AN: In this next chapter, this is where things are going to start picking up. Hope you enjoy this next chapter. Once more, I don't own Capcom. Otherwise, I would have made Chris and Jill kiss in RE5. DAMMIT CAPCOM! YOU RUIN OUR DREAMS! ;-; Anyway, rant over. Onto the story!

The thief and her pursuers dared not move. Only heavy pants came from their lips, worn out from the chase. Emerald eyes met the two, the other being hidden by sunglasses. Finally, the young girl gave a triumphant smile and waves before running off and jumping down onto a closed dumpster, slid down the lid and ran off towards the downtown district once more, disappearing into the large crowd, just as Barry and Jill caught up. They quickly looked around, but the girl was now nowhere to be found. Jill groaned in disappointment while Barry cursed under his breath. The kid had been right there.. and she slipped through their fingers. Wesker and Chris climbed down the nearby fire escape and joined up with the two, both looking winded and yet just as disappointed.

"The kid's quick," Chris spoke up.

"Wait. It was a kid?!" Jill gasped in shock, looking between her Captain and the sharpshooter.

"Yes. A girl, no older than ten years of age. She outsmarted us, as much as I hate to say it," Wesker sighed, running a hand through his slicked back blond hair. "Long brown hair and deep green eyes." he looked down in thought for a moment. He had never seen eyes so green before. 'It HAD to be her. I remember those eyes! The girl... the secret Project.'

"Captain, you ok?" Barry asked, seeing that Wesker had gone silent. The Captain just shook himself out of his thoughts and looked up to his team.

"I'm fine Barry. We need to track her down. To do that, we need to set her up. If we do this right, we should nab her in no time. Let's head back for the station for now so we can plan it out. Don't want ears listening," he said before looking down the streets, as if the girl would be eavesdropping.

The others nodded in agreement before following their Captain back to the RPD. As they departed, at a local park that had been empty for awhile, the girl would sitting under a large play set, inside one of the yellow colored crawling tubes where a pillow and a tattered blanket would be. She sat down upon her 'bed' and sighed before glancing over to a teddy bear, which was slightly dirty. "They seem like nice people, Lancelot. But..." she looked down, curling her knees to her chest. "What if they work for THEM?" Tears pricked at the young girl's eyes, but she blinked them away. She cried enough after her parents were murdered by them. She had to be strong for them.

~Flashback~

"GET AWAY FROM MY BABY!" Alana's mother would shriek as a couple of soldiers in Umbrella uniforms would haul the girl away from her parents.

"MOMMY! DADDY!" Alana desperately tried to break free from them, but their hold remained strong on her as Ozwell Spencer himself approached Alana's father, a smug and triumphant grin upon his lips.

"You should not have hidden her from us. She holds great potential to be the genesis of a new world... a new era. Her blood is the key to all of it," Spencer spoke, his tone cold.

Alana's father glared murderously at Spencer. "Goddamn you Spencer! You're sick! She's just a little girl! Let her go!" he yelled back, struggling to get away from the soldiers holding him and his wife.

"You've committed a terrible crime against Umbrella... and now you must the pay the price for your insolence and insubordination." Turning his back to Alana's father, he walked back to the rest of his men, who had their guns aimed at them. "Dispose of them."

Alana began to cry, but her father spoke up. "Alana, look at us! Look at us, baby!" Slowly, she moved her teary eyed gaze towards her parents, who both gave her sad smiles. "We love you sweetheart. Be strong, okay? Be str-" Two gunshots, one to each of their chests, silenced them and both fell to the ground, no longer moving.

"MOMMY! DADDY!"

~Flashback End~

"... I can't go back there. I can't let them catch me again." She hugged herself, rubbing her arms as the tears she tried to fight back finally fell. "Mommy... Daddy... I'm trying to be strong, just like you told me." After a few minutes, she wiped her tears and looked to the money she had grabbed earlier. Taking up twenty of the fifty, she pockets it before carefully crawling out of her 'home', looking around to make sure those officers were gone. As she slid out, her stomach began to growl. "I'll be back, Lancelot!" She called to her stuffed bear before taking off for the food stores.

At the RPD...

"We can't arrest her! She's just a kid!"

"Jill, if we don't, Irons will have our heads for letting the thief get away."

"Since when did you give a shit about Irons, Chris?"

"I don't! And I never will! The last thing we need is for the Chief to come down on ALL of us!"

"Enough!" Wesker barked out, breaking up the argument. "Arguing about it isn't going to get us anywhere. Both of you have points. Jill, I agree she is just a minor and throwing her in jail won't solve anything and will make matters worse for her if she is homeless. But Irons wants that thief caught," he would calmly explain.

