Harry Potter and the Dawn of the Dead

by Erised Burning

HPBuffyRE crossover. Feeling trapped by the prophecy, Harry ditches the Order and Privet Drive, only to find himself searching for kidnapped slayers in Raccoon City.

6. All the While

A/N: Hi all,

thank you for the reviews. You've all given me a lot to think about with regards to the tone and the direction of the story.

Chapter Six

All the While a Boundless Time

It had taken only nine hours for the city to fall prey to the zombie hordes. The initial zombie strike force had consisted of one hundred zombies and had been unleashed on the unsuspecting inhabitants at precisely eleven o'clock in the morning. Old man Marshall was part of the first wave, and, he, unlike so many others, had put up one of the best fights against the zombies. He, at least, had had easy access to firearms and had a penchant for using them. The same could not be said for others.

Despite consisting of a vastly inferior number, the zombies had two major advantages on their side. The first is that they were able to capitalize on the element of surprise. It took nearly six hours for emergency medical response teams, police teams, combat troops, civilians, park rangers and news reporters to develop a comprehensive understanding of what the threat was that they were dealing with. More often than not, those who came to understand the threat of zombies were killed before they could disseminate the information, or, even if they managed to send off a communication, it had little effect in pulling people from their collective stupor. It was very hard for the inhabitants of Raccoon City to believe that zombies were overrunning their town and eating their neighbours. If given an opportunity, sociologists would have imputed this persistent disbelief to the concept of cognitive dissonance, the same phenomenon that compels muggles to rationalize minor magical phenomena.

The second major advantage that the zombies had is that they, by the very act of coming into physical contact with their prey, were able to infect the intended victims with the very pathogen that had transformed them into eaters of the dead. The pathogen was virtually invisible. It did not generate pustules, or boils or abscesses or lesions that might have indicated to surrounding family and friends to avoid their loved ones. Nor did the pathogen manifest itself in the form of anti-social behaviour, aggressive urges, or erratic behaviour. The virus simply leeched life away from the victim, draining them of energy slowly and inevitably, which in turn drew their very friends and family around them like moths to a flame. Human compassion, which is often regarded as an endearing trait, only served to exacerbate the problem. By the time the victim was dead, the virus had infected virtually every cell in the body, and would quickly begin relaxing the tension in the skin, and re-molding it to allow for greater oxygen extraction. Instead of relying on merely human lungs to draw oxygen from the environment, the virus-run zombies could draw oxygen directly through the pores on their skin. The side effect of this, incidentally, is to give the once human creatures the greyish tinge to their skin that distinctly marks them as a zombie. Having access to nearly four times as much oxygen as it would otherwise have, the body begins converting body fat and glycogen into adenosine triphosphate at an incredible rate, transforming even the flabbiest and weakest individual into a super-charged killing machine, capable of thrice the strength and twice the speed of a normal human. Fortunately, zombies lacked the coordination to actually run, though their slow gait masks their inhumanly fast reflexes, and their ability to lunge with cat-like ferocity. With their energy consumption now kicked into overdrive, so too is their need for sustenance, cursing them with an insatiable hunger.

By eight o'clock in the evening, a scant four hundred survivors remained. They were the last survivors of the one hundred eighty-six thousand two hundred forty-four inhabitants of the town, and they were stretched across the city. Most of them had managed to lock themselves into some sort of bolt hole. They had dwindling supplies and little idea about what was going on beyond the four corners of their own room. Many of them simply prayed that the army or the national guard or somebody would come in and retrieve them. It was their last hope. All of them knew that to attempt to venture outside would spell certain doom.

Of all the victims, only about a hundred ten thousand became full-fledged, functioning zombies. The remaining seventy-five thousand or so were too badly mangled by their aggressors to be revitalized by the pathogen. Sometimes it was because the zombies managed to crack open the victims' skulls and eat the brain stems, though more often than not it was simple blood loss. Zombies could not exactly be called pack creatures, though they were not averse to roving in groups. It is not clear why they did not immediately turn to cannibalizing one another. Most likely they had an aversion to consuming infected meat, which is likely the reason why they often did not finish eating the bodies of their victims. The virus spread rapidly and infected the meat at a rate faster than the zombies could consume it. Only in the event that multiple zombies attacked a single body did it come to pass that the bones would be stripped clean of flesh. Scientists speculated that the virus, due to its rapid replication rate, created an electrochemical signature in their host bodies that warned off other virally infected bodies; much like a territorial marker. Only in the event that a zombie is dangerously low on glycogen, fat and convertible protein units does it overcome this natural aversion and begin preying on its fellow zombies. This is small comfort, however, since a zombie can go several days before it is driven to cannibalism.

"So explain this whole magic thing to me again," Faith said, ignoring Harry's grimace and contentedly munching away on a pink lady.

An hour had passed since Faith and Harry's departure from the police station. Fortunately for them, Faith had been able to retrieve her sword, which offered her some measure of comfort. Even if it had no impact against Nemesis, it was still an effective tool against most of the other critters roaming the streets. It had not taken them long to figure out where Umbrella was located, nor had it taken them long to realize that its location was conveniently across town. On foot and having to ghost their way through the city, they expected that it would take no less than four hours to walk to their destination. Faith had been inclined to take a car as far as they could go and then walk the remainder, but Harry was a bit more hesitant. The last thing they needed was to box themselves into a car only to get swamped. Understandably, Harry was not in the same position as Faith to survive a car crash unscathed. However, before they could get into a full blown argument over the issue, they were interrupted by an explosion that erupted at the far end of a street. Faith, even with her enhanced senses, could only barely make out a figure, which she assumed to be Jill, dashing through the wreckage and desperately avoiding the debris that was kicked up by the exploding rocket. While Faith was busy watching Jill disappear around a corner, Harry was busy gazing up at the dark figure standing atop a low-rise apartment complex. Nemesis was standing ramrod straight, and launching a second rocket, presumably with the aim of blowing Jill to smithereens.

"Fuck," Harry breathed, before dragging Jill into a nearby building, taking care to make sure that Nemesis didn't see them. That is how they ended up on the eighth floor of an apartment building, contentedly eating apples and leftover spaghetti in an empty apartment. Whoever had lived there was probably a zombie roaming the streets, which meant that they weren't particularly inclined to feel bad for stealing the previous owner's stuff.

