attack and smashed all of his teeth out with fists and feet, breaking his jaw and nose along with several ribs and his collarbone in the process. Walker would never walk again-but he'd still been laughing when the Medics finally dragged Matt off, even as he slowly drowned in his own blood.

He hadn't died, but his injuries were such he'd never fully recovered his health. He was, in fact, unlikely to live out the year, but Matt knew he'd only feel a brief surge of feral satisfaction when the bastard actually did die. It wouldn't get him Melissa back, nothing could or would.

He passed by a room on the fifth floor-and heard something odd inside, strange thumping noises echoing past the mostly-closed door. Not gunshots, he'd have recognised those in a heartbeat, but definite crashes of steel on stone-and something else. He raised his F1100 and poked the door open slowly, never sure whether or not they'd missed one with all of the obscenities Umbrella had released into its own headquarters as a last-ditch attempt to take its enemies down with it. What he saw wasn't anything he might have been expecting.

The big desk was solid and heavy, at lest half a ton, made entirely out of stainless silver steel. Nails evidenced where it had been physically attached to the floor-"had" being the operative word since it was now on its side against the inner wall of the office leading deeper into the building. There was a figure standing in front of it who, even as he watched, slammed fast, hard punches and the occasional kick into the desk of such force that the desk seemed to crumple slightly with every blow.

A little short of six feet tall, disturbing deep amber eyes, long and loose jet-black hair flying about her shoulders, incredibly dark skin. An exotic, almost unnatural otherworldly beauty of the kind that disappeared when Spain "discovered" South America and killed millions with new diseases and War. The kind of hard, firm and curvy physically powerful physique that was fantasy redefined, long, lean and of unearthly grace in nature...

Jianna Torres, better known as the "Fallen Angel" to most, a world-class Assassin of the highest order with a reputation second to none, the same with her skills. It was easier to list what she couldn't do than what she could, it was a short list for one thing. That fact had nothing at all to do with why Umbrella had wanted her, or why she was so angry as to take it out on solid steel when there were any number of other options available. The truth also made Matt take one look at the expression on her face and consider leaving the building, but he didn't. If nothing else he could still talk to people, even those he personally could barely stand no matter how important to the "good guys" victory they might have been.

She was only wearing a black sports bra and black shorts, going barefoot in the shattered office without a care-with good reason. This only gave him an even better defined view of her body, which was so perfect that it was beyond flawless-and he didn't want to think about her that way, he really didn't. Serena had told him what she did to her "Dates" more often than not, besides which he wouldn't betray Melissa.

"Matt, I can hear your heartbeat, smell the adrenaline in your sweat and taste the dirt on your clothes. I know your there, I also know that your heart beats faster whenever you look at me. Either ask or leave" said Jianna, without turning around. She slammed her fist into the desk again without pause, denting it deeply. He got a look at her hands as she did-no worse than bruises on the knuckles at worst, already fading even as he watched.

"Subtle. Jianna...is this something you might want to talk about-?" began Matt, before pausing for a shocked moment as Jianna suddenly picked up the desk in both hands, span and threw it through the outside wall as hard as she could. The outer wall exploded like a bomb had gone off, bricks, masonry and glass flying in all directions away from the strike like bullets from a gun. Sudden screams sounded from outside before an enormous crash announced the desks landing-inside another building half a mile away. Shouts in French began to echo even as the rain started to build to a heavy downpour outside the new hole in the wall.

"No, but thanks for asking. I have my ways of dealing with...anger problems I've been known to have. It would be best if I were left to do so. Alone. Come back in an hour, I'll be calmer by then, or send Serena, no one else. Goodbye" said Jianna, before she punched the interior wall itself so hard her fist went through the wall.

"...Okay..." said Matt, before beating a hasty retreat. No, annoying someone with superhuman physical characteristics was not a good idea, even if you knew you could trust them. Of course, if she hadn't been there during the attack the Omega Tyrant would have torn all of them to pieces all by itself short of a direct hit from Artillery fire. Even so, they'd torn up half the building between them before the blood-mad Assassin had finally managed to stop they Tyrant by literally ripping it to pieces with her bare hands and melting the remains with acid before it could regenerate. She healed so fast that there were no scars left of near-mortal injuries even for her a day later, of course.

He kept going. There were others to see and plenty to do.

He reached the sixth floor, walked up to a specific door-stepping over a number of Zombie bodies, trying very hard not to slip in the thick pool of blood that the floor was literally awash with-and paused a moment to listen. Yes, he could still hear someone crying, or rather hear her crying... He knocked, then went inside. The office door told the whole story. The nameplate read:

"Andrew Spencer: Company President"

Spencer's dead body, back of the head blown off by a pistol in the mouth in a last act of defiance to prevent the SOC and S.T.A.R.S. from capturing him, had been tossed aside like a pile of rubbish and left to lie on the floor besides his blood-soaked desk, his brains leaking into the luxuriously thick and soft black carpet where they were swallowed up. His computer had taken several shots from the gun that had killed him first but that hadn't stopped the resourceful figure now seated at the desk, who had physically extracted the Hard Drive and linked it to a Laptop before starting to extract information and data from the damaged system. Her expression of utter revulsion told him everything he needed to know.

Three inches short of six feet tall, thirty-two years old, with cloud-grey eyes and jet-black hair set around a shapely face forged of a fine Slavic beauty, with her strikingly pale skin and unusual, distinctive good looks she would have stood out in any crowd. When you added in the black tear tattoos which ran down her face from both eyes all the way to her jaw line following tear trails and the black barbed wire tattoo which encircled her left mid upper arm she became more than striking, she became truly distinctive.

Dressed in a sleeveless white t-shirt, grey-black combat trousers and dark-brown combat boots she looked like any other exhausted soldier a day later after a War, only she wasn't. First of all, her clothes were torn, ripped and even drenched in blood and bits of flesh, he knew for a fact that she had an almost cripplingly painful massive bruise across her left side back. None of the blood was hers, but the awful look in her eyes and the truly lost expression on her face made him want to look away, not least because she looked as though she had Demons at work behind bloodshot eyes slowly driving her mad.

Second of all, it had been a truly terrible personal decision that had sealed her fate in the end. As a member of the Forsaken, an elite Mercenary team employed by Umbrella Corporation to plug all of the gaps and keep the Corporation safe no matter what, no matter how, she'd easily been the most formidable female Agent in Umbrella's employ, even including the truly lethal Xenia Omerova. She'd was so formidable she was on the record as being the one person known to have single-handedly defeated an entire SOC squad without killing anyone. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, she was also by far one of the most intelligent people who had been involved in the War in any way at any point.

After the Forsaken's employment by Umbrella she'd gained access to Umbrella computer systems and databases, more than they ever realised due to a unique skill she possessed no-one could explain. She called herself a "Technopath", the only way to easily describe an almost-literal bond she could forge with any form of technology that made her more than gifted where it was concerned, no matter where it was or what it did. Once she focused in there was nothing she couldn't do, nowhere she couldn't go, she reprogrammed Supercomputers with a smile and went through Firewalls and Virus Guards like the personal envoy of Armageddon.

She'd known the truth about Umbrella weeks after starting work. When she'd been selected to lead the Hive team sent to restore and reboot the underground facility beneath the vaporised Racoon City, to give Umbrella a secure and covert base in the USA once more after "President" Evan's betrayal, she'd seen the truth. Her team went room to room, purifying the whole structure top to bottom with flamethrowers and explosives. Five hundred Zombies, every kind of Mutant, surgically altered obscenities, things seen from a place looking up towards Hell, the remains of Test Subjects...

No one with eyes and a mind of her own could deny anything like that, she hadn't even tried. Only Ada Wong's shock return from the dead had kept her loyal to Umbrella after that-and Matt could still see and hear the awful moment she'd shot Ada, the love of her life, in the back, the bullet erupting out of Ada's chest right through her heart. Dead on her feet, Ada had managed to turn somehow, the look on her face and in her eyes utterly indescribable as she stared at her killer-then she'd collapsed and fallen six storeys from the roof of Umbrella's headquarters, rolling right over the wall in the dead of night. They hadn't heard the sound of final impact, neither would have anyway.

The moment Ada had fallen her killer had collapsed limp to her knees, then full-length face down, before she'd started screaming and crying like she'd seen even worse than the end of the world and then some. She hadn't spoken since, except to say "Yes" when he'd asked her to Hack her way into Umbrella's computer systems and get whatever she could. He didn't blame her, what was going through her mind now couldn't be imagined, let alone described...

Her name was Giselle, although she was better known as "Delphi". She was the only survivor of the Forsaken and...well, what she was to him personally was a complicated question with no easy answer. Six months ago, when the War had very nearly ended the worst way possible, forever, and he'd literally been down on his knees, utterly finished, spent and gone in a pool of his own blood, she'd saved his life and more-and kissed him full on the lips, a passionate kiss of the kind only a couple would ever share, for no reason he could imagine. He doubted she could, either, but it didn't remove the tension that was undeniably between them whenever they were alone together...

"Hello, Matt. I'll just start by saying if I showed you what was on Spencer's Hard Drive alone that I've found so far you'd throw up and leave it there, shall I? Christ on the Cross, even I didn't know the whole truth about what these bastards were up to..." said Giselle, without looking around.

He didn't even bother asking how she knew he was there, he simply accepted that she had her ways. Hell, he'd seen her do the physically and mentally impossible with evidently casual ease before now. He tried to keep an open mind where this woman was concerned, although sometimes he thought that he simply lacked the imagination to deal with her properly.

"Matt, before you say anything I need to ask you two questions: first, have you heard anything at all about the whereabouts of Albert Wesker and any other HEV recipients excluding Jianna? Second, how up to date are you with what's happening back in the USA?" asked Giselle, this time glancing up at him from her seat.

"Half my command are wounded, some Critically, while those left mobile and fit are trying to secure a facility designed to hold over a thousand personnel at any given time with multiple exits which is effectively indefensible against a possible assault by French Special Forces with less than a tenth of the numbers we should have. My men and I are exhausted, low on ammo and currently trapped in a foreign country with no easy means of Extraction, inside the headquarters of a multinational corporation we recently destroyed by force in violation of several international Treaties. We are currently surrounded by French Emergency Services and suspected covert Military and Intelligence units inside the capital City of France and are in the middle of a major international incident. Our own Government and Military are in such complete disarray that both Diplomatic and Military efforts to back us or aid us are so unlikely as to be laughable if suggested. We stand a good chance of being charged with Terrorist offences and will certainly be jailed if we surrender, quite possibly never to be returned to the USA. If by some Miracle we do return to the USA at some point, our actions over the past two years make it very likely we will be charged with High Treason with President Bush assassinated and a Cover-Up already being manufactured. No matter what John says he's trying to arrange, the Alliance won't hold much sway in the USA until things there settle down and that will be far too late for us. Due to all of this and more, I've been preoccupied. However..." said Matt, pausing to take a breath.

"First off, according to every record the SOC, S.T.A.R.S. and Alliance have, bar Albert Wesker we have in custody or have killed every single HEV Agent at Umbrella's disposal. Wesker's status and location remain unknown. Apart from that, I've been out of the USA for a week leading this attack and I haven't seen any news at all because we went Black at the beginning since Umbrella knew we were coming, just not from where, when or how. In simple terms I don't know what's current after that point. Why?" asked Matt, curious as to what she wanted him to know.

Giselle tapped a few keys on her Laptop and shifted it so that he could see the screen. On it a scene of burning buildings, wrecked cars, explosions and rioting people running in all directions carrying any and every kind of weapon starting with firearms and working on down to Knuckledusters and even shards of glass showed. A Lettered headline showed where and when, but he took a long time to take it in since, he later decided, he didn't want to understand just what he was seeing.

"WASHINGTON D.C.: American Capital city drowned in blood and chaos"

Giselle tapped more keys, the view changed to the view from the inside of the White House grounds, the camera clearly being half-hidden behind sandbags. In front of it Matt could make out US Marines manning several barricades built of stone and concrete, forts with heavy weapons set up aimed towards the huge fences protecting the White House grounds. The grounds of the White House had been effectively turned into a Military base, something which deeply worried Matt. Things had been heading that way before he and the SOC left for France, but to see it like this...

He saw the protestors at the fences, some half-climbing them-then he almost threw up. He saw the one thing he'd known, deep down in his guts, he'd never see, even under Martial Law, in the country he'd given everything that had ever mattered to him for.

He saw Snipers sight on the protesters-and shoot them down in cold blood, their fire quick, efficient and coldly lethal. Someone threw a Molotov Cocktail from the surging protestor-or was it rioters?-and the grass of the White House grounds caught fire. Soldiers ran forwards with Fire-Fighting gear, but threw themselves flat as Matt realised they would only do if they were being shot at-then the Marines rotated machine guns and opened fire. People were torn to pieces, limbs were cut clean off by bullets, bodies burst in a spray of blood and wet red organs, blood exploded everywhere. The whole fence area turned into a scene from a Psychopaths fantasies in a heartbeat. To say it looked like a scene from Hell didn't do it justice.

Matt was so mad he clenched his fists to such an extent he felt the bones of his hands crack. Every muscle tensed up so hard that he felt as though he was going to have to kick and punch something until his feet and hands bled or he was going to kill someone. A deep and dark red rage started to form in his mind and he looked around for something, anything, to break-he settled for one of Spencer's empty Whiskey bottle and it hit the wall so hard it shattered into fragments he couldn't individually make out.

Spencer had started drinking heavily when it had become completely apparent that Umbrella was going to loose the War following the obliteration of its last remaining major European facility outside of Paris, in Berlin, Germany, two months ago. The S.T.A.R.S. had done that, with support from elements of the SOC. It had seemed fitting, somehow, given how it had all begun with the S.T.A.R.S. after all. Now all of the surviving SOC soldiers-every single soldier of any description-all of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. and surviving senior Alliance soldiers had gathered here to take in, once and for all, Umbrella's final, utter and complete destruction.

They were going back to a country which used its Military to kill innocent protesting civilians? Which put troops on the grounds of the very symbol of Democracy in America, the White House? Which had seen major cities laid waste by Nuclear weapons on the orders of a madman who had usurped the position of President through the manipulations and machinations of the Umbrella Corporation? Which had seen millions of the Undead walking the streets in the single greatest terrorist attack the whole country had ever known?

How could ANYONE live through all of that and try to pretend that existing problems were still only to be solved by the Government without the participation of the people? How could the Government of the USA, whatever there was of one these days anyway, even consider giving the Order to shoot Protestors like that? Under those circumstances-Hell, ever! All of a sudden Matt found himself wondering, for the first time ever, if the country he had sworn his entire adult life away to without hesitation to protect and serve and kill for as necessary, for the greater good of course, was actually worth that sacrifice...

"It gets worse, since you asked. State Government has completely disintegrated in fifteen States so far, including California. Emergency services no longer exist over more than half the country. The Economy has collapsed and industry effectively no longer functions, which is causing catastrophic supply shortages of every description across the whole country and in every American Military base everywhere around the world.

The Pentagon is destroyed and only officers on the spot are exercising any control over the situation with the exception of areas with large-scale Military bases, where some form of regrouping and organisation is taking place. The State Department is completely shut down except for a skeleton staff dealing with emergencies only due to a complete lack of resources and manpower.

Riots and Protests with attendants numbering in the thousands and even hundreds of thousands are spreading across the country like wildfire, causing wide-scale destruction, looting and disaster in the form of burning buildings, vehicles and even goods and supplies. Nothing is going anywhere at all without a significant Military escort and the Military is running out of fuel and ammunition quickly.

Entire cities are under siege by madmen and the Undead are still about in some number. Hospitals are running out of drugs and supplies and, in most cases, have already shut down. As to what's being done about this?" said Giselle, raising an elegant eyebrow.

"FEMA has been activated under Defcon 1 conditions, Martial Law is maintained and a national State of Emergency has been declared. All Military units and civil personnel are ordered to report for duty and await Orders with immediate effect. The National Guard and Police are operating 24 hour Curfews and a shoot-to-kill policy.

All overseas Military units and personnel are recalled immediately, as are all other US Government personnel. Military organisation and communication matters are being channelled through the Cheyenne Mountain complex while the White House deals with any and every form of Diplomatic enquiry and issues directly.

The US Navy is ordered to transfer all but skeleton crews ashore to aid in efforts to restore law and order while the USAF and Special Forces not assigned other duties are on Search and Destroy Missions against the Undead until further notice. The US Navy is also ordered to stop any and all unregistered traffic and shipping by force if necessary and so protect the coastline of the USA by any and all means necessary.

The Borders are closed and Border Guards are under Orders not to let anyone in or out unless both Military and American Passport holders, no American citizens are allowed to leave US territory at all. Harbours and Airports are all closed except for emergency traffic or Military use and the Navy and USAF have Orders to destroy anyone violating secured areas under any circumstances. The White House is locked down until further notice and the President is secured in the Emergency Room in the Bunker beneath the White House.

Emergency services with Military escort are being deployed around the country in attempts to restore basic services such as Hospitals, food and water supplies, even electricity. But the rioting and protests are threatening countrywide catastrophe as it is often taking air drops to get even basic supplies in and no-one is safe enough anywhere to actually work on getting anything running or fixed for any real length of time. Even the White House is under siege, as you've noticed. Do you want me to go on?" asked Giselle.

She didn't need to say anything else, the ghastly expression on Matt's face said everything. It cleared up a moment later though, to be replaced with a look of grim, focused determination.

"No, I can see exactly what your getting at. We've won the War, now were going to loose the Peace unless we do something at least as drastic as we had to to bring Umbrella down once and for all. It gets a lot more complicated given that we're talking about the USA here, but I'll be dead and in Hell for a year before I'll give up on everything and everyone I ever fought for. All we need is time and effort, which we can well and truly supply if we get out of France without being arrested, shot or simply killed. FUCK.

Right. I have to think of a new way out of this for us, right damn now! I need to talk to John-! Giselle, your coming with us if I have to handcuff you to a helicopter and carry you back, okay? Ah...no, Umbrella helicopters are out, they don't have troop transports and we can't leave anyone behind. John doesn't have enough resources left to loan us a Drop ship and he won't let the French get an eyeful of Alliance tech anyway. Maybe he has some modified Helis we can use..." said Matt, talking a mile a minute and walking around and around the desk on the carpet in a way which was going to wear a hole in it within the hour if he kept going, the way he was walking.

Giselle just watched him for a long moment, then sighed and tapped keys on her Laptop. "Matt? One last thing you should see..." she said, causing him to stop pounding around the desk like an out-of-control train for a minute as she'd intended. He listened to her instinctively, she wondered whether or not he realised that. Given that she and the rest of the "Forsaken" had been trying to kill every single member of the SOC for a whole year at very good rates, she still hadn't been able to come up with a good enough reason for even her continued survival.

