Recommended BGM:

1. Resident Evil (1996) & Director's Cut (DualShock Ver.) - More Rooms

2. Resident Evil (Remake) & Director's Cut (DualShock Ver.) - Lab Entrance/Entrance to the Laboratory

3. Resident Evil (1996) & Director's Cut (DualShock Ver.) - Slide Projector

Chapter 27

They had finally found the roots of Plant 42. The entire thing had overwhelmed most of the controls for the water tank inside the security room, which seemed a lot more like a wet greenhouse covered in green thick vines almost all over the place. The roots looked like fleshy tendrils, swinging and twisting blindly across more than half of the room as if they were looking for the water supply that Richard had drained entirely. It looked… alive, though completely harmless as it would occasionally touch both Richard and Rebecca, but not harm them in any way they've seen to do with Chris upstairs.

"Eugh, disgusting!" Rebecca exclaimed.

Richard nodded in agreement. Besides a couple of wet storage rooms, there was nothing else to explore in the lower levels of the aqua ring. The mother of the two sharks had been laying on stagnant water without ever moving. Richard figured the giant shark could simply be playing dead so as to lure him to its location and have an easy snack for itself. Not bothering to test out his hypothesis, he went back to climb up the ladder and that's where he was met with Rebecca as soon as he unlocked the first door he had first bumped into much earlier. She was now holding the finished V-Jolt formula in her hands.

"Yeah… so how do we do this," said Richard, rubbing his damp hair. "Is this really going to save Chris?"

Rebecca held up the small, brown liquid bottle and swirled it gently.

"I don't think we have any other option now," she said, still gazing at the moving tendrils. "I'm gonna need you to back away near the door. This stuff contains toxins that will turn acidic and gaseous for a brief moment once it touches the infected cells of the roots."

Richard nodded. "How will we know if it's doing its work?"

Rebecca slowly smiled. "If half of the burnt V-Jolt report was right about everything, we'll know. Watch."

She carefully uncapped the bottle and stepped closer to the edges of the main root, then swung the glass vial, dousing the moving tendrils with the brown liquid.

Almost instantaneously, a small, yellowish plume of smoke appeared from within the main hole in the ceiling of the root itself. Rebecca quickly stepped away as Richard grabbed her by the arm and both of them closely monitored the dying root. There was some sort of hissing, crackling sound like wet wood thrown inside a blazing fire. Seconds later, the small, twisting fibers began to tighten up, shrink, and wither away, breaking apart as small pieces of them came snapping off and flaking away. The vines around the entire room soon began to slowly wither, turning from a lush green color, to a dead light-brownish color, the crackling continuing to sound all over the room as the vines themselves slowly snapped apart.

Both of them watched in amazement. The whole process merely took fifteen seconds and what was left of the root itself was now a small, curved ball of dead vines, hanging there like a parasitic, upside-down dead brush.

"My God," Richard exclaimed in amusement as he walked closer to Rebecca, who was now inching closer to the withered root. "What the hell did you put in there anyway?"

"Trust me, it's a load of deadly combinations of chemicals you do not want to know about. Let's go check on Chr—"

"Watch out!"

Rebecca didn't know what happened and she felt a strong push from Richard. Without a moment's notice, he had immediately become enveloped by a giant thick vine, similar to the one that Chris was caught up in and a split second later, he was now gone.

"Richard! RICHARD!" She yelled out to him in both shock and fear, trying not to stay too close to where the root once was.

There was no sound at all, not even a single sound of a struggle.

How could the plant still be alive?!

With no answers to go from and fearing that Chris might still be in danger and Richard now becoming Plant 42's next meal, she hurried back, hoping that she gets to Point 42 just in time to save both of the men however she could.

Chris had started to feel light-headed and dizzy after several minutes of being entangled by Plant 42's tentacular vine. He could feel like he was falling into unconsciousness, barely being able to make out his surroundings, and was starting to feel cold, his limbs almost feeling as though they were completely numb at this point in time. He kept praying that the Bravos have already made the herbicide by now and are still looking for the plant's roots in the basement.