"I have something called a magical core. Magic is inside me. It's like an energy source. Like having a battery that never runs out. And when I have my wand, it's like having a wire, or something that connects my magic to an outlet. The wand is an outlet. You know, so I can do magic. Otherwise, the magic just stays inside my body." Harry cursed himself for having a retarded understanding of magical theory. His analogies and explanations sounded lame even to his own ears.

Faith, however, not being technically inclined, was nevertheless soaking up Harry's words. At first, Harry couldn't understand why Faith was pressing him on his magic. It seemed as though she was trying to understand it, which Harry personally thought was a pointless endeavour.

"That's why you can do things like teleport, or transform," Faith mused. "Without a wand, I mean. Because you don't need an outlet."

"Er, yeah," Harry said, nodding, and never having thought about it before.

"Cool," Faith said. "I get that. So what else can you do without a wand?"

Harry cocked his head as he considered the question. Funny that he didn't really know the answer. Ever since his entry into the wizarding world, everything had always been done with a wand. It seemed like second nature to him, and to everyone else, and no one really questioned it.

"Well, I can't cast spells, if that's what you mean," Harry responded, certain of at least that much.

"Then what do you call the teleporting thing?" Faith responded instantly, already having thought ahead of Harry. "I mean, it's just a spell, right. Clearly you can cast spells on yourself. It's not like you need them to leave the body, you know? No outlet needed."

But Harry had no answer for her.

Faith sighed and fell into a silence. Harry's confusion reminded her once again about just how different he was from her. For all intents and purposes, she herself was a magical being. There was no scientific explanation that could justify her strength, speed, enhanced senses, prescience, etc. There was no secret nucleotide sequence hiding in her DNA, or odd chemicals in her blood stream. But, she supposed, her disdain for Harry's abilities went deeper than that. Ever since she had gotten her abilities, she had seen the world differently. She had seen herself differently. She understood that the way she was before was different than the way she was now. Now, she was a high performance machine. She was a Mazda RX-7 and everyone else was Ford Tempos. There was simply no contest. And her watchers had always instilled in her an appreciation for her abilities. Not that she needed much prompting. Like Buffy, she made a commitment to maintain her body. To keep herself on the edge of perfection at all times. And to see a magical being, with such potential sitting in front of her, just trudging along doing the bare minimum with an unimaginable power source at his disposal made her kind of disappointed. And the fact that he saw himself as an expert fighter of dark creatures just plain insulted her. Dark creatures were predators. And in order to hunt them, a person had to become a predator herself. Otherwise, you were just prey who got lucky. When she saw Harry, that's all she saw. A prey who got lucky. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could reach over and snap his neck like a twig without him being the wiser. If it were Buffy sitting in front of her, Faith wouldn't have made it halfway. Hell, she'd already be getting her ass kicked for just thinking about it. Even Xander, who had no special powers to speak of, and who was a mere cripple, would probably at least react before he got his neck snapped.

But then again, maybe she was being unfair. Harry had pulled a few rabbits out of his hat so far, and maybe she had to admire him a little bit.

"Get up," Faith said, making a snap decision and gracefully getting to her feet.

Harry raised an eyebrow before shrugging and standing up.

"Yes?" he asked.

Faith tossed him her sword and began surveying the apartment. After a moment of study, she went over to the far wall and grabbed a metal bar that was part of a desk. She ripped it out and held it like a weapon. "Fight me," Faith instructed.

"Fight you?" Harry asked incredulously.

Faith nodded. "Yeah, fight me. Try and kill me. I dare you."

"I'm holding a sword," Harry responded, as though she were an idiot.

"Yeah, I got the memo. Now do it."

"Or what? You're going to kill me?" Harry asked.

Faith thought about it and, intuitively landing upon the same discovery that Kingsley had landed upon so long ago, just said, "No, but I will hurt you something good."

"Oh, right, all right then," Harry said. "I suppose I should have known you'd try and assault me sooner or later."

Faith sprang forward and brought her two foot long pipe up and in a wide arc.

Harry couldn't be described as muscular. He did not have the physique to become the bulky, intimidating sort. However, the combination of malnutrition and long hours performing hard labour had given him ropy muscles that were deceptively lean.

Harry took a step backward and raised his sword, gripped in both hands, to deflect the incoming strike. Faith had left herself relatively wide open, but Harry suspected she was baiting him and elected to move cautiously. The two weapons impacted with a jarring clang, and Harry gritted his teeth from the blow.

"Not bad," she said appraisingly.

Harry nodded. He lunged forward, going for a swift and lethal strike. His technique was clumsy - he did not quite know how to balance his weight on his feet, or how to use his legs to carry the strike forward. Faith dodged to one side and brought her weapon around, batting Harry's blade away with another bone-jarring collision that Harry felt penetrate all the way through his fingers and wrist. Harry pursed his lips. After two strikes, he already felt his hands starting to cramp up. This wasn't the kind of fighting he had ever done before and he wasn't even really sure how useful it would be.

Faith seemed to read his mind, because she raised one eyebrow and said simply, "I bet you're just wishing you had your wand."

"If I did, you'd be a quivering block of tofu right now," Harry said. "I wouldn't even waste my time with a stunner."

"You'd have to hit me first," she said, and then whirled around with lightning speed, employing all the powers bestowed upon her as the slayer, and bringing her weapon around in a swift motion designed to decapitate. However, Harry, having been made wary of her phenomenal speed, apparated across the room to the other side, allowing him a moment's breathing space. Faith did not overbalance, as she had done before, partly because she hadn't really been intending to decapitate Harry, and partly because she had already acclimatized to Harry's ability to disappear, stopped in midstrike, pivoted on one foot and threw her weapon in Harry's direction, even as he reappeared, her slayer sense functioning as a radar to pinpoint his location in advance and allowing her to respond in real-time.

Harry instinctively contracted one of his wings around his body, using it to shield himself. The pipe, travelling at eighty miles an hour and weighing one kilogram thudded against the diamond-hard exterior of his feathers and bounced off. "Ow," He said, "that stung."