She was an ex-CIA Agent turned professional Mercenary, she'd get the Death Sentence if she went back to the USA after in-depth interrogation, but anyone who made even a cursory scan of her File would know that she wouldn't break under any form of torture. Drugs were ineffective and psychological assault meant nothing to her, she could lock herself away behind walls set deep inside her mind created decades ago and simply hide away forever if she wanted to, where nothing and no-one could-or would-reach. Her pain tolerance was impossible to measure, her physical and mental discipline really being over the line concerning the difference between sanity and insanity.

She did the impossible on a casual basis, the word meant nothing to her, so they'd get nothing but satisfaction out of anything they did to her-only she wasn't worth that, not with everything going on, she knew that for a simple truth. Why, then, was she still alive? She still didn't have an answer.

She felt her lips and tongue tingle abruptly, a strangely pleasant sensation, and began to smile for a long moment before her mask came crashing down and her face showed nothing at all. A kiss? Was that what this was all about? A six-month old touch of passion on a battered heart which reached through to a truly lost Soul? That was ridiculous, Ada Wong had been the love of her life and look what had happened to her-right? Why, then, did she find herself suspecting that there was far more to this than she would allow herself to admit? The head tells lies to protect the heart... She should know better than anyone the truth of that.

"What am I looking at here?" asked Matt, seeming puzzled. She could see why, but it wasn't that easy to explain so she ordered her thoughts before beginning.

The screen showed four screenshots from four different cameras all over the USA, all of them stated as LIVE or REALITY, the film being current and flowing as of right at that moment. In one, titled EXTREME LOSS, men attacked grey-skinned half-clothed rag wearing Zombies spattered with blood with Chainsaws and Crowbars. Flesh, congealed fragments of blood, bones, limbs and bits and pieces of parts of the human body flew in all directions. Occasionally a Zombie survived long enough to get its teeth into its attacker, the attacker then being gleefully set upon and cut to pieces before being battered to a pulp by the other members of the group.

In a second, titled DEATH AND LIFE, a helicopter hovered overhead as a group of frantically fleeing survivors fled from advancing Zombies and even a rare Mutant, a Cerberus by the glimpse she got of it. Half-starved and near helpless they screamed, waved and shouted for help at the helicopter-but were quickly being caught and torn to pieces, even being eaten alive live on television as the helicopter crew did nothing but watch and record, not reacting at all to the Hellish scenes.

In a third, titled CHAOS WARRIOR, a man, armed to the teeth with heavy weapons and wearing full body armour excepting a helmet, was letting fly into a depleted herd of Zombies about thirty strong with enough bullets and the occasional explosive to literally blow every single creature to bits and pieces small enough to get stuck between pavement stones and concrete. Tall, blond and massively muscular, with the kind of good looks that suggested a young Brad Pitt, he was laughing like a loon and firing like he was in a computer game. She suspected the real reason for his massive arsenal and explosives was that he couldn't aim a damn.

The last, titled DEAD, was very simple. A man dressed in Surgeons scrubs was slowly and thoroughly dissecting a Zombie which was restrained by heavy cuffs to a stretcher, a chain gag restraining it from even snapping at him. She'd heard the audio: the aim of the "game" was to see just how much of the human body could be physically separated from the brain by surgical means before the Zombie "died" all over again. She suspected that it wouldn't die until the brain was physically destroyed, herself. She also suspected that whoever had set this up, sick bastards that they were given that it was likely the now-Zombie had living relatives, friends and associates still out there somewhere, knew that death-fact too.

She'd lost almost all respect for the human race after seeing the feeds the first time, seeing them again was enough to make her sure she was going to hunt down and execute everyone involved in the programs with her bare hands. Some people, too many, would even try to cash in on the Apocalypse, regardless of suffering, pain and loss on any scale, it seemed... All four screens suddenly flickered static for some seconds, then came back on clear again. She'd seen that before, too. She knew what it was-and what it meant.

"Exactly what you think: reality television gone to Hell, literally. It seems that there are people and t.v. Networks who really will do anything at all to get viewers, even sell Armageddon to the natives and anyone else who might be watching. These "programs" are being broadcast on international airwaves as far as Europe and Asia, that's where I picked up the signal from. They're happening right now, Matt, you understand me? The occasional program interrupt that makes the pictures go away for a few seconds are attempts by US authorities to jam them, but the technology available in the USA at the minute is very limited and this sort of thing is a long way down their list of priorities" replied Giselle, not smiling, not shaking her head and not shrugging.

Selling these sorts of images over the airwaves was almost worse than child murder in her opinion. Matt, who was a soldier with a soldier's mindset, which meant he lacked both her imagination and her intelligence, probably had an even lower opinion of these things. Men like him, soldiers who had to see the world in shades of grey just to get the job done, no matter what, could be very direct with their personal opinions on matters like this.

Matt wanted to throw up again, but for all different reasons this time. He wanted to shoot out the computer screen, but he didn't doubt that Giselle was storing and accessing a great deal of information they'd actually need and want on the Laptop so he didn't. He wanted to punch something, but there was nothing soft enough to hit without risking cracking or even breaking bones since he wasn't Jianna Torres. Angry deep inside, he settled for slamming both hands down onto the desktop, closed into fists, as hard as he could. The resounding BANG echoed around the room for some seconds afterwards, although Giselle didn't react to it at all. She did take note of the dried blood covering his hands, arms and a fair part of his chest, though.

"God-FUCKING-Damn-IT! These PEOPLE-! Sorry, but..." he said, before pausing to collect himself as Giselle stood up, looking him in the eyes as she did. "Sorry, but people turn the USA into a game show after a two year War with Umbrella Corporation which has seen the whole country turned upside down? We've had major cities Nuked, the Undead walking the streets, Biological and Chemical weapons deployed against the country which have killed millions, Mutants slaughtering their way through a thousand people before they're stopped... We've had Civil War following a Coup de etat which put an illegal Government Dictatorship in charge of the country, we've had everything you just told me about STILL GOING ON... They've turned it all into GAME SHOWS! I'll KILL the bastards!" exploded Matt, swearing aloud in a way which he would never have done in front of a woman if he wasn't exhausted and half out of his right mind.

"You forgot to add "Cannibal paradise, former Superpower and general all-round living nightmare, once considered the land of the free, home of the brave" Matt. I agree with the rest, by the way. Now calm down for a little while and listen to me. First of all, you are beyond exhausted, so just stand still and do nothing for a few moments at least. Second, I want to help you but I need you to follow my instructions, alright? Stop being the anti-Umbrella Commander and Leader for a little while and let me take care of you, Matt, you understand?" asked Giselle, not sure how Matt would react to an effective Order to stand down and relax in the state he was in. Thankfully, he took it well.

"Yes, ma'am. Any chance of a cold beer, please?" replied Matt, dryly, raising an eyebrow in a tired attempt at humour as he almost collapsed on the spot. She couldn't help but wonder if he realised just what kind of trust he was placing in her again by saying just those words when he meant them the way she'd asked him to. She could count ten separate ways she could kill him so quickly and quietly no one would ask questions until it was too late, ways she would have ample opportunity to use with him relaxed under her hands. She wondered whether or not he knew somehow she'd never be able to bring herself to hurt him again after everything...

She took his weapons first, laying them atop the desk next to the Laptop still holstered, all the Safeties on. Then she slowly, carefully removed his shirt, having to push and pull at parts of it to break it apart from the dried blood which had stuck it to his skin. The shirt was utterly ruined, soaked in blood, a lot of it his, torn to pieces and riddled with all kinds of holes caused by bullets, blades and strikes from creatures claws. It was the first time he'd gotten a good look at it, he realised. As he felt the refreshing cool breeze trace its way across his sweat-soaked bloody skin, small cuts bleeding again now the shirt had been pulled clear, he realised just how locked into the Combat mindset he had been whole wearing that shirt, of all things.

As he felt the cool dawn air trace over his skin and through his hair freely, the weight of weapons he'd carried for days without a break no longer there, heard and watched the slow, steady downpour outside the shattered windows wash down from the cloudy sky, he felt almost...free. There was no other word to describe the sensation, something which just felt so good...

His battered and bloodstained green vest was next, being tossed aside like the shirt. He felt her fingertips trace over the muscles of his arms, shoulders and upper chest as she worked the vest loose, soft, warm and firm-and he couldn't help but notice the trails of fire-like heat they left behind, nor the tingles that shot through him whenever their skin made contact, a reaction he could tell she shared. Her eyes lingered too long on his bare chest, she took too long to move her fingertips away from his muscles and body. Last to go were his combat boots and socks, leaving him wearing only his trousers and underwear. He suddenly realised that he was so tired he was either going to have to lie down or fall over-but Giselle put a hand over his heart and the touch of her velvety skin woke him up sharply.

"Lie down, face down" she told him, simply. He was only too happy to oblige. He could feel the dead weight of utter exhaustion catching up with him fast, like a runaway Freight train about to hit him in the back of the head. He sank into the thick carpet with an inelegant but easy belly flop, well away from Spencer's corpse and any blood or remains. He hadn't realised just how much he needed this...

Her sleeveless t-shirt and dark-brown combat boots landed next to his gear and he felt her kneel over his lower back, her posture perfect to keep any of her weight off of his. He twisted lightly, saw her bare feet and then her black lace Bra which held in noticeably full, curvy breasts, before she actually smiled at him and gestured for him to turn around. He did-and moments later felt strong fingers probing his back, neck and arms, before a gentle but firm massage started to relax wrenched muscles he didn't even know he had. It took minutes, Giselle's hands moving up and down his body, but he was already shattered and the slow but sure relaxation Giselle's ministrations provided made his eyes slide slowly shut...

When he came too he realised that he had to have actually slept, he didn't know how long for, for the first time in maybe 48 hours. He felt deliciously relaxed and so much better that he couldn't easily explain it-then he saw Giselle, lying beside him, her long body, perfectly proportioned, open to his eyes. Even bloodstained and battered, evidence of that huge bruise that made it difficult for her to move on her left side back evident in the shape of a huge dark area against her pale skin, he knew he'd never seen a woman so beautiful. His mind was free and clear at last, the War was over-at least for the minute-he could relax, just for a little while...

He was never sure if the fact that she'd helped him as she had or the simple fact he was so lonely after what had happened to Melissa that made him meet her almost shy kiss halfway. When he let her roll him to his back before moving atop him, lifting her Bra over her head and away before moving her fingers to his trousers even as he reached up and caressed her breasts, enjoying the luxurious feel of silky, velvety-soft skin and firm flesh under his hands, he knew what was coming next. For some reason, he didn't mind at all...

Umbrella Headquarters roof area and helicopter deck

John Davies raised the bottle of whiskey to his mouth, breathed in the fumes one more time then threw back the dregs of the bottles contents. He'd drunk the contents of an entire bottle of whiskey single-handedly. He didn't drink. He'd barely stopped drinking for a year now except when he was on the job. He didn't drink. He suspected that he was turning into an alcoholic. He didn't... He sighed, what was the point any more in any case? It was far too late for him now...

His brown hair was drenched with rainwater that had plastered it to his skull. Hard hazel eyes gleamed in a hard face that would have been handsome if he'd remembered how to smile at some point. At just over six feet tall and almost two hundred pounds heavy, all of it hard, solid muscle, bone and sinew, he was a big, physically powerful man. His dark-brown uniform, complete with Alliance rank markings, only outlined his powerful physique, but also made it obvious that he was unarmed except for a an Alliance-issue Bolt pistol. His rank was Colonel and he was the Commanding Officer of Alliance forces on Earth-or he had been. What he was going to be soon was anyone's guess.

Recalled. It was the ultimate soldiers nightmare, let alone that of a senior officer. To get that particular signal from High Command at the Grey meant, in reality, that your Career was over under the circumstances it had reached him in. He'd be lucky if he wasn't Court-Martialed and Dishonourably Discharged, just to begin with. If he was honest with himself, though, he knew that he deserved that and worse, much worse.

The Alliance on Earth had been at the height of their power at the beginning of 2001. Bases had existed, all concealed, in most countries around the planet, particularly in the UA. Elite troops had prowled the planet to ensure its safety and security from off-world threats that had no business there humans couldn't even begin to imagine the nature of. Political influence and contacts with Governments around the world had been sufficient to get pretty much anything they wanted done to happen. Contacts had been established in strength, various critical negotiations were on-going with considerable success and possibilities abounded...

Then had come the Coup in the USA after the Alliance had joined the War against Umbrella directly. That had been the beginning of the end, he now knew.

He'd lost equipment fighting Umbrella's forces and even human troops loyal to the Umbrella-installed "President", then the War had struck New York City directly and all Hell had broken loose. He'd taken over two thirds of his manpower and three quarters of his tech to subdue the violence and Virus Outbreak in New York, allied with determined S.T.A.R.S. and SOC troops, they'd been winning-then "President" Evan's new shock troops had literally sucker-punched them in the rear. Technology taken from reverse-engineered Alliance tech scavenged over the years had been modified and built into battle suits his Engineers had listed as "Warrior" weapons, weapons and armour combined and lethal even against what the Alliance had to offer. When the unexpected, impossible attack came, no one had been prepared for it.

Close-focus Nukes had killed half his men in a devastating attack that had also killed hundreds of survivors of the initial New York attack. The EMP pulse from the blasts had shut down the high technology of everyone without high-grade Alliance tech which was shielded against such attacks, then the remnants of his rearguard had gotten off a panicked SOS stating they were under attack before going off the air. Evan's troops had carved their way through scattered and bloodied Alliance troops like a knife through butter, taking down everything that got in their way from scattered, terrified civilians to entire buildings they dropped on their opponents, regardless of who or what was inside.

The SOC and S.T.A.R.S., hopelessly outclassed, had been unable to do anything more than dive for cover and pray unless they wanted to run through the infected Hot Zone, risking attack from building-size Mutants and Zombies as well as almost any other kind of threat Umbrella could come up with, then dive into the Atlantic Ocean and try to swim to safety. Some desperate individuals, although none of the S.T.A.R.S. oddly enough, had actually tried that. None of them had made it, he'd later discovered, not at all to his surprise. Then had come two surprises.

The first had been the SOC Assassin, Serena Baccarin, who nobody had known was in New York. She'd come out of nowhere having made her way through enemy lines like a Wolf through a forest, leaving no trace of her passage and no-one the wiser regarding her presence. More importantly, she'd been carrying a Rail Gun, which was better than almost any weapon he'd easily had at his disposal at the time. She'd managed to do real damage with it single-handedly, too, his men making a stubborn defence while she supported them from high ground with flawless accuracy, knocking Evan's men off their feet at the very least with every shot. He'd finally gained the time to send a Crisis signal, telling the Drop Ship to come and get them.

Then the second surprise had shown up. USF troops led by Xenia Omerova, Umbrella's then top Agent, hired as a Mercenary to "collect" samples of the technology Evan's had his men using. He didn't know how she'd done it still, but Evan's men had had such trouble dealing with her and her unit they'd had to break off an entire squad to do so. Some had never come back, one's armour had later turned up in Paris with the owner still inside, minus the contents of half his head apparently. He'd have loved to hear the story of that one, but now he never would.

The Drop Ships shields had taken care of Evan's troops fire as it Extracted the survivors, not that it hadn't taken damage, but as they escaped he'd received the worst news of his life. The main Alliance base in the USA had been vaporised, along with all stores and all personnel, by ground-penetrating Nukes sent in by Evan's. He had been tipped off by a renegade ally of the SOC who couldn't take the awful situation he had found himself in and decided to do something about it, by simply removing the Alliance from the scene, which he'd believed would end the War quickly. If the attack had been as catastrophically devastating as he'd hoped, the traitor might well have been right. As it was, the loss had been devastating to Alliance efforts on the North American continent and had as good as driven the Alliance out of the USA altogether as a Military power. From then on in, things had only gotten worse...

He smiled grimly, nightmares being too weak a word to accurately describe his recollections of the year that had followed the New York attacks. Alliance bases around the world had been tracked down and attacked by Evan's new crack unit, their technology making it possible for them to breach even Alliance cloaking technology and fight their way past any defences erected, even when they suffered casualties, not helped by very limited Alliance manpower. When they found a Base they left no survivors and nothing to salvage, always using Nukes to sterilise the entire site. Alliance forces, massively outnumbered and unable to properly defend their own Bases, had been forced to withdraw practically into the jungle to regroup as they were pursued to the ends of the Earth.

The SOC and S.T.A.R.S. had had it even worse, better than half of the SOC had been taken out and so many of the S.T.A.R.S. were killed they'd actually lost contact with the scattered survivors. They'd nearly lost Matt Ryan himself, the glue that had held the SOC together no matter what even after the death of Ian Williams in New York, in an Umbrella ambush when they caught him alone in Berlin, meeting with a blown Contact he hadn't realised had been caught in time, six months ago. That would have finished the SOC for sure-but an Umbrella Agent, a woman called Delphi Matt had never met and didn't know at all, had saved his life and kept him safe to be rescued later. John didn't know her either, but he'd always respect her for her actions. If she hadn't done what she did they would have lost the War, he knew it deep down in his guts where it really counted. Now they were here, six months later, two years after the War began. They'd won, whatever that really now, after EVERYTHING... He felt crazy laughter bubbling up out of him, he didn't try to stop it... Soft, half-mad laughter feebly escaped his lips.

He'd lost 90 of the gear and equipment supplied by the Alliance for use on Earth. All but two of the bases, with a third very questionable. Casualties were over 75, he had just over a hundred soldiers left on the ground and remnant support staff had been ordered off-Earth to cloaked ships in high orbit. The outcome of the War with Umbrella and the illegal US Government was, for the Alliance itself on Earth, the definition of Worst Case Scenario. He had nothing left. Recalled? He deserved to be shot...

He slowly became aware of the rain pounding down on him, soaking through his uniform right down to the skin. He slowly became aware of the fact that it was damn cold up here first thing in the morning, just sitting around soaking wet. He remembered at last that there were things to be done, things he had to do. There were other people up here, people who needed a leader of some kind to speak up with Matt off-scene somewhere, no doubt busy. He was always busy, with very good reason. He took it personally, as a good leader should, when things went wrong and did his absolute damndest to set them right, no matter what the personal cost to himself-only the injuries suffered by his Fiancée, Melissa, had ever really torn him up inside despite the loss of so many friends and allies. After all, they both knew that, in War, anyone could and would be next.

He stood up at last, looked around. He took in the cowering Umbrella employees left shivering on the roof on their knees, hands behind their heads, probably rightly sure they were all going to be killed. He took in the bloody, bandaged and dead-eyed SOC soldiers guarding them, still in full body armour bar helmets all, fingers on hair triggers. Brave, good and true men who had sacrificed far too much for far too long to get to this point of "victory".