After what seemed to be like an eternity, the plant suddenly dropped him, releasing its grip as Chris fell hard to the ground shoulder first, shouting in pain as he struggled to move from his position.

Ah… my shoulder… my head… can't move my arms… or legs…

He slowly turned his head around, blinking as much as he could to get a clearer view, looking up as he saw the whole plant shrinking into place, as though it had begun to wither and die.

Did they …do it? …is it over?

As he slowly and clumsily stood up, his whole entire body began to feel from numbness to an intense amount of pain all over his muscles. He at least hoped the plant did not infect him with the same flesh-eating virus as all the other monsters they had to deal with. At least so far, he didn't feel itchiness or a feverish feeling like what the journal described from back at the mansion. Though he still couldn't be so sure as many of the symptoms described could start appearing within the next 48 hours, which made his skin crawl.

As he looked around the room, he saw something sticking out of the fireplace. Not being able to see it well due to his blurred vision, he slowly walked toward it. Staggering and moaning in pain, he was still determined to find out exactly what it was until the sound of something behind the walls of the second floor caught his attention.

Through a ventilation shaft, there was an elongated vine inside, and before he could see above his head, another vine caught him by surprise and was violently thrown against the wall close to the main doors of Point 42, hitting his head hard enough to almost put him unconscious. With the impact he received, all he could hear was a deafening ringing sound he could not get rid of, covering both of his ears as the loud ringing continued.

His vision was completely dark, unable to see anywhere, desperate to know whether the plant was still alive or not. Fully determined to survive his terrible ordeal, he forced himself to stand back up again, feeling greater amounts of pain in his head and back. As he struggled to breathe and clear his vision just enough to see the dark silhouettes in front of him, he was now able to make exactly what he was seeing.

Plant 42 was still alive, though with very few vines left and there was no acid coming out of its giant bulb anymore. The ringing in his ear was slowly fading away and was barely able to hear someone screaming for help.

The bright lights of the room above him made it hard to see what the plant was doing, but as his vision and hearing slowly began to clear, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"CHRIS!" The man yelled for his name. "NEED A HAND HERE!"

Chris squinted, putting a hand over his head in order to see who it really was, and then that is when it hit him.

"Richard! How the hell did you—?"

"Can't… explain right now! He yelled back. Chris could tell the deep amounts of fear in his voice. "It's… stran…gling…me! HELP ME!"

Chris aimed his Samurai Edge in the vine's direction, but he couldn't make his aim. It wasn't tears of despair or hopelessness. It was because he was feeling weak and numb due to the plant having drained a lot of his blood, a bit too much for him to lose his vision for some time, still feeling dizzy as a result.

He couldn't see.

"Chris! Shoot…the-goddamn-thing!"

"I… I-I can't!" The words were painful to say. He was an expert in marksmanship. He knew how to aim a gun, even a hundred yards away, but as a result of whatever the plant did to him, his vision was impaired, hampering his ability to shoot that he couldn't even see a few feet away from him.

"THE BULB! SHOOT…THE BULB!"

"Richard, I can't focus! I can't freakin' see!"

Chris scanned around the blurred room and he could barely see the set of stairs that could possibly bring him closer to the plant's bulb-like flower.

"Hold on, buddy!" He said almost out of despair while trying to calm Richard and himself down. "I'm gonna climb up the stairs to take a closer aim!"

"HUR…RY!"

Chris hurried as fast as he could. He began to climb up the stairs. However, through his clumsiness, he missed a step as he almost reached the top of the second floor, falling down mid-way as he hit his left hip and shoulder through several steps. Desperate to save his Bravo friend, he disregarded any pain he was feeling and proceeded to climb up again, this time, being able to reach the top and close to a broken wooden railing, the flower of the plant already exposed due to most likely partially withering away in the process.