"So what's the plan then? If Irons finds out we lied about the thief..." Joseph started to say. Earlier, he had been laughing about how a little girl managed to outsmart four STARS members, especially Captain Wesker himself. But a glare from the blond made him shut up real quick and get serious about the situation.

"He won't. I'll deal with Irons. Right now, we need a plan to catch her. And I may have one," Wesker shook his head before giving that trademark devious smirk.

"Ohoho! I know that smirk. Whatever you're thinking, I'm sure it's going to work," Barry smirked back. Whenever he saw that corner curl of the Captain's lips, either he had something planned or someone was going to get it.

"The girl only empties wallets of money, right? We use our own wallets as bait," Wesker laid it out for them.

"What?! Captain are you crazy?! What if this doesn't work? We saw how fast she is and how she managed to outrun us," Chris frowned, but Barry interrupts him.

"Trust him, Chris. It's either that or we don't catch her at all. Besides... if she is homeless, she obviously needs help if she's just stealing money," the gun expert would say. "This is going to work, I know it."

"You better be right about this. If my wallet vanishes..." Chris growled, making Wesker roll his eyes.

'Again with the empty threats...' he thought with annoyance.

Later that afternoon, after finishing off the paperwork Irons had them do earlier (in which Chris and the rest of STARS, minus Wesker, complained that they had gotten close to getting carpal tunnel), Chris, Wesker, Barry and Jill were now back at Linda's Coffee house, enjoying a good cup of coffee. Jill preferred hot cocoa over coffee most of the time, saying coffee usually kept her up at night. Joseph opted out, saying he needed to go help Brad with the choppers on the helipad, jokingly saying that Brad is helpless without him.

"I'm just glad that we got that done. My wrist still hurts.." Jill sighed in relief while rubbing and rolling her right wrist. "I don't know how you can do this with no problem Captain."

"You get used to it, Valentine. I was pushing pencils before you were born." Wesker replied jokingly, at the same time, hinting his past with Umbrella as a researcher. "Anyhow, you all know why we are here. It's almost time to put the bait to the test. If we're lucky, the girl will bite."

Chris scoffed. "And if she doesn't? What almighty Plan B have you got?" He said mockingly, evidently still pissed about the idea of possibly losing his wallet in this so-called plan. His sister's livelihood depended on his job and the money it brought him. Without it, her college dreams would be shattered.

"Never you mind, Redfield. This will work," Wesker replied before taking another sip of his coffee.

While sitting around for the next hour, Jill saw that her cup was now empty. "Well, I'm going for another round." As she reached for wallet... "What the..?! My wallet!" she exclaimed in shock, patting her pockets. "I know I didn't leave it inside the shop! It was right here!" she looked to each of the boys.

"Ah hell..." Barry felt for his wallet and that too was gone, along with Chris's, who let out a string of curse words under his breath. Wesker gave a smirk.

"She took the bait," he said before feeling a tug at his own pocket. He quickly slapped a hand over it, preventing his wallet from slipping out. "Oh no you don't!" All four shifted their gaze towards the alley near the cafe and there she was. Realizing she was caught, she made a dash for it with the four hot on her tail.

"GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE THIEF!" Chris barked out, taking the lead of the others. He was NOT going to let her slip away again, not with his money.

"Chris, don't hurt her!" Jill called up to him, but he didn't seem to hear as they ran in the direction of the park. The girl was keeping a good distance as she dashed for the safety of her home, three of the four wallets stowed inside her pocket. Coming to the swing set first, she then whipped around and just as Chris came up... she outstretched a hand and the chains of the swings caught his wrists, making him fall backwards. He tried pulling himself free as the girl took off again.

"She's just racking up the charges!" he growled as Jill and the others caught up.

"Hold still. Let me get you free. Barry, Captain, go on ahead!" Jill then began to tug at the chains, trying to set him loose.

With two of the members left, the girl looked behind to see that the red vested male and the one with the sunglasses were still behind her. Leaping over the teeter totter, she lashed out her hand again and the other end of it caught Barry in the stomach, knocking him on his ass and left him holding his stomach. "Shit... that hurt. That's definitely going to leave a mark," he moaned while Wesker leaped over the end that had come up. "Go get her, Captain!"

'There's no doubt now... it's her!' Wesker thought as he continued to chase her down. Seeing one left, she made her way to the next set of swings, where she tried to make them do the same to him as she did to Chris. However, Wesker dodged them by sliding underneath them and raced back to his feet without missing a beat. "You've gotta try harder than that, little one!" he called to her.