Most of them would never, ever be the same. Recovery was a word which had no meaning any more, he knew for a fact that several members of the S.T.A.R.S and some SOC troops had been using drugs to stay awake for days at a time before now and, indeed, now, unable to cope with the Holocaust of nightmares and memories that played behind their eyes whenever they slept. Not one person from the S.T.A.R.S., SOC or Alliance would ever be the same again after this, not in any way. Not him, even, not Matt.

The tattered remnants of the S.T.A.R.S. were standing off to one side back to back in what was almost a defensive circle, he wondered if they knew they were doing that. Of the leaders, the "old guard" who had survived Racoon City, only Jill Valentine- seriously injured and barely conscious now, slowly bleeding out-and Leon Kennedy were still alive.

The Omega Tyrant had nearly disembowelled Jill when it came out of nowhere with its first attack. Barry Burton had grabbed and thrown her clear a second before the Tyrant had gone on to tear half of his upper body away from the rest. The sights and sounds defied description, Barry had died instantly, blood exploding out of violated, torn flesh, muscle and arteries everywhere.

Claire Redfield, already limping with a bullet in her leg, had shot it point-blank with an RPG she'd been carrying-and might as well have been throwing flowers at it. It had thrown an entire filing cabinet at her before she could react, the impact alone had broken every bone in her body, the terrible force had literally smeared her entire body along a hallway, leaving her lower legs five meters clear of her pulverised head and shoulders, a thick, wet red slick of brutality and blood being the connection. She hadn't died instantly, he'd seen her eyes blink once after the cabinet had finally come to rest.

Then Jianna Torres had come sprinting through the hallway and body slammed the Tyrant, crash-tackling it in mid air with a sound like rolling thunder colliding with the foundations of the world. The impact had shattered every window in a hundred metres, dropped everyone in the building in agony as their eardrums were seemingly hit by a sonic boom and put the Tyrant and her right through three walls before they'd even started really fighting. He'd never seen anything like what had happened next, he hoped on the life of everyone he'd ever know he'd never see anything like it again.

The sight of Jianna staggering, drenched in blood, better than half dead, through the hallways towards them with the Tyrants ripped-off head dangling, mashed-up, from one hand as she grinned in triumph would haunt the entire rest of his life. She was the definition of why the Alliance had fought a Civil War in the first place...

He glanced around again-and spotted Serena Baccarin, working on a damaged small transport helicopters systems with a set of tools she'd found somewhere. Sapphire blue eyes were narrowed in concentration as she worked, black hair falling long and loose about her shoulders, back and face. Her skin was a delicious mix of Indian caramel and European pale white, attracting his eye every time he saw her and then some, while a flawless fine-boned sultry beauty and a body worth dying for made him want to live and die in Sin. Her skin tight jet-black cat suit, now freed of the variety of gear, weapons and pouches she'd hung all over it, was unzipped most of the way down the front, letting him stare at the edges of full curves when he shouldn't.

He'd rarely met a more lethal individual, even including Alliance Agents and Special Forces personnel. He was attracted to danger like most were to beauty, two things which the luscious Serena had in both exemplary form and extensive nature. If she'd been Alliance, anything could have happened. Since she wasn't, it couldn't and wouldn't. It didn't stop him from admiring the view...

Thunder rolled overhead, distracting him. He raised his face to the sky and let the rain wash down on his face, tried to let it wash away all of his worries and pains and concerns for at least a little while. It didn't work, not at all to his surprise, but, somehow, it did help.

He looked around again and glimpsed Jill Valentine coughing up blood and phlegm- too much blood. She was grey-faced and shaking, something which the increasingly foul weather conditions had nothing to do with. Even as he watched, her nose started to bleed spontaneously, easy evidence of massive internal haemorrhaging, very, very serious internal bleeding.

She was clutching her ribs and her chest in a death grip with both hands as though she was trying to hold in her guts, which she probably was, and force the pain back down, which was impossible. The heavily, tightly wrapped bandages tied around her chest over and over were slick with fresh red blood that was dripping steadily down her legs, over her feet and straight onto the ground where the rain washed it away instantly. Her hands came away from her chest more slowly every time, literally drenched in thick blood by every beat of her labouring hearts efforts to keep her alive. Her breathing was quickly growing weaker and weaker too, she was wheezing more and more. He didn't doubt that she had internal injuries, but he now suspected she had a punctured lung as well. She was going to die, very soon...what did he think he could do about it, with things the way they were?

Something snapped: he-was-NOT going to loose even ONE more soldier, not any time at all while he was on Earth before he returned to the Alliance in utter disgrace and took like a man whatever they threw at him. A Death Sentence might just be all he deserved, that was what he thought anyway, but until then he could still help here-and he would. He made a decision, the only one he could. He wished Matt was here, or the long-dead Ian Williams. He could have talked to either man about this, they would have understood what he was going to do now...

He walked over to Serena, who utterly failed to react to him even though she unquestionably knew he was there. That suited him just fine right now.

"Serena, I need a serious favour. I need you to listen to exactly what I'm going to ask you to do, very closely, right now..." he began, which caused her to look up at him sharply. She knew as well as anyone that he NEVER asked for favours...

Umbrella Headquarters, Lord Spencer's Office "You know, we probably shouldn't have done that..." said Giselle, slowly, the slightest of smiles on her face and in her eyes as she lay tight against Matt Ryan, her left leg slung over his right hip, her left hand gently caressing his bare chest, fingertips brushing skin more lightly than a feather. Her breasts were brushing against his chest with every rise and fall of their bodies as they breathed, she could feel the warmth of his breath tickling her face and throat. She decided not to mention that, quite simply, lying in this office, in this mans arms, the warm afterglow of passion still warming her inside and out, she couldn't remember the last time she'd even come close to feeling this good. Ada had never been the same after coming back from the dead following Racoon City, even though the Racoon disaster had been four years ago now and Ada had disappeared for three of them. She'd come back almost completely Amnesiac, but had eventually regained almost all of her memory before the end. She'd gotten more inverted, twisted inside and corrupted by awful things that had woken her up screaming a thousand times after she'd come back, that Giselle knew better than even the Psychologist Ada had been seeing in desperation-but it had been a name that finally finished any faith she'd had left in the Ada she knew coming back to her as she was then. One night, from nowhere, Ada had bolted to her feet and, still fast asleep, shouted words that had broken Giselle's heart. "LEON! I NEED YOU!" she'd shouted, before going on and on for almost ten minutes about monsters, Mutants and the long-dead Professor William Birkin, who'd also died in the Racoon City disaster. She'd shouted something unintelligible, except for the words "THE SEED!"-then collapsed to her knees and woken up. She'd cried the whole night long after that, suffered uncontrollable shivers and shakes and muttered constant nonsense under her breath for hours, never going fully back to sleep even held tight in Giselle's strong arms. Ada had never known it, but Giselle had been crying that night too. It had finally proven to her that the woman she'd loved was gone, gone and never coming back. Leon Kennedy was easy. A rookie member of the RCPD hired just before the Outbreak began in the city, to survive he'd teamed up with Claire Redfield, sister of Chris-a S.T.A.R.S. officer who had survived the initial Spencer Mansion investigation and since disappeared, with Umbrella after him-who'd come to the city to look for her missing big brother only to get caught up in a maelstrom of destruction and violence as 100,000 people turned into Zombies and Mutants following the initial Outbreak. Destruction and bloodshed on a scale that hadn't been seen in a city since Vietnam was just the beginning of the disaster. Leon and Claire had resolved to escape through the warren of tunnels and sewers beneath the RCPD headquarters, infected as those dark, filthy underground passages were with things obscenity was too weak a word for. They'd picked up the Seed-Sherry Birkin, William Birkin's 12 year-old daughter, or rather the G-Virus sample in the necklet she was wearing-on the way and fought their way through Hell with only one outcome possible in their minds: escape. Ada had been there too, only she'd first forged an alliance with Leon then betrayed him to get the G-Virus sample-only she hadn't been able to go through with it, Leon's idealism infecting her in Giselle's opinion. The issue had become moot after Ada was shot and critically wounded by Annette Birkin, William Birkin's Wife, apparently falling to her death after the bullet tore her chest open and threw her over a railing into the void. Leon had grabbed her hand somehow-but she'd struggled loose. Leon and Claire had escaped with Sherry, who had lost both parents on the way to freedom but found safety with her new friends-or so she'd thought. Of course, there was always more to any story... The supposedly dead former S.T.A.R.S. Captain Albert Wesker had been prowling those tunnels as well, hunting for the Seed himself, along with his superior and lover Lianna Styx, better known as "Roulette". He and Lianna had been working with Ada and had, in fact, saved her from the fall that should have killed her-easy for them, with Wesker now enhanced by the HEV G-Virus variant created by William Birkin before his death-but they'd abandoned her like a pile of rags when they'd managed to recover a G-Virus sample from the Mutated William Birkins blood following a brutal battle with Claire and Leon facing off with Grenade Launchers and shotguns against the Mutant Birkin. Or so Ada had told her when she'd later half-remembered the series of events that had ended with her being caught on the edge of the Nuclear blast that had incinerated Racoon City, which had left her in a deep Coma for six months, her last sight being of a massive red-black mushroom cloud which had thrown whole trees and even cars and trucks around like confetti. What no one knew was that Giselle herself had been down in the tunnels as well, looking for Ada or anyone who could point her in the right direction, having managed to ascertain that Ada had been evacuated to the ruined RCPD headquarters before they fell and had never left. The only escape from the invading Zombies had been down, in the end, so down she'd gone. She'd spotted Wesker and Lianna, but steered clear when she'd recognised the tall, blond former S.T.A.R.S. Captain-she read Obituaries like everyone else, more to the point she'd been well aware he was a senior Umbrella Agent. She'd saved the battered Claire Redfield's life later by throwing her a machine gun and managed to get on the subway train before it took off, suspecting the two determined survivors might have answers-but the Mutant Birkin had gotten in the way, permanently. Only luck and chance had prevented the two survivors discovering her presence when she'd screamed following Birkin's shredding the roof she was atop trying to reach her-then she'd nearly lost both legs rolling frantically sideways to evade another attack only to fall half under the train, her entire body contorted with the strain of holding on, literally by her fingertips. How she'd held on until safety outside the escape tunnel where she could kick herself away and clear, even as she was forced to listen helplessly to the battle being fought inside the train against the Mutant Birkin, she didn't know. Some things really were puzzles that were never intended to be solved, she supposed. Either that or she'd been incredibly "lucky"-and she didn't believe in luck. "No, probably not" agreed Matt, before nuzzling her neck in a way which almost made her purr. "But I don't care. At all. Right now, there is nothing but you, me and this nice, soft carpet were lying on. My fiancée in brain-dead on a Life Support machine in the USA, in a high-security Military Hospital, its time I admitted that. I killed the man who killed her, but that means nothing to me any more, even though he's still breathing and so is she. They'll both die soon. What does that make me? Where does that leave me? I have no idea at all" sighed Matt, shaking his head slowly. His arms closed around her in a close embrace before relaxing, his hands running slowly up and down her arms on up to her shoulders. Occasionally, his hands also drifted to softer areas of her body with a soft caress, which she enjoyed. That spark she'd felt six months ago, when she'd kissed him for whatever unknown reason she'd had then, was now developing nicely into a full-scale flame. For a change she let what she was thinking show on her face and in her eyes, again a gesture of intimacy Matt wouldn't appreciate-yet. But then, they now had time to get to know one another properly... Maybe the rest of their lives? "I'll tell you what, Matt, I will come with you back to the USA. After all, High Treason charges, Terrorism charges, Espionage charges, Murder, Assault and Battery and violation of the Official Secrets Act, just to begin with, even their all true? Why worry? Home is where your heart is, but I've never really lived anywhere else so I'll die there too. With Ada...gone...its not as though I have anything else to consider, anyway. I've betrayed everyone I've ever loved and every oath I ever took, broken every promise. If this really is "it", I'll settle accounts before I go at the least" said Giselle, hungrily stealing a kiss from Matt. "I'm very glad to hear you say that. Just one thing-well, two things, then we can go?" Matt replied, looking her in the eyes. She sighed on the inside, she could tell from his expression that she wasn't going to like this. Still, she'd lost the right to refuse him anything when he hadn't executed her following the final fall of Umbrella as he should have done, let alone gifted her with this. He was extending his trust to her, yes, but it came with conditions. Well, it wasn't as though she hadn't expected that. "Go on, ask" she said. "Sorry for the painful subject, but can you explain your tattoo's?" he asked, a request that made her stare hard at him. Just how much did he really know about her? He couldn't have asked a more personal question if he'd asked her when she'd lost her Virginity. Still... She raised a hand to her face, traced her teardrop tattoos with a finger each. When she spoke, her voice was utterly devoid of emotion. It had to be, all of the years in between had done nothing to change the long descent into Hellish nightmare, pain and simple, awful human brutality that had scarred her, deep inside and out, so long ago. "I was born somewhere in eastern Croatia in 1971 to a peasant couple in the hills, people I have never met because they abandoned me on a hilltop an hour after I was born to die, because my skin colour made them think I was a Demon sent them by the Devil. I was found and taken in by an ethnic Serb farmer who, with his Wife, had lost his son in World War II and never quite recovered from the loss. He thought I was a gift from the Heavens, they did in fact, so I was blessed with love, affection and care for six years...a lifetime to a child, happiness was all I knew then" she began, slowly. "In 1977, not long after I turned six, life ceased to have meaning for me. In the dead of night a "Puritan" squad of Croats came out of the night carrying burning torches, guns and knives. I woke up thinking I was in Hell and ran to the village Church when my...father ordered me to. It...didn't help" she continued, forcing her hands not to shake. "The squad was made up of angry young men who were already drunk on blood thirst and murder, they'd been drinking beforehand and the killing had started before they ever reached us. They chased me, the other girls, the women and the old men to the Church, dragged the women and girls out and slit our men folks throats in front of us before...taking turns, one after another, forcing us to watch and wait. I saw a girl of fifteen get Raped to death by thirty men, she bled to death on the inside after they kept punching her in the stomach when she tried to fight them. Then..." she paused, she had too. She'd only ever told her father and Ada this much. "Then, it was my "turn". Twenty of them, at least, non stop, roll-on roll-off, pin the bitch down and break her arms if she struggles. The pain knocked me unconscious, when I woke up I was covered in my own blood, couldn't walk more than a few steps every few minutes and very nearly bled to death. I was also hanging upside down from a tree, tied there naked by my ankles, surrounded by everyone female I knew. They'd left me for dead and I might as well have been. When I got loose, I found the heads of every single one of the villages men mounted on wooden spike poles around the village, their bodies had been thrown into the Church and burnt, every home had been desecrated in every way. Looking in one found me a shattered mirror, which was when I discovered these" she said, tracing the tattoos on her face again. "They cut into my face with knives the places my tears fell to stop me from crying, to stop me from reminding them I was a human being. They nearly took my eyes. Blood was so much easier to deal with, of course. I had the tattoo's done to cover the scars when I was eighteen and had come to live in the USA, after all its not as though I can ever forget their there. As for this?" she asked, glancing at the barbed wire tattoo on her left upper arm with a bitter smile. "It reminds me never to take anyone or anything for granted because it, they or that will always find a way or means to hurt you. I lost track of that with Ada because she filled my heart and my mind so much so that I never even wanted to consider just how dangerous she could be to me, even after the first time she committed Treason while still working for the CIA. I covered up so much of what she was really doing for her you wouldn't believe it and I tipped her off when Internal Affairs finally put all of the pieces together, giving her enough time to get out of the country. Short of committing Treason and Murder myself back then I couldn't have done more to protect her. I even considered it but my father was still alive then and I could never have betrayed him, I would have killed her first. After he died, though? To be with her, I betrayed his memory and everything he stood for. Now I've betrayed Ada and everything I had with her, too. I've got nothing left to loose, do you understand?" asked Giselle, softly. Matt was silent for a moment, then he reached out and brushed her hair away from her face. "I think I do. Thank you, for trusting me" he replied, just as softly. He hugged her, gently, then pressed her face to his chest, letting her hear his strong, steady heartbeat. All she could think to say, even as she felt a tear slide down her face slowly, was "Thanks..." Umbrella Headquarters roof area and helicopter deck Serena came back onto the roof area with Jianna Torres in tow, swiping soaked hair out of her face as she led the angry-looking Assassin out onto the roof. Jianna's expression looked thunderous, but everyone knew Serena could handle her as long as they didn't interfere so they stayed away and let her work. Serena looked around and spied John Davis just standing there looking at them before snapping her fingers at him and gesturing for him to approach. He did, reluctantly, well aware the angry Assassin he was now standing next to could take him to pieces with her bare hands so fast that he wouldn't even register the movements or the pain if the mood took her. He also knew what Serena wanted him for, though, so he didn't let that thought stop him. Jianna literally snarled at him, managing to scare him despite being unarmed and better than half naked, being soaking wet in a developing thunderstorm on the roof of an almost-deserted building. Since he'd told her the truth about her own nature and history he hadn't dared go anywhere near her. Now, he had no choice.

"John Davis, Jianna Torres. Jianna, John. I know you've already met, but now you actually have something to talk about, so let me be clear. Jill Valentine is dying by the second over there and will be dead in minutes at most. Umbrella assassinated my brother in 2002 after he got the footage of President Bush's last news conference onto the Internet, as requested by you, John. So I will not see a woman I consider the closest thing on Earth I have left to family apart from my insane father die like this, so resolve your differences and do it quickly" said Serena, speaking slowly and clearly so that there could be no misunderstanding.

"Understand me: that woman is the one thing, the only person who could hold me together after my brother was killed, she was everything to me for three months, we are closer than blood. I was there for her when Catherine Mattis, who in every way that mattered was her big sister, was killed in that big firefight a month ago in Rome. We've both lost the one thing we had left that meant the most to both of us in our lives. Jianna needs your help to avoid simply Jill into some kind HEV variant with a possibility of no brain, John. Simple fact, I won't loose her, or else. Clear?" snapped Serena.

Jianna just smiled, she knew that the threat wasn't directed against her. John licked dry lips, he didn't doubt that Serena could make good on what she threatened. Of course, he had no intention of letting Jill die either, Serena was just being Serena in making very clear that she really was deadly serious about Jill living. That just meant it was up to him to talk Jianna into this or die trying. Life or death based on his own decisions, choices, actions and words? Good, that was the way he liked it when the chips were down-an expression he'd picked up while living on Earth and talking to Matt on occasion. Time to go to work.