Chris aimed directly at the blurry bulb and fired his gun as several shots destroyed pieces of the flower itself. Unfortunately for the duo in the room, the plant somehow noticed Chris' movement and immediately shoved him away. This time, not as violent as the first, but enough to keep Chris at bay and to start dealing with Richard first, almost as if the plant itself had emotions of artificial anger and frustration for what the STARS have caused it to experience.

With his vision still blurred, Chris looked back at a trapped Richard. He immediately saw a second vine grabbing Richard by his feet and slowly starting to pull him apart, his screams of pain sending chills to Chris as he tried his best to stand up again, but it was now too late. His pleas for help had turned into sounds of flesh being ripped apart as blood was heard washing down like a running water hose towards the ground on the first floor.

"RICHARD!" Chris wailed as he began to shed a couple of tears for his now-dead friend, flinching away as he heard the violence that was occurring right in front of him. Guts splat wet on the ground, making Chris feel all kinds of sadness and despair as he heard the sounds of Richard's torn body finally slam to the ground like a freshly cut fruit.

"NO!" He cried out in sorrow, feeling disgusted with himself for not having tried his best in saving him in time.

There was no time to mourn.

The plant needed to die here and now. And even if it were going to cost him his life to kill the plant with his only firearm, so be it.

Enraged, he stood up, the pain becoming overcome by a renewed determination to live and kill. Without much of a stagger, he quickly aimed his Berretta and started pumping lead at the plant's exposed bulb, swiftly backing away each time one of the bloody vines tried to whip him away from the bulb and kept shooting until the last bullet in the magazine was emptied into the plant.

With the final bullet, the plant suddenly began to shrink once more. This time, however, pieces of the bulb began to drop like heavy rotting pieces of shells from a watermelon. The sounds of the plant withering away were satisfying enough, but those sounds did not bring back Richard to life, making him drop to his knees both in pain and sorrow, his head hung in defeat.

After a brief moment, he stood up, clearing some of his tears, and quickly descended downstairs, reminding himself that if Richard had somehow managed to get here by the plant itself, who's to say that Rebecca may not be trapped down in the basement somewhere, or worse…

Without hesitation, he hurried towards the double doors, forcing himself not to see the terrible disaster that had occurred in the center of the room where both the plant and his dead teammate lay.

As he opened and closed the door behind him, he heard running footsteps inside the gallery room and found that Rebecca was actually safe and sound, making him feel immediate relief.

"Oh, Chris!" She said gleefully. "You're okay?!"

"Yeah… it's dead," said Chris almost emotionless. His gaze immediately switched elsewhere into space as he walked past Rebecca, hiding his expression that immediately began showing signs of extreme despair and sorrow, almost on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"Richard…he…" Chris couldn't bring himself to say it. He felt if he were to complete his sentence, he would immediately burst into tears.

Rebecca turned towards his back, her head cocked in confusion for a small window of time before realizing what Chris was trying to tell her.

Without uttering a word, she immediately hurried and tried to open the doors quickly before being stopped by Chris. However, his actions were all in vain as she aggressively let go of his grasp before opening both doors and finding out about the gruesome fate of her now-dead Bravo teammate.

"NOOO!"

Rebecca shrieked in terror, covering her mouth as her eyes began to protrude almost out of her face, not being able to believe or even begin to process what has happened to him.

"Rebecca…" Chris didn't know what else to tell her, feeling immense amounts of guilt for what happened to poor Richard. "I'm so… so—"

Rebecca immediately left the room and rushed towards the pharmacy room, slamming the door behind her fiercely.

Chris wanted to give Rebecca some comfort, but knowing that she may even blame him for the death of her teammate, he had second thoughts running all over his mind, the guilt driving him insane as the seconds flew by, Richard's screams of pain still lingering inside his mind, haunting him relentlessly.

If he hadn't been so reckless and gotten himself caught by Plant 42, Richard could still be alive. Or if he hadn't given up so easily in trying to shoot off the plant from the first floor, he could've gotten a chance to save him in time.