Squeaking in surprise and fear, the girl ran faster, as fast as her legs could carry her. If she could reach her home, she would be safe and he can't reach her. Besides, her home was too small for someone his size to fit through. Passing by the carousel, she jumped on, making it spin her way and she jumps off in an attempt to gain more ground. When Wesker jumped on, she flicked her wrist, making it spin backwards and sending him flying off. He landed on his ass with a grunt, but he hurriedly got back to his feet, dusting himself off. Finally, she came to the playground and she slid under the slide, into the crawl tube and went to the very back of it.

'I made it! He can't get to me!' she thought, triumph filling her chest. She quickly grabbed Lancelot, her bear, and held it close to her. Now the question was... did she lose them? She tried to quiet her panting, but the sound of footsteps in the sand made her go quiet, her eyes going wide. 'Oh please no... please go away! No no no no no..!'

Wesker made it to the slide, but all trace of the girl had seemingly disappeared. "Darn... where did she go..." he said quietly to himself. Looking around and seeing only open space, it was clear that she could only be in one place. Slipping behind the slide, he ducked down and spotted a face with bright green eyes staring back. "Ahh, there you are." He said softly, his voice however, was not filled with pain or anger, but with gentleness. "This must be where you live. Cozy little area... tell me, did you honestly think you would escape? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." His words were soft and gentle, yet firm.

The girl shook in fear. She had nowhere to go now. Even if she could slip by him again, there was no doubt he could catch her in a second. Tears of fear pricked her eyes again as she held the bear close to him. "Please... just go away... you.. you can't get me in here! You can't reach me!" she spoke back, trying to sound brave. But the shakiness in her voice said it all. She needed the money to survive on the streets. That was all she could do. She had nowhere else to go, nowhere else to turn. Now she had been cornered, she was scared. What were the chances the cops were with THEM? She dared not speak of them... the ones who took her parents.

"Easy... I'm not going to hurt you. I want to help you. But first, you need to give back the wallets you stole from my team, ok?" Wesker spoke, keeping his voice at a low and soft tone, trying not to scare her anymore than she is now. "What's your name?"

She seemed to ease up a bit, hearing no malice or hurt in his tone. "... Alana. Alana Wolff," she finally replied in a timid voice.

Behind his sunglasses, his eyes would go wide a bit. 'I knew it... it IS her! The one Spencer caught six months ago...' he thought, his mind racing upon knowing he had caught the girl that escaped from the facility.

'I finally found you... Project White Dragon.' Snapping out of his shock, he quickly composed himself and gave a soft smile. "That's a beautiful name Alana. Why don't you come on out? I promise I won't let the rest of my team hurt you," he said, holding out a gloved hand to her.

"Captain, did you find her!?" Came Jill's call as they raced over to his position.

"I did, but keep back. She's scared and the last thing she needs is you guys crowding around," Wesker replied before turning his focus back on the girl, who seemed to flatten herself against the wall more upon hearing the three others, whimpering. "Hey, hey, hey... it's ok. They're not coming over. It's just me."

"Well of course she's scared! She's been caught and she knows where she's going," Chris scoffed again, crossing his arms.

"Chris!" Both Barry and Jill would yell at him.

"She's a minor! Back off!" Jill snapped next.

"She's a thief Jill! Good luck explaining THIS to Irons!" With that Chris stormed off, pissed off that they were defending the little girl over the law. Barry and Jill slowly came over and knelt on either side of Wesker while the Captain was trying to coax her out. Jill immediately felt sorry for her upon seeing what she looked like. Tattered and dirty clothes, slightly messy hair and emerald eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"Oh my goodness... look at her, Barry." Getting a bit closer to the hole, she offered the girl a smile. "Hi. I'm Jill," she spoke gently and Alana seemed to calm down once again and got off the wall in the back.

"H-Hi..." Alana would reply, now crawling a bit closer into the light, dragging her bear with her.

"Come on out. It's ok," Barry cooed to her, helping Wesker in trying to get her out.

Finally after awhile, she finally crawled outside and stepped fully into the light. "There we go. See? We're not going to hurt you. We're police officers. We protect people," Jill smiled warmly. "Do you have any parents?"

Alana shook her head no sadly. "... No. They're dead..."

All three frowned sadly and Jill gave her a hug. "Well, don't worry. You'll be safe with us. Let's get you out of here, ok? It's going to get cold tonight," she said, stroking her hair. "When we get back, we'll get you cleaned up, alright?"

Nodding her head, she finally smiled at the trio. Wesker wrapped an arm around her shoulders and together, they made their way back to the station. For Alana, things may be starting to turn around for her.

With the thief now 'caught', what does Wesker know about Alana? And what is Project White Dragon? Find out in the next chapter of RESIDENT EVIL: FALL FROM GRACE!