*walks dramatically down the stairs*

We last met at the Spencer Estate, didn't we?

Well… isn't this one big family reunion?

Merry Christmas, Blessed Yule, and Happy New Year, everyone! It has been a long time. Over the past few years, I have tried multiple times to get this story back off the ground, writing and rewriting this chapter again and again and again. I wasn't satisfied with the quality of my writing and worse, I wasn't satisfied with the plot. Without dropping any spoilers just yet, I actually had this direction more or less planned out from the beginning, but then I experienced a crippling mid-story crisis. The plot just seemed too contrived, too hokey… and so I stalled for two long years, unable to climb out of the grave I'd dug for myself.

About two or three months ago, however, I watched Resident Evil: Vendetta… and I realized something. Resident Evil is, and will always be hokey. It was made to be hokey. It's not about making perfect sense, or staying away from comic-book villainy. It's about gratuitous zombie murder-sequences, gun porn and impossible finales with grotesque monsters the size of a barn. It's a B-Movie ride at best, but it's as fun as hell – and in the end, that's the whole point. My plot is no more contrived then Chris and faux-Wesker's superpowered beatdown on top of a skyscraper, or the fact that Rebecca just so happens to look like this hot bastard's dead wife.

After this realization, Dobby was suddenly a free elf.

Please enjoy this long overdue chapter, and thank you all for making it this far! There's another one written and waiting to drop on or near New Year's Day, and another soon after that. I'll also be going back and tidying up old chapters, so stay tuned for the patch notes.

THANK YOU!

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx-O-xxxxxxxxxxxxX

I should have grabbed a hat.

The thought reappeared every ten minutes or so, clattering around Chris' head each and every time he scuffed the snow from his hair. The further they walked from the city, the deeper the glooming dark became. Beneath his feet, the highway began to slope, running down a steep incline to what could only be the Harvardville River raging at the bottom. Chris realized that the sound he'd been mistaking for the wind was actually the sound of water foaming and crashing somewhere in the darkness. He squinted and could just make out the rusted trestle of the bridge.

They carefully picked their way down, keeping a careful distance from the cars and any would-be occupants. Within moments the sound of the river had grown impossibly loud, underpinned by the muted thud of boulders rolling along the bottom. Chris shone his flashlight into the gully. Muddy and swollen, the river had risen nearly eight feet above the norm, drowning the stands of white birch trees that'd once framed the banks and lapping at the concrete bulwarks of a drainage channel.

Chris swung the flashlight back up, eyeing the abandoned cars jammed bumper to bumper across the span. Several had their doors left wide open, their interiors slowly filling with snow. Chris prayed they wouldn't find any bodies on the way. The memory of STARS was not so distant that he'd forgotten how quickly the body could succumb to exposure.

He tried to shake the tension out of his shoulders, aware that he'd unconsciously been expecting a trap or a neat, impassable hole in the bridge, something that would just oh-so conveniently route them back downtown. Definitely no zombies or putrid, mangy monkeys there.

An icy wind raked at Chris' face and he shuddered. The snowstorms around Raccoon City had produced far less powder than what brought the skiers and snowboarders flocking to Harvardville's slopes, but Raccoon snows had been colder – cold enough to make stepping outside without a layer of Gore-Tex a full-blown invitation to misery. It'd also made the roads slicker than snot and froze the helicopter to the pad so thoroughly it often needed a full fifteen minutes to warm up, an eternity when somebody's life was on the line. 'Course, most of them wouldn't have needed rescuing if they weren't just plain stupid, Chris thought bitterly, thinking of the big-city tourists they'd pulled out of the backcountry each winter. Gosh, Myrtle – this storm sure is getting bad. Think we should've checked the weather before we left?

The memory felt like a bloated, rotten corpse. Something he'd tied to cinderblocks and thrown in the lake years ago, only to have it float back to the surface just when it'd all but been forgotten. Chris fought the urge to turn, feeling the weight of Wesker's eyes on the back of his head. The man hadn't said a word since they'd left Cabela's. Hadn't needed to, either. At some point, the invitation to backslide into old habits had been levied – and by taking point at the head of the group, Chris had bought into it without a second thought. As an added insult, Jill had obediently brought up the rear; standard formation for moving into questionable territory.