Not knowing what better else to do other than to punish himself with the immense guilt flowing inside of him, he pressed on towards the pharmacy room, knocking to see if it was okay for Rebecca to see him right now.

"It's open…" she sniveled, seemingly rubbing her eyes and nose as she did.

Chris slowly opened the door and saw Rebecca standing in front of a row of shelves filled with a bunch of unknown chemicals that meant almost nothing to him. He slowly closed the door behind him, still looking at her with pleading and sorrowful eyes, though he knew he was going to endure some blaming on her part before he could even come up with anything he had in his mind.

Chris slowly took a mental deep breath and began approaching Rebecca, who was still gazing at the chemicals in front of her.

"Hey, uh…" Chris struggled to say anything.

Rebecca sniffled for a short moment before quickly interrupting Chris. "There are all sorts of medical supplies here. I've taken what I could bring with me," she looked back at a guilt-ridden Chris, his eyes watery, but kept himself composed. She tried doing the same. "Want me to have a look at your injuries?"

Chris nodded almost hesitantly, his face almost becoming swallowed by grief and guilt. Rebecca tried not to think about it too much and proceeded to take out her own medical equipment and start nursing Chris, giving him some treatment for the small-needle marks he had on his arms and even through his clothing almost all around his bare skin on his back and abdomen. There was some swelling, but Rebecca reassured him that the plant did not infect him with the virus as it was incapable of doing so.

After several minutes of silence passed, Rebecca informed him that he was ready to put on his undershirt and vest and went to the sink to wash her hands with the little amounts of soap there was left on the counter. Surprisingly, the water in the residence was still running somehow.

"There are some red pills on the back shelf for the headache and dizziness," she said as calmly as she could. "There should be a small bottle of water in my pack as well."

As she finished washing her hands and Chris did as he was told, she turned to look at him, staring at the miracle of the fact that Chris was still alive at the very least.

Chris noticed her gaze as he finished taking the pills, feeling as though she was being judgmental inside of her mind, but quickly thought otherwise as Rebecca let out a slow smile at him, seemingly happy that he was alive and well.

However, her smile quickly faded away as the image of Richard laying there soon popped up again, his body torn in half, blood sprayed everywhere. Her smile had turned to a frown, and her whole face was now driven by grief as tears began to drop, holding her face inside both of the palms of her hands as she wailed in sorrow, weeping and sobbing in her own despair.

Chris slowly walked towards her and gave her a comforting hug, something they both really needed after the stuff they have experienced throughout the whole night.

"It's all my fault," Chris whispered. "I should've… acted fast enough."

"No," said Rebecca as they separated, sniffling before she continued. Her voice was shaky and breaking but still comprehensible. "It's my fault for not having foreseen the plant to still live, even after putting the herbicide on its roots. If only I hadn't dropped those reports near that damn spider… If only I—"

"Listen, we have to survive this. Not just for Richard, but for everyone else that has died tonight and every other victim out there. We have a job to expose all this mess as remaining surviving STARS members. Alright?"

Rebecca wiped the remaining tears out of her eyes and nodded briskly.

"Yes sir!" She said as she tried to be a bit more enthusiastic.

Chris smiled at her, trying to show a bit more positivity on his side.

"Okay, you stay here while I go check out that fireplace again. There's something there I wasn't able to clearly see earlier so—"

"I'm going with you," Rebecca pressed.

Chris felt a sudden dread for Rebecca to have to see Richard's violent fate once again, not wanting her to see such a gruesome scene once more.

"No, it'll be quick. I'll come back and—"

"Chris…I'm not a ten-year-old," she emphasized. "Plus, you said it's our job to expose all this mess, right? I want to see it for myself again. That way if we do end up escaping, we can call for reinforcements and I can serve myself useful for whoever may need my help in determining exactly how Richard's death played out, along with the dead plant inside as well. They won't just have one witness to work with, but two since I also played a part in the death of Plant 42. The world needs to know about everything that's happened in this place."