"I'll start, shall I? Colonel John Davis of the Alliance QRF force, thanks to you my entire existence has no meaning. My life is a fantasy, a sham constructed on the basis I though a human being needed one. My parents are, thankfully, already dead or no God could explain to them what you've told me since we met in a way which would prevent them from reviling me as a thing from another world, literally, who has no place on Earth or anywhere else. I thought I was gifted beyond human imagination, then I discovered that Umbrella Corporation might have had something to do with it, then I spoke to you, understand? Born a bitch, made a monster, come to fruition as an adult something even worse than even Umbrella ever imagined? Over a billion lives lost to prevent anything like me from ever existing in a galactic Empire I didn't know even existed long before I was born during a Civil War that nearly took this planet with it into Tartarus?" snapped Jianna, firing off points and questions like automatic gunfire.

"John, since I met you've I've learnt one awful object lesson and truth after another, but all of them boil down to this: I am the most unique obscenity in the whole of Creation as far as even your Alliance knows and have no business existing, yet here I am regardless because if even am Omega Tyrant can't kill me then nothing on Earth short of a direct strike with a Nuke can. I'm the "Source" and I stand here now with everything I ever knew and believed in proved a lie or worse. I can't even commit Suicide without jumping into an active volcano, do you understand that? You've damned me in every way possible and there is no way to set it right. Do you have an answer to that? Think hard" said Jianna, her voice dropping so that it was so quiet even he could barely hear her, her last sentence a vicious hiss.

He was scared, he didn't even try to deny it. Even Alliance troopers wouldn't go up against this woman fully armed and armoured in numbers, he suspected she could breach a Drop Ships shields through sheer physical power and endurance if she put her mind to it, which made the adamantine hull no contest. He was safe from her nowhere on Earth-so what he said had to be perfect. That meant there was only one thing to say, really.

"For whatever its worth, I truly am sorry. We didn't know that you existed ourselves until we picked up on the fact that Umbrella was really onto something with its search for a Source Virus to kick-start its Omega Tyrant and HEV programs, but by then they had too much of a head start and it was too late. When they hired the Forsaken to find you it was already over concerning our attempts to reach you first, those people were more than professional and they found you so fast we were still trying to work out how and why when they dragged you in here. We got you out as quick as we could, though" John began, trying hard not to shiver with cold and fear as he took in the look in those mesmerising amber eyes. His fate if he screwed up here was going to be so awful his men wouldn't even report it to spare the Grey nightmares, that much he could tell with a glance.

He recalled the night the Alliance had pulled off a surgical strike against Umbrella's fortified and heavily guarded main research facility in Austria, high up in the mountains for securities sake, like it was yesterday. He'd had the facility breached by blast cannon bombardment from low orbit before he and his thirty-man squad had jumped, using Gravity Chutes to control their descent from a height which had required them to use life support systems to avoid detection. With the entire facility in chaos and uproar, more than half of the personnel and security detail there dead or injured in the initial attack and all automatic defences destroyed or disabled, he'd been hoping for a Turkey Shoot.

It hadn't happened. An extremely dangerous experimental HEV he'd never known the name of, the first to be transformed by experiments based on Jianna Torres DNA as it had turned out, had single-handedly marshalled the scattered defenders and proceeded to lead a catastrophically devastating counterattack with a Bazooka in each hand followed by twin M-60 machine guns when he ran out of ammunition for the launchers. The Alliance troops had had far superior technology available, but nothing they had was designed to withstand direct hits from rockets or fifty direct hits from high-velocity bullets at a time. The remains of the Umbrella security force left standing had joined in with every weapon at their disposal, ranging from Knuckledusters to C4 Plastic Explosives literally thrown around like mud pies of sufficient size and power to demolish building walls. War Zone had been too weak a word, older soldiers had sworn they'd never seen anything like it since the end of the Civil War.

The defenders had fought the attackers like rabid dogs crossed with demented Demons infected with Psychotic behavioural traits and the bloodlust of Vampires. The entire facility had been torn to pieces even before the Self-Destruct had been activated by enough unleashed firepower and destructive force to shake the entire mountain the facility was on from top to bottom. Fireballs had leapt a hundred foot into the sky, masonry and bodies had been thrown in all directions like dice in the hand of God, bits and pieces of bodies, including cremated remains which fell like snow to blanket the whole area in a cloud of sick grey, had scattered everywhere amongst shell casings and tumbled rocks shaken loose and tossed into the facility by the sheer violence of the battle.

When they'd finally managed to free and rescue Jianna before evacuating to a waiting Drop Ship, he'd been down to seven healthy men and five wounded, two of whom had later died despite everything the Alliance had at its disposal for treating wounds and illness. They'd initiated the Self-Destruct and lifted off just before an avalanche buried the remains of the facility, minutes after which the facility blew sky-high before half the top of the mountain fell on it, by which time the Austrian Military and Emergency Services had been everywhere.

If the Alliance Drop Ship hadn't been blacked from radar it would have been spotted leaving the scene at speed, which would have created even more complications to be dealt with. Six months ago, it didn't seem that long at all any longer... Not at all to his surprise, mind, he'd later discovered that Spencer had threatened to do something so awful to the facilities personnel and security personnel if they lost Jianna under any circumstances that even children would have taken up arms after hearing the threat. There had been no Umbrella survivors. That catastrophe was history now, however.

"The fact, the truth, is that we needed you on our side to win this War, no matter what, but time was not a luxury I had. I would have given my left arm to not have had to break what I did to you how and when I did, but I knew for sure that you would never forgive me or any of us if I didn't tell you when we got started with you. You deserved to know what Umbrella had wanted with you, just to begin with, let alone what they aimed to do with what they'd got from you, so I told you as directly and clearly as I could. Hate me as much as you want for that, I deserve it, but don't let Jill die because of me. In fact, if it helps" he said, drawing his gun, clicking the safety off and holding it out to her butt-first, "Use this and finish it for good rather than torturing me, please. I would rather a soldiers death, if I have a choice" he finished, looking her in the eyes.

Jianna's smile was so slight he almost didn't register it, but she reached out and pushed his gun away. Then she smiled for real, something she hadn't done in all the time he'd known her.

" John, did you know I can tell when people are lying? Your heartbeat speeds up, your scent changes just a little, the little finger on your left hand shakes when you do. That's how I know you've told me the truth, which is the best place to start and earns you a chance to explain yourself. Explaining all of this is something you have to do for me, properly and in detail, mind. Now, shall we help Jill? I'm not going to see Serena loose another friend any more than you are, clear?" said Jianna.

John put his gun back on safety, holstered it and pulled out a very specific item from his personal Med Kit. A syringe filled with a dull, fluorescent purple liquid. "By all means, this is what we need. Lead on" he said, gesturing towards Jill...

Umbrella Headquarters, staff canteen

Sam Johnston put a hard kick into the glass front of the vending machine, smashing it to shards with the hard-edged tip of his combat boot. He widened the hole he'd made with the butt of his F1100, reached inside and, after a moment, pulled out a Mars bar and a Lucozade. In a moment of pathetic savagery he bit off the top of the Lucozade bottle, including the cap, then tossed back the entire bottle in one long gulp. It was supposed to give him a pick-me-up recharge and make him feel better, but he was so far beyond exhausted that only fading willpower was keeping him upright. He stripped the cover off of the Mars bar with his teeth and hand and ate that to, which helped a little with his gnawing hunger-but again, it was only really a drop in the ocean.

He looked around the canteen and saw SOC commandos along with a few ragged-looking S.T.A.R.S. scattered around and about everywhere, some seated with their heads in their hands, others sprawled across tabletops or flat on their backs on the floor. The S.T.A.R.S. people looked even worse than the SOC commandos did, men and women both, which was damn hard, he knew that for a fact after everything he'd been through just to begin with.

Twenty-eight years old, young, healthy and in exceptional shape, especially given his 6,4 frame, with his black hair and hazel eyes, sideburns extending midway down his face, he'd once been handsome, intelligent, highly competent and a rising star inside the elite SOC unit. That had been BU-his little joke, it stood for "Before Umbrella". Now, AU? Everything was gone, changed beyond recognition or simply lost somewhere along the way.

He'd lost his left arm from the shoulder down in Egypt after taking a shotgun blast to the chest point-blank during the attack which had destroyed the main Umbrella facility in Cairo. There they'd discovered street children sold to Umbrella by their own parents being used as Test Subjects and even simply in experiments to test pet theories Umbrella Scientists had. Too sick inside to even speak, all he'd been able to do was helplessly hug a skinless child whose exposed organs were still functioning.

The child had been flayed so that the Scientists could observe how the developing human body functioned and developed on the inside without the need for surgical invasion and other "costly" medical techniques which would have been required otherwise. Then he'd broken the child's neck to free him with his bare hands-just before a "dead" Umbrella guard gave him both barrels from behind. His arm had been left hanging by a thread when his body armour gave way-but he still hadn't passed out from the pain, screaming like the Devil himself was after him in blood-red mindless agony until Adam Jennings, their Medic, had punched him out in desperation.

When he'd finally come to the remains of his arm had been amputated to save his life, his chest had been a mass of scar tissue with his left lung only functioning with artificial help. That had been nine months ago, since then the arm had been replaced with a useable rotating and wired shining steel Prosthesis that enabled him to use most weapons just the way he'd used to. Then, three months ago, he'd had an Umbrella facility literally blow up in his face when he'd failed to get clear in time.

The blast debris had shredded his face, lacerating both legs and his remaining arm while sticking far too many sharp objects in his chest even as his hands arms barely protected his eyes. The concussive force of the explosion had tossed him fifteen feet in the air and slammed him back down three times with an impact like an Elephant jumping on his chest every time, collapsing both of his lungs after searing them and his throat and badly burning every part of his body, the massive bruising nearly killing him by itself.

He'd been more dead than alive by the time he'd been scooped up and taken for treatment in a Triage centre for SOC/S.T.A.R.S./Alliance wounded set up at their mobile base, while if it hadn't been for super-advanced Alliance MedTech he'd have been dead a hundred times over. They'd managed to repair the internal damage, prevent him from bleeding to death and, with considerable effort, stitch him back together enough that, three months later, he'd been healthy enough to take part in the final attack on Umbrella's Paris world Headquarters. They'd won. Now what did he have to look forwards to?

His face was a mass of thick scar tissue that rose up into long lines all over his face, marking him so badly that even his own mother wouldn't recognise him or be able to bring herself to love the son she'd once known. His torso was a mass of scars and unnatural dips and lines, completely hairless, like a boiled egg to the touch, just like his legs and arm. Dark burn scars were everywhere, discolouring his now-pale skin even on his scarred face, where thick hair did little to disguise the lumps and too-flat patches where his skull and face should have been. That his body and mind still functioned at all was a Miracle, Alliance or no Alliance. The dark SOC combat uniform and body armour he wore, with loose left sleeve, did nothing to hide that.

For one thing, he'd asked and even they couldn't give him back his good looks with what they had on Earth or in orbit. The MedTech they had was designed to repair injuries and keep people alive, not to do cosmetic work-although they had offered to Clone and replace his lost arm, an offer which he had accepted. He was left more of a freak than Jianna Torres, though, after everything-and that took some doing.

He was just glad his Wife, Sarah, hadn't survived long enough to see her Husband come to this. She'd died when Umbrella shot down the SOC-piloted plane trying to ferry their families to safety in Russia, well aware that if the SOC had managed to get their loved ones somewhere safe and away in that vast country even the Russians wouldn't have been able to find them. That had been Xenia Omerova's suggestion after she'd defected from Umbrella to them when she'd discovered that Thomas Walker had manufactured the Al'Quaeda attack on New York at the tail end of 2001. Xenia had been on the plane herself.

"Penny for your thoughts, stranger" purred a soft, very feminine voice in his ear. He almost jumped, but his nerves were too shredded by what had happened at Umbrella Headquarters just for them to reach this point for someone to scare him by simply sneaking up on him. Once, he would have been horrified that anyone could get the drop on him, but he'd met so many remarkable individuals with skills, combat and otherwise, that bordered on the supernatural to his amazed mind-Serena Baccarin was only one of them-that he had passed beyond being shocked a long time ago. Every time anyone casually did the impossible these days he just made another mental note that told him he would always have a lot to learn.

He glanced around and found himself staring at the peculiar agent Isis had recruited when she'd been down in Italy demolishing Umbrella's facilities down there almost single-handedly, Song Ma Han watching her back while SOC, S.T.A.R.S. and Alliance troops supplied the numbers. He was supposed to have briefly met the young woman there, but the awful injuries he'd sustained-being very near literally blown to Hell and back-meant he had an effective black spot where that period was concerned, bar the occasional screaming nightmare episode that threatened to stop his racing heart forever every time it happened, be it flashback or literal nightmare.

Her real name no one but Isis knew, but everyone called her Slade. Twenty-four years old, she had flawless creamy tanned skin with traces of the natural dusky skin tone anyone with Italian blood did, less pronounced with her due to her American father and Italian mother. Luminous dark-brown eyes shone in a smoothly beautiful face which was outlined by long ravens-wing black hair falling loose and free to her shoulders, while luscious full red lips begged to be kissed. Long, lean, curvy and hard in all the right places with legs which went on forever, with her strong Italian accent, sultry natural style and a wicked skill with body language and expressions on her fluid face, added to a full throaty laugh that could make grown men cry, she was the impossible European exotic amongst the American hard men who had supposedly almost forgotten what a good woman even tasted like, let alone felt like. The kind of easily luxurious beauty that would make anyone stare, a woman who could just look at you and take you to bed with her eyes, it was a minor miracle the men in the coalition they'd formed to take down Umbrella hadn't ended up physically fighting over her long ago.

She was wearing an off-the-shoulder blood-red top that left her midriff clear, emphasising her flat stomach and easily slender physique, held at the shoulders by spaghetti straps, jet-black leggings that fitted her form like a second skin, split just below the knees, and elegant hard jet-black boots. Black elbow-length gloves with steel knuckleduster extensions finished of her apparel. Falling across her throat now a blood-red mask that covered the lower half of her face in a fight hung loose. Across her upper back he could see her tattoo, one word: SINcere it read, "Live in Sin, but keep your promises" was her motto, as well as how she lived. A 9MM pistol was holstered at the base of her back, knives being sheathed on both forearms, as well as upper and lower legs. Currently, her lower arms and legs were so splattered with blood and the occasional bit of gore she almost seemed dressed in clothes drawn from a nightmare of dark crimson.

She seemed lightly armed, but she'd fought in the worst of it alongside him when they'd finally invaded Umbrella's Headquarters and he'd seen first-hand what she could do. Her fighting style and techniques defied description but shooting things almost seemed...well, boring where she was concerned, as though it all wasn't dangerous enough. She could put knives in the eyes of a man a hundred yards away with her eyes shut once she knew where he was, did so much damage with no more than her own body using extraordinarily focused violence that she could bend steel with a kick or rip someone's head clean off like it was a football, she could do so much more... Calling her a Hell-born Harpy straight from the ninth circle didn't do her justice.

He didn't know who she was, who she had been or, really, where she'd come from, but he would always be sure of two things. First, that he would never be so glad that anyone was on their side, excepting the truly exceptional like Isis and Song. Second, that he hadn't met her before Isis had. He was an old hand with suffering now, he could look into those smouldering eyes and see every single shadow and secret she hid inside, every unanswered question-a terrible, terrible number of unknowns crowded in there. In her heart of hearts, so far inside no one could touch it, she was hiding something truly ugly away from the world. If he was any judge, something truly terrible had happened to her at some point in her past, probably a long time ago. He was never, ever going to ask what.

"Not worth that, Slade, I look at you and fantasise every time, you know that. Just like you know this broken up cripple could never do anything like that" he said, dryly, hoping that she would take it as the joke it was. She just looked at him with her head on one side for a moment, an odd expression on her face.

"Do you mean it doesn't work?" she asked abruptly, almost making him fall over in shock. He'd been wrong, there were things left he could be shocked by. He almost didn't notice her lift a bottle of water and a Crunchie from the vending machine behind him as he tried to think of a sane answer to that question, even as she ate the Crunchie while waiting for him.

"Guh...Um, well, honestly I haven't tried since Italy, so much of me got blown off then, well...with my Wife dead, it hasn't been the same. Alright!" he finally managed to reply, snapping at her. He kept trying and failing to not notice her physical beauty every time he saw her, that much was true. What he wouldn't admit was that he was drawn to the natural allure of the woman like a Moth to a candle-and he wasn't helped by the fact she seemed to pick him to talk to a lot of the time. Why she chose a wreck like him with a choice of anyone at her beck and call, he'd never know.

"Fair enough. You should drop your pants and try, though, I can recommend half a dozen women off-hand who'd take you in heartbeat, with the scars especially. Hey, I'd give you a roll in the hay if I didn't want Serena a lot more. Lesbian, if your wondering" Slade said, referring to herself he knew given Serena's well known long-term romantic relationship with Chris Redfield. Slade's rich bedroom voice had him tingling from head to toe just from hearing her speak, no matter what she said, every time.

Serena and Jill Valentine had almost ended up literally fighting over that man before he'd been killed in Egypt, but had instead decided on a truly bizarre solution. They'd shared him like he was a book or something, occasionally both at the same time. Rumours there was more to it than that, accounting for why Serena had often seemed uncharacteristically upset when Jill had been hurt or in real danger over the year they'd known each other for, were most likely just rumours, Sam knew. Serena would try anything once, sure, but women just weren't her type that way, even if something had happened for whatever reason. He was sure because Isis, unbelievable, unimaginable, better than perfect and hotter than Hell Isis, had tried her luck with Serena when he'd been present. Serena had actually slapped Isis and told her face-to-face to get her kicks elsewhere. He'd thought there would be murder, but Isis had just laughed and said she admired the Assassin's spirit.

"Take it from me, don't go after that woman or she'll break even you. What's up, anyway? Its not as though you want to have a heart-to-heart with me all the time, so I presume there's something you want to say?" asked Sam, raising an eyebrow. He'd guessed she was Gay soon after getting to meet her properly, he'd met plenty of people in his time and knew all of the signs. That and the fact she'd appeared to be trying to memorise Jill Valentine's physique when they'd been comparing notes prior to the attack had been all the hint he'd needed.

"Want to see me naked? No, that's not it, even though you can if you want. No, actually I need rank on the ground floor with me, right now. I have a big problem and you need to see what it is. Bring your guns" she said, looking at him in a way which told him she was being deadly serious, which meant serious trouble.

He was utterly exhausted and even worse, but he was never that tired. This also explained why she'd come looking for him, she trusted him like he trusted her. Neither of them knew quite why, but it was unquestioning. He checked his weapons and gear, then straightened up and grinned like an idiot, shifting his scarred face around hideously he was well aware. Slade just smiled.