Scowling at the unwelcome realization, Chris scooped a fistful of snow off the ground and pressed it to the side of his head, willing it to sink deep enough to ease the throbbing in his skull. Come to think of it, he should've scoured Cabela's for an Advil before they'd hauled ass, too. He was angrily dwelling on the oversight when Jill suddenly gave the order to cover.

"Danger, 4 o'clock!" she declared in a loud hiss.

Without pausing to think, Chris wheeled out of the center of the road and crouched behind the front fender of a truck, distantly aware of Wesker performing a similar motion on the opposite side. Chris pinched the flimsy plastic mic clipped to his collar.

"What?" he demanded.

The radio keyed up in his ear. "The Tyrant from the hospital," Jill responded in a whisper, so hushed that the cheap mic barely picked her up at all. Bendix Kings they certainly were not. "4 o'clock rear, up on the hill. It's moving along the overpass."

"Flashlights off!" Wesker added sharply.

No kidding, Chris fumed. He snapped his Maglite off and darkness closed in around them. Chris held his eyes shut for a count of five, willing them to adjust faster. When he opened them again, it was to a world painted in dark colors and murky, bruise-like smudges of light. Harvardville was only a mile or two distant, not far enough to escape the ambient glow of the city, and Chris found that he could make out most of his surroundings, if not in great detail. Scowling into the gloom, he cautiously lifted himself up onto the balls of his feet and craned over the hood of the truck, straining in the direction Jill had indicated.

If he hadn't been looking for it, he might not have seen it at all.

The Tyrant was a good fifty or sixty feet away, all but invisible against the snow. It was walking slowly, each step overly deliberate, its bald head swiveling back and forth like a turret. Chris cursed softly under his breath. "It followed us all the way out here? How in the hell did it know which way we went?"

"Chris, we left footprints in the snow for a quarter mile," Jill hissed, sensing the accusatory train of his thoughts, "let alone whatever else the damn thing's strapped with!"

"Internal communications array and a targeting HUD," Wesker supplied. "It also possesses a rudimentary FLIR system, viable to about 10 meters."

"It can see it the dark," Chris deadpanned. He tracked the Tyrant along the overpass, crouched so low it appeared to be walking along the hood of the truck. "I bet the Bosnians can't wait to blow you for some of that. How much does one of them sell for, anyway?"

"The Tyrant program was disbanded eleven months ago."

"Yeah, sure. Where'd that one come from then? Secret room behind the bejeweled cockroach emblem?"

"Would you stop?" Jill bit into the crackling mic. "If it's followed us this far, it's not gonna take more than a couple of minutes before it makes us. After the rocket launcher, I'm assuming it's armed?"

The tone of the question clearly put it in Wesker's court.

"It is," the man replied, his voice flat. "The Ivan's primary weapon is its brute strength, but it was programmed to be deployed with a number of other armaments, usually a pair of H&K M95 submachine guns."

"Great," Chris growled.

He glanced down at his shotgun and felt woefully underwhelmed by its potential in this situation. To use the weapon effectively, he'd have to engage at a much closer range – eight to ten feet maximum. Way too close, especially if the thing was packing heat of its own. Chris considered the Beretta digging into his pelvic bone, but wasn't impressed by it either. Last time he'd faced down a Tyrant, he couldn't remember the weapon being much help. The dank stench of an abandoned basement filled Chris' nostrils, a pungent combination of antiseptic and stagnant rot. He swallowed the bile in his throat, his eyes locking onto where Wesker crouched behind a sedan.

I watched you die, he accused silently. I watched you die gutted like a pig.

But Wesker wasn't dead. Somehow, impossibly, he'd survived the injury – and still managed to escape the mansion before it'd blown. Chris felt his glower morph into something else, wondering why this obvious fact of life had taken so long to fully sink in. I mean, if anybody could hauled themselves out of there holding their intestines, it would've been him… but still. How is he not a paraplegic at the very least?

Wesker turned his head, sensing the force of his gaze. The man was about six feet distant, his outline muddied by the gloom, but Chris could clearly see that Wesker had lowered those ridiculous sunglasses down the bridge of his nose – presumably to join the rest of the world in actually seeing their pursuer. Twin pinpricks of fire gleamed in the darkness, hot as embers, and a dangerous shiver went up Chris' back. Before he could figure out what it meant, however, Wesker had looked away again.