Chris hesitated for a long moment before finally agreeing with her and letting her come along.

"Alright," he said. "If you do ever feel the need to retreat—"

"I'll be fine," she reassured him as she opened the door out of the pharmacy and proceeded to go out first.

With nothing else to say, Chris followed after her and both of them stepped into the huge, open room once again, the air smelling of rotting vegetation and fresh blood thick in the damp air. The remains of the plant were all merely withered thick petals of the inner bulb that used to hang on the ceiling in the center. Under the thick petals was a huge pool of blood as Richard's organs were dumped almost everywhere on the rotten wooden ground, which was covered in moss on its own. Richard was torn in two, from the hip down as his pair of legs were slumped to one end, while his upper body was slumped on another, his bloodied expression showing signs of severe agony during the last moments of his life, his soulless eyes red and white, showing neither sadness, acceptance, or contempt.

Not wanting to look at the violent scene any longer, Chris made his way around the thick pool of blood, not wanting to step over his former friend's remains. It was one of the last things he could do for Richard's dignity.

Rebecca, while completely disturbed and disgusted at the result of what had occurred inside Point 42, she proceeded to study the whole thing nonetheless, from the dead plant's remains to the terrible fate that Richard had endured. However, as she stared at the lower half of the remains of her dead teammate, she saw the radio broken in half, possibly due to the heavy impact it received when the plant threw his two halves violently to the ground.

No more communication with Brad now…

With hopelessness starting to fill up again, she quickly decided to focus on the plant's remains instead and see how it ended up the way it did.

Chris finally reached the dark, fireplace, and inside was a charred piece of an envelope that someone might've tried to burn, possibly before they ended up becoming another one of Plant 42's victims.

Inside the envelope were a couple of pieces of paper that were mostly intact, parts of the edges scorched, but its text was overall fine to read.

"Found something."

Rebecca turned and saw Chris holding something that could be important. She didn't know what it was immediately, but she stood up nonetheless as she saw Chris walking towards the set of stairs to the left side of the double doors and sat down. Rebecca joined him as she sat next to him and both of them began to read in silence, the first words making their hearts pound faster than normal.

SECURITY PROTOCOLS

LEVEL ONE

Heliport/ For executive use only. This restriction does not apply in the event of an emergency.

BASEMENT LEVEL ONE

Passage to Heliport/ Entry is prohibited unless accompanied by a Consultant Researcher or the Chief of Security. Unauthorized persons entering the heliport will be shot on site.

Elevator/ The elevator stops during emergencies.

BASEMENT LEVEL TWO

Visual Data Room/ For use by the Special Research Division only. All other access to the Visual Data Room must be cleared with Keith Arving, Room Manager.

BASEMENT LEVEL THREE

Prison/ Sanitation Division controls the use of the prison. At least one Consultant Researcher (E. Smith, L. Kravchenko, S. Vladimir, A. Wesker) must be present if viral use is authorized.

Power Room/ Access is limited to Headquarters Supervisors. This restriction may not apply to Consultant Researchers with special authorization.

BASEMENT LEVEL FOUR

Regarding the progress of "Tyrant" after the administration of T- Virus...

The rest of the paper was burned off, the words lost and illegible at the end.

"A. Wesker…" Chris said softly. "Captain Albert goddamn Wesker…"

Chris remembered the first time he ran back to the main hall as he escorted both Alex and Richard to the storage room in which he first met up with Rebecca. Wesker was nowhere to be found, and it was Wesker who conveniently led everyone at the mansion in the first place when those rabid dogs attacked them. Cool, competent, hard-working, unreadable Wesker, working for Umbrella…

Jill and Frank are gonna have a field day about this…

He flipped to the second page, Rebecca leaning closer to him as her curiosity was now peaked, and what was on the page were small printed-out maps of the mansion, courtyard, guardhouse, and underground network, all having multiple paths that led to one place that was labeled, "Arklay Laboratory".