Faith nodded. "Not bad. Reckon it's your turn, then."

Harry blinked. "Yeah, I reckon it is." Being wandless, he hadn't actually expected to put up much of a fight. He shuffled forward, his sword raised. Faith, in response, raised her fists. Not being versed in sword technique, Harry was hesitant to try any kind of slashing motion, afraid he would end up getting himself knocked off his feet. He wasn't confident he could do anything more complicated with a sword than jabbing motions. When he felt he was in approximately the right range, he pounced, aiming for a vital organ and confident that the worst he would do was skewer an arm. He was unprepared for what Faith actually did. He knew she was strong, but to see her leap from a standing jump, and flip clean over his head was completely unexpected. By the time she touched down, harry was whirling around intending to skewer her on her descent. However, she followed through with her landing by collapsing to the ground, letting Harry slice at thin air, while she herself executed a sweep kick, knocking Harry off his feet and onto his butt. Harry leapt to his feet, taking care to use his wings as a shield and keep his weapon close to his body so as not to overextend himself. Faith, meanwhile, was picking up her lost weapon and readying herself to continue the fight.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Nice."

"I aim to please."

The two sparred for another ten minutes. Faith became skilled at anticipating Harry's entry points for his apparations and Harry, in turn, improved shrugging off the disorientation that accompanied apparation travel. He found himself relying heavily on the few magical abilities at his disposal to maintain his defense, and it seemed to him that Faith was less interested in actually disarming him and was more interested in forcing him to use his magic. He even understood what she was trying to accomplish, though he had his reservations regarding how effective it would be. Kingsley had put him through a similar training regime earlier in the summer and Harry had shown little aptitude for it. Faith slammed her makeshift sword down on Harry's, sending another jolt through his body. He was visibly weakening, the strain of having to grip the weapon and maintain it in a defensive posture wearing down on him. In truth, Faith was also running out of steam, though she wasn't quite sure why. While Harry's attacks weren't anything to sneer at, she still hadn't coaxed a superhuman response. The strategy she was employing to bring Harry's magical abilities to the forefront was the same strategy that her Watcher had used, and which was the traditional strategy of Watchers throughout the ages. Slayers discovered their powers through extreme danger. It marked the beginning of their customarily short and brutal careers.

She couldn't understand why she was being drained of energy. Was Harry's magic manifesting itself in some as of yet unknown way, draining her of her own energy as a kind of parasitic offense? Faith stopped and took a step back. She tossed her weapon to the side and said, "I reckon that's enough."

Harry let the sword fall uselessly to one side. He relaxed visibly and flexed his fingers. "I think I'm going to be feeling that for a week."

"Felt good though, didn't it?"

"yeah, actually. It kind of did." Harry headed to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. "You want some?"

Faith nodded, though he could tell her attention was focused elsewhere.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Shh," Faith said, raising one finger to shush him. After a moment's contemplation, Harry finally heard it too. There was a noise, far off in the distance, though he couldn't make out what it was.

"A train's coming."

"A train?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Yeah, like a monorail or something." Faith brushed past him and went to a window overlooking a short field. Down below, there were train tracks barely visible in the penumbra of streetlights. "Reckon you can jump?" she asked finally.

"What?"

Faith turned to face him and then pointed a finger down at the tracks below. "That's our ticket to the other side of this God-forsaken hole."

"You can't be serious," Harry said, despite already knowing that she was. He glanced down at the darkness, and swallowed. He also knew that she was going to take off with or without him, and that, if he didn't join her now, he may as well pack up and go home. And not because he was incapable of surviving on his own, but because bloody Giles never even bothered giving him a photo of the people he was supposed to be searching for. He was stuck at the hip to the slayer, and that thought, which would have irritated him profusely hours earlier, did not trouble him quite so much. Perhaps it was because she had tried to help him understand his own magic right now, however misplaced that attempt happened to be, or perhaps it was because their conversations had transformed into something resembling civil, Harry did not know. All he knew for certain was that he hadn't liked that look of melancholy that had graced her features back at the police station and that, even with all her formidable survival instincts, Raccoon City was host to creatures that surpassed even her ability to handle. Was that worry? He resolved to think about it at a later date. They had a train to catch.

Finally, he nodded tersely, indicating that he would follow wherever she dared to take him.

The train arrived three minutes later, and Harry, to his satisfaction, found that Faith was coiled tight like a spring. Even she was nervous. The drop to the bottom was almost twenty metres, which would have been ludicrously lethal for any normal human. And the fact that they were going to be impacting a hard, fast-moving surface wasn't helping any. On the one hand, Faith's drop would be easier to time. She intended to just drop like a log, which would take all of two seconds to complete. Harry, on the other hand, incapable of surviving such an impact, would have to descend more gently, using his wings to the best of his abilities in order to gently guide himself.

"Ready?" Faith asked.

In reply, Harry just closed his eyes for a brief moment before jumping out the window, using his wings to subtly guide him forward and clear of any protruding ledges. The first thing that struck him was the chill of the air as it whipped passed him as he descended. Harry flexed his wings and executed a fierce downward stroke before he had a chance to pick up too much speed. His body jerked to a halt, sending a jolt running up his back and through his neck, before he began to fall once more. Gulping a lungful of air and ignoring the sensation of nausea that was accompanying his unsteady descent, Harry proceeded to beat his wings more gently this time, to allow for a more controlled descent.

Fortunately, it was a windless evening, and he managed to fall directly over top the train, saving him the trouble of having to navigate himself laterally. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Faith hit the roof of the lead car, expertly compacting herself into a ball and performing a backwards somersault to absorb the impact. The more time he spent with Faith, the more he had to admire the usefulness of her superhuman skill. He, having descended much more slowly, and not having quite the same innate sense of timing as a slayer, landed on the third car, his body held rigid to brace for impact. However, Harry did not take into account the inertial displacement, and he found himself being flipped onto his back and skidding ten feet towards the end of the car, his fingers and wings grappling with the smooth metal surface to try and slow his slide. His left wing managed to catch on a piece of twisted metal, partly spinning him around it and absorbing enough of his momentum to keep him from being propelled off the car and onto the grassy field below.