"Well?" Jill pressed when the silence stretched too thin. "It'll see us if we head across the bridge, and I'm up for options that don't involve getting shot!"

Chris shook himself and attempted to focus, wracking his brain for alternatives. Jill was right about the bridge. Across the span, the highway sloped steeply up for at least a quarter mile and their only option for cover would be the abandoned cars – not the worst of shields, admittedly, but there'd also be no place to run if the thing decided to swap bullets for fists. No heading back towards it, and nowhere to go off to the sides. It's got us pinned for sure.

Chris grit his teeth, thought about the torrent of water flowing under the bridge, and dismissed that idea out of hand. On its heels, however, came the inspiration for another. Chris shifted, craned on his tiptoes as far as he dared, but was too far away to see into the gully. He weighed the reliability of his memory, and found it sound enough to risk. He keyed his mic. "There's a drainage culvert off the left side on the bridge, down by the river," he said in a low voice.

There was a heavy pause, then Wesker's demanding voice filled his ear.

"And what makes you think it's large enough to be a viable escape route?"

"Because they are," Chris bit back, aggravated. "Claire and I used to play in one when we were little. They're big industrial spillways- usually come out by the side of the river."

"You propose we swim up the pipes, then?"

Chris almost leveled his shotgun across the highway and blew the prick away. "They've got maintenance walkways, you ass," he snarled. "You got a better plan that doesn't involve shaking hands with your goddamn science project?"

The two men glared at each other for a beat.

"No, I don't," Wesker answered. He gestured with an open palm. "Lead the way, Redfield."

Taken aback by the man's acquiescence, Chris wondered if Wesker was mocking him, then decided it was a likely bet. He also decided that he had bigger shit on his plate. Staying bent over, Chris moved to the opposite side of the truck. The silence was deafening; even the quiet shush-shush of his parka seemed far too loud. Vehicles slid by in the gloom. Chris was careful not to jostle them, afraid of setting off somebody's hypersensitive alarm. The guardrail was less than ten feet away. He waved for Jill to follow.

"Wait!" said Wesker suddenly.

Chris froze in his tracks, his breath steaming. Slowly rolling his head, he peered through the snow-covered window of a Fiat and could just make out the Tyrant standing on the overpass. It'd stopped moving.

Shit.

The silence stretched, elongated into infinity.

The Tyrant braced one heavy, platform boot on the rail and leapt into the middle of the highway. It lifted both arms, its movements alarmingly unhurried, and Chris hurled himself down as a hail of bullets hammered into the abandoned vehicles, shattering glass and perforating steel. And of course I had to pick the smallest car in the lane! Chris thought, trying to crouch as low as possible as the Fiatrocked against his shoulder, cubes of Safe-T glass peppering his hair. Alarms started blaring. The mic crackled urgently in his ear. Chris slapped a hand over it.

"What?!"

"-ait until it reloa- then- -ake for the culv- -rt!"

Something grazed his scalp and left a bright streak of pain. Chris sucked a breath through clenched teeth, flinching back into a crouch. He couldn't even tell who the voice had belonged to, but he got the gist either way. The bullets made another devastating sweep. H&K MP5. 15 to 30 bullets per magazine. It'll run dry here in a minute, the way that thing's blowing through ammo…

The gunfire came to a sudden halt.

Chris waited exactly two seconds, then surged to his feet and ran, risking a look back just in time to see the Tyrant drop both submachine guns to swing from the straps crisscrossing its torso. Its footsteps thundered in the sudden lull, faster and faster, gaining on them with frightening speed. Oh, shit!

There was a sudden burst of gunfire, two rounds in quick succession. One furrowed the Tyrant's skull, peeling back a flap of skin as it swiveled to face the threat. Wesker squeezed off another round, backing away from the cover of the vehicles. The Tyrant let out a roar and rammed one of the smaller cars with its shoulder, sending it careening across the lanes directly into Wesker's path.

Aaaaand he's dead.

Chris didn't have time to examine how that made him feel. Jill screamed a warning, too late to make a difference as Wesker cartwheeled his impossibly long legs out of the car's path, somersaulting over the hood with only inches to spare. The Volkswagen hit the vehicle behind him with a deafening crash, setting off even more alarms.

