I do not own Dino Crisis.

The Agent

Regina was not a brain.

That's not to say she was dumb, not in the least. An agent of SORT was not allowed to be uneducated. Even the most brutish of their lot was considered above par by nearly any other agency on the planet. Regina herself had a jack of all trades thing going for her.

She could hack computers, shoot accurately, kill with her bare hands, investigate a crime scene, or remain unseen until she wanted to be found. She was actually the second youngest member on record. The youngest had been Rick, who only beat her by two years.

So, really, she wasn't dumb, but she wasn't a brain.

Which is why, in the heat of the moment, she didn't consider the consequences of what might happen if she jumped blindly into the bubble of Third Energy while the lab powering it was exploding all around her.

"Don't forget to come back and save us from this mess," Dyllan said, holding the shoulders of his future daughter, but looking right at the crimson haired agent.

Regina just nodded and turned to the portal, jumping in without any further hesitation.

PAIN!

It took less than a second for her to realize that something had gone horribly wrong.

After all, it could only take so long for a person to realize the sensation of your body being ripped apart, molecule by molecule, was not the standard operating procedure.

Pain wasn't quite accurate though. Oh, there was plenty of it, shooting up and down Regina's body, but the other sensations were equal and disorienting and fed back into the pain, worsening it, again and again.

It would be hard to describe what happened next, what with her body being forcibly taken apart by the experimental energy that allowed people to travel through time itself, but, looking back on it, Regina felt she had a pretty good definition of the experience.

First, imagine that you grew a third eye in the middle of your forehead. Before you could even begin to understand this new addition to your senses, someone threw sand in it. Now, while you are rolling around in agony from that great feeling, you grew another pair of arms, only to have them broken by the guy that just put sand in your eye. If that wasn't enough, imagine that the place you were being assaulted in started to spin, rapidly, flashing multicolored lights.

Nausea wasn't a good enough word for how she felt. It wouldn't be close enough to the actual feeling if she said it felt like all of the red hair on her head gained sentience, forcibly detached from her skull, slithered its way to the nearest rave, one strand at a time, imbibed enough alcohol to kill three large elephants, slithered back to her, wretched every drop of the liquor directly into her mouth, then crawled up her nose and burrowed through her brain and skull to resprout on her head before learning to play the tuba into a loud speaker.

It took only seconds.

It lasted an eternity.

In the haze of her existence shifting through time and space, Regina found the sights and sounds odd enough to focus on for a few seconds, long enough to slightly alleviate the… discomfort of her current condition.

The first, minute, relief from the Third Energy came from her brief landing in Paris, France, Sixteen Fifty Eight. The time bubble around her blurred everything to the point that she couldn't see a damned thing, but, as the metaphorical sand cleared out of her metaphorical third eye, she began to realize that she knew. She knew where she was. She knew when she was. Down to the millisecond.

The bubble whisked her away again before she could get her feet under her and she experienced the wildly powerful energy start its work again, trying to tear her apart.

A lesser woman would have died from the shock of it all. Regina simply screamed the scream of reality shattering pain and mutation.

She was barely aware of the second time she was dropped somewhere that didn't cause her continuous agony, a hundred thousand years BC. She couldn't be sure, what with her vision swimming and the bubble distorting it further, but she almost swore she saw a wooly mammoth approaching.

Before it could reach her, or she could even gather enough of her wits about her to try and escape the bubble, she was off again, twisting about through space and time. Her new 'eye' trying to keep up with it all forced a nose bleed of epic proportions, staining the front of her uniform.

She didn't realize it at the time, but Regina began to lose her mind at that point. And you would too, if you experienced nothing but pain and nausea for an indeterminable amount of time.

She must have seen dozens of more times and places. New York, Nineteen Twenty Three. Utah, Forty Thousand Two Hundred Three. Germany, Twenty Two Eighty Five. More places, more times. More pain, more nausea.

Her entire universe was contained within that bubble of Third Energy. It spun and shook and glowed and roared. It drifted peacefully and it rocked violently.

In a few minutes, after thousands of years, Regina began to regain some part of herself. She couldn't tell you what it was, precisely, that came back. It could have been her will to survive, never waning, never giving up. Maybe her dedication to her organization. It could have been the raptor dung stuck to the bottom of her boot.