There was even a hand-drawn compass labeled over the maps, revealing the many hidden pathways leading up to the lab, including the underground tunnels that were located just underneath the main staircase of the main hall of the mansion. The entrance to the secret lab had been sitting under their noses all along.

Rebecca stood up, her eyes were wide and uncertain. "So…is Captain Wesker involved with all of this?"

Chris nodded slowly as he stood up. "And if he's still here, he's most likely down in the lab. For all we know, he could have Jill, Frank, Barry, …Alex, all trapped with him. If Umbrella had sent him here, God only knows what he's up to."

Rebecca turned to look at Richard's torn-up corpse one more time before looking back at Chris, her expression now filled with more determination rather than grief or sorrow.

"Then let's find this lab and confront the captain."

Chris nodded in agreement. They have to find him and warn whoever is left of the STARS that Wesker had fooled them all.

"Welcome to one of Umbrella's fuckin' laboratories," said Woods sarcastically.

Jill was dumbfounded by how much work they had to put in, especially in the middle of a dense forest. Considering the whole underground network, however, it did not seem too far-fetched.

The room that the elevator had led to was unlike any other part of the estate and underground network they've seen. It lacked the strange, malodorous charm of the mansion and cabin or the dark and dripping gloom of the old mines. It was as though they had just walked out of a gothic horror story and straight into a military complex; the latter of which Woods was no stranger to.

Both of them were standing in a large, steel-reinforced concrete room, as though it were some sort of bomb shelter made in the sixties during the early beginnings and rising tensions of the Cold War. There were metal ducts lined up above the walls, with a huge water tank in the middle of the room near the elevator shaft. The walls around them were industrial-looking, with the room titled, "XD-R B1", painted almost faintly across from where the elevator shaft stood. Any sense they both had of where they were in relation to the rest of the estate grounds was almost completely gone.

Jill walked closer to the pair of heavy metal doors on the other side of the room, both of which were firmly locked in place. The sign on the left stated that it was only to be opened in case of a first-class emergency. If the "B1" label was of any indication that where they stood was, indeed "Basement Level One", then B2 was where a bolted ladder soon followed just to her left, leading down into another room, presumably the lower levels of the lab itself.

"About the labs you mentioned in your POW story, was it anything like this?"

Woods shook his head. "Last time I was in one, I never found the entrance or the exit of the lab itself so it's hard to tell if any of this was anything similar. One thing is certain: both are located deep underground, which means there's gotta be something here they don't want us to see."

Jill nodded and proceeded to go down the ladder, sliding down. Woods followed after.

As soon as Jill hit the ground, she turned nervously and faced a smaller room. It looked a lot more like a simple reception area, though just as industrial looking as the last. A bright white lightbulb hung on the ceiling just above a pair of metal doors ahead, the only thing illuminating the entire room. On the right wall was the same sign seen in the previous room, a fire extinguisher located just underneath it.

"At least they had some proper fire code guidelines put in place," Jill commented almost sarcastically. "Wonder what else is inside, waiting for us."

"Keep your eyes peeled," Woods warned, looking directly at the doors as it reminded him of the sudden surprise he got from the green critter back at the mansion. "You never know what type of fucked up shit they may have here too."

Jill nodded. With both of them equipped with an M97 and customized M3 shotguns, they slowly opened the double doors for a quick moment before finally rushing inside.

However, the left door managed to hit a pair of stretchers simply abandoned on the left corner closest to them, making a lot of unnecessary noises that might've attracted the attention of any infected abomination. Both of them froze for a few moments as they switched gazes between the source of the noise they made and to their right, which stretched into a long brightly lit hallway.

The familiar noxious wave of death and horrible humidity hit them once again, having believed they had a rest from the fetid horrors of the mansion and underground complex themselves but couldn't have been any more wrong. They stepped out into a hallway, flooded with various small puddles of what seemed to be like water, but considering it was a lab that could be traced down to the origins of the local viral outbreak itself, they suspected it could be anything but simple water.