Holy Shit. Chris stumbled and almost tripped into the powdery snow, unable to flee and gawk at the same time. He regained his footing and raced the last few yards to the guardrail, leaping the barricade so fast that his momentum almost hurled him ass-over-ankles into the darkness of the gully. The river roared hungrily somewhere below, promising certain death as a reward for misstep. Why the hell did it have to be night?! Chris fumbled to turn his Maglite back on. Jill whirled to look back at the highway, torn between conflicting impulses as Wesker crouched in the snow, every muscle coiled and ready to spring.

"Jill! Come on!" Chris yelled.

The short-haired women did not move and Chris realized that she wasn't going to, not until Wesker had reached their position. Of all the damn idiot things- Just leave him!

The flashlight blazed to life in Chris' hands-

-and Wesker bolted forward as though he'd been launched from a cannon. Jill let out a cry of alarm as he charged directly into the Tyrant's path, leaping nearly seven feet to drive his knee into the creature's chin. The Tyrant staggered back, one hand shooting out to seize Wesker around the waist. With a roar, the creature pivoted at the hip and hurled him twenty feet into the side of the bridge. There was a muffled crack and Wesker toppled to the snow, stunned but already rolling to the side. Somehow, he'd kept ahold of his gun. Several rounds squashed harmlessly against the Tyrant's glossy white overcoat. Two more hammered into the thing's pale face, grooving its jaw with a splash of blood.

It wouldn't have been enough if Jill hadn't suddenly opened fire, too.

Her third shot pinged off the colored visor bolted to the Tyrant's cranium, setting off an eruption of sparks. The Tyrant jerked and twitched, falling to one knee in order to shield its vulnerable face, and Chris – God have mercy on his hypocritical soul – reached over the barricade and seized Wesker by the back of his coat, hauling him back until the man could regain his footing on his own.

"Come on!" he snarled.

They turned and leapt down the side of the ravine, struggling on the craggy jumble of rocks piled to keep the banks from collapsing. Twigs whipped across Chris' face and snagged at his parka as he half-plowed, half-slid through a tangle of dead vegetation. At the bottom, the strip of land between the ravine and the river was treacherously narrow, clogged with debris and thick, slushy snow. The water was an all-encompassing roar that blotted out every other sound.

Chris pointed his flashlight downriver and hurried along the bank as quickly as he dared. He didn't see the culvert and for a panicked moment, doubt seized him. What if it wasn't where he thought it was? What if he'd gotten it wrong?

His ankle twisted on the icy rocks, but he was limber enough to shake it off without falling. Wet, black concrete loomed out of the darkness. The mouth of the culvert was covered in illegible neon scrawls of graffiti, bright against the gloom. The distance closed. Ten feet. Five. A rusted iron gate barred the way. Chris' pounding heart leapt up to shake hands with his tonsils. His eyes zeroed in on the thick, dripping chain and grimy padlock holding the passage shut against the same hoodlums responsible for the graffiti. Chris skidded to a halt, leveled the shotgun, and pulled the trigger.

The lock sheared into a hundred gleaming silver pieces and Chris shouldered the gate open so hard it bounced off the wall. "Inside!" he roared.

He raced into the dark mouth of the culvert with Jill hot on his heels. Wesker slowed just long enough to slam the gate shut and throw his weight against it, somehow bending the frame, before racing down the passage after them. They hadn't gone fifteen feet before there was a heavy splash, followed by the clatter of buckles and wet, sopping leather. Something white and glistening moved in the darkness outside the culvert. The surge of water made it hard to hear, but there was no mistaking the snap of a machine gun bolt being pulled back. The bright, bouncing beam of a laser knifed into the tunnel.

"Against the walls!" Jill screamed.

Chris flattened himself into the recesses along the tunnel wall just as a hail of bullets rained into the culvert, ricocheting off the cement in a deafening cacophony of noise. Directly across from him, Wesker frantically clapped both hands over his ears. Half a second later, Chris was forced to turn his face away as grit exploded into his eyes, a round disintegrating off the wall mere inches from his face. The niche was shallow; barely a foot deep. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited to feel a bullet hammer into the side of his head.

An eternity later the magazine ran dry.

Or the thing stopping firing.