"Lead on, Macduff" he declared, chuckling as her smile broadened. She led the way as asked, that same liquid, sinuous grace she'd always possessed making her mere movements a pleasure to watch. He didn't miss the little wiggle of her backside at him, either.

Umbrella Headquarters roof area and helicopter deck

"Jill, I swear to whoever or whatever is actually out there as a devout Agnostic that this-will-work. Will you listen to me, woman? Matt was infected with an HEV virus himself and a stronger version of the same weak Vaccine John has now cured him, completely. It will stop you from ending up as an HEV yourself, that I'll swear to on everything I love. If you keep refusing to let them help you just because you don't want to take the risk your committing Suicide, anyway, so expect no sympathy" said Serena Baccarin, kneeling down in front of the collapsed Jill Valentine. All Jill could do was helplessly glare back up at her.

Jill was as good as dead and she clearly knew it. She could no longer even move, let alone stand up. Pink foam was appearing around her mouth, indicating a punctured lung to anyone who had medical training, while blood was now running steadily from both nostrils and her mouth. She was lying in a slowly-spreading pool of blood her bandages could no longer contain, while a lethally large loss of blood was being concealed by the heavy rain washing down and away the true extent of her injuries, inside and out. Her hands were clenched into fists as she fought unimaginable pain from the inside out, but bloodshot eyes added to constant shivering and shaking that alternately made her whole body shift involuntarily told the whole story. She was dying, as good as dead, gone in moments not minutes-and Serena knew it. But she wouldn't give in, which was driving Serena to new levels of desperation-Jill suddenly blinked, twice, quickly, then kept here eyes shut.

Serena could have jumped for joy and danced around the roof like a lunatic for an hour. That was a signal she and Jill had decided on if they were unable to speak to one another for some reason. It simply meant: "Help me". Jill didn't want to die after all... Serena sagged, then just turned and said "Yes" to Jianna.

Jianna nodded, then, with no evident sign of discomfort, bit her own right wrist open down to the bone. Hauling Jill's head back, despite those watching's evident disgust, she forced Jill's mouth to close on the wound, the S.T.A.R.S. officer gagging, then swallowing as she had no choice. John started to count-

Jill's eyes shot open and she almost bolted upright, clawing at her throat and chest. Jianna caught her and held her like she was a child, Jill's struggles nothing to her, her wounded wrist already half-healed. Jill kicked and shook herself wildly, fighting like a wildcat to get loose. Suddenly, she started screaming.

"FIRE! I'M BURNING INSIDE! MY SKINS ON FIRE! MY EYES ARE MELTING-!" she shrieked, Jianna and John ignoring her even as everyone but Serena started backwards.

"Done!" snapped John suddenly, ramming the syringe into Jill's jugular vein and emptying the entire contents straight into her bloodstream. Jill howled like a wounded wolf at the sky as blood ran down her neck-then it stopped and she collapsed, boneless, into Jianna's waiting arms, Jianna's wrist already completely healed. When Jill came to, slowly shaking her head to clear it and blinking her eyes, the first person she laid eyes on was Serena.

"You bitch" said Jill, with feeling, even as she lifted a hand to gingerly check her chest. Serena just smirked as Jill looked increasingly astonished-and pleased-to see that she really was completely healed.

"If that's what it takes to save your life..." replied Serena, letting her voice trail off even as Jill experimentally stood up. John pulled a knife from somewhere and Jill quickly used it to cut away the bandages, revealing a lot more skin than almost any man on the roof was used to seeing from her, not that she cared. The skin was unbroken, the bones knitted, only bloodstains and torn bits of her S.T.A.R.S. uniform remained, now so shredded anyone who looked closely enough didn't need to guess at whether she was all natural. Jill reached up and wiped the blood away from her mouth, taking it slowly-then she swayed a moment before steadying herself. Jianna caught her easily.

"Slow and steady, Jill, slow and steady. My blood healed your injuries and replenished your vital fluids by stimulating your vital organs before John counteracted it, but you've still lost far too much blood. When we get back to the USA, you need to get a full Check-Up done in Hospital first. Okay?" said Jianna, her unusually gentle attitude to Jill making people stare at her. She didn't care, she was doing this for Serena, the only real and true friend she had. That was what mattered, after everything that was all that mattered.

Jill nodded and steadied herself before managing a slow smile. "Sorry to say this, but I never thought I'd owe my life to a BOW you know..." she said, slowly.

"I know the feeling..." replied Jianna, her expression unreadable for a long moment as something flashed in her eyes at the comment. Only Serena had any idea what she was talking about, although she knew John could make an educated guess. Wisely, the man didn't even attempt to look at her.

Umbrella Headquarters, main lobby

"What am I looking at?" asked Sam, not at all sure what was going on or even why he was where he was. It wasn't as though there was anything left upright and moving in the building that shouldn't have been or that wasn't friendly and under guard. The main lobby, all six floors of it, was drenched in blood, gore, body parts and even whole Corpses all scattered around as though a cemetery had been dug up by a hurricane before being thrown through a threshing machine. Thick blood still dripped from balconies, walls and ceilings, even pooling on floors. Glass balcony windows and concrete walls were battered and damaged everywhere with bullet holes, massive gouges and dents caused by explosives and BOW attacks often so massive that a man could loose a hand in them. It looked like a scene from Dante's Inferno to Sam, still-which told him nothing at all about why he was here, still.

He looked around for a moment, to see if he was missing anything. They were on the second floor of the building, standing on an extended balcony which stood out from the main walkway which encircled the entire inside of the building, five more of the balconies extending out at equal distances from the walkway spread out around the whole structure, the positioning varying so none of them were interfered with the high or low views available from the others at any point. Four huge thick marble pillars rose the height of the building from the centre in a circle, right up to the roof where they supported the metal and glass structure maintained above that formed two-thirds of the roof area.

The main entrance doors were thick glass and metal joined with heavy hinges, all designed to prevent anyone quickly kicking their way past, while a Reception desk of heavy, dark wood sat near the doors, the dead body of a young blonde female Secretary being spread across it in a pool of her own blood. The main Security station was by the pillars towards the centre of the building on the ground floor, inside of which a formidable arsenal was held in a secured Armoury. Security sub-stations existed on every level, every office holding at least twenty men while the main station held forty, a hundred and forty armed men trained to kill when necessary or Ordered always being present in the building.

Every single one of those men was dead, as were the fifty-odd USF soldiers Umbrella had managed to gather in a last-ditch effort at defence and the whole UBCS squad which had been guarding Spencer in person, the intent having been to evacuate him to a helicopter on the roof deck and away once the attack began so that they couldn't shoot him down. No-one had thought to put Motion Detectors on the roof that operated on the backup generators once started if main power was cut out, which had left the Umbrella agents on the roof facing a very nasty surprise when Song Ma Han, Isis, Slade, Serena and an entire SOC squad backed by half of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. had ridden in on the roof from adjoining rooftops using powered grips on pressure-launched rappel lines fired right into the buildings side. The attack had come from above and below at the same time, there had been no escape.

Every level was filled with shattered and shot-up offices, laboratories, physical remains of all descriptions which lay everywhere in a maze of hallways, computer rooms and server rooms where access to the Master Computer system was possible for very senior Umbrella staff. A sub-level that didn't officially exist contained the really nasty stuff, human experiments, autopsies of living people as the Virus changed them to study its effects, animals of all sizes, shapes and descriptions mutilated, surgically altered or just trapped somewhere between life and death, all driven utterly insane by pain. That sub-level had also contained all of the real information on its experiments and research that Umbrella had been forced to maintain in written form only to prevent anyone from even possibly Hacking its data.

It had had the best wads of large notes with very large numbers on them could buy, but the really skilful Hackers wouldn't work for anyone and Umbrella had know it. It had waged a secret War against anyone who attempted to Hack its systems, in fact, the data the SOC now had would help clear up over a hundred mystery disappearances and deaths just to begin with, all over the world.

Uziman1, Sam recalled, had been a master Hacker who slipped badly enough to actually be captured by the authorities in the USA long before the War with Umbrella had really begun, he'd been freed by "President" Evan's in 2001 and been blackmailed into aiding the cause of the then-allies Umbrella and the corrupt US Government. He'd done a decent job-but had blindsided everyone in 2002 by breaching Umbrella's networks himself and putting their internal "most secret" files on the Internet for anyone who could crack the encryption to read. Horribly enough, despite his bizarre heroic turn given his record-criminal behaviour going back as far as the ability to use a computer did of escalating severity as he grew up-it hadn't been enough.

John had later confessed to being the cause of this action by the Hacker, but, after doing as asked and using his own computer skills to cover up his escape from Washington before going into deep cover, in hiding quite possibly for the rest of his life, he'd discovered that he couldn't stop anyone from tracking him down the old-fashioned way. Delphi had gone on-line and beaten Uziman1's programs and Viruses as though she was doing nothing more complicated than brushing her hair before wiping the information from the Internet and crashing the entire World Wide Web as a safety precaution. She'd then joined in the search for the scared and helpless Hacker, a search that had taken a week.

Sam had heard reports that they'd cut his fingers and toes off, plucked out his eyeballs one at a time so he could see what he was suffering for a little longer each, systematically mutilated every single part of his body, force-fed him his own flesh before he'd died and finished by cutting his arms and legs off before slowly toasting his still-living torso over a slow fire. He still hadn't been dead when they'd dragged what was left of him out into the desert, staked him out, covered him in his own blood then sat and waited for wild animals to arrive before settling in to watch him being eaten alive. They'd brought his eyes and bones back to Spencer as proof of his death, after DNA tests he'd accepted their story without hesitation. That had been six months ago, in theory it could all have been over then if Uziman-1 had been successful...

Soldiers didn't do things like that in the world Sam lived in, men and women didn't do things like that in the 21st century. To call the actions of the Forsaken barbaric and savage was inadequate in the extreme, they simply weren't human in his opinion. He didn't have the imagination or the vocabulary to even begin to describe them the way he really saw them...

He pulled his mind back to the present and took in the lush, thick carpets, ruined air conditioning, gleaming surfaces everywhere and expensive works of art on all the walls, most of them ruined at the very least. A huge glass arch of bullet proof glass sat over and around the main entrance, but it was split and cracked in a thousand places thanks to the extremely violent gunfight which had taken place when the SOC, S.T.A.R.S. and Alliance troops had forced entry against determined resistance using every means at their disposal.

Every room and every level, every single thing in the headquarters of Umbrella had received damage in greater or lesser amounts, the number of dead was at least two hundred, maybe two-fifty, while the injured-including theirs-was easily double that. If the headquarters building hadn't been effectively abandoned by most of the civilian staff before the attack, casualties could easily have reached into the high hundreds given the terrain and territory. Thankfully, Sam was very glad to note often, it hadn't all gone horribly wrong given the collapsing Umbrella's increasing inability to even control its own staff by the end. He made another note now, looking around and about at the huge building, the riches on display-the glass had all been kept so clean he could have shaved in it-and given the amount of blood spilled because people who'd had all of this had wanted more: crime did pay, but money really couldn't buy you happiness or love.

He was suddenly alert, as though something had set off his combat senses and locked his exhaustion away again to make him forget about it for a while. Only immediate, serious and real threats did that, he'd been a soldier long enough to know to trust his instincts. Then his tired eyes sharpened suddenly as he caught a glimpse of strange movements outside the main doors...

"You have got to be fucking kidding me..." he whispered as he made out the silhouette of a heavily-armed man moving slowly and carefully just outside the main doors. Then another, another and another...if it hadn't been for the on-off flashing of the Police lights it was quite possible he wouldn't have spotted them at all. He wouldn't have anyway if Slade hadn't tipped him off that there was something there to see, he was sure.

"Soldiers, one's with big guns who know how to move without being seen in an urban environment who've been able to get that close to the building without setting off the alarm even up against everyone here now. I'd guess French Special Forces here to kill quick and clean with the Foreign Legion right behind them as muscle and a sharp edge to cut things off and up with. They might or might not be backed up by whatever passes for a French SWAT team covering all the entrances and exits, too. If their determined to do this they'll come at us from every side, above and below all at the same time if they can-and I'm sure they will. That means gunships for the roof followed by troop transports, they'll probably shell us to keep us away from the windows and outside walls before forcing an entrance. Disagree with anything?" asked Slade, leaning on her elbows as she stared down at the ghostly shapes moving around outside. He shook his head, so she continued.

"Half of our people are wounded and cannot be relied on. The remainder are all physically and psychologically exhausted, barely capable of combat at best with few exceptions. Ammunition is low, explosives are a last resort in a closed environment like this and the design of the structure makes it indefensible, simple fact. All we can do is fight a staged retreat to the roof and go down fighting or surrender if it comes to that, if you want French Intelligence to get its hands on you after your "Suicided" that is. There is no chance of escape, we are over five thousand miles from home deep behind enemy lines and any attempt at breakout will result in our termination as result of overwhelming odds and resources being deployed against us, again with very few exceptions. Again, do you disagree?" continued Slade. All Sam could do was shake his head again, so she went on.

"This building contains hard written and computerised data complied by Umbrella concerning work on the T-Virus, G-Virus, Achilles Virus and the Pandora Virus. What they have here will also document absolutely everything they know about the Source, which is serious enough by itself to warrant considering detonating a Nuke inside this building to make sure they can't get any of it. Problem: the building has no power so the Self-Destruct can't be armed, let alone detonated, on top of which when the attack comes anyone deployed to guard the basement labs will be cut off and shot down in seconds, it's a suicide run. We have twenty moderately healthy SOC personnel at our disposal including you and Matt Ryan, fifteen S.T.A.R.S. officers and ten Alliance Special Forces Commandos. They will have to guard and secure the entire building along with twenty SOC wounded, nine S.T.A.R.S. wounded and ten Alliance wounded, not even considering Umbrella personnel healthy and wounded. For random factors, there are six individuals whose actions and impact cannot be anticipated: me, Serena, Jianna, Giselle, Isis and Song-although Isis and Song are out there in Paris somewhere, "preoccupied". I'm not going to ask you to do the math, the fact is I think were screwed short of divine intervention. You?" asked Slade, concluding her analysis of the situation. Sam stared at her, shook his head and very nearly bowed. "I'm impressed, I'm in the presence of a woman who has never been in the military who could teach our people lessons about tactics and analysis. I have an idea, but do you have a plan?" he replied, turning back to stare at the clustering shadows near the main entrance. "Yes. Run like Hell. Failing that, kill them all and drop the building on the survivors with concussion bombs backed by incendiaries rigged throughout to make sure everything's smashed, broken, burned and ruined. Human life comes second to making sure nobody can get at what's in here, let alone remove it. Before you ask, no, there are no Booby Traps set up. Everyone was hit so hard just getting in here it's almost impossible to even think that far ahead. Believe me, I've tried and I'm doing better than most" said Slade. "I don't doubt it, but my idea is a little simpler and we'll live longer if its works. The whole ground area is still covered by infected blood and bodies, yes? So what happens if we make sure to only wound the first wave? Its concentrated stuff in here and I'm sure the French don't have a Vaccine for some reason..." said Sam, slowly. Slade just looked at him for a long moment, then she stepped in close and flung her arms around him before kissing him passionately on what was left of his lips. He knew the remains of his ruined skin felt like sandpaper with traces of marble-smooth flat areas and the occasional very rare still-soft section, even his tongue was burn-damaged, but no part of that slowed her down at all. He felt parts of him respond that he'd thought he didn't even have any longer, felt a kick inside his brain and chest that only came with the rush of pleasure a beautiful woman's body pressed against his own gave him. He wrapped his good arm around her tight, fingers pressing against hard muscle in her back and flank... After a long, long moment, she pulled back, her eyes twinkling. "I knew there was a reason I loved you, you evil bastard..." she whispered in his ear. Umbrella Headquarters, roof area and helicopter deck

Jianna Torres raised her head, frowning. She cocked her head to one side, listening for the strange noise she'd heard…yes, there it was again. Engine sounds, heavy but muffled as though something big was coming towards the Umbrella HQ, something which wasn't using the roads. She made out a second distinct engine noise, then a third. She'd done Black Book work for Intelligence Agencies who could afford her services before now, she knew what the sound she was hearing was long before the origins got close enough for even Serena's preternaturally good hearing to pick them up.

Helicopters were coming, straight towards the Umbrella HQ building riding through the streets of Paris at low altitude using high speed to make detection and accurate assessment of their position impossible or as near as they could. The SOC Commandos and Alliance troops left standing had weaponry to hand heavy enough to bring down most helicopters, so the likelihood of the French Military sending in troop transports alone for a full-frontal assault on the roof wasn't even worth considering. She could tell that one helicopter had a much heavier engine pull than the other two, which told her what she needed to know: two Gunships and a troop transport.

The French had finally lost their patience with Diplomatic channels and were unwilling to tolerate the "violation" of their sovereignty by the SOC, S.T.A.R.S. and Alliance troops in the Umbrella HQ since it was all taking place in Paris and was a problem the French should have been left to resolve-or some such, she supposed. It didn't matter now, all other options were too little, too late. She wished she'd taken a moment to track down some real clothes that fitted her before all of this got started, she was going to end up fighting naked at this rate...

Serena's head snapped up suddenly, even as she looked straight towards the direction the helicopters were coming from. "Does anyone else hear that?" she asked, loudly, even as everyone left standing and armed on the roof looked at her then out into the darkness caused by the cloudy, rain-darkened dawn.

"...Here they come..." said Jianna, slowly, flexing every part of her body to loosen up before it all got started. Only Serena heard her-but she started shouting a second later as Jianna's words sunk in...

Umbrella Headquarters, staff canteen

In the canteen, two men who had found a surprising source of camaraderie were sharing War stories while sipping their drinks, both almost too tired to even stay awake but determined not to simply pass out or fall asleep and let the nightmares back in. They'd both been swigging back drinks full of Caffeine almost non-stop since they'd helped in the final takedown of Umbrella Corporation the previous day, now they wanted nothing more than to rest and relax-but they were so wired that the younger man had joked their combined nervous energy could have lit up Manhattan for a day.

The older of the two men, by a few months, was a battered and scarred SOC Commando still in full gear, bar helmet and gauntlets, who was currently resting with his back against a wall while he sat on a table. Twenty-six years old, with a deep half-healed claw-slash across his entire left cheek still stitched together and a huge stab wound in his belly still tender two months later, the man had bright green eyes, distinctively red hair and the appearance of an outdoors man who liked a good book too, all part of a face that would have been blessed with a strikingly handsome profile if not for the deep and jagged scar that ruined it.

Physically solid rather than exceptional, he stood only 5,7 tall and had little in the way of real muscle compared to some gigantic soldiers who served in the SOC. No-one who had seen him fight doubted his skills, though, a sometimes awkward regret he'd once shown when forced to kill, even in self-defence, long since banished from his manner and his mind.