Woods looked around, almost looking quite surprised about the condition of the lab compared to the one from Angola.

"Looks like it's been abandoned for months," he said. "Angola's looked like a paradise compared to this."

"I'd be more shocked if you said it was the other way around," Jill replied, still somewhat gagging in response to the growing putrid smell that was coming from deep within. "Also, I think there are some— …dead zombies here."

Over the metal railing that circled a path over a flight of descending stairs were a couple of crumpled corpses, so emaciated and withered that they appeared mummified. Both corpses were apparently riddled with what appeared to be bullet holes over their slender, meager clothing and one fresh bullet wound, each in their foreheads, confirming that someone alive must still be residing here, possibly the double-crosser himself.

With their shotguns ready, they slowly went past the railing, until they saw a hall that branched to the left. Woods darted in first for a quick view as Jill aimed directly at the corpses, hoping they won't be getting back up again any time soon.

"Clear," Woods whispered and Jill quickly backed away from the corpses and hurried to his location.

Both of them stopped at a pair of doors to their left. The sign next to the door read "Visual Data Room," and the doors were found to be unlocked.

It opened up into an almost completely dark room, save for a few light sources on the left and inside a large window that looked like a small security room.

There was a long meeting table in the center, a slide projector set up at the back, brightly lighting up a portable white screen that showed an empty slide. A phone on a small table to the left was set up and Jill hurried over, even going against Woods' insistence that there would be no way to have any outside communication from here if the lab was so secretive from the outside world. Jill knew it was too much hope to cling on to, but she at least needed to try.

Much to her disappointment and cruel expectations, it wasn't a phone at all, but an intercom system that didn't even seem to work.

"Great…" she sighed. "Better to be safe than sorry I suppose."

Woods nodded. "Learned that from hard experience, trust me."

As he walked and continued to gaze at the projector screen and the slide projector itself, he stopped, wondering to see if there was anything of interest inside the slide tray that was still in the slide projector.

Pressing the forward button, a slide appeared right on the projector screen that read;

UMBRELLA

Bio Organic Weapon

Official Report

Intrigued, he pressed the forward button again for the next slide to appear. Jill and Frank began to see the horrible images of the monsters that they have and have not yet encountered.

MA-39, CERBERUS - DOBERMAN PINSCHER

FI-03, NEPTUNE - GREAT WHITE

MA-02, CHIMERA - HUMAN/FLY HYBRID

MA-121, HUNTER - HUMAN/REPTILE HYBRID

The next slide would be one of the most shocking revelations of all for Woods, making him feel extremely gut-wrenched and guilt-ridden after all this time since the Angola Incident.

T-002, TYRANT - HUMAN

Subject's name: Adrian Brian Serrano

Age: 32

Sex: M

Occupation: Former US Army Officer

Subject had survived a Progenitor derivative of the early Tyrant Virus project, called "'B'-II". Subject was transferred from the Angola Lab to the Amazon Lab, in which the subject was later determined to be genetically compatible with the t-Virus for the Tyrant genome requirements. Subject was later transferred to the Arklay Lab for further testing and potential cloning experimentation of the T-002 model.

"No…" Woods murmured in complete disbelief as he backed away with his eyes widened. He kept staring at the images of both his former teammate and the abomination they have turned him into. He dropped his shotgun in the process as he put both of his hands over his tousled hair.

"No-no-no-no-no-no-no-GODDAMN-IT NO!"

He violently shoved all the documents and almost just about everything that was on the table. The slide projector came falling off, but still in working condition as it immediately switched slides due to the forward button being hit upon impact.

Woods has seen enough and turned away; enough to say that Umbrella had been pulling the strings behind the scenes all along, from feeding off of the Angolan Civil War and experimenting on real people in the Amazon, to the viral outbreak across the Arklay Forest in the US.