His ears ringing, Chris strained into the abrupt silence. Something heavy shifted in the darkness. And then- nothing. One one-thousand, two one-thousand… Chris waited until the count of ten before cautiously leaning forward to peer around the fragmented cinderblock. It was too dark to see the entrance, but he didn't dare shine his flashlight over to get a better look. Another moment passed in silence, and Chris realized he'd been expecting to hear the gate being tore off its hinges. Why hasn't it come after us?

He couldn't see Jill, so Chris nervously met Wesker's eyes instead. The man lowered his hands with a grimace. He leaned out, checked the mouth of the tunnel, and then silently signaled for Chris to move deeper into the culvert. Chris nodded to show he understood. No sense in arguing with a smart plan. He eased out of cover and walked quickly in the direction Wesker had indicated, throwing nervous glances over his shoulder. Jill quickly got in beside him and Chris was relived to notice that she didn't appear to have been shot. They picked up the pace. Twenty feet ahead the culvert branched into a T-junction. Chris immediately moved around the corner.

"Jesus Christ," he panted, exhausted.

Jill's face was ashen in the dim light. "You okay?" she breathed.

"Yeah. You?"

She nodded. Then she looked at Wesker, the same question in her eyes as the blond irritably palmed his side. "A minor injury, Miss Valentine," he muttered, wincing.

A minor injury. He'd been flung into a steel trestle by the Hulk and it was only a "minor injury".

"What were you even thinking?" Jill exploded at him, adrenaline making her voice shrill. Chris just couldn't fathom why she was getting so worked up over Wesker's well-being. "Did you seriously just try to kick it in the face? What in the hell did you think that was going to do?!"

I think a better question would be how the bastard leapt high enough to even try, Chris thought darkly, a few of his sister's words coming back to rattle inside his skull. They'd sounded like a crock of shit before. Now? Maybe not so much.

"Under normal circumstances, the blow might have been enough to cause a fatal injury," Wesker responded, ignoring Chris' piercing stare. "Something's changed, however. It's stronger somehow. More durable. I wonder..."

He shook his head. "In either case, the data's been gathered," he finished.

"Data!" Chris sneered. "It's always data with you, isn't it? Do you jerk off to spreadsheets or something? Why don't you explain why we're being chased by the damn thing in the first place? Can't you just wave your hand at it and make it sit? You know, rattle a little baggie of treats in your pocket."

"I have no power to command either of the Ivan prototypes," Wesker answered shortly.

"Oh. Well, ain't that convenient."

"Alright, enough!" Jill ordered, slicing a hand between them. "God!"

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by the surge of icy water. Chris held Wesker's gaze for a moment longer, then made a noise somewhere between and huff and a snort, rolling disgusted eyes towards the ceiling. Aware of the swollen runoff around his boots, Chris tried to sidestep to slightly dryer ground. The culvert was narrow and dripping; where the water wasn't flowing, it had solidified into black patches of ice. With every exhale, Chris' breath condensed into billowing white clouds. He panned his flashlight around the walls, silently measuring them. Maybe it hasn't come after us because it can't fit? He reached up and touched the ceiling without even fully extending his arm. Yeah. Definitely couldn't fit.

It was cold comfort at best. Chris shone his flashlight down the culvert, but it continued on further than he could see. Panning left revealed exactly the same thing.

"So, what now?" he asked. "Wait for it to move on?"

Jill vehemently shook her head. "Bad idea," she said quickly. "If it's anything like the Nemesis Project, it'll wait outside – wait for you to try and backtrack." She flashed the entrance a look that was equal parts disgust and haunted recollection. "Trust me."

Chris shot an exasperated glance at the ceiling, tongue caught under his teeth. He counted to five.

He was doing a lot of that lately.

Before he could add any more, however, the sound of a ringing phone split the silence like a hatchet. Chris jerked so hard he nearly bit his tongue, glaring accusingly at Wesker as the blond slid a hand into his coat.

How the hell is he getting a signal down here? Probably got down on his knees and blew the military for some satellite spac- Wait. Chris patted his jeans, but the phone he'd furiously "commandeered" back in Cabela's was gone. In fact he couldn't remember having stowed it in his pockets at all.

He must've lifted it off me while I was sleeping. Chris heatedly dropped his hand back to his side. He'd wanted to keep the phone away from Wesker for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which was ensuring that he maintained some semblance of power over the man. So much for that, apparently. Bastard.

