Jill was fast but he was faster. The next shot hit, if to the side, as she rolled over and her legs snapped around his foot. He tried to keep standing but she had more mass than him.
And a tail.
Against that number of advantages, Kari could only do so much. His mandibles opened wide as a pained hiss came out from landing poorly on his side and wings while he aimed the gun not at her chest or head but straight at her thigh. The explosion of pain and blood was more distracting than damaging as she came back to a low crouch, her weight on her other leg as the wound had already begun to close.
"Didn't even manage to hit a bone." With the bullet penetrating through it was only a distraction on her and not a crippling injury. But it had given him a few moments to step back and toss another grenade down. The flash and sound distracted her as he leaped back off the side of the building and into the storm
"Damn it!" Jill cursed as she rubbed at her eyes, the stinging pain quickly going away but leaving her alone once more. She let out a pained grunt, leaning against the railing as the bloodloss from the last few bullet holes hit her even after they'd sealed over.
She wasn't invulnerable after all, just tougher and able to keep going till… till she couldn't.
Maybe she'd wake up again, but something told her that after she'd survived that first attempt back on the island they wouldn't take any chances. If she lost consciousness Kari would call his friends back and there definitely wouldn't be enough of her left to get up again by the time they finished.
"I need something to put him down…"
Jill looked at her side where the speargun still hung. That was a possibility, but he was fast enough to dodge it unless he came too close. And it definitely wouldn't hurt him enough to stop him.
If only she had a-
Her foot hit something as she stepped back and an idea began to form.
Jill dropped down, pumping the speargun's air chamber as far as she dared. Cautiously she let the hood of armored cartilage heavy flesh that formed the armored covering along her back slip down fully over her face. Just the tip of her snout showed small puffs of warm air escaping as she moved in near total darkness. Relying entirely on this new sense. She felt the metal around her… was it the wires, or the fact that it was rich in iron and vaguely magnetic? She wasn't sure, but she could tell the rough outline. Shapes, not substance. The control panels were blobby boxes, the pillars clear conical shapes stretching up. The floor was a flimsy membrane but she knew there was more substance and that it wouldn't break beneath her. The wires showed bright, hot lines through her mind, and told her where the center was even as she turned to face each direction slowly.
All the while a switch she'd thrown a minute go made something else glow brighter and brighter.
With the wind blowing and the sway and creak of the structure itself she could hear anything. So she kept the gun close to her chest as she moved so her back was towards the central support beam, the dull thrum of the power line strangely a comfortable point of awareness in the abyss about her.
Something clattered to the floor, her head turning towards it even as she kept the hood down. The explosion was loud, yes, but she was used to it. The following flash of light was bright enough she perceived it, but she didn't get distracted, instead dropping down as gunshots rang out towards where she'd been standing and she saw him.
It was a strange impression, body and proportions distorted, a faint and desperate shadow flickering through the dark and coming closer. The buzz of his wings was loud, but she saw the way those muscles burned, the nerves firing and faint against the man made sources behind and below her. But this urgent, living source was so much clearer now that she knew what it was. And instincts, strange and new yet somehow hers told her to strike. So she did.
A cry of pain turned into higher pitched hiss as the spear stabbed into him, and before he could fly away again Jill yanked hard on the cable and swung it around the central support beam while she reached down. The hood slipping past, her vision filling with an odd blue glow at what she grabbed.
"The fuck did you shot me with-oh no," Kari said, landing on the side as he couldn't fly and yank out the spear at the same time, the cable too taut and strong to let him dodge away. He grabbed at his gun and fired at Jill in response. Once, the bullet hit just above her eyes, where it bounced off the angled armor that covered her there. The next pull of the trigger came up with an empty click of finality.
Jill's did not.
The recoil knocked her almost onto her back fin, her body shivering as her new senses throbbed with irritation at the strength of it. The battery pack gave short, arching through the metal and a smell of burning plastic filling the air. While one half of Kari fell forward onto the tower. The rest, did not.
"You… you mother-ugh," he coughed, trying to crawl forward, the glow in his eyes dying as his tattered wings twitched on his back. He reached for another grenade, but the shock overcame everything else and he began to shake before rolling onto his back. He turned his head, trying to stare at Jill even as his mandibles started to go slack, jaw hanging open. Whatever he tried to say was lost, the blood loss cut up with everything else. Kari, whoever he'd really been before, had died.
Jill stood up, her legs shaky and partially supporting herself on her tail as she yanked the spear out of his chest and wound the cable back up. She felt exhausted, the adrenaline giving out at the last moment and practically collapsed against the radio console. Which she saw, with mournful dread, was now quite thoroughly dead.