His name was Kenny Bailey, the computer genius employed by the SOC for when they needed one and as a soldier when they didn't. Two years of total War against Umbrella Corporation fighting against any and every kind of enemy, Mutant, monster and impossible creation Umbrella sent after them, being forced to deal with the impossible situation of fighting against an enemy who would target your friends, family and loved one's just to get at you first had changed him from a committed but almost reluctant patriot and soldier into a coolly professional killing machine.

His companion knew the feeling of no longer being the man you were better than almost anyone, of not being anything close to the man you'd hoped to become. The simple fact he was lying down flat on the plain wooden floor and wouldn't have blinked if someone asked him if he was uncomfortable said that just to begin with. Back in 1998, even as a rookie Police officer in the RCPD, he'd been used to his little creature comforts...

Twenty-six years old, 5,9 tall and physically compact in a way which concealed his actual considerable physical strength, his soft light brown hair and eyes only added to a smoothly handsome face that had somehow never quite lost its boyish charm any more than he'd lost the ever-present twinkle in his eye. His uniform was the S.T.A.R.S. standard with his own personal alterations, the short-sleeved shirt and long trousers were sky blue, the climbing boots dark brown, the S.T.A.R.S. insignia displayed on both shoulder pads while the main icon was concealed under the bullet proof vest he wore.

His name was Leon Kennedy-and he'd been fighting the War against Umbrella Corporation since the Racoon City disaster of 1998. Then a talented rookie in the RCPD newly recruited to help fill in the gaps left by the Suspended and disgraced S.T.A.R.S. Alpha and Bravo teams survivors, he'd found himself fighting his way through Hell, literally, on his first day on the job in Racoon City as he'd started almost immediately following the full severity of the Outbreak striking the city.

With no idea what was going on at all but determined to survive, fighting against Zombies, Mutants, monsters and much, much worse every step he took in all directions, he'd joined forces with Claire Redfield, sister of Chris-who was one of the disgraced S.T.A.R.S.-to survive and escape alive, along the way discovering several very ugly truths about the Umbrella Corporation and its activities. He and Claire had been picked up by S.T.A.R.S. officers who'd already joined up with the original team just outside the outskirts of the city after their escape, from then on it had been a short journey and an easy decision, physically and mentally, to join the fight himself.

Now he was a man worn down by life and loss who just wanted it all to stop, an individual who'd lost everything, including every dream he'd ever had. He knew he'd take years-if he even could-to sort through everything he'd been through, experienced and seen in his mind and come to some kind of peace with it. If, that was, he didn't either go insane or commit Suicide to get it all over and done with first.

His parents had been killed when the plane that was trying to fly the coalition against Umbrella's loved one's to safety in Russia had been shot down, with no survivors. He had no living relatives left that he knew of after Umbrella Assassins tore through them all trying to reach him and the S.T.A.R.S., succeeding in the end by getting to Chris Redfield before they were stopped.

He'd loved Ada Wong despite everything, but lost her, in every way that mattered, when she'd first betrayed and then been killed in front of him-apparently-in Racoon City before it was destroyed. Her later return from the dead had nearly finished him, but she hadn't been the woman he'd know-his brief, very secret meeting with her lover Giselle while the War was still on had only proved that when they'd compared notes. When two people as close to another as he and Giselle were to Ada put their heads together and came up with different answers, the likelihood of something being wrong stopped being a possibility. He knew that Giselle had finished the ruined Ada off in the end-he was glad, really, he still didn't believe he could have done it.

He and Claire Redfield had had an on-again off-again relationship of a sort, forged by experiencing such intense times together he strongly suspected, but it never would have lasted even if her big brother had approved-which he never had. After Chris's death Claire had thrown herself at him in every way, but he knew that it was only really a reaction to her grief. She'd looked at Victor O'Connor, an SOC Commando, in a way she'd never, ever looked at him.

Victor had died here, in Paris, fighting hand to hand against a Licker which had managed to impale him through his Body Armour-he'd dragged it in close dead on his feet with its tongue in both hands, rammed a knife deep into its head and set off a grenade with his hand rammed down its throat. There hadn't been enough left of either of them to collect up. What was left of Claire after the Omega Tyrant...wasn't something he wanted to think about.

He had, once and for all, lost everything-except maybe Jill Valentine, who was a sort-of friend at best. He'd lost absolutely everything and everyone, there was no "But". He didn't have even an idea where he was going next or even if there was a "next". Given time, if he lived that long, maybe he'd think of something... Until he did, he'd decided that he could stand sitting around and swapping War stories with Kenney Bailey, who was about the closest thing he had left to a real friend now. Their only common ground came from the fact they'd both fought in the War against Umbrella, though-just how twisted was that?

An enormous metallic bang suddenly sounded outside in the hallway, as though something massively heavy had fallen from some height to the ground and rolled. Leon was on his feet and out the door so fast he hadn't even blinked before he spotted a huge metal Umbrella sculpture-literally a huge painted umbrella that had been attached to the main lobby wall-rolling around on the ground on the floor level of the main lobby. He paused, glanced around-then he saw Slade and Sam crouched low, saw Slade raise a finger to her lips and point at the main entrance. He looked that way without hesitation, trusting Slade implicitly-and he glimpsed shadows of heavily armed figures moving fast past the glass doors to hide in shadows.

"Shit" he muttered, since it seemed an appropriate response and all that he could rationally think of right now. That could only have been one thing: the French, come to kill them all and take Umbrella's research and knowledge regardless of sanity or resistance. He barely even noticed Kenny coming running up behind him, still slotting his helmet into position.

Leon leaned on the balcony and just stared at the main doors, shaking his head slowly as the police lights outside almost imperceptibly moved a little further away from the doors. More S.T.A.R.S. officers and SOC Commandos came out behind Kenny and him-all of them, in fact, by Leon's count. He looked back at Slade and Sam, there was no way that bang had been coincidence if he knew the two of them at all-and he did.

Sam stood up and walked over to the men gathered on the second floor walkway, stared at every man to ensure he got their attention, then unslung his F1100 and silently made sure a bullet was in the chamber, the muzzle clear. Everyone there followed suit with their own weapons, including Leon with his M-18 and Glock 45. just in case. They all knew the drill, just as all of them hadn't made any noise at all. Then Sam spoke up, addressing all of them as Slade sauntered over as well.

"People, here is the situation. Standing here with me now are the defenders of the subbasement and lower levels of the Umbrella HQ against an immediately imminent breach assault by French Special Forces backed up by the Foreign Legion. Our force comprises eight SOC Commandos including myself, five S.T.A.R.S. including you, Leon, one Alliance Special Forces Commando and Slade. With this force we have to destroy the entire subbasement area of the Umbrella HQ before the French can enter or secure it, hold them back from the upper levels until our remainder forces up there can organise and assist our withdrawal and, quite simply, kill as many of the bastards as we can before they kill us while making sure that none of us are taken alive. Questions so far?" asked Sam. Nobody spoke, so he went on.

"There are two main entrances to this building and three secondary, not considering Emergency doors and access points external assault will give the attackers access too. These are indefensible, so we won't even attempt to hold them. What we will do is lay in a trap in the form of an ambush. Here is how" Sam said, before pausing to glance at the lobby area again.

"I want SOC and S.T.A.R.S. snipers on the second level in cover at vantage points, you are to fire without hesitation on any enemy target that you can positively identify. CQC agents lay in an explosive assault from point-blank range before engaging, cause as much mayhem as you can, kill as many as possible then make a fighting withdrawal up to the second level, where you will back up the Snipers. All others station yourselves in cover and engage as and when you can, but always aim for maximum damage and confusion while suffering minimum risk. Always remember that you are fighting guerrilla War here, we can't win directly against overwhelming numbers and force. In and out then withdraw quick, keep shooting and fighting until your dead or out of ammo, make a point of using grenades if you have any. Our tactics here are chaos, if they don't know what the Hells going on or where what's coming from we can make mincemeat out of them until they work it out. Remember that. Just two other things" said Sam, pausing in a way which made Leon's chest grow tight.

"First off, they'll use Flash bangs and White Light grenades to put us off-guard and down if they can, so be ready. Second...I need volunteers for the mission to destroy the subbasement, a minimum of three" said Sam, his voice cool, calm and collected, just like he appeared to be. They all knew that that was just for show, though. He was sending whoever went down there on a Suicide mission. There was no way they could rig the whole area and get out alive in the time they'd have against the opposition of attacking French soldiers.

"I'll go" said the Alliance soldier without hesitation, his grey body armour and heavy rifle gleaming dully in the dim light created by the dark dawn. Six and a half feet tall, heavily muscular with striking if almost strangely sharp features, he was a senior officer under Colonel John Davis's command. He was also an exceptionally capable soldier and one of the hardest men anyone in any of the coalitions forces had ever met. His name was Jaxon Sibali, Leon knew-and when he made a promise or took a mission, he always did what he'd set out to do, no matter what happened, how or when. As an Alliance officer he knew, better than anyone, just what had to be contained inside the walls of Umbrella's most secret places and labs. It was no surprise to anyone that he'd volunteer.

"I'll go" said Kenny Bailey, more than a little to the surprise of most of those there. He was regarded, with reason, as one of the men most likely to actually survive and succeed in any world that would come after Umbrella, which made such a choice surprising-but hardly bizarre. As one of the smartest men in the SOC he knew what was down there, while he had plenty of first-hand experience seeing what it could do. He wouldn't leave without seeing it all destroyed, ever.

"I'll go" Leon heard himself say. That caused more than a few eyebrows to shoot up, given just how much he'd been through and survived, given that he was unhurt, young and healthy-but none of them understood his reasoning, not really. Maybe this was Fate, one last effort to finish Umbrella off finally and forever, then he could rest in peace...

Umbrella Headquarters, Lord Spencer's Office

"There is something there..." muttered Giselle, standing by the shattered windows as the rain roared down in increasing strength. A rumble of thunder sounded nearby, almost drowning out the sound she'd caught the edge of-almost, but not quite. She caught it again and concentrated-yes, definitely a mechanical engine, getting close, getting very close...

"I hear it too, but do you really think that you should be standing by the window naked trying to see or work out what it is? Not that I'm complaining, mind..." said Matt, even as he pulled on and buttoned up his trousers. His wounds had stopped bleeding again, thankfully. What was even better was that he felt honestly relaxed, refreshed even, after longer than he wanted to think about wound up so tight inside that single more turn could have snapped his mind in half. He'd been operating on Hunter/Killer mode and nothing else for far too long...

"Are you saying you like my butt, Matt?" replied Giselle, with a real smile even as she ran the possibilities in her mind given the information available to her. The conclusions she came to were all one's she didn't like.

"Well...yeah-" Matt began, but she was distracted by a sudden flash of sheet lightning. Less than a split-second later, she was distracted by the sight of a big helicopter gunship even as the deafening roar of its engines nearly blasted in her eardrums, prop wash buffeting her backwards with massive physical force from barely ten feet away. She got one good look at the smirking pilot and gunner before she dived flat full out as fast as even her reflexes could manage. At her best she could better a computerised touch-trigger, it was that one fact that saved her life as the choppers big nose gun opened up with a sound like the gates of Hell being kicked open, repeatedly.

The entire window frame was blasted right out of the wall along with every single shard of glass still in it and literally thrown right across the room. Matt threw himself flat behind Spencer's desk even as the hail of shells vaporised the interior walls, tearing a three-foot wide gap in every surface they hit. She heard Matt yell, but all she could do was stay down and cover unless she wanted to be cut in half and blown to pieces all at the same time by the devastating attack pounding through the windows and walls. To finish off, the gunship did the one thing she'd hoped it wouldn't do-it fired a missile, point blank, right into the office.

The missile streaked right through the office, went on through the ragged open gash torn in the inner wall by the shellfire-then detonated against a more solid concrete interior wall. The backwash threw a wall of fire back into Spencer's office along with vicious fragments travelling at a velocity that would have made bone seem like butter, but none of the made contact with her body even as she lay down as low and close to the floor as possible, presenting the smallest target physically possible.

Even as the eruption occurred, the gunship was swinging up and away, heading fast for the roof. Giselle barely noted that fact, the entire office was on fire so she had immediately important issues to deal with. Even worse, Matt had almost certainly been carrying explosives with his gear, explosives which might just cook off under these conditions...

"GISELLE! You ALL RIGHT!" shouted an apparently unhurt Matt, slowly rising to his feet from behind the shattered remains of Spencer's desk. Miraculously enough, she could clearly see her Laptop on top of the remains of the desk. It was completely undamaged, despite everything. Apparently some higher power hadn't wanted Umbrella's sins to be forgotten after all, despite everything...

"Oh, perfect. I often take on helicopter gunships in the nude while unarmed in hostile territory behind enemy lines with no real hope of escape, Matt, I find it invigorating. Are YOU all right?" she called back, sure that he wouldn't miss the sarcasm. His slow response told her that he hadn't.

"One of those shells took a chunk out of my left arm, but I'll live. We have to get out of here, now. It's not just that the buildings on fire, where there's one like that there'll be more. They'll be hitting us from above and below as hard as they can, we have to get into action fast or it won't matter at all. Which way?" Matt shouted back, pulling on his battered vest and shirt while grabbing for his gear through the rising flames.

"DOWN. The main force is up on the roof, they can handle a gunship, probably even two. We have to make sure that no-one reaches the subbasement no matter what before we can destroy it" snapped Giselle, grabbing at her clothes and patting out small fires which had gotten started on them. They were so battered now they were barely worth bothering with-but that didn't mean she was going to strip a corpse and use dead women's clothes just yet. She had standards, even though she'd done it before in other places and times.

"Good reasoning. Go, go, GO!" shouted Matt as the flames suddenly roared up the walls towards the ceiling, engulfing the entire room as though Hell was rising to claim its own. He passed her his pistol even as they ran, along with what she suspected was his only spare clip for the weapon.

Umbrella Headquarters roof area and helicopter deck

Even as the first gunship came up and into sight from the side of the building, guns blazing the second it did, every gun on the roof was emptied in its direction. It was heavily armoured so only Alliance weaponry did any good, smashing holes in the cockpit windows and damaging the fuselage along with some systems, but it stayed in the air. Then Jianna Torres did two things.

First, she ripped an exhaust pipe of long, thin but strong steel right out of the roof, span it round in her hand like a throwing knife and then hurled it like a javelin straight at the cockpit. It penetrated armoured glass like it was thin paper and punched right through the pilots entire body without stopping before burying itself deep inside the hull of the gunship, which instantly started to swing from side to side before wallowing in the air like a beached whale, alarms going off inside the cockpit left and right even while the electronics died one after the other.

Then, even as the co-pilot reached for the Ejection handle, Jianna leapt twenty foot into the air and fifteen forwards from a standing start. Her sheer momentum drove her right through the cockpit glass into the cockpit proper-where a single blow punched the co-pilots heart right out of his chest into his seat and the wall behind him. The gunships power died completely and the two-ton wreck started to fall out of the sky like a boulder thrown from space, but Jianna didn't look the slightest bit concerned as she started to eat the remains of the pilot's heart on the way down. Only the sharpest-eyed soldiers on the roof spotted her jumping clear of the wreck a second before it impacted on the ground like a huge fuel bomb going off, a volcanic fireball rising twenty foot into the air as damaged and shorting electronics touched off the ruptured fuel tank.

"Wow. She really is crazy, isn't she?" said Jill Valentine, looking down at the exploding wreck with admiration as French Police scattered in a panic as ammunition cooked off and fired off in all directions.

"No. If she was crazy we'd all be dead, she just likes to make a statement-HERE THEY COME!" replied Serena Baccarin, as the second gunship flew straight overhead, fast, guns roaring, evidently having learnt from the first attack. Everyone but the wounded scattered left and right, ducking behind any form of cover available. The French attack was designed to scatter and disorganise them, which it did-it also managed to kill a large number of surviving Umbrella employees who were too stupid or too slow to get out of the way fast enough.

Ragged return fire followed the second gunship-then the heavier engine roar of the transporter sounded, directly overhead. The trooper was going for the direct approach. It came down right on top of them, literally, sending everyone scrambling madly all over again as it slammed down on the roof with a force that bent its undercarriage even as an awful howl of pain sounded when someone was too late getting out of the way. It took off again seconds after expelling its "cargo".

Thirty darkly-dressed French Special Forces soldiers leapt out of exit doors left and right firing hand-held crossbows, their specialist weapon of choice, at everything moving before drawing handguns and knives and charging the exhausted defenders to engage them in hand-to-hand combat. Screams of pain sounded, but Serena had no time to check whose as two soldiers came right at her following their failure to shoot her.

She blasted the nearest with her Sniper rifle point-blank, catapulting him over backwards with a bullet ripping out his brains, switched grips fast and wielded the rifle like a quarterstaff against her second attacker. He was fast, skilled and determined-she parried twice, slammed home a head butt that broke his nose, kicked him in the balls so hard his feet left the floor and tore out his windpipe with the blade of her hand before he could gasp. He was dead before he hit the floor.

She dropped the rifle and drew both her knives from forearm sheaths. She'd barely had time to throw on her gear and grab her weapons when they'd realised what they were facing, now she wondered if she'd live long enough for it to matter. A third Frenchman came at her as she rotated smoothly on the prowl, trying to ram a knife in her back-a back elbow punch snapped off just right left him breathing his own blood through a crushed windpipe, a flickered hack and slash of both knives saw his head roll away freely.

There's no such thing as overkill. You're either dead or your not.

Cain's words in training ran through her mind again. Always worth remembering, anything that man said or did, she knew.

To her left, John Davis, lightly armed and unarmoured, more than held his own against three Frenchmen simultaneously. She'd never seen the fighting style he was using, but his entire body was moving in a focused lightning-quick blur of strength and coordination she'd match against that of Giselle or Slade's any day, let alone her own. Every punch, kick and blow struck vital areas, nerve points, joints or fatal distractions such as eyes. John snapped three ribs into one's heart before dropping him on his back with a broken leg and arm, dead. He drove the lower jaw of the second up into his brain in such a way with such force that the man turned a full 360 degrees in midair before landing in an instant pool of his own blood already dead, then John broke every rib of the third before perfectly placed punches collapsed vital organs and the man collapsed dead, blood coating his face explosively from nose and mouth.

John's eyes were arctic-cold, his expression set and one of murder and mayhem, he looked as though he could and would go on all day without pause. She'd seen him fight before, even when so furiously angry he'd literally ripped a man to pieces with his bare hands, so she knew for a fact that he didn't fight like this. He would only fight with that level of cruelty in his style if he'd reached a state far, far beyond simply being "angry". Evidently, what had happened to the Alliance and his people on Earth since the start of the War with Umbrella had affected him far more than she'd realised. In these circumstances, she strongly suspected that that was a good thing.