Wesker split the phone open with a finger. "You had best hope it's good news, Will," he said.

"Good news, comrade Wesker? Vell that depends on who you ask."

The phone's tiny speaker wasn't the greatest, but the greatly magnified echo in the tunnels allowed Chris to hear it well enough. He cocked his head at the unpleasant voice, stifling a derisive snort. I've been vaiting for you Mister Bond, he mocked, a darkly sour grin twisting his lips.

Wesker went very, very still. "Sergei," he spat, gnashing through the syllables through clenched teeth. "I suppose I have you to thank for this little fiasco."

"And your gratitude is appreciated, as always," the voice taunted. "My Ivan tells me you slipped him not once, but two times tonight. Commendable as ever- but inevitably futile. You cannot stop the plans I have set in motion."

Chris didn't consider himself an especially imaginative person, but he could hear the thin, nasty smirk on the other man's lips. Over the gurgle of icy water, leather squeaked and stretched as Wesker balled his hand into a fist. A vein pulsed and fluttered beneath the skin of his temple, then Wesker angled his body away down the tunnel, unconsciously demanding a modicum of privacy.

"You are going to pay very dearly for this," he snarled into the phone. "I will-"

"No, comrade," Sergei interrupted coldly. "It is you who will pay: for your arrogance, for your desecration of Spencer's legacy! There vill be no coming back from this. Not this time. I vill burn you and everything you've ever loved to the ground!"

The malicious promise fragmented like shrapnel, leaving fire and venom in its wake. Everything he's ever loved? Tch. Me, myself and Umbrella. Precious, precious Umbrella. Chris ground his teeth until the ache in his jaw surged and began to throb, the pain bringing its own dark, surreal kind of clarity. You know what, though? I'm starting to think he really didn't have anything to do with the outbreak tonight. Sounds like Mr. Russia was the Unabomber after all. Well, butter my ass and call me a biscuit, Mr. Frodo. Who'da thunk it?

"I have always been big believer in destiny," Sergei continued almost conversationally. "So good to see you and your little pets together again. How's your man, hnn? Not having any problems? That vill change in a few hours. Then I vill have a matching set. The only two Redfields in existence!"

Wesker darted a look at Chris, the motion observable only by the sudden jerk of his chin, but Chris felt the intensity of the man's gaze like a knife twisting into his gut. For a moment, they faced each other without speaking. "What have you done, Sergei?" Wesker demanded, his voice so low it was barely more than a growl.

"I've regretted it for months, you know: not taking her vith me vhen I left... thinking of that luscious red hair – red as Mother Russia! – and your filthy fingers buried in it at night. But then my men saw her again and I thought, here is my chance to make it right! To cleanse your taint from her skin. I don't think such a proud woman vould beg for anything, but I promise you, I vill make sure she begs ME. Do svidaniya, chairman Wesker."

The line clicked and went dead. Bile rose in Chris' throat. He wound himself up for a scream. "Wesk-"

"Quiet!" Wesker barked. He snapped the phone shut, then opened it again and crushed one of the buttons with his finger, so hard Chris thought he actually heard it splinter. Wesker put the phone back to his ear, blood-red light spilling out from beneath his glasses. The line picked up on the second ring.

"Albert, great! I was just about to-"

Wesker savagely cut him off. "Has HUNK reached White Command yet?" he demanded.

"Well, cheeri-fuckin'-o to you, too. Give me a minute and I'll check."

They waited in the cold, claustrophobic tunnel for what felt like an eternity. Chris felt a sudden pressure on his arm and looked down to see Jill's clammy fingers wound into the fabric of his jacket. Her desperate eyes searched his, her face so pale it almost looked blue. Chris felt as though his throat was full of caulking. Oh God, Claire. Claire-bear, please. Please, please…

"No, they haven't got here yet," the male voice finally responded. "What are you-"

"Radio them immediately."

To his credit, the other man didn't argue. There was another protracted moment of silence. Wesker pressed a gloved knuckle to his lips, crushing the blood from the surrounding skin. The unconscious gesture was so potent, Chris felt as though he'd been punched in the teeth. Having been forced to read around those perpetual, thrice-be-damned sunglasses for nearly a decade, Chris had devised more indirect methods of sussing out Wesker's current mood. And right now, he could all but smell the stress oozing off the man.