"Of course."
What was she thinking, firing something like that so close? The power was still running but she'd be lucky to get any of this to work. She'd need a new system, something she could actually work with and-
She ran over to the dead body, looking around his head. The radio headphone had been attached with straps and velcro, a makeshift effort given the lack of visible ears, but it was about the same thing Jill would have needed unless she wanted someone to surgically implant it. Looking down on the chest she found where the wires connected to the rest of the system and yanked it off. It was much more modern, a variation on what the BSAA and most any modern special forces would use.
And she could probably wire it into a bigger antenna just fine even if these forty year old consoles were all fried.
She just needed to-
"Kari, what the hell are you doing up there?"
Jill froze as the voice came over the speaker in her hand. That woman from before, one of the three she'd seen in the parking lot when she'd been hidden.
"Kari, this is Skadi, report. Why did you fire your weapon?" There was a lingering pause before she spoke again, "I swear Eric if you're fucking with me I'll-"
"Skadi, stop letting your emotions get in the way." That was the last one, Surtr . Odd code names, but maybe they'd been selected just for this mission. "Kari, that shot didn't hit anything on the ground… what were you aiming at?"
"Just ignore them and get to the radio." Jill ran up those last few steps towards the sealed panel. Yanking it open and finding a mass of wires. Labeled in Russian of course. But she only needed to find a wire that led to the main antenna, and since these short range radios were already keyed to go through the signal denial it would be even easier.
"Valentine?"
Her claws froze, about to tug out a faded red wire that must have led to the antenna as she could vaguely feel how that one was connected to the bigger, lingering sensation that stretched up ahead of her into the sky.
"Valentine, I know it's you."
"What the fu-"
"Stand down Carter, that's an order. I don't need you going out of control after we lost Eric."
She didn't say anything, reaching for the wire again when he spoke through the radio.
"Ms. Valentine, respond or I'll order this channel blocked and have that old piece of Soviet scrap you're hiding in blown all over the tundra."
Her hand moved down, holding up the receiver to her mouth, taking a deep breath before she hit the button on the side. "Why the sudden interest in conversation?"
"Idle curiosity. I haven't seen you since Fort Bragg, though I heard you changed up your look a bit since then."
"Great, another psychopathic comedian." Jill let out a sigh as she held the transmitter in one hand and pulled out wires with the other. "You were in Delta Force too?"
"A trainer there, I don't think we ever met. But a woman, let alone one of your age, managing to complete the program was more than a little notable."
"What a shame," Jill said, a teeth bared wince as something shocked her as she tried to figure out which wires she'd need to pull and reconnect to make this crazy idea work. "You probably looked better back then too."
A hiss and a chuckle before he spoke again. "I dunno, I think I make it work pretty well. In any case I wish you'd done the smart thing."
"What, let you poison the world's oceans?"
"You really think that's the plan? Honestly, I'm not surprised looking at your record… but no, we're just the cleanup detail. Just to make sure that anything that wouldn't burn up once the sun comes out or is more substantial is handled personally."
"Why does that involve me?"
"Your… involvement was just a coincidence that the BSAA finally took notice. Hell, if it weren't for some accidents no one would have ever noticed anything till Heimfest went up and that would have been blamed on shoddy engineering."
"How does that make it better?"
"You should have just gone native for a bit after you shrugged off our meeting south, found some rock to hide under and enjoyed the… sushi," he said with a laugh. "We both know those incompetents in the BSAA would have given up and you could have slipped stateside, this whole affair just another coverup and unsolved mystery for the tabloids at the supermarket."
"And now what?"
"Now you killed one of my men," he said, a dead, cold tone in his words. "And I'm going to have to make an example out of you."
"How, boring me to death?" Jill saw a brief spark as the wires connected and she knew that her MacGyvered solution was ready to try. "Because, I'm sorry to say, I've dealt with worse."
"South-west, approximately 230 degrees, six klicks."
"What?"
"There's a little cruise ship that's received very reliable orders to move in that direction because the earlier quarantine warning was just a big accident. In two hours they will have sudden engine trouble. The radio will be inoperable, as you may have noticed. And thirty minutes after that there will be a BOW attack, a contagious and aggressive specimen of the T-Abyss will ultimately be determined to be the source."
There was a pause, but Jill didn't speak.
"There will be no survivors."
"You bastard!"
"Of course, you could just go and hide, hell, even if I blew up this whole island you're tough enough and it's not like it's the first time you walked away from something you have no rights surviving. But those people will die, and I will make sure that the BSAA blames you for it. Maybe your friends back in DC can get you out of it eventually, hell the idiots in Paris probably won't even find you even with all of Europe looking for your head, but all those people will die."
