Chapter 19: A Reunion To Remember

"We'll have to split up." Claire stated some time ago when the pair came to a fork in the road, the two paths leading down separate corridors to who knows where.

Leon had taken the right, and Claire the left.

He'd known it wasn't the most bright idea, but it was necessary if they wanted to cover more ground and find Piers before it was too late.

Neither Leon or Claire had heard from the others since entering this part of the facility, it was safe to say there was something blocking the signal.

Leon sighed when he poked his head around a dimly lit corner finding a group of turbaned J'avo guarding a room with planks of wood with huge spikes emitting through them. He gathered himself together, took a deep breath and set into motion firing his gun around the corner.

His bullets killed the first two instantly, obviously the weaker of the pack, however the other was a different matter.

Like the mutating J'avo its skin shredded, turning into a larger being that was incredibly fleshy.

"Bloodshot?" Leon muttered under his breath and raised his eyebrow, "I'm not scared of you."

The shells from his shotgun hit dead on target but just missing the orange glowing heart, the Bloodshot hunched over onto all fours after 5 bullets to the chest, Leon thought it was over, when a small spark erupted from beneath it, little did he know it was far from over.

The sound of burning wood came from the spark; fire engulfing the Bloodshot's muscled body, liquidizing it to a horrid brown mass.

"Oh shit." He whispered just as the Chrysalid snapped in half with a swish of a chainsaw.

Leon had only heard Sherry and Jake's account of this creature, but never saw it for himself.

The Las Palagas and normal zombie chainsaw wielders he'd encountered before were a lot prettier than this beast, 'a bone chainsaw for an arm and half a head, urgh!'

Half screaming, the bony fiend staggered over its crumbled remnants of the previous form towards Leon like a drunken pirate, the chainsaw raised and ready to strike.

Leon hastily reloaded his trusty shotgun, which followed by hammering away with it, using every shell.

Apparently this creature was not fazed by the huge chunks that were being blown away; the damage not making any difference.

"Fuck! It's healing itself." Leon snarled when he had to reload again, he would be here all day if he didn't think of something soon.

A sudden change of speed in the Ubistvo caught Leon off guard, causing him to fall backwards, and unexpectedly spiking himself on the late J'avo's spiked 2x4.

Pain shot through his shoulder when the shock had passed, a groan escaped him when he felt the warmth of his blood seeping into his clothing.

The Ubistvo staggered towards him, wanting to take advantage of the situation and end it all then and there. Its red flesh slopped a little as it teetered towards him faster, its one eye staring wildly at him and its mouth gaping open; its jagged teeth covered in browning blood, looking like it was about to scream but no sound emitted.

Raising his gun Leon tried to shoot, but the shells had jammed when he'd fallen, he had to act quickly if he wanted to survive.

Summoning all the strength he had, Leon rolled sluggishly to the side; taking the buried 2x4 with him, and only just evading the chainsaw as it buried deep within the concrete.

"Better try a new trick asshole... that one's getting old." He fumed with a clenched jaw.

A pool of blood surrounded the chainsaw where Leon had previously lay seconds ago.

This was a bad situation to be in; he was alone with no signal, no health tablets and no med sprays, he would be extremely lucky if he found anything without bleeding out.

Using his legs he pushed himself backwards, at the same time dropping his gun to yank the spiked wood from his shoulder and retrieve another gun strapped to his back.

He yelled in agony for the second time when the rusted metal was wrenched from his flesh, feeling more of his blood flood down his back and onto the floor.

Fortunately, he remembered the gun he'd reached for was preloaded, and his left shoulder was the one wounded, so he could easy shoot with his right, but unfortunately the recoil from such a powerful gun and his large injury mixed badly.

Leon bit his lip so hard from the pain he could now taste blood in his mouth, he growled in frustration as he used all the clips for his current gun trying to take the monstrosity down.

He threw the gun at its hideous mutated head, and kept on pushing himself backwards, creating massive pools of blood where he'd been seated and generating more mess on the floor when moving backwards.

The chainsaw roared above him forebodingly when it was raised yet again, to come crashing down directly between Leon's legs, and became caught in the marble floor. He grimaced and thanked the gods that it hadn't been any higher or he'd no longer call himself a male.

An incredibly loud scream came from the Ubistvo's gaping mouth, as though it was infuriated by having its prey dodge its attacks again and again.

Once it had gotten its arm free, Leon had to lie flat as it begun swinging the saw around like a mad man, then raised it into the air again; the saw revving louder as the creature howled again.

Prepared to dodge to his right as the blades were being brought down, he heard a familiar sound from behind him; a metal arrow soared through the air embedding itself into the soft tissue of the beings chest, triggering it to hesitate backwards shielding its ribs with its bone saw.

"Look's like you could use a hand?" A husky woman's voice came from behind him.

"Ada!" He exclaimed happily watching her smile while she slinked past him to stand in between him and the BOW.

"You need to be more careful, Leon." She said with concern, shooting another arrow into the base of the chainsaw.

But, the chainsaw fiend kept on coming.

"You know me Ada, can't keep away from trouble." He laughed holding his still bleeding shoulder.

Ada smirked reloading her bow and arrow to make her final shot into the glowing part of the monsters hand.

The Ubistvo fell to its knees and screamed in its final breath before igniting and burning into glowing embers.

"Thanks." Leon smiled weakly, as the pain was becoming worse.

"Not a problem," Ada smiled back and pushed her bow onto her back to attend Leon's wounds. "What on earth have you been doing?"

"I fell on the nails over there." He nodded instead of pointing, Ada sighed and shook her head, quickly grabbing a med spray and a few small bandages to clean the wounds.

"So how did you kill that thing?"

"It's heart is in its hand." She replied half heartedly, all her attention being taken by keeping Leon from bleeding to death, 'Reminds me of Raccoon.' She reminisced in her head.

"Like mines in yours?" He replied suavely.

Her smile was wiped from her face at his words, she knew she could never be with him; whilst working for her long term boss. As much as she had her freedom he would never allow it, and eliminate Leon from the picture, plus with who she was and what she did, it would be difficult in any case.

"Hey, I was just... making a joke." Leon commented after witnessing her sadness, she smiled tightening her grip on his wound.

"So, Leon why are you here?"

"Piers Nivans, BSAA soldier that was-"

"Infected in China?" She smiled coyly. "I know all about it Leon, don't worry."

It was the reason she was here.

Ada managed to stem Leon's bleeding after a good while of hard pressure, it had actually sprained her wrist a little. She was also very thankful he'd kept quiet and still while she tended him, but now was the time to move on, she needed to get her job done, though now she was with Leon she wanted to stay with him especially with his injury.

"I need to go Leon." She told him with her usual cool manner.

"So do I," He smiled fabricating a plan on the spot. "We're trying to find the same place, right? Why not go together?"

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows knitted together as she thought hard about his proposal, she'd already been through most areas and was travelling towards the places she hadn't and then bumped into Leon, so she didn't have much choice.

"Fine."

Claire made her way through a prayer room, which she found slightly odd considering this was underground, but as she thought about it, it made more sense; this was the Middle East and everywhere had to have a place for prayer, even Umbrella.

She began to think of her normal job at Terra Save, and how she'd ended up here helping Leon and the others.

"So much has happened in the last few days." She whispered to herself as she gripped her gun tightly, it reminded her of Rockfort Island a little, 'the atmosphere of the place.'

The huge gold altar lay before her and intrigued her greatly, as much as it was pretty she could see bullet holes and shards of metal around it.

Upon getting closer Claire could see dark blood stains splattered here and there, her heart launched into her throat, hoping it wasn't one of the others.

Looking around the golden counter a huge red fleshy beast lay on the floor motionlessly; arrow heads were buried deep into its fleshy brain, while the arrow shafts were all over the place.

'Explosive arrows?' She thought with a frown, 'Ada's been here...'

Making her way to the door across from the dead creature Claire let out a small sigh thinking of Leon and Ada, somehow she knew they were going to meet sooner or later, or they were together right now.

It saddened her.

The squelch of congealed blood came from behind her, stopping her in her tracks, looking over her shoulder to the altar the mutated beast began to rise.

Before she knew it, her gun was poised and aimed at the things head, it was only when it turned with a lick of its long tongue she gasped.

A war torn Licker stood in front of her with half a head, it made her frown, she was very conscious of the fact that Ada's explosive rounds hadn't killed it, and all she had with her was a puny handgun.

'How am I going to do this?' She considered gloomily.

Ada stood in the doorway keeping watch whilst Leon carried out his slow search of the small box room with about a million and one papers in it, she sighed inwardly and looked at her phone for the time, her boss would go mad if she didn't complete this mission on time.

"Can't you hurry it up?"

"Well, you could help me search you know." Leon replied mockingly.

Again she sighed, but out loud this time, and turned her back on the corridor pulling the door closed behind her.

"Don't get the wrong idea," She started as Leon raised an eyebrow, "If we have any intruders we'll hear them come in, and if they walk past this door they won't know we're here."

"Good plan." He remarked, flicking a golden lock from his eye and turning back to the papers at hand.

Shortly after Ada joined him in searching through documents, Leon yawned and took a seat on the floor, leaning up against a pile of books on biology and cell division. If he was truthful his arm hurt him badly, but he wouldn't admit it... to Ada.

"It's very laborious work looking through files." Ada commented, she too taking a seat next to him.

"Yeah, but it's necessary to help Nivans."

"Perhaps, but I prefer the more direct approach." She smirked whilst toying with the zip on her left boot.

"I would never have guessed." Leon laughed.

A small buzzing filled the room as a phone rang in Ada's pocket.

"Yes?" She answered dryly, Leon tried his best to hear what the other person was saying while trying to look uninterested and nonchalant. "Yes, I am... Okay, right away." And with that Leon saw her grit her teeth and flip the lid back down with the shake of her hand.

"I have to go." She spoke coldly getting to her feet and dusting herself off.

"Why?" Leon asked with an almost childlike innocents and sadness.

"I have work to do, I've already wasted enough time here."

Leon grimaced when he tried to move to escort her out, his shoulder pained him.

"You should take these." She said as she stooped down, placing a pack of painkillers into his hand. When she tried to get back up Leon grabbed her arm, causing her to fall into his chest. "What are you doing?"

"I don't want you to go..." He whispered huskily staring into her beautiful chocolate coloured eyes, "I'm injured and probably won't make it." He joked.

Ada smiled and laughed sincerely.

"I doubt that Leon... But, I really must go... Before I go, close your eyes." She said with a closed expression, blinking softly.

"If I close my eyes you'll be gone."

Although he didn't want too, Leon did as she asked and closed his eyes, burning the image of her leaning against his chest in his mind.

"I'm sorry in advance." Ada whispered in his ear, knowing that when he found out about her mission he'd be greatly saddened and angry.

Leon cherished the moment whether or not he knew what Ada was sorry for, and was dumbfounded when he felt her lips on his.

UPDATED: 15/01/2015 - Spelling, Grammar & Minor Story Changes.