She glanced around again to see the SOC Commandos holding their own, despite exhaustion and injury-after all they'd been through, she had no doubt at all that they weren't going to be taken down by mere French Special Forces-only the beleaguered S.T.A.R.S. were another matter. Not soldiers, not Military trained with few exceptions, often lacking in the sheer force of will necessary to survive in Military circles at this level, they simply didn't have-with very rare exceptions-the stone-cold killer instinct that could have gotten them through this. They were being torn to pieces even as she watched...

Then she saw Jill Valentine kill a French soldier with a flawless Leopard Punch that drove his nose into his brain-she was one of the S.T.A.R.S. exceptions, Chris Redfield and Barry Burton had been others-before two more French soldiers crash-tackled her and dragged her to the ground, fighting and struggling madly all the way.

Time slowed down. Serena saw Chris's face in her minds eye-the love of her life. She saw Jill-the Sister she'd never had. She remembered that time they'd had together, when things had become...complicated, briefly, before common sense had reasserted itself. She could still feel the soft, gentle warmth of Jill Valentines breath on her throat, their skin and bodies pressed together, sweat mingling...

...This can't happen...

Breathe out. Breathe in.

Confusion creates panic. Loss creates fear. Focus on the now and FIGHT.

"JILLLLLL!"

Umbrella Headquarters, subbasement area Jaxon Sibali lead Leon Kennedy and Kenny Bailey down into the subbasement of Umbrellas headquarters fast, sure-footed all the way and totally focused on the situation, the mission in hand. They got inside and down the steps before the French started moving, to Kenny's amazement, but once down they realised one immediate problem. They could rig this place to blow by sabotaging the electronics, gas and gear all around them in such a way that even the sparks caused by striking a match would blow the place to Hell, but that would take time. They could also simply set fire to the place, but that would take time as well. Best chance was to screw around with the power supply, overload the electronics and cause a self-contained explosion in the subbasement that would blast everything to Hell and then burn it all to the ground-but the main power was down because they'd blown the hard lines in their initial assault and then sabotaged the Emergency generators. The generators could be fixed, even if it was only a quick jury-rig job-but, again, it would take time. Time they simply DID-NOT-HAVE. Did they have a plan B? Well, they could try using what explosives they had left to mangle the foundation supports and collapse the entire subbasement before bringing the entire building down on top of it... Kenny's musings ended abruptly as he saw Jaxon take a six-inch wide centimetre thick sharp-edged grey disc from a black pouch set on the side of his body armour. He placed it in the centre of the room, pressed a black button that liquefied as he did it in the dead centre then stood back and watched. The disc started to rotate, then it rose a foot off of the floor and continued to rotate, starting to shrink as it did, rotating ever faster. "Portable hard target EMP generator, more simply a concentrated "burst and blast" grenade that throws out pressure designed to penetrate starship hulls before raising the temperature to 1,000 degrees centigrade and finishing with a vacuum crash that can turn a man inside out and warp adamantine when its drawn in fast and hard. Fifty-metre blast radius before you ask, concentrated on this centre point. It'll take out the entire subbasement and everything in it before leaving a void formed inside a concrete and steel ball a foot wide. Five minutes, it can't be deactivated except by Alliance agents. Better run..." said Jaxon, softly.

"Shit...you could have mentioned you had something like that..." muttered Kenny, already slowly backing away from the weapon. Leon was right beside him, although he had the sense to glance back behind them at the entrance to the subbasement just in case as they moved. Just because they hadn't heard anyone come into the building didn't mean they hadn't...

"Why spoil the surprise? Its my last word on the subject of explosives, anyway, with it gone I'm down to rifle, handgun, knife and my bare hands. Good thing I thought we might need it, though" replied Jaxon, marching past them both towards the entrance to the subbasement. "Now we just have to keep the French out until its too late-" he continued, just as all Hell broke loose outside.

Umbrella Headquarters, main lobby The French soldiers first in were elite Special Forces men, MP-5 semiautomatics held high and ready by some, others wielding AK-74's, Snipers rifles and a broad assortment of other weaponry. The damaged doors were kicked open and forced aside, dozens of soldiers flooding into the lobby in a dull thump of impact followed by the steady rumble of men in heavy boots moving fast across hard surfaces as soldiers raced in from every entrance. Foreign Legion soldiers came in next, armed to the teeth and looking ready to kill, their expressions studies of the brutal savagery men could sink to when they had almost tasted blood in a fight. To say the men were all surprised that they encountered no immediate resistance was akin to saying that they'd expected a boring cakewalk fighting to the death against battle-hardened elite Special Forces who'd been fighting the dirtiest War imaginable against the worst possible enemy for two years, men who had reached the point that they'd do anything at all to win. Some of the Foreign Legionaries were actually disappointed not to get shot immediately, but wary and alert officers barked sharp orders to remain alert and ready. There was no way that the Americans would have left the front door wide open... "Pardon, mes braves" called out a woman's voice from high above-a woman with the kind of voice that dragged a response from every part of a mans body whether he realised it or not. It was the kind of voice that spoke of sweaty, steamy sex, pleasure in forbidden ways and sultry possibilities that made the mind swim. Any man would have paid good money to just hear the woman speak, but the French soldiers had a job to do and they all found the target quickly. Most of them had to stop and stare. Standing easily atop the thin metal rail which ran across the top of the glass surrounding an extended balcony at the far end of the lobby from the main entrance, one of the most beautiful women any of the men there had ever seen stood high and tall demonstrating a phenomenal, liquid grace that made the impossible appear easy, even casual. Her dark eyes and hair shone even in the dull light barely provided by clouded morning sun, light blocked out by storm clouds and thick building walls. Lustrously beautiful and sensual in appearance even standing still, her tight clothes and curves made men lower their weapons just to get a better look at her. For a long, long moment, despite her evident weapons-knives being evident all over her body-no one even considered that she might just be a distraction. That was before she pulled her mask up over the lower half of her face and suddenly, horrifyingly, a wickedly bright lightning flash showed them the massive bloodstains all over her arms and legs, traces of more on her body and face. Without a moments pause longer, she made a Swan Dive off of the second floor balcony towards them, the sheer flawless ease of the manoeuvre making men's jaws drop, a second before they were hit from all sides. Snipers fired into packed ranks from four different directions, a rapid fulisade dropping men fast with headshots and heart shots with tore right through body armour with armour-piercing rounds. Men came out of dark corners and hurled grenades before diving for cover, massive detonations erupting everywhere flinging bodies and body fragments in all directions. More men appeared and opened fire point-blank with automatic weapons, firing at knee or head height to get around inconvenient body armour. The French were hit from all sides at once as men died, blood sprayed and explosive detonations threw them in all directions, but they were highly trained professionals and they didn't break. Immediately regrouping and fighting on back to back, they dropped visors over their eyes and threw out Flash bang grenades which detonated with a blinding flash of white lightning that could blind people for minutes easily. Safe behind their visors, they targeted anyone moving wearing the wrong uniform or gear and opened fire, quick and accurate shooting immediately dropping an SOC Commando as his battered body armour gave up on him, bullets ripping into his chest. SOC and S.T.A.R.S. operatives charged into CQC situations to remove the French soldiers weaponry advantage as fast as they could, even though they had no hope of easily dealing with the simple fact of massive numerical superiority. Slade landed on her feet, rolled smoothly and came up with knives in each hand, killing two men even as she stood up. A quick kick snapped a leg, a snapped slash resulted in a Frenchman loosing his hand, a Nerve Strike left a man paralysed from the neck down and a quick but brutal exchange of blows left another man on the floor with a broken neck, a major artery in his groin severed as blood pumped out. Finding herself without an opponent temporarily, she wheeled around, weapons ready, taking in everything. The S.T.A.R.S were fighting brutally and hard but with little real skill, while the SOC were fighting like the trained killers they were and were threatening to do real damage. It didn't change the fact that, even with the aid of the Snipers firing into the brutal battle, only she was doing anything like enough damage to matter. Even as she watched two more SOC Commandos went down, one, having had his helmet torn off, dying with a caved-in skull delivered by rifle butts even as he bit out a Frenchman's throat in a final act of defiant savagery while the second took a hand-held crossbow bolt through the eye as a weakness in his armour was displayed. A S.T.A.R.S. officer went down with a chest full of blood as his entire torso was cut open by knife-wielding Foreign Legionaries. At least seventy men had come charging into the lobby in the first place, their attack had taken down maybe fifteen, at best twenty. It wasn't enough, not with only eleven soldiers left standing against them and most of those exhausted... She stabbed a Frenchman in the neck, ripping out his jugular, severed the tendons in the back of the knees of another before breaking his back and pulping his kidneys with a vicious kick. A man with real skill came at her wielding two short swords, of all things. They both ducked, dodged, parried and struck, sparks flying in the darkness-before she caught him across the face with a whip-quick slash he failed to anticipate, one that almost cut his lower jaw off. He dropped his swords in mortal agony, making an awful weird squealing sound that would have been a scream if his lower jaw hadn't been hanging off loose-she stabbed him in the brain through the soft pallet behind the teeth. He died without another sound, the least she could do. A bullet creased her left upper arm from behind, drawing blood and causing her real pain. She span-to see Jaxon Sibali pop the shooters head like it was an overripe melon, his huge hands and heavy muscles easily accomplishing the task. He took in her expression, what he could see of it anyway, nodded sharply upstairs twice and took his own advice, Leon Kennedy and Kenny Bailey so close on his heels they were practically falling over each other and him. She took the hint, took a long rolling leap under the vicious melee that easily put her clear and ran for her life, passing all three men in seconds as her long-legged sprint powered her up the stairs. Every S.T.A.R.S. and SOC soldier who saw them broke off and ran too, everyone realising abruptly something was about to happen even as the French soldiers shot at and ran after them in a blood-fuelled fury. Another S.T.A.R.S. officer collapsed from a massive wound in his side as they ran, an SOC Commando cradled a broken arm-the bomb went off. Everything went away for a while. Slade would later only recall a massive, horrendously powerful wave of pressure blasting outwards from the subbasement all of a sudden before everything electronic on the ground floor literally exploded, glass and metal parts coming down like hail. A flash of unimaginable heat slagged metal everywhere and scalded everyone touching it, just before the building itself seemed to lurch as men were dragged screaming across the floor towards the subbasement, one even being sucked down inside, everyone who was conscious grabbing desperately onto anything solid enough to still be standing. The air itself almost vibrated with a massive concussive force, just before it was literally ripped out of everyone's lungs by a devastating vacuum. Not one person fully withstood the awful combined impact of the bomb detonating, even Jaxon being knocked unconscious as he failed to reach his minimum safe distance. It didn't matter, he knew for certain that he was far enough away, now all he had to do-all they had to do-was survive. Umbrella Headquarters, roof area and helicopter deck The explosion almost gutted and toppled the entire building in a single massive blast, shaking the entire structure from the very base of its foundations all the way to the very edge of its roof. The building physically shifted, trembling like it was being hit by an earthquake so hard that people fell everywhere, some falling to their deaths right off of the roof with awful shouts and screams of fear following them down. John Davis and Serena Baccarin were among only five people left standing when the building shifted. Serena's centre of balance was utterly solid, she was well used to dealing with any number of situations where the wrong move or even a deep breath at the wrong time could kill you. John was a highly experienced veteran soldier who had experienced combat conditions on land, sea, in the air-and in space, from zero-gee pitched battles to full-scale stellar combat between Man O' War Heavy War Cruisers in fleet formation. He'd been a soldier for longer than Serena had been alive and fought every opponent imaginable in every situation possible in and on terrain people on Earth didn't have the imagination or the nightmares dark enough to even try to comprehend. He hadn't seen or done anything close to everything it was possible to see and do, nor was he arrogant enough to suggest he had, but he was the most experienced soldier left in the Alliance force assigned to the Sol system on or off-planet. He didn't make rookie mistakes like falling over on the job-nor did he make mistakes about things like just what kind of weapon had just been deployed in a building he was in. The word he bellowed was not one anyone on Earth would have recognised, but it made every Alliance soldier turn pale with shock. There was only one thing John Davis didn't ever do any more than he never drank-a strict rule he had which had been badly slipping of late-he never, ever swore, especially not using language like that. "JAXON SIBALI! I'm going to KILL you, you IDIOT!" roared John, the deafening roar of his voice literally throwing his fury across the rooftop in an almost solid wave. Serena's eyes shot up at just the words, she knew enough about Alliance organisation and Military structure to be well aware that Jaxon Sibali was John's second in command following the death or serious injury of every senior officer. More to the point, she knew that John trusted Jaxon with his life and respected him as a truly professional soldier. What on Earth-or off of it-could Jaxon have done to warrant this kind of outburst? John shot the nearest French soldier in the head even as he slowly lurched to his knees, starting to shake off the devastating impact of the bomb going off. The shot blasted the man backwards, sending him crashing past and through several of his comrades in arms, blood and brains mixed with bits of skull splattering everywhere. Then he looked around him at everyone once, his eyes cold as death itself. "Let me be VERY CLEAR on something here. My name is John Davis, I am a Colonel in the Alliance force on Earth and currently the commanding officer. This weapon I am holding is also Alliance-origin, your weapons and armour are nothing to it and I have plenty of shots left. Most importantly, I am PISSED AS HELL, so I am only going to say this ONCE. IS. THAT. CLEAR!" roared John, so loudly Serena suspected that he could be heard in central Paris. Not one person moved, all of them staring at John, not sure what to say or do next. "The next Frenchman who moves gets bullets in both eyes. The one after that looses his sex drive forever. The one after that discovers life without his hands. The next without his feet. Therefore, DO NOT move, ANYONE. Am I making myself CLEAR!" bellowed John, his smoking pistol right beside his face for reference and in warning. Everyone on the roof took one look at the expression on his face, at the look in his eyes-and failed to even breathe loudly. John surveyed the suddenly still and silent roof once, twice, then turned to Serena. "Serena, that blast came from the main lobby area and the subbasement. It was caused by an Alliance-design folding bomb, a personnel-scale heavy Demolition Charge to you. The only people who have one are me and Jaxon, orders were that if the worst came to the worst we would deploy both, one in the subbasement one on the roof, to collapse and utterly destroy the building. I was very clear that the weapon was only to be deployed on my order, since the entire structure of the building has now been compromised. Since Jaxon clearly has no respect for my authority, will you kindly go down there and teach him it by kicking the shit out of him and then bringing him up here? Thank you" said John, looking so angry his stare could have melted steel as he waved her away. She didn't wait for him to say or do anything else. She didn't take orders from him, but she wasn't sure what would happen right now if she pointed that out... Umbrella Headquarters, main lobby "Oh SHIT-!" was all Matt Ryan had time to say when he heard the lethal thump of a bomb going off far below, just before the entire building started to shift. He'd been a soldier for too long not to recognise the difference in sound and impact when anti-personnel weapons went off as opposed to the kind designed to bring down buildings... He thought for a long, terrible moment that the entire building was going over after the Alliance bomb went off. He would later swear that his heart actually stopped for those few seconds before it became clear that the collapse wasn't going to happen, when it started again racing at least ten times normal speed, so fast it hurt. It was all he could do to stay upright, what he saw when he stared down into the main lobby almost made him collapse in shock. The entire lobby, already bloody and shattered with blast and bullet holes and other damage along with scattered dead bodies drenched in blood everywhere, looked like a scene from a Stephen King novel after the monster finally showed up. Bodies were contorted in impossible positions, evidence of hideous pain obvious in silent howls and death screams as mouths opened so far that cheeks tore and lungs exploded, blood drenching the floor even as broken bones and torn muscles wrapped peoples limbs around and around them like demented snakes. Men's bowels had let go as they lost control of their own bodies, creating a hideous stench, while agonised soldiers had tried to drive the pain away by slamming their heads into floors and walls until their skulls fractured and collapsed, blood and brains lying around everywhere in a thick, bloody soup of blood, brains and bone. The scene would have made the dead have nightmares, it made Matt turn aside sharply and throw up to the side of the stairs. Then again, again and again... He felt a gentle hand on his back as the spell passed, smelt smoke-sensed just how close together their bodies were despite their clothes. Giselle's hand ruffled his hair, then pulled him round to face her. She didn't seem any the worse for wear, but he could see the disquiet in her eyes. Of course, she'd seen sights like this when she was barely even old enough to begin to understand what they were and meant. She had over twenty-five years of experience dealing with sights just like this one... He looked around at her, taking in the singed hair, scorched, torn-up clothes and bloodstains covering her entire body. She was utterly filthy, having not washed and barely changed for a whole week, she wasn't wearing even a trace of makeup. She was hiding it well, but he knew from her body language and the way she'd talked that she was easily just as exhausted as he was. They were both half-dead on their feet-and he'd never been more glad to see anyone, in the same way that he was suddenly very tempted to kiss her to remind himself that she was really there. He didn't, though. "If it looks bad from here, it'll be worse down there. Bear in mind that the French won't have Vaccines so watch out for Mutants and Zombies. Shall we?" said Giselle, raising an eyebrow as she gestured for him to lead the way. They abruptly heard the sound of a door opening and closing far above-Matt glanced up and saw a shadow of deeper darkness racing through the shadows towards the stairs. "Serena, they must have handled the mess on the roof, but I'd have expected John too. Something else is going on, we need to get down there first" said Giselle. Matt just nodded and took off at a jog, quickly covering the rest of the distance to the ground floor. However, he stopped on the second floor when they found shaken SOC and S.T.A.R.S. snipers barely able to move and made sure that they were all right before racing on to the main lobby ground floor. On the stairs to the ground floor he found Slade, Jaxon Sibali, Kenny Bailey and Leon Kennedy barely conscious-but, impossibly as ever, Slade was already on her feet, if barely. She was hardly able to hold her balance and could only just walk, but she was upright, aware and looked as angry as he'd ever seen her-which probably accounted for why she had a knife to the right eyeball of Jaxon. He and Giselle arrived only just in time to hear the end part of what she was saying to Jaxon, but Matt didn't like what he did hear. "-dead I will come back here and pop your eyes like the sacks of jelly they are before I slice off your balls and shove them down your throat. I'd pray if you believe in anything at all, you piece of shit" snarled Slade, before slowly and carefully walking away towards the ground floor area. "She must be as hard as rocks to be on her feet after that hit" said Giselle, admiringly, as Slade walked among the downed soldiers on the ground floor, evidently looking for one in particular. She was still wearing her mask so it was impossible to properly see her expression, which made it a very bad idea to try and even guess at what was going through her mind in Matt's opinion. Of course, it was a bad idea to make a guess at what that woman was thinking at the best of times, so he'd resolved not to try as far as he could. It didn't the change the fact that she was even more resilient than the massive Jaxon Sibali considering the man in question still wasn't really moving five minutes after the blast went off, something he would have thought was simply impossible. To him, it just reinforced the fact that he was sure Isis had truly exquisite taste where people like her were concerned, those impossible, remarkable individuals who casually made the impossible easy and lived to tell about it. He wondered how she'd react when he finally got around to asking her to join the SOC as an exceptional Agent... Giselle crouched down beside Jaxon, then reached out and casually, sharply slapped him several times, continuing until his eyes focused and he glared at her, his muscles slowly clenching and unclenching as he regained his strength and coordination. She didn't even blink at the look he shot her, instead nodding for Matt to join her. "What did you do, Jaxon? I know Alliance technology when I see it and none of ours were carrying anything that would do this anyway" asked Giselle, her mask back in place. Matt just played along and glared at Jaxon, who was trying and failing to sit up slowly. "Alliance-issue demolition charge, designed to bring the building down or wreck it depending on selected strength... We couldn't have stopped them, the others just wouldn't admit it. I had to do it. We need to get out of here..." said Jaxon slowly in reply, having to pause occasionally to breathe in deeply and get his lungs working properly again. "We know that, idiot, but it wasn't your call or your decision. If you'd brought the entire building down you'd have killed every single one of us, including your own CO and every surviving Alliance soldier in the Strike Team. With all of us gone Umbrella would have won the War even in utter defeat, you are or should be well aware that there are stashes and archives of Umbrella research and work hidden all over the world we haven't even started to track down yet we know for a fact exist. We haven't left hard copies of everything we know or suspect anywhere on or off of Earth, remember? If everyone was dead some day, somewhere, a new fool or several with more money than sense would trip over one of those secrets and all of this would begin again. Forty million people would have died for nothing, brave men and women would have lost everything for nothing, the most powerful country on the planet would have been crippled and as good as destroyed for nothing, the Alliance presence on Earth would have been effectively erased, for nothing... You tell me, would that have made you just incompetent or, just perhaps, guilty of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity just to begin with?" asked Giselle, with no trace of humour in her voice or anywhere about her faces and eyes at all. Jaxon wouldn't meet Giselle's eyes, or Matt's. He wouldn't look at the carnage he'd caused. He finally managed to sit up, looked down at the floor and hissed "It had to be done..." before sharply looking up at Matt. "Do you agree, Matt? Do you think that I should have left the French to get hold of as much as they wanted of Umbrella's research and experiments? I know you have a plan to destroy the whole place anyway, but the slightest lead or pointer is too much to leave in anyone's hands where the damned Virus is concerned. I did what had to be done and I'd do it again, take that however you want" replied Jaxon, even as blood started to flow from his left nostril. "Stupid and arrogant, I think we'll leave you here until Serena can deal with you... Are any of the people down there still alive?" asked Giselle, barely controlling her temper. Even by the standards of some of the "Alpha Male" CIA Agents and Special Forces types she'd known back in the day, Jaxon Sibali truly had his head rammed right up his ass. Despite his impressive skills and massively extensive base of knowledge and experience, combat and otherwise-supposedly at least-he was Hell-bent on being right no matter what the consequences for anyone else, obviously. Well, he wasn't the first and he wouldn't be the last to learn the hard way that he was an idiot, a lesson Serena Baccarin would very capably teach him... "Yes, but they'll have suffered concussion injury. The best way to think of it as is dropping a slab of concrete on your chest while in a vacuum, then having a small bomb go off in your heart which floats shrapnel around in your bloodstream while pushing all of the air out of you. The "shrapnel" is oxygen, bubbles formed in your blood by heart palpitations when the vacuum short-circuits your autonomic system temporarily, too much concentrated in one place can stop your heart, kill your brain, burst arteries... You get the idea. You can flush it out with medical attention or over time, if your very lucky, but anyone hit by it won't be able to properly function until treated. That means "Yes", its not supposed to be used anywhere there are people you want to keep alive, by the way. This is an exceptional case, though, don't even bother trying to tell me otherwise again" said Jaxon, glaring at Giselle and Matt. "My respect for your abilities and belief in your sanity fall to new depths with every word so far. One last thing, then: if you can't even get up after being hit by this thing, you, the second toughest Alliance soldier I've ever met, how the Hell can she be standing up, let alone walking around? She might be tough, but she's 100 homegrown human. We ran everyone's DNA, did full blood tests and physical exams just a month ago and I saw the results, she was clean. Explain" said Matt, kneeling down to stare at Jaxon at his own eye level. Jaxon grimaced, evidently in pain, then shook his head. "I can't, I doubt a Doctor or a Surgeon could either. To be upright after being hit by a Folder blast defies every explanation of the effects I've ever heard or seen, scientific or otherwise. Its not possible, simple fact. I can only guess at this, therefore, but my explanation would be that her pain tolerance is off of any charts and she's a creature of true force of Will. She's overriding the physical impact of the Folder on her body and mind by willing herself to just get up and move-and it's working. Scary bitch, I've seen those things drop people twice my size by the dozen before now and none of them have gotten up, hardened Vets, real tough men. Hope you know what your doing with her..." he said softly, in a way which made Giselle and Matt pause just to stare at each other for a long moment. Did they know? No one but Isis really knew anything about Slade to the best of their knowledge. No matter how useful she was, maybe there was something they needed to know? To ask, perhaps? One of the main entrance doors splintered in a hundred places with a resounding crack, the sound of the blow echoing around the lobby even as the force seemed to shake the floor. A second strike threw the door completely clear of its hinges even as the entire tough frame and the reinforced glass contained in it shattered, being catapulted halfway across the lobby before it came to rest. Jianna Torres walked in, looking as perfectly flawless as ever despite fire-blackened clothes practically hanging off her in damaged shreds, glanced around and saw them. She looked around at the lobby proper, took in the sights, pinched the top of her nose and sighed. "Then, of course, there's her. I wondered what would happen there..." muttered Jaxon, quietly. Matt could have told him, or rather reminded him, that she would have heard every word if he'd whispered it, from outside the building in the middle of a traffic jam, but decided not to. The discomfort all Alliance soldiers displayed around Jianna, despite everything she'd done for them, was something odd, the origin of which John had refused to explain to him. Jianna had never fought against the Alliance or anything connected with it directly, unlike some of their now-allies, she hadn't even known it existed until she was rescued in that awful battle in Austria. What she was to the Alliance, though, seemed to warrant people going for weapons with little attempt at subtlety every time she looked at them the wrong way. One of these days he intended to get to the bottom of it, one way or another, but now was really not the time. "Did your pet idiot do this? Do you even know every Police officer and civilian within five hundred feet of this building just collapsed and a few exploded? Let me at him, I'm going to tie his arms and legs in knots attaching him to different parts of this building before I set fire to his testicles-" said Jianna, walking towards Jaxon and the others with that calm expression she always had on her face before she committed an atrocity or mass murder in a particularly gruesome style. Jaxon went chalk white, but Serena's abrupt arrival saved his life. The fact that she immediately punched him in the face did nothing to help matters, though. "Ignorant small-minded pathetic bastard, are you trying to win the War for Umbrella even after their defeat? In the name of Mercy, I've met thirty-year men who've worked for White Umbrella the whole time with more sense. I ought to sterilise you to stop stupidity breeding, you utter moron..." said Serena, even as she punched him in the face before kicking him in the ribs several times as he tried to feebly defend himself. "Be QUIET, ALL OF YOU!" roared a woman's voice, suddenly. Everyone looked around sharply-to see Slade, cradling a limp form in her arms whose chest was just barely rising and falling. She'd pulled her mask off of her face and, to no little astonishment where everyone but Jianna was concerned, a tear was clearly visible tracking its way down her left cheek. The man she was holding in her arms was Sam Johnson, who was drenched in blood from head to foot, bleeding badly from nose, mouth and ears and had a deep cut in his left upper arm. His eyes were shut and he looked pale, looking extremely unhealthy...in reality, Matt decided, he was borderline bleeding to death and going into shock. In his current state, even a nasty shock could kill him-and it was obvious Slade knew all of that, which accounted for her abrupt outburst. "If anyone's going to carve that man into steaks its going to be ME. I was down here with him when the bomb went off and he told NO ONE what was going to happen. I'm going to pull out his eyes, skin him alive then bone, gut and joint him while he's awake and screaming without even a touch of anaesthetic. If anyone objects, get in line or help" snapped Slade, even as Matt registered the fresh blood trickling down her left arm. She was wounded? That was a first. "Shush, I hear something" said Jianna abruptly, looking straight up at the skylights far above. Everyone froze, staring upwards-then a huge shadow fell across the glass before, with a shriek of torn and tortured steel and a howl of awful mechanical death-throes, the second gunships remains fell down on them, coming down right through the building... Umbrella Headquarters, roof area and helicopter deck Hardly anyone had shifted since he'd issued his warning bar Alliance soldiers-which was a good thing, because he was very serious about killing absolutely everyone on this roof who wasn't an ally if they so much as twitched towards a weapon. However, when he heard the noise, he knew it was all over no matter what else was going on. A second Military transporter helicopter containing French reinforcements was coming closer, despite the wind and storms, lightning cracking down almost the same time as thunder rolled all about them. They couldn't handle any more attackers, they'd simply be overwhelmed. He didn't have anyone left with a weapon capable of shooting down the helicopter, anyway. This was it... The surviving gunship flew into view again to back up the transporter, just in case, despite the difficulties in avoiding hitting its own men under the circumstances-he spotted something odd. The second transporters cargo doors were already open, someone was leaning out of one of them-a tiny dark object separated from a larger one the individual hanging from the second transporters door was holding with a sharp hiss he heard even above the noise. He knew what it was even before it hit the gunship-a SAM missile fired from a shoulder mount. The gunship exploded with a roar of red-black fireball fury, the explosion setting off some of its ammunition before the wrecked helicopter fell out of the sky like a boulder. It rolled over and over even as people on the roof scattered everywhere in a panic, before crashing onto the main roof and tearing through the skylights with a splintering crack and crash of shattered glass being thrown in all directions at high velocity, the massive impact blasting the shards and shrapnel everywhere as its ruined rotors still rotated slowly. It fell out of sight in seconds, seconds after that he heard an enormous explosion that made the entire building shake from top to bottom all over again-the tremors were much, much worse this time. They had little time left... The pilot of the first transporter evidently had an argument over the radio with the firsts, but prevailed and the first settled slowly to the helicopter deck near him. He caught a glimpse of the seconds pilot in a lightning bolt flash, smiled and waved as he spotted long curly hair and olive skin set around an easily breathtaking beauty. Isis waved back at him with a smile even as the surviving Alliance soldiers immediately moved to secure the landing helicopter. Finally, some good news... He was sure that Serena could pilot the transport, that wouldn't be a problem. Now it was just a matter of getting everyone left alive out of here now, before the collapsing building finally actually did and killed them all. He was going to have Jaxon Court-Martialed for this if it was the last thing he ever did as a senior Military officer in the Alliance... His tired mind finally reminded him that a number of the good guys were still in the main lobby of the building. His face went white. "NO!" Umbrella Headquarters, main lobby The movies never do show what really happens when a building is destroyed by an explosion. They don't show what happens to the people inside when the bomb which brings it all down goes off for a reason. Jianna Torres knew that better than anyone, but having a disintegrating wreck that used to be a helicopter gunship-which was still almost fully loaded with ammunition, missiles and fuel-coming down on her head, while she was inside a building...well, that was a new one even for her. In her line of "work" it was no boast to say that you'd seen and heard everything at some point. It didn't change the fact that they were all about to die. She was good with guns, explosives and anything attached to or connected with the two, she had to be, but that only helped her in one way now: it let her count the number of ways they were all going to be killed when the gunship, burning, exploding wreck that it was, finally blew up. She didn't have to say anything, everyone there knew what was going to happen the second they saw it. They were all professionals, after all. They all knew they had seconds at best before the thing blew up and incinerated them all-while she knew there was only one thing to do about it.