And the fuckin' CIA hasn't done SHIT about it! All covered up to keep their own hands clean…

Serrano…I…I'm— I'm sorry— forgive me about …everything. If only I had known…

"FUCK!" He cursed loudly once again, kicking the table as hard as he could.

For a short moment, Jill was confused about what had Frank extremely furious and agitated, other than the fact that Umbrella had experimented on just about anything, and then she remembered about the guy in Frank's story, Adrian Serrano.

Is that the same guy?

It was no wonder that he was taking it personally. The guy was one of the last people left alive on his team.

And seeing Adrain helplessly getting dragged to be subjected to horrible experimentations…I mean, how can anyone blame Frank for acting this way?

God… how has Umbrella gotten away with so much crime across the world? Who's to say they haven't had a similar Arklay Mountains situation elsewhere in the world and we don't even know it yet?

Still intrigued at what the slide projector had to offer one last time, she picked it up and put it back in its place, revealing something even more sinister that they wouldn't have been able to figure out on their own.

It was a picture of various Umbrella scientists, their names labeled underneath from left to right.

Bio Organic Research Group: Development Staff

William Birkin, Ellen Smith, John Clemens, Nathan Winchester, Sergei Vladimir, Lev Kravchenko, Albert Wesker

"Wesker!" Jill exclaimed harshly. How could they have missed it all along? Wesker ended up disappearing on them from the beginning and not once did he ever show up again until he decided it was a good idea to murder Enrico and run off elsewhere.

What if Barry and Alex figured it out much earlier and didn't wanna tell anybody?

But for what purpose?

And Lev Kravchenko's name sparked a reminder of the same guy that Frank mentioned about getting tortured by as well.

Is everything all linked?!

"Frank!" She called out to him, still staring at the screen in front of her for a small moment before turning around to check on him. "Captain Wesker, he's the— Frank?"

She saw him unconscious on the ground, slumped at the edge of the wall that stood between them and the security room.

"Frank? Frank!"

As she grabbed his limp body to check up on him, there was a needle of some kind on the back of his neck. She took it out gently in order to see what it actually was, but all of a sudden, she herself felt extremely sleepy, her vision beginning to fade away as everything around her became blurred.

She had felt a small sting on the right side of her neck. Quickly taking it out, she saw it was the same type of needle that Frank was stung with. Seconds later, she fell to the floor and for a brief window of time, she saw a glimpse of who was her potential attacker before everything faded to black.

"A…Al…Alex…?"

Jill felt nothing more.

Author's Note: A couple of things to say...

First off, I felt extremely guilty for killing off Richard after he's survived for this long. However, I felt like he needed a hero's death once again, but this time, near the end instead of early on or mid-way through. Blame Chris or Rebecca, not me! XP As if I wasn't the one who wrote the whole fanfic down lol.

Second, yes! The Tyrant in this case has an actual identity and it's one of Woods' men from the ones that were dead in the container in Black Ops II. It makes sense since, in the original RE lore, the T-002 model was based on the success of the first ten clones that were made from Sergei Vladimir's genes, alongside the Proto Tyrant T-001 that I guess it's non-existent here in my fanfic. xD Since the T-002 was never a Sergei clone, making him one of Woods' men was an idea that popped into my mind as I initially began writing chapter 20 in order to further connect the Black Ops and Resident Evil universe in one.

I hope all of you enjoyed these recent chapters. We only have four more chapters to go! By the end of next week, this fanfic should be considered complete! After that, I will officially start off the sequel next, involving Claire Redfield, David Mason, and Leon Kennedy. I'm hoping I'm able to combine the many scenarios we have available for RE2's events, from the original game and official novelization, to the Darkside Chronicles and the remake itself. Maybe even include bits from Operation: Raccoon City (who knows?). It may take me until next year to start uploading the first ten-twelve chapters on a weekly basis, just like this one, before going through a temporary hiatus and then continuing until the end.