Bloody hell, he thought, drinking in the darkness around him. I just jumped off an eighth floor balcony and onto a moving train. He glanced about, peering in the gloom at his body to check to see if there were any broken bones or missing limbs. Apart from some mild bruising on his left shoulder, he appeared to be perfectly fine. Fuck, yeah, he thought. I'm amazing.

At that precise moment, while Harry was drinking in his success at executing what was a rather difficult feat, he felt a deep reverberation cut through the body of the train. Nemesis, it seemed, had had the same idea as him and Faith. He had jumped from a neighbouring building and had landed on the lead car, his massive body obscuring Faith from view. He had been heavy enough that he had made a sizeable depression in the metal, and one foot had gone so far as to break through the roof of the train.

Faith was dodging a large, vicious swipe from one of Nemesis's fists. "Goddamn," Harry groaned, pitching forward and begging for a warm bed and a cup of tea. "Not him again." Harry could distantly make out Faith's shouts, egging the monstrosity on. When Harry looked up next, he saw Faith leaping off the creature's shoulders and giving him a dropkick clean in the face, which, Harry was impressed to see, had the effect of knocking Nemesis clear on his back.

"Take that, motherfucker," she said, adopting a fighting stance and drawing out a scrunchie to tie her hair back. Nemesis got to his feet and let out a deep rumble. It then charged her, both its arms outstretched. Faith tucked herself between its arms, dodging one fist as she slammed her foot down on its kneecap with enough force to bend a steel beam. But the creature shrugged off the assault as if it were nothing and instead picked Faith up by the neck and hurled her fifteen feet, an expression of horror plastered across her face. Faith disappeared into the darkness, and Harry just moaned once more. "Oh, God, why me?"

But Nemesis was apparently not interested in pulverizing Harry, because it proceeded to rip apart the rooftop of the lead car and jump down into the passenger section below.

It took Harry only a moment to realize that that was not a good thing. Almost immediately, Harry could hear the sound of automatic gunfire being discharged, and the cries of several people, one of whom he suspected was Jill. The din of gunfire was halved as one of the mercenaries down below was casually thrown out the side window. Then, to his dismay, he watched as the lead car began to get further away. Harry quickly realized that somebody had disconnected the cable car with Nemesis in it, so that the rest of the train was slowing down as the front car sped up. In the next minute, Harry watched, dumbfounded, as the lead car detonated in a titanic explosion. Worse, the remainder of the train, Harry realized, would quickly be derailed once it impacted the wreckage. You've got two seconds to jump, Potter.

But Harry found he could not jump. Instead, he just stared for those brief seconds at the plumes of flame and backlit flying debris, mesmerized at the beauty hidden in the carnage. Then, in a flash, the remainder of the subway train, having slowed down somewhat, but not enough, hit the mess of burning rubble and the shell of the lead train car. Amidst the smells of smoke and burning rubber, and the crunch of metal on metal, Harry picked out the shrill keening of the train wheels grating along the tracks, before the train lurched forward once more only to collapse to one side, pitching Harry at an odd angle and into the darkness.

Unlike Faith and Harry, Dawn and Xander had started out on the right side of the city. However, that was small comfort. All it meant was that the concentration of zombies was higher and that there were other, more sinister creatures lurking about as well. The central node of Umbrella's Raccoon City operation was a skyscraper marking the tip of one arm of downtown. It was easily the largest building in the city, not even taking into consideration the vast underground research complex that sat underneath the sewer system.

Dawn had expected, ever since the catastrophe at the vineyard, that Xander would become even more useless than he normally was. Possibly, he might have even become as useless as Dawn was in the fight against the big bad. However, that proved not to be the case. Even with just one eye, he was capable of assessing an entire street, including all its shadows, all its alleyways, the potential weak spots, the tactical pressure points, with a single sweeping glance. Similarly, he proved to be rather effective with his marksmanship. It was disgruntling for her, since she was still having difficulty wielding the larger caliber pistols. The last thing she wanted was to feel like a burden. Yet again. so that was why she took particular pride in managing to decrypt the security system that blocked people from gaining access to the lobby.

"Funny that the creepy critters haven't smashed up the walls," Dawn commented, surveying the eerie silence. Two zombies were roaming around outside, shuffling their way piteously towards them.

"It's not glass," Xander remarked, sparing the zombies only a glance. They were now beating futilely against the walls. "It's some kind of polymer, like Plexiglas. Only much stronger, I expect."

"Oh," Dawn said. "How did you know that?"

"Plate glass windows have a particular refractive index. You can tell by the quality of the reflections in them."

"Oh."

The two began exploring the main level of the Umbrella corporation. It was both fortunate and a little disturbing that they found no signs of disturbances on any of the floors of the building. During their short jaunt through the streets of Raccoon City, it became quickly clear that zombies had a tendency to smash their way into stores and, in their shambling haste to catch their prey, they often upturned many of the contents in aisles, often drooling or bleeding on surfaces. If Umbrella were truly the source of the corruption, if it were ground zero for the creation of the zombie hordes, then Xander and Dawn should have run across signs of the great zombie escape. To Xander, the unusual antiseptic quality of the building suggested to him that either they were in seriously the wrong place, or the release of zombies was a planned occurrence. Xander had grown used to the idea that people were generally nice enough, even if they could be petty and shortsighted at times, and that the real evil in the world could be laid at the hands of soulless abominations. It was a warped perception of the world brought on by the nature of the conflicts he found himself in while living in Sunnydale.

The duo had decided to canvas the upper levels of the office complex first, before attempting to venture into the underground research facility. Neither of them had any idea what they would be getting themselves into when they descended into the subterranean labyrinth, and so had decided that they would err on the side of caution. Both were acutely aware of their vulnerability.