Everyone started to move really fast, not that it made any difference. Everyone ran, ducked for cover-except for Serena, who just smiled, Slade-and her. Slade had found the man she was looking for, Sam Johnston, who was just barely still alive-as usual. He looked as though he'd been slam-tackled by the Hand of God, misshapen parts of his body making it very clear that he had a number of broken bones, probably internal injuries-and, if she was any judge, a broken back. Even that indestructible soldier wasn't coming back from this...

She had no time at all, so she turned and punched the wall as hard as she could, her fist crashing right through with a shock of pain that cracked through her arm from knuckles to shoulder. She ignored it.

The wall was a foot thick, concrete and masonry-reinforced with a three-inch thick steel barrier on the inside that had stopped the building from being destroyed so far, despite everything. She had a different purpose for it in mind now, though.

She rabbit-punched the wall hard and fast, running along the side of the building, every blow splitting the inside wall. Within seconds she'd weakened a twenty-foot area, after which, already out of time, she slammed both hands into the wall flat-palmed and literally grabbed the steel plate while it was still inside the concrete-then she wrenched, hard, hoping she'd done enough damage, hoping she was right that Umbrella was as paranoid as she thought it was and believed steel stronger than stone. She was right, the entire wall buckled and the area she'd weakened gave way entirely, her hands straining to maintain her grip until the massive metal plate sheared off in the area she'd damaged and then some. She was left with a massive, if buckled and bent, area of steel a good twenty feet across and eight feet high. It would have to be enough... The others saw what she was doing and came running, those who could helping her prop it against the wall like a gigantic shield as they hid behind it in desperation, Leon Kennedy, barely mobile but desperately determined to live, being at the forefront by her right hand side. Matt and Giselle ran down to help Slade, who was being forced to simply drag the crippled Sam, her strength stolen by the injuries she'd received in the Folder detonation. Giselle half-carried half-helped Slade while Matt carried Sam in a fireman's lift and ran for his life- The gunship blew up like a gigantic bomb going off. Its fuel tank cooked off first, a sheet of liquid fire erupting right across the main floors and entire lobby area of the building, falling down like rain in Hell accompanied by razor-sharp shards of steel and glass that sliced flesh and bone like they were cutting into water scattering around the building like an artillery barrage. Huge chunks of aircraft followed, smashing human bodies flat as pancakes, pulping flesh and bone before they went on to shatter concrete flooring, screams of unimaginable pain and fear erupting as the crippled survivors outside of Jianna's rudimentary shield were boiled alive. The ammunition went off next, bullets scattering and screeching around everywhere, the sheer momentum and force blasting gaping holes in every surface they touched even as the shredded remains of the gunship continued to fall. Rockets detonated still on the wing, eruptions which drove Jianna and everyone else holding on in helpless desperation to their knees even as the concussive force of the massive blasts in such a close environment tried to simply smash and mash flat everything in the lobby of any substance. Windows and frames were blasted to oblivion, doors exploded and were smashed to matchsticks before simply disappearing in an awful flash of deadly heat and light. Masonry cracked, toppled and fell, stone and brick were physically blasted from their positions and throw a hundred metres away from the buildings outside wall as huge chunks of the structure itself were vaporised, furniture was swept up, thrown around, torn apart, shredded and scattered as though the inside of Umbrella HQ had been caught up in nuclear detonation at the centre of a hurricane. Needle point shards with diamond-hard forced edges forged of every material in the building slashed around and about, up and down and everywhere even as a monster fireball burst throughout the building, erupting into the sky through the shattered roof high above, blasting through every window and door and going on to flare outwards as though the entire building was a madman's Roman Candle. News channels would later report bits and pieces of the contents and structure of the Umbrella HQ falling miles away in every direction, people being literally thrown from their beds by a devastating shockwave which blasted down doors and shattered windows, a woman walking her dog first thing in the morning who woke up an hour later to find herself hanging upside down form a trees branches thirty feet up, completely naked as her clothes had been literally blown off her with a terrified dog clinging to a branch even higher up. It was stated that the blast woke up central France and that the ensuing fireball could be see in London. It was said that the French President couldn't speak for an hour after the blast, he was so shocked at what he'd seen. Jianna would, hours later, find all of this very entertaining, but, stuck in the middle of it with a half-collapsed shield, forced to her knees as the only person still standing in any sense of the word, only able to watch and smell the awful stench of burning flesh and the sickly-sweet scent of burning hair, her own, as the burning fuel got through the gaps and holes in their shield, she had other things on her mind. For one thing, her forearms and hands were literally on fire while her hair was smouldering. Worse, the heat was so great even she could barely breathe and to breathe deep enough, she knew, meant scalded lungs. In that situation, just about anyone was dead, if she couldn't cope no one could. The entire building was completely ablaze, from roof to ground, too. Finally, worst of all, even as a rending, screaming crash sounded which shook the whole building from top to bottom, announcing the final landing of the shredded remnants of the gunship, she felt every single continuing and growing tremble that reverberated throughout the entire structure. The whole building was coming down at last, right on top of them, there was no more to be said- She heard something and looked up, spied a Military transport helicopter hovering just above the roof. Maybe there was going to be a last word here... "HEAD FOR THE ROOF IF YOU CAN! THAT'S OUR WAY OUT OF HERE!" she bellowed as loudly as she could manage, which meant that she could easily have been heard outside the building and on the roof. She threw the entire shield away as though it was a gigantic Frisbee and took off at a dead run, bolting up collapsing stairways, diving and jumping across and over gaps and damaged areas as though she was out on an Olympics-class obstacle course straight from Hell. Her hair caught fire, the skin of her feet was coming off, what few clothes she had were ablaze and burning her body. She could feel her entire body literally cooking bit by bit, but pain was an old friend of hers and she simply thrust it aside for later. She reached the roof door in five minutes flat, only to find it half-melted, wedged shut and worse. Her whole body catching alight, her eyesight starting to fail, she shoulder-charged the door as hard as she could, taking the metal Fire Door and part of the doorframe completely clear of the main structure before she staggered to a halt, even her constitution reaching its limits as her senses started to shut down. It was literally everything she could do to spot the hovering helicopter before making a final death-defying run followed by a ten-foot leap that landed her squarely on the helicopters passenger deck. Agony wasn't a big enough word to describe the pain she was in as she felt her flesh literally boil off of her bones, her eyes starting to melt, the heat charring the inside of her throat and lungs, her mouth burning on the inside... She sensed blessed relief as Fire Extinguishers were abruptly blasted at her and all over her, but felt herself falling into the deep, dark redness of peace and healing, a healing Coma that her body only ever slipped into when it was at the very border of life and death and she had to make a choice. Even the Omega Tyrant hadn't been this bad, so it was really a simple choice. She gratefully fell into the night once again, ever her suitor and succour. If they wanted to kill her now, there was no longer anything she could do about it. Was that a bad thing? She honestly wasn't sure...

THE END?