"Alright, what's going on?!" He exploded. "Who is Hunk, and where the hell is Clair-"

"I said shut up, Redfield!" Wesker snarled, baring his teeth. Chris made a sharp motion in the man's direction, but Jill's hands immediately tightened on his sleeve, leaning her full weight on his arm to keep him from seizing Wesker's hair and shaking him like a rabbit. Chris shot her a furious look. She matched it with one of her own.

The man on the phone returned, sounding anxious. "No response. Al, what's wrong? Something's wrong isn't it?"

"Sergei. He's here, Will. He has to be," Wesker snarled. "This entire stunt is his doing, and he'd never leave an operation like this to chance. He'd want to be nearby so he can gloat. I need more information and I need it NOW!"

"Oh, my God. Okay- okay, listen. Right before they went dark, HUNK reported BOW activity in the woods northeast of town. That was about a half hour ago. He had intel run down a lead on a local religious group called the Los Illuminados. They're based in a church called the Steel Cathedral located downtown from you- wait, where are you anyway?"

"Nevermind! I want a squad sent to that location immediately!"

"I can't! The military's got my nuts in a vice right now! We're already being accused of releasing the virus. If I try to send anyone in, they'll flip! Look, I'm working on getting the air restrictions lifted, but that could take hours- or days! Or never! Jesus Christ we don't need this right now…" The man cut himself off and took a deep breath.

"I'll keep radioing them," he added, calmer now. "When I get a response, you'll be the first to know. In the meantime I have an address. Ready? 8230 Downtown Hardvardville, on the corner on Dunswick and Santificado. You anywhere nearby?"

"I will be," Wesker promised. He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket, whirling around as if to storm off down the tunnel, only to stop as Jill silently stepped into his path. Her fingertips were quivering at her sides, but her back was straight and at attention, unafraid to look Wesker squarely in the eye.

"Move, Valentine," Wesker whispered dangerously.

"I think we're going to need more intel on the plan before I do that, sir," she said evenly.

A spasm raced across Wesker's face as though somebody had laid a hot iron across his back, there and gone again so quickly, Chris wasn't even sure he'd seen it at all. The blond's fists clenched, unclenched, and then clenched again, vibrating softly with suppressed rage. "Does the Church of Los Illuminados mean anything to you?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yeah, it does. They've been banging on our door almost every week for the past year. Far as I know, lots of people in town have been joining. The Steel Cathedral is that ugly piece of New Age crap they built downtown. What's the connection to Sergei? Who's he?"

Wesker made an angry noise in the back of his throat. The entire exchange stank of an old routine. Frost or Brad or Barry would ask a question, Wesker would evasively redirect, and Jill would catch it on the rebound, wheedling Wesker for intel he'd wasn't keen on revealing. Chris found it infuriating how easy she'd fallen back into the habit, but he kept his mouth shut, his back teeth clenched against the urge to scream. My sister's being stalked by some demented rapist, and these two wanna stand here and roleplay?!

"Approximately two months ago, there was a security breach on the island," Wesker relented, falling back into the same monotone cadence he'd used while holding court in a stuffy briefing room. "Several strains of the T-Virus were stolen from the archives, including a 103-class Tyrant – Codename: Ivan. It was originally part of a pair designed to act as the personal body guards to Sergei Vladimir, Umbrella's former Captain of the Guard."

All at once, the familiarity niggling at the back of Chris' brain like a splinter suddenly made sense. Sergei. He'd heard that stupid name before, back in his kitchen before everything had gone to hell. Chris' hands twisted the shotgun as though he was wringing someone's esophagus– whose, it didn't really matter. The scar on her arm. He cut my sister. He cut my baby sister!

His dark eyes knifed to Wesker's face.

It wasn't you.

Maybe he'd only half-believed it to begin with, but still. The realization was an unpleasant one. Claire's face flashed through his head, her diamond-blue eyes irrevocably furious with him, refusing to back down from the defensive stand she'd taken on Wesker's behalf. Chris tried to swallow the caulking in his throat. It wouldn't go down.

Jill mulled this new information over. "So, he steals the virus and the Tyrant – and suddenly there's an outbreak. He's trying to make it look like you're responsible," she said quietly.

"Oh, come on!" Chris burst out, unable to keep silent any longer. "If the asshole wants to get rid of you, why not hand some shit over to the cops and have you arrested or something? Why the melodrama?"

"Because Sergei hates me far more than even you," said Wesker coldly. There was a bitter, ironic edge to his voice. "He worshiped Spencer, and I have been deemed unworthy of Umbrella's legacy. It's not enough to see that I'm merely out of the way. He wants to destroy me."

Chris opened his mouth, but found he had nothing to say to that. It wasn't as if he couldn't sympathize with such a goal, come to think of it. Resentment churned in his gut, but for the first time all night the feeling was subdued. Seething. Dull. He didn't bother to ask how Claire fit into the Russian psychos' plan; unfortunately, he could follow the man's sick reasoning well enough, even if he couldn't face the depths of what was being implied. Jill merely nodded, her eyes dark and strangely unreadable. Wesker made as if to go around her again, but Chris hefted the shotgun with a sharp clack, reading the man's intentions as easily as if they'd been splashed on a billboard.

"OK, first of all: we are NOT splitting up!" he growled. The words came easily. The plan even easier. "We follow this fucking culvert, we get back to town, and we go to that goddamn church together. I've drove by the ugly thing enough times to know the way."

"At what point did I suggest we split up, you cretin?" Wesker snapped, exasperated. "In all likelihood this is a trap and I-" He chewed on the words, then spat them through clenched teeth, "-may require your assistance."

Oh. Well… good. Two-faced prick, thought Chris lamely. He raked a hand through his soggy hair, pulling at the roots as the utter surreality of their situation began to sink in. Of all the myriad ways he'd planned to confront Wesker, fifty feet down a dark and freezing culvert with water pooling around their ankles was not on the list. Jill gave Wesker another of her inscrutable looks, but Chris couldn't imagine what she was thinking. He couldn't even figure out what was going on in his own head, let alone hers. They jogged off the tunnel, their combined footsteps beating out a disorienting cadence that perfectly matched the confusion in Chris' head.

"Who the hell is Hunk?" he demanded without looking. "Another Soviet-era rapist on your payroll?"

"He's my best operative, and one of the few I'd trust with Claire's safety besides myself."

Chris frowned into the tunnel, unnerved. Not for the first time tonight, something about Wesker's choice of words didn't fit into the paradigm he'd constructed for the man. It was obvious that Mr. Russia had just pushed Umbrella out to skate on thin ice, but Chris thought he'd detected something else in Wesker's tone – something he couldn't put his finger on. Since when are he and my sister on a first-name basis anyway?

After a moment, however, the only thing Chris could ask was, "How good is he?"

"Good enough to kill you."

Chris weighed that statement, then found himself nodding. "Why'd you saddle her with a bodyguard, anyway? Afraid she'll run away soon as she got out from under you?" He grimaced internally, all too aware of the image conjured by his choice of words.

Wesker huffed a laugh. "Run away from me? Never," he chuckled. "I assure you."

His voice dipped, vibrating on a dark, heated octave that Chris didn't like in the slightest. He stopped and began to turn, his ears filled with the tempting siren-song of the shotgun. Wesker faced him squarely, however, his face a porcelain mask.

"You should be grateful I had the foresight to do so, however," the blond tyrant continued, unconcerned with the danger he was in. "I suspected Sergei's involvement the minute I left the island – though I assumed you would be the one in greater danger."

Chris stared at him. "Why the hell would I be in danger?" he demanded in a low voice. Better yet, why the hell would you care?

"We're wasting time, Redfield. Move out, or I will leave you unconscious for later retrieval."

"I thought you said you needed me," Chris shot back, oblivious to how familiar the argument was.

"I'll make do with Valentine if I must. She follows orders far better than you."

Yeah. Yeah, I'll bet. Little Miss Perfect. Chris glared back at her and Jill gave him a tired look, her runny nose whipped scarlet by the cold. You're being an ass, you know, her eyes seemed to say. Funny how Jiminy Cricket always seemed to speak in her voice, too. He's not going to answer, so why are you pissing the night away when Claire is in trouble?

Chris pushed his anger back and swallowed it. Later, you sonuvabitch.

He turned and headed down the tunnel, trying to ignore the slippery feeling in his gut...

And the devastating urge to run.