Whatever it was, it slowly began to bring back more and more of herself, until she realized that, no matter what, she had to escape the time bubble, or she would die. She tried to push herself up on shaking limbs, but only managed to renew her nausea and nearly pass out in her own sick. She had to settle for inching forward, barely able to drag herself along.

After another indeterminable eternity, she managed to reach the edge of the bubble. Her hand resting against its very surface. She cried in pure joy and lightning jolts of agony. It was almost over, this horrible adventure.

Now, all she had to do was push herself to her feet. Stand. In a world that never stopped moving.

Three times she became sick from it, evacuating the contents of her stomach on the floor of the bubble. Her nosebleed, which had slowed to a trickle, picked up intensity again, becoming a veritable river.

Finally standing, even if it was with the aide of one hand on the side of the bubble itself, Regina took some time to fill her lungs with air. Only a few deep breaths later, she glared at the edge of the bubble.

With a battle cry that would startle a Giganotosaurus, she pushed herself forward with all her dwindling might. The exact moment her forehead touched the bubble, it popped like so much dish soap and she tumbled into a roll that ended up with her on her back.

Her eyes, those that weren't metaphorical, stared into the most beautiful night sky she had ever seen. Millions and millions of stars stood out against the black, in all colors and sizes. The moon floated lazily through space in one corner of her view.

She giggled, then chuckled, then erupted into full blown gales of laughter. It didn't last long, what with it reigniting her hideous headache, but she still enjoyed it while it was there. She barely even noticed it when her eyes closed and her consciousness fled.

"Hey… Hey!" something nudged Regina's side.

She groaned, but opened one eye, nonetheless. Standing above her, illuminated slightly by the rising sun was…

Herself?

The face was hers, certainly, with a few differences. For one, the hair was long, held back in a tight ponytail. There was a scar on the left side of her face, it looked to have been caused by something razor sharp and full of bad attitude. The clothing was, again, mostly the same, except the other woman now also carried a short sword over her shoulder, in addition to the pistol at her hip.

"I know what you're thinking," the other her said, holding out a hand to herself, "but it's not a dream. And it does get a lot better from here. Mostly."

Regina took her hand, slowly stood up and gagged at the smell of herself. The headache surged and she wobbled.

Other Regina steadied her and held out a bottle of extra strength aspirin.

"I must have lived on this stuff the first couple of years, I swear," seeing that she was having trouble opening the bottle, she took it back, popped it open and handed herself five pills and a bottle of water.

Regina greedily drank the water and downed the pills.

Other Regina continued talking, "your brain is still adjusting to the mutation. For a long time you won't be able to control when or where you go, you can only pack your bags and hope for the best. You'll need to keep ammo in a pack, along with some basic sleeping supplies. You'll find food and water whenever you land, so don't worry about that.

"The good news is, you're immortal now."

Regina, still slightly insane, said, "Resistant or proof?"

"A little of both?" Other Regina said, almost asked, then continued, "We don't age anymore. You wouldn't think it to look at me, but I'm about eighty four. You can still be killed, but you won't grow old."

"Oh…" she grimaced as she smelled herself again, "Mm'bath?"

"Over there," she pointed, "it's cold but clean. And here's some soap."

Regina took the soap and quickly, shamelessly stripped down. Other Regina didn't blush or stammer or sputter. She had, very literally, seen it all before. If that weren't enough, her training had long since destroyed any sense of shame. At best it was a way to distract an enemy agent, at worst an inconvenience.

So, while she bathed, Other Regina focused her abilities and created a small third energy bubble, Roughly the size of a beachball. She reached in with one hand up to the elbow and pulled out a copy of her usual operations outfit, sans all the blood and vomit.

After a thirty minute, cold water bath, Regina was feeling more like herself. She took the offered outfit and put it on in record time.

"So…" the younger woman began, "Ageless, melded with time, still mortal. Anything else?"

Other Regina smirked and said, "You ain't seen nothing yet."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah," she grinned at herself, "Ever wonder what it would be like to ride a raptor into battle?" Regina's eyes widened and a grin crossed her face.