"Shut up."
He continued, ignoring her interruption, "They will die because you were just too stubborn to finally give up like you were supposed to."
"I'm going to kill you for this."
"I hope to see you try Valentine. Your CQC always looked a little sloppy."
The transmission went dead.
Leaving Jill alone, with her thoughts, her regrets, and rather little options.
Svenn had waited patiently, or as patiently as he could with his uncle. After Agent Valentine had walked off they'd retrieved the old pistol and loaded it, but given the sort of nightmarish horrors that might come out of that darkness neither wanted to risk firing it until they absolutely had to. His uncle had paced the deck for some time, muttering about their bad luck, but neither wanted to risk leaving either.
The… woman… shark… shark-woman had made a convincing argument. And if they had wandered into this by accident there was no telling that they'd be so lucky to get out the other way without being noticed. Their boat was slow at the best of times, even if it was unloaded as they'd been forced to drop that contaminated fish back into the water.
He took a look over the side, the waves cold, black, and likely as tainted as the water further south. More so if the odd silence about Heimfest had anything to do with the infection they'd seen.
Of course the silence didn't last.
"What in the…"
The gouts of flame and smoke from further up could be seen even down at their secluded part of the harbor. Soon after more sounds, loud gunfire and something like a cannon shot, echoed through the night followed by even further clouds of smoke and ash rising up into the night. The wind had begun to pick up by then, blowing the debris thankfully further north. Even as light snow began to fall they didn't dare leave yet.
Whoever had set all that off had to be close, and this Valentine hadn't been carrying anything that would have made such destruction.
Either she was dead already, or fighting something that thought they could take her. In either case Svenn's uncle had no desire to start up their engine and draw the attention of those sorts down to where they were hiding at the moment. He even turned off the lantern and peered cautiously into the poorly lit docks, pistol in hand for all the good it would do if the six shots they had (and the six more they could load) weren't enough to take it down.
Then they heard the sounds. Soft crunching of footfalls approaching down the docks. With their lights off they could only make out the vague figure of a person. It could be Valentine, if she was crouching down perhaps. No sound so far, but only one person. His uncle aimed the pistol at them, hand shaking for a moment before he stilled it and looked at Svenn. Nodding once, Svenn stood up, flashlight in hand and leaning around the side of their boat so he could shine it on whoever had come down to meet them.
He turned it on, illuminating the figure.
"What the hell? Are you trying to blind me?"
Svenn stared at his uncle, who pointed the gun away from the strange man wearing, of all things, an old military uniform with a snow jacket.
Of course that's when another thunderous sound exploded, and a bolt of blue light and a gout of fire leapt from the radio tower and streaked off towards the north. The pistol discharged, thankfully not at the man but striking one of the lights further down the docks. A shower of sparks, more cursing, and all in utter darkness.
Save for Svenn's flashlight.
"Stop, stop! We are all… human, yes?" Svenn asked, looking from the man, who as he came closer Svenn realized they stunk of liquor and… fish?
"Samuil is human. Only one left one whole shithole island now," the newcomer said, the old Russian accent coloring his words. But at least they could both speak the same language, though his uncle was still looking warily from the boat.
"How did you survive Samuil?"
"Oh, just like last time."
"Last time?"
Jill's trip back to the docks wasn't sneaky. At this point if they wanted to just kill her she'd already be dead. If you could afford to get a particle rifle (how still unanswered, the BSAA was supposed to keep a tight lock on those) you could get plenty of RPGs or explosive munitions. If this Surtr /Conner/former Delta Force member had wanted to, they certainly could have just blown up the whole hill where the radio tower was. Of course she might survive, but given how weak she was already feeling from being stabbed, exploded, stabbed, and shot some more, there was no telling if she'd be in any condition to do anything but gradually starve in the elements afterwards.
As silly as it was, Conner's mocking joke about her 'going native' and having sushi was making her stomach growl as she ran down the streets and towards the docks at last. The flames from the still uncontrolled fires had spread to another building, and most of the old military base, or what of it that had been on the surface, was now burning down. All of which would have cloaked her sprint through those dead streets even if she thought anyone might still be looking for her.
She had the speargun still, the radio, though she doubted it would do any good since they would have changed their frequency by now and locked off the old one. The particle rifle's battery pack had been damaged and she didn't want to accidentally incinerate herself trying to fix a temperamental and frankly experimental weapon she'd only seen in diagrams before today.
"Not that they haven't been around for a bit, but thanks to… Wesker, I wasn't active in the BSAA when those things finally went into deployment."