After an hour of searching the executive offices, Dawn hit the jackpot. One of the executives was hoarding secret files in a shallow crevice between desk drawers. "Looks like Ms. Woodyard's been rather naughty," Dawn breathed, her eyes alight with anticipation. Xander came around to where Dawn was standing, careful not to pass by any windows. As high up as they were, Xander wasn't taking any chances leaving himself open to an attack. Windows were dangerous, because they provided a false sense of security that often led to the death of a hapless victim. Xander was determined not to let that happen to either him or Dawn. He adjusted his eye patch and squinted down at the first couple of pages that Dawn had spread over the surface of the desk. Much of the documentation consisted of memos, account statements, transaction records, and other items that Xander was certain was blackmail fodder. He thought he recognized a senator's name on one of the pages.

Deeper in, they found some passing references to magic, and to terms he had never heard before, like "muggles". He filed the information away for later use, and told himself to raise the issue when he saw Willow or Giles. Maybe they would know.

It should be noted that Raccoon City was just one of many research sites that Umbrella had in the world. It was not even considered their most secretive, and it certainly should not have had any information in it whatsoever relating to the subject matter of the magical world. However, Jacqueline Woodyard, a sophisticated and savvy aristocrat of an older world had learned her lesson well. In order to blackmail the higher ups at Umbrella, you needed a serious shitload of ammunition, and even then, you need to make sure it's in twenty-six different locations, half of them linked to dead man's switches, and the other half floating precariously in the ether, their fates governed by mere chance. And even then, on top of all that, you had to be careful how much you asked for, and you had to make sure you did it politely. Otherwise, you could find yourself locked in a legal action against Umbrella's law firm, Wolfram & Hart, and that was a bad thing. Jacqueline had done her job well. She had managed to uncover sensitive material from a Zone 4 site - one of Umbrella's nerve centres, which gave her access not only to deeply incriminating information on the Raccoon City projects, but also on other projects around the world.

Most of it was incomprehensible to Xander, but even he could tell that it was juicy stuff.

"Let's pack this up, shall we?" he asked, still staring at the lab report on the Tyrant project. Apparently, it had been a failure, because the cybernetic monstrosity was incapable of distinguishing friend from foe, but the scientists seemed to have corrected that shortcoming with their second attempt, the Nemesis project."

"They're using viruses to mutate people," Dawn said aloud, breaking the otherwise oppressive silence.

The two were now taking the elevator down to the sublevels. A security key was required, but that did not stop them. They had found a spare in one of the executive offices. Xander nodded.

"They're building super monsters," Dawn persisted, her voice a combination of terrified and resolved.

"Yeah, Dawny, that's what it looks like. Another Adam. Maybe this time an army of them."

"Only, it's not the government. It's a corporation."

Xander had nothing to add to this. Compared to Umbrella, the Initiative was a bunch of backwater hicks with spades and pitchforks. Umbrella, on the other hand, was the real deal. The zombies were just test fodder. They were victims of a large scale experiment program designed to proliferate biodiversity in their virus population. Raccoon City was a two-fold research site designed to test controlled biological warfare, on the one hand, and, on the other, create superhuman creatures.

And they had Buffy. The thought made Xander shiver, and he resolved to get his friends out of that hellhole ASAP.

Sadly, Xander and Dawn would soon discover, to their sorrow, that neither Buffy, nor Willow, nor the other captured slayers were in Raccoon City at all. Their foray into zombie infested territory was all for naught.

Harry awoke to the sound of falling rain. The first thing he noticed was the warmth, and the second was the softness. After what felt like a lifetime trudging through mountains and abandoned streets and getting into one fight after another, the comfort of a softly lit, cozy little bedroom felt like heaven.

"Mmm," he mumbled, digging deeper into the mattress and only halfway consciously pulling the blankets around his neck and shoulders. He had been dreaming; he was certain of that, and his mind seemed to be urging him to return to that netherworld where pain and sorrow and guilt and loss did not exist. However, as hard as his brain tried, he found he could not return there. Whether it was because of his own resolve or whether it was because he knew something was wrong, he did not know. All he knew is that the memory of the blazing fire in the common room hearth of Gryffindor Tower drew away and was replaced by the sterile lamplight of an incandescent bulb. Harry tried to stuff his face into his pillow, but he could already hear the sound of a person shifting, and he doubted they were particularly interested in waiting for him. Knowing Faith, he would quickly become a punching bag if she found him dawdling.

And then it hit him. The memories. The train, Nemesis, the explosion, the darkness, the zombie hordes, the search for the slayers. Harry blinked and tried to peer out into the room, but he found his vision was blurry. from fatigue. At first, he thought he needed to put on his glasses, before he realized that he had in fact, hired a transfiguration specialist to fix his myopia. He blinked again to clear away the fuzziness, already calling out as he spied a figure sitting in an armchair. "Faith?" he asked, softly, checking to see if she were awake.

The figure stirred, and looked up, tired brown eyes meeting Harry's green ones. "You're not Faith," Harry said, suddenly aware at just how dry his throat was. It felt scratchy, as though he had tried to eat a canister of sawdust, or lead chips or something.

The figure did not respond at first, and Harry got the distinct feeling that he was being scrutinized. All the while, he tried to place the image of the woman sitting before him. It did not go unnoticed that she was holding a pistol, and, it was that fact that clarified his confusion. "Jill," he amended.

The figure, Jill, shifted at the sound of her own name, and, after a moment, Harry wondered whether she was planning to respond at all. Finally, she said, "Yeah, that's me."

Harry found it difficult to reconcile the defeated tone of the woman in front of him with the woman who went toe to toe with Nemesis. She didn't seem interested in Harry's name, though he felt obliged to give it. "My name's Harry," he said. "Harry Potter." He had half-expected her to glance up at his scar, but, unsurprisingly, she didn't. She was a muggle after all.

Hearing his name seemed to galvanize her into action. She stood and, in a gesture that Harry took as friendship, she holstered her gun and approached, kneeling before him to gauge his wounds. "How are you doing?"

The question seemed oddly personal to Harry, especially with her being so close as she checked over his wounds. He supposed it had to do with the fact that she didn't act like a healer. The inflection in her voice suggested that she was actually concerned about his well-being, as opposed to simply having that clinical detachment that all doctors were supposed to have. Then again, being bereft and alone and dogged by nightmare monsters probably tended to heighten the human capacity to forge relationships. It would be a survival mechanism.

"I'm all right," Harry managed, shifting slightly to show that he had functioning limbs. Then, as if realizing that he may not have functioning limbs, Harry began flexing his arms and legs each in turn to make sure there was nothing missing. To his relief, all his limbs were intact and operational. Phew, he mentally sighed.

"I promise I'll do anything in my power to get you out of here," Jill said.

"Er thanks," Harry replied, somewhat awkwardly. Did she think he needed saving? Well, given that she most likely had, in fact, saved his life by pulling him out of the wreckage and dragging him God only knew where, yeah, she probably did. Harry cleared his mind of abstract thoughts and cast his gaze about in search of a topic. However, the room was devoid of any idiosyncrasies that he could have latched onto, so, instead he just said, "You're a cop?"

Jill nodded. "I'm a member of the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad."

Harry blinked. "The - what?"

"Stars," Jill amended for Harry's benefit. "It's a high-level division of the RCPD designed to deal with dangerous operations."

"I see," Harry said, though he actually found he didn't quite see at all. "That's like SWAT, right?"

"Yeah, only without all the extra fanfare." Now that they were talking, Jill began busying herself by taking a cloth and wiping down the most egregious of Harry's injuries. Part of him wanted to protest, but part of him found he rather enjoyed the ministrations. This was nothing like the Hogwarts hospital. For one, there were no disgusting substances that he was being forced to ingest.

"Why in the world does the RCPD need a SWAT team?" Harry asked. "I mean, isn't that for like terrorists and the Unabomber and stuff?"

Jill shook her head. "We only train here. Most of our missions are in other cities, like Denver, or Detroit. Between the desert and the mountains, Raccoon City is an ideal location for staging operations. It doesn't hurt that the property's cheap and many of us like living here."

"I can see how zombies would be an attractive part of the wildlife," Harry responded dryly, though he regretted saying it the moment the words left his mouth. Jill did not respond, but he could see in the tightening of her muscles the tension of the last few hours hitting her full force. "Er, sorry," Harry mumbled, willing himself to sink deeper into the covers and disappear. Unlike Harry, Jill had lost friends and colleagues over the past twenty-four hours. Harry himself had seen her lose Brad, who had thrown his life away to protect her. You're a fucking heel, Potter. Now even more desperate to switch topics, Harry jumped in on the train issue. "So how'd we get here?"

Jill tossed the now blood-crusted rag to one side and began wadding up some tissue, which she dabbed with a bit of vodka, and then began swabbing Harry's wounds. "I carried you. It was lucky we didn't run across anything more vicious than a couple of stray zombies and a crow. Even still, I had to duck into the cathedral to rest. That's where we are now."

"All right," Harry said. "What happened to Faith? And how far are we from MedGen?"

"I didn't see anyone else, and I wasn't going to stick around. I doubt that monster was truly dead." Jill then paused in her swabbing to stare curiously at Harry. "Why are you going to MedGen?"

"Well, it's a subsidiary of Umbrella," Harry said. "Reckon that's where the action is."

"Action?" Jill asked.

"Yeah, looks like Umbrella's stolen some friends of Faith's. She and I are tasked with getting them back. Why? Where are you headed?"

"Same place. Apparently there's a chopper we can use to escape."

'Oh, yeah. I reckon that'd be handy," Harry said, before shaking his head. "Regardless, I can't leave. Not without Faith, and not without her friends."

Jill stood abruptly and tossed the disinfectant to one side. She went over to a table where Harry could see the grenade launcher resting idly. Jill began busying herself with inspecting it, while markedly ignoring Harry. Finally, she said, "That's all I can do for your wounds."

"Right," Harry replied, gingerly dragging himself to a sitting position and struggling to keep from crying out. As best as he could tell, he had no broken bones, but he was still sore around his ribcage, and his body was laced with multiple cuts of varying degrees. It didn't help that the vodka was leaving a stinging sensation on his skin. "I reckon I'd best be off then." He tentatively got to his feet.

"Harry," Jill said, cutting in on his attempt to stand. "It's probably best you accept that your friend is dead."

"That doesn't matter. I have to go back out there anyway. I'm not going to just leave her. She could have a broken bone or something." Personally, Harry doubted that a mere broken bone was going to stop Faith. Her healing powers were phenomenal, and it also meant that she could endure a great deal of agony and still keep moving.

"I can't help you if you go back out there. We have to keep moving."

"Right, well, that's fine," Harry said. "I don't need your help. I mean, I'm thankful for everything that you've done, but I've got the rest under control. Besides, Faith isn't the kind of person who's just going to lay down and die. She's tough, and she'd probably beat the shit out of me for ditching her." Harry shook his head. "No, I can't leave her. Hell, she's probably already making her way over here right now."

Jill loaded up her weapons and stared fixedly at Harry. So much so that he had to resist the itch to start squirming. Finally, she said, "You're going to have a hell of a time finding her out there in the darkness. The train crashed next to an abandoned field and junkyard, and there's almost no light. I only managed to get out of there because of the light of the fire, and that's surely died down by now. Not to mention that the fire undoubtedly attracted creatures of all kinds. If you go out there looking for her, you'll be facing a battalion of zombies in the dark, searching for a person who may be dead or unconscious, and you'll be unarmed. Besides, if she's that tough, you can always rely on her to find her own way."

However much Harry wanted to, he couldn't refute Jill's logic. It made no sense to go after Faith. And that wasn't even taking into account the fact that Faith was superhuman. Chances were, she'd have to come rescue him. Still, Harry wasn't the kind of person who left somebody behind. It grated against everything he stood for; everything that he thought he was. He was a hero. Didn't that mean that he had to choose to go back out there? Isn't that what heroes did?

But then again, that was what cost Sirius his life. Harry's saving people thing. It's childish of you to think that you have to go out there personally to save every single person. Not to mention conceited. You're not good enough, not fast enough, not strong enough to save everyone out there. If Sirius Black's death is going to count for anything, it's going to count for that, Potter. Grow up and move on.

Jill, seemingly oblivious to the internal debate that was raging within Harry, had already wrapped up her belongings. She sincerely hoped that Harry would follow her to the chopper and take off. Partly, it was out of concern for his well-being. She could see that he was young, and clearly way over his head. But another part of her - the part that had acclimatized to accepting people's death, was more interested in securing a live specimen to show the world. Harry was undoubtedly a product of Umbrella's hideous experimentation, and that made him invaluable as a tool against the multinational. It even made sense, in a strange sort of way. Winged soldiers. Harry looked like some sort of angel of death with his wings outstretched. If nothing else, he would put the fear of God into his enemies. Literally.

"Okay," Harry said. "I'll go with you. But I'm not going to be waylaid from finding Faith's friends. I owe her that. Even if it means walking into a room full of zombies unarmed. I don't care. I won't fail them." Satisfied that he had made a compromise, Harry followed Jill out the door and into the darkness beyond.

Faith let out a long, suffering groan. If there was one thing she hated, it was being hurled off a moving train at high velocity. After being rocketed like a football, Faith had instinctively thrown her hands out in front of her unknowingly imitating a Superman pose as she sailed through the air. Aware that she was oriented in the wrong direction relative to her flight vector, her slayer sense allowed her to position her body in precisely the kind of angled pose that would allow her to minimize impact upon contact with the ground. Tucking one arm in more tightly than the other, she hit the ground rolling, at a forty-five degree angle, the flat side of her forearm positioned to absorb enough of the blow to allow her to flip herself over before her arm could be broken by the full force of the impact. Her back then absorbed much of the rest, some of it being sucked up by her other arm as she continued to roll, and giving her only minimal damage to her skull. Still, the blows were severe, and only the fact that she had managed to land on a strip of grass had saved her from having a concussion. Still, it took upwards of fifteen minutes for her to get her bearings and let her slayer powers perform enough healing operations such that she was in a fit condition to walk without stumbling.

The first thing she noticed was the burning wreckage. Plumes of black smoke were disappearing into the night sky from a raging torrent of flames. From what she could gather, the front car had suffered a massive explosion that had derailed the rest of the train. There were warped, twisted spires of metal jutting out in all directions at the centroid of the blast, with progressively fewer from there onwards. Only the second train had completely derailed, falling over to one side, half its body lost amidst the burning rubble. That was all Faith could make out from this distance. The wreckage was at least two kilometres away, which she supposed made sense. The train must have continued onward for a minute or two after she had been flung from it. She had had almost no time to check to see how Harry had fared with his landing before Nemesis was upon them. Nemesis must have had the same idea as them, and surely it had been him who had caused the destruction of the train. Having had a better idea on how to deal with him, she had been more prepared and was able to get in a couple of good, solid hits. Unfortunately, she was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that it cared very little for the injuries that it sustained, assuming she had managed to injure it at all. Even vampires responded to injuries by pausing and issuing a death threat. Nemesis, however, spared not a second to recover, as though he was not even aware of the pain she was inflicting, which, most likely, was the case. The powers that allowed it to move were not mystical in origin. This thing was like Adam. Or worse, the rock beast. Moreover, she had expected to at least have broken its kneecap with her low kick, but that hadn't happened. Without the aid of mystical powers she could only assume that it had some sort of internal skeleton that was stronger than a steel girder. Much stronger, and that was troubling. She doubted she could beat it in a fair fight, which meant that she was going to have to make it an unfair one.

But first, she had to find Harry, or what was left of him. She had trouble believing that Harry was actually dead. Not because she was naive and expected things to work out okay, but because he was a tough son of a bitch. Even though she could probably pummel him into the ground if she really tried, she found it very difficult. That first night atop the mountain, she had let her anger get the better of her. At first, she wanted to just hurt him really badly, and then perhaps leave him there for a couple of days to be picked up by hikers. But he had proven surprisingly difficult to kill. First, he had survived a fifteen foot toss, without a single broken bone or without losing consciousness. And then, even after she had disarmed him, thinking that he was completely defenseless, he had sent a beam of bluish energy that had impacted with her chest. Unlike the stunner he had tried back in Giles' office, this one she could feel was meant to kill her. For the briefest moment, she had felt as though her lungs had been on fire and that her internal organs were just going to collapse. A shiver of something had crawled up her spine, and she was certain that if she had been a newbie slayer, she would have most likely been gravely injured. It was only the brutality of her life, her skill with using her own power, her ability to redirect her energies that allowed her to gear up her slayer powers in time to withstand the assault. While slayers weren't the toughest creatures out there, they were still formidable in their own right, and the fact that the pipsqueak had the strength to kill one unnerved her. She had wanted to kill him right then and there, and had done her best to do so. She had lifted him into the air and tried to choke him to death. But, between the blistering wounds that he was inflicting on her body, and her already depleted energy, she didn't even manage to crush his windpipe. And then he had simply vanished, like he had done in Giles' office, leaving her staring stupidly at her empty hand. Of course, he hadn't gotten very far, but then, her next attempt, even more desperate than the last, failed spectacularly. She had actually been repelled, by what she could only describe as a shockwave. And when she had righted herself, she saw that what lay in front of her was no longer something entirely human. Harry had partially transformed. That final act had depleted all her hatred, and had left her bereft and alone, forced to stew in her own ignorance. Seeing Harry like that reminded her how little she actually knew about him, and just how insensible it had been of her to try and kill him. It didn't help that, with his muscles relaxed, he looked incredibly young. She hadn't realized just how tense he was all the time; a tension she could understand, because she had carried such a thing with her. It made him look older than he was.

There was a groan somewhere off to Faith's left, and, spying with her acute vision, she saw a dark form lying haphazardly sprawled across the dirt. Picking up her sword, which, thankfully, was no more than ten feet away, Faith went over to the body and nicked it with the tip of her blade. It stirred, and Faith could now tell that, the mysterious person was male and just coming out of unconsciousness. Must've been thrown from the train also. That, or he jumped.

"Hey," Faith said, now closing in and nudging the stranger with her boot. "Get up."

However, he did not seem particularly receptive to Faith's prodding, and instead just tried to shift out of the way. Goddamn, she thought irritably, spying about for any other task that she could perform. To her dismay, she found that the darkness was settling in more deeply. The firelight from the train wreck was dwindling, plunging her into even further darkness. And worse, she could sense things shifting out there. Dark things. Probably attracted by the carnage. They were still too far away for her to detect with her enhanced hearing, smell or sight, but she knew they were coming. Her danger sense was alive and impelling her to hightail it out of the area. Normally, the cover of night was a slayer's best friend. They were built for it; their senses tuned in such a way as to make use of the ambient energies that could guide them only in darkness. But here, in this instance, facing these creatures, Faith suspected that she was at a disadvantage.

"Christ fuck, I don't have time for this," she muttered, glancing down at the prone figure. She knelt down, against her better judgment, and began poking at him with her finger. "Get up," she whispered.

The man seemed to respond to this, as if detecting the urgency in her voice and responding accordingly. He roused himself as best he could, even going so far as to drag himself to his knees, and then, with a grunt, he dragged himself to a standing position, staggering a bit as he regained full control of his limbs. "God, what hit me?" he muttered, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs before squinting and casting his gaze about.

"Can you walk?" Faith asked, coming up close to him, but taking care not to invade his personal space.

"Er, yeah," he said, testing his legs. "My left's a bit sprained, but I can manage."

"Good, 'cause we're going to have to hoof it and fast," Faith said, pointing in the direction of the train, where now the only visible remains were the glowing red chunks of protruding metal. "We've got company."

The stranger seemed to understand because he nodded, though Faith couldn't make out any of his features in the gloom. Taking charge, and having assessed the area already, she pointed to a building that looked like it could have been a warehouse, or an industrial complex, or something. She could now pick up the sound of shuffling, but the sound of their moans was distinctly absent. Fuckers are trying to be stealthy, she thought. "Come on," she said, pushing past him and heading out towards the faint outline of what she hoped would serve as their sanctuary.

Thankfully, the stranger had the sense to follow, and, also, he was able to maintain a light jog in order to keep up with her. "Name's Carlos, by the way," he said.

"Faith," she replied neutrally. She supposed it was handy to have a name, but, given the dangers, her mind was directed to the task of keeping an eye on her surroundings. Even though the critters could probably zero in on her position from the sound of her feet crunching on the occasional bit of discarded detritus, she still didn't like broadcasting her position by talking. It seemed amateurish somehow.

Even though they were going at a good clip, easily twice the speed of a shuffling zombie, Faith found her slayer sense was kicking it up a notch, alerting her to the approach of a predator. She was certain it couldn't be Nemesis, since there was no way he could manage being stealthy. Not when he must have weighed a thousand pounds. That had been another thing that had disturbed her. A full body check from a slayer should have easily knocked a thousand pound humanoid creature off its legs. But with Nemesis, it had hardly even budged him. Faith resolved to think about it later. She had more immediate problems on her hands, and she needed to focus. Not ten feet from the building, and just a couple of steps away from blessed lamplight, Faith sensed the rush of wind that preceded the swipe of a large fist. Within a twentieth of a second, Faith was already pivoting to make a roundhouse, her entire torso angling downwards to give her leg enough thrust to turn a human torso to pulp. Her leg, however, did not impact any hard surface. Instead, she felt her leg being plucked out of midair and twisted, sending her sprawling to the ground. "Oof!" she wheezed, already positioning herself to make a swift roll to the right, using the momentum the creature had lent her to cleanly dodge the killing blow. Just like vampires, these creatures had little to no finesse when fighting. They always tried to jump in with a killing shot that made them ever so predictable. Only the truly experienced vampires, like Spike and Angelus knew that fighting a slayer required tactics and strategy. You had to play it like a game of chess. You couldn't go right in for the king, or else you'd be picked off by one of the pawns, or a bishop. No, you had to cut off squares, limit their maneuverability, ever so slowly, bit by bit, stripping away each layer of defense, one at a time, having patience and waiting for just the right opening. Of course, that level of tactical skill was next to impossible, since, one of the key features of the slayer package was a superlative tactical programming. Slayer instincts allowed slayers to find precisely the right combination of attacks from any given situation that would lead them to bettering their position, so that they would inevitably be drawn to the final kill. It was this one ability and this one ability alone that allowed them to beat even the worst odds. It didn't hurt that their enemies always underestimated them.

Knowing that the creature would most likely find itself in the same spot that she had just occupied, Faith leapt to her feet, already bringing her sword down in a slashing motion designed to inflict the most damage regardless of what position the creature was in. To her luck, she saw that her slice had severed the creature's hand off at the wrist. It howled, and, for the first time, she could tell that the creature she was fighting was of the same ilk as the one she had tangled with on top of the mountains. Already knowing that it would charge heedless of the consequence, Faith employed the same tactic she had employed the previous time, leaping over its head in an astounding demonstration of acrobatic prowess. Only this time, she drove the tip of her sword downward, right through the top of its skull, letting her forward momentum carry herself and her sword forward with enough force to cut clean through the back of its head, spraying gore and brains across the ground, just inches from where she landed. The creature stumbled after the lethal blow and fell face first into the grass. Not wasting a moment, Faith turned around and ran toward the abandoned warehouse, Carlos just managing to stick a zombie with a knife and coming up alongside her. Faith forced herself to slow her pace so he could keep up, all the while throwing the occasional glance over her shoulders to check to see if anything else were approaching. Now bathed in light, Faith could see that there were more hunters lurking amongst the zombies. One executed a high jump, putting it just over ten feet into the air and bringing it dangerously close to their position.

Goddamn, Faith thought. If she had to stop to kill it, then chances were its brothers would have enough time to catch up on her. She doubted she could fight more than two at a time. And even then only because of her sword. However, before she could puzzle the problem any further, Carlos lobbed something that looked suspiciously like a grenade behind him. "Run faster," he said between breaths. Faith did not need to be told twice. She picked up speed and, just when she sensed the explosion, she threw herself into a somersault, just as shrapnel went sailing over her head. The second the last metal shard was down, she sprang back up ready to fight, but found that the hunter had taken a direct hit, and was down for the count. Some of the lead zombies had also been blown apart, and one of the other lead hunters had been injured, giving them their best chance to get away. Carlos was already running and Faith quickly joined him.

They made it to the warehouse without further incident.