Nemesis: Resident Evil III
Chapter Forty Four: Counter Attack
Before she even had a chance to react to the Pursuer's sudden presence, Nikolai shoved her so that she fell back against the control panel, while he spun around to face the monster. It looked like the Lieutenant was trying to get out of its way, but apparently the monster was just as fed up with the Russian's bullshit as she was, because one of its massive hands grabbed him by the front of the shirt before he could do anything else.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Effortlessly lifting Nikolai into the air and pulling him closer, the Lieutenant flew into a panic, screaming in terror while pressing the barrel of his pistol into the Pursuer's head and pulling the trigger until it was empty. As soon as the weapon went click, the monster growled while putting its free hand around both the pistol and Nikolai's hands… before squeezing so hard that Jill could hear the bones in the Russian man's hands popping while his weapon was crushed along with his fingers.
Now flailing around while desperately kicking at the monster, the Lieutenant's screams and struggles were soon silences when one of the Pursuer's tentacles pointed itself at Nikolai's open mouth… before quickly stabbing forward. The Russian man made some gurgling noises as the tentacle shot right into his mouth before plowing its way out the back of his skull, and he convulsed… at least until the monster discarded him after the tentacle retracted.
"Sstarss!" It roared while turning back toward where its main target had been standing.
As for Jill, she had run away the moment Nikolai let go of her, and by run, she meant limping away as quickly as she could with a bullet wound in her leg… which wasn't very fast at all. There had been another door at the far end of the control tower, so the young woman hobbled her way over to it while the Pursuer took its time with the Lieutenant, and rushed through without knowing what dangers could have been waiting on the other side.
Thankfully, this whole section of the treatment plant had apparently been cleared out by the Supervisors, since all the lights were on, and the only infected people she saw were lying on the floor with bullet holes in their heads, so no danger there, at least. A small trail of blood was left behind as Jill leaned against the wall for support, grabbing onto anything she could get her hand on to keep herself from falling down, and crying out in pain with each step. This part of the facility was like a labyrinth, again feeling like she had walked into a totally different place after being surrounded by pipes and machines like the area where she and Carlos had first entered.
Thud… thud… thud…
Having finished amusing itself with Nikolai, the Pursuer was hunting her again, so the young woman bit her lip as she kept moving, trying her best to keep quiet even though the pain in her leg was unbearable. Jill had been in some pretty horrific situations before, and taken several hits, but this was the first time that she had ever been shot, and it was… different than she imagined. Instead of just pain, there had first been a feeling of intense pressure, followed by a burning sensation when the bullet passed through, and finally a dull throb that just didn't stop.
Needless to say, it had become very difficult to escape by running, so the young woman resorted to sneaking her way around the different pipes and machines when the monster entered the room, just like she and Carlos had done before… although it was far more difficult to stay hidden with the lights on. She still had the grenade launcher as well, with a few nitrogen shells left on the ammo belt, but nothing was loaded, and the last thing Jill needed was for the Pursuer to come charging toward her if it heard her opening the weapon's chamber.
Growling and groaning, its tentacles slowly twitching as they moved around in the air, the monster was once again tracking her down, so she couldn't rest, not even for a second, but the strange part was that every time she caught a glimpse of the Pursuer, it wasn't looking around the room for her, but instead had its head angled downward. For an instant this confused her, but then the young woman nearly gasped after realizing that the monster was smart enough to follow the blood trail that she was leaving.
There was too much of the red substance running down her leg and onto the concrete floor, for her to stop it, and now unlike before where she had been able to avoid the Pursuer simply by staying out of sight, her own blood was going to lead it right to her. Hobbling and stumbling around another machine while holding onto it to keep from losing her balance, the young woman made a mad, limping dash for the first door that she saw, pushing it open and then quietly closing it behind her… only to have her eyes start watering while a burning sensation came from each breath.
Again, the format of the old water treatment plant's construction changed dramatically, with the floor of this chamber being made of grated metal… and barely visible fumes rising up from the pool of purplish fluid that sat far below. Suddenly it dawned on her, Jill had made a complete circle while heading upward, bringing her all the way around to the area where she had seen the zombie fall from… right above the waste disposal room. The grated floor ended about halfway across, dooming anything that fell over to the harsh fate of sliding down the grooved ramp into the pool… but there was no other way out, and she didn't fancy jumping.
"Oh, shit." The young woman whispered to herself. "I'm trapped."
It was only a matter of time before the Pursuer caught up to her, so for a second she considered simply jumping down into the pool, since it didn't hurt non-infected cells… but then again she had been infected by the T-Virus, and… and there was no way of knowing whether or not the vaccine was enough to make her survive a fall into that stuff. Of course… her falling in wasn't the only option. Taking a page from Nikolai's book, a plan started to form in the young woman's mind as she limped her way back so that she would be behind the door… and then she very loudly opened the grenade launcher's chamber to load it.
"Sstarss!" The monster was heard yelling almost immediately.
As expected, it roared almost excitedly, before its thundering footsteps were heard getting closer, until the Pursuer nearly knocked the door off its hinges as it entered. Taking several steps toward the end of the grated floor before it could stop itself, the monster's stance told her that it realized that she wasn't in front of it… but not fast enough to stop her from closing the weapon's chamber and taking aim.
Fwoosh-boom! The nitrogen shell exploded in a flash of freezing, blue mist, making the monster roar in agony as most of its back was coated with ice, but what Jill hadn't expected was for several of its swishing, twitching tentacles to simply… fall off. Their bases had been caught in the frozen blast, and now the monster was howling as they fell to the floor as if someone had cut them off with a sword… but now the ice was breaking, and the Pursuer's growl's did not sound very happy as it slowly got back to its feet.
Fwoosh-boom! If the monster managed to start moving again, the young woman was finished since she couldn't exactly dive out of the way, so she pulled another shell out of the ammo belt and loaded it as fast as she could before firing. This time the Pursuer was ready, raising its arm and smacking the shell away to avoid a direct hit, so that only its right arm was frozen this time. Fwoosh-boom! Again it tried to block the grenade, and was successful, but unfortunately for the monster, its arm had still been partially frozen when the next one it… causing its entire limb to shatter completely.
"Ssstttaaarrrsss!" It howled, forced to take a step backwards in reaction to the loss it its arm.
Fwoosh-boom! Jill nearly dropped the shell this time, fumbling with shaky hands, and trying to keep her balance with one good leg while reloading the weapon, but this time she managed to score another direct hit to the Pursuer's torso. Most of its body was coated with ice this time, causing all of the old wounds from bullets and everything else to rip open when it shattered. Fwoosh-boom! Just when it was starting to stand up again, Jill loaded another nitrogen shell, and pulled the trigger, but her aim was a little high.
The freezing shell exploded right in the monster's face this time, cutting off its angry roar when the whole top half of its body vanished in the blue mist, but then this cold cloud faded, and the young woman understood why the beast was suddenly silent. Like every other time, the ice had formed and then shattered, but this time the Pursuer's entire head had been taken off from the repeated hits… so why was it still standing? There was one grenade left on the ammo belt, and the Pursuer was just about at the edge of the floor, so Jill quickly reloaded, only to gasp when the monster's only remaining tentacle shot out to smack the weapon from her hands.
Losing her balance from the shock, she hit the floor at the same time that the weapon did, but it had landed out of her reach, and now the STARS hunting beast was starting to stumble toward her… although clearly disoriented after the loss of its arm and head. At first it started to stumble the wrong way, but corrected itself after Jill made noise while crawling toward the grenade launcher, so it started walking toward her more quickly, and… and there was no way for her to reach the weapon before it got to her.
Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta! Suddenly the room was filled with light and noise as someone rushed into the room, and it took the young woman a second to look up and be able to see that it was Carlos. He had a rifle in each hand, using the slings over his shoulders to keep them aimed properly while he emptied both clips into the monster's heavily damaged body. Unlike before, when the Pursuer simply walked right through such an attack, the remains of its body was stumbling backwards toward the edge of the grated floor, and… was it possible that the fumes from the purple liquid below had been attacking the monster's infected cells this whole time?
As heroic and completely badass as the young man's attack on the beast was, the bad news was that he ran out of ammo before being able to drive the monster over the edge… and it was still standing. Fwoosh-boom! The good news, however, was that Carlos had given Jill enough time to reach the grenade launcher, and once it was in her hands she aimed and fired… not at the monster, but at the grated floor that it was standing on.
Like with the bridge, the ground simply fell out from underneath it when its weight was too much for the frozen metal, and without its head, the Pursuer was oddly silent as it hit the grooved ramp below, rolling and bouncing all the way down until it fell into the purple liquid with a loud splash. Like a large rock, its body quickly sank toward the bottom while hundreds of bubbles came to the surface from the monster's infected cells being attacked, but there was no time to enjoy this victory.
She and Carlos still had to find a way to reach that helicopter and get out of the city, because even though the Pursuer had been stopped, most likely for good this time… the missile was still set to be launched at dawn.