The lights were off at the docks as she approached, and for a moment Jill worried that she'd been abandoned. She might be able to get to the boat on her own, but she'd feel better if she could at least check in with the pair that had helped her earlier and make sure they knew which way to run.
The opposite of where she was about to go for one.
Sounds came from the boat, unsettling as she'd told them to keep quiet. But as she drew closer she made out voices, including laughter and her approach sped up as curiosity drove her on.
The lantern was low, while the trio of men sat around the steps of the boat. The oldest one hand heavy pistol in one hand, which he raised at her when he saw her step out of the shadows. It dropped down as shock went around the faces. Though Svenn calmed down quick enough… and Samuil, who had purloined another bottle by the looks of it, merely gave her a slight wave, before going back into his story.
"You came back Valentine," Svenn said as he jumped up. Looking happy, a smile on his face that gradually went away as he noticed the new holes in her clothes and the bloody stains on parts of her body. "Did… did you contact the BSAA?"
"No. And it's worse than that. I need to chart a course from here, directly southwest."
"You found them."
Jill looked down, seeing Samuil had turned away, staring at her intensely in the dim lantern light.
"The things underground. The ones that weren't lucky and would never die…"
"They're dead now."
He nodded, taking another drink from his bottle as he fell into silence. Svenn's uncle asked something and Svenn replied back quickly before turning towards Jill once more.
"Agent Valentine… do you need our help?"
"It could be dangerous."
"Ha! It's always dangerous," Samuil said, rising unsteadily to his legs. He started to fall and Jill's hands came out to catch him before she realized what she'd done. He grabbed on, hard to her right arm and looked up into her eyes. The human brown into her inhumanly jet black. "You are going after them, da ? The govnyuk that did this?"
She nodded slowly, her lips parting ever so slightly, the hint of teeth showing before she spoke again.
"Yes. Yes I am."
They made good time. Very good, the boat's engine running hot and fast. Lights killed, straight on course towards the location that Conner had given her. Till she saw the lights of a distant ship, much larger than the small fishing boat they were on currently. The only thing lit up under the dark gray sky or on that inky black horizon. She couldn't miss it.
"I can take it from here," Jill said, looking back at the pair of Norwegian fishermen and the lone survivor from Heimfest. The island itself had exploded into an even greater conflagration after they'd left, the mine itself the source now with the coal remaining in the storehouses only adding to it.
Without anyone to put it out there'd be nothing but ashes by morning, and no trace at all of what had happened there by the time the sun shined on that desolate rock once more in two months.
"Valentine," Samuil said, who now looked surprisingly sober now that his bottle had run out and there were no more to be had. He looked down at the tin of sardines she'd rather completely destroyed, her hunger great enough that the foul smelling fish had tasted heavenly as she'd swallowed them whole. The last of his 'stores' he'd said, along with that one bottle he'd been carrying when he reached the docks. "You will get them for this."
She nodded. Finally giving a thumb (or fin) up to the lot of them as she turned towards the water.
"You'll head back, keeping the lights off and going opposite of all this?"
"Till we can't see it and another ten kilometers after," Svenn said.
Jill nodded, the carapace hood slipping down lower as she stared into the water. Her gills already opening and closing as she tasted the salt water spray in the air. She took one last breath of air… and leapt into that abyss.
The last words she heard before she hit the water, "Good luck rusalka!"
It was cold of course, bitterly so, but once more it felt good. Weirdly pleasant and almost natural as she swam. Her element now. Her legs deformed in places, the toe claws slipping in as the fins elongated and the digitigrade stance departed into something sleeker and even more aquatic. Of course she was thankful that it went away once she got back on land, but it was so strange to think her body responded like that. That even with how much she'd lost, somehow she'd maintained the control in places.
Her teeth bared as her tail lashed out. Thoughts of Wesker and his logic about how the virus had worked coming back. How he'd talked about unlocking potential.
How was her potential being a big humanoid fish? It didn't make sense. But then very little of that long nightmare did.
But she'd woken up from it. Alive where so many had died, stronger when so many had been left weaker. Herself, despite it all.
And she wasn't about to let a bunch of monsters that had been worthy of that name long before they'd grown wings and insectile mandibles take that away from her.
"I'll get onto the boat… get the crew to the lifeboats and hopefully to safety while I handle whatever they have planned for me." It wasn't a good plan, but it was better than nothing. She'd thought about taking the gun from the boat, but it would have been too waterlogged by the time she finished her swim. At the very least she still had her speargun, her strength (with quick sardine pick-me-up) and they weren't likely to pull anything as absurdly overkill as another particle cannon out anytime soon.
She reached the boat at last, the side of the vessel rising up before her. Seeing a rope leading down to buoys along the side she leaped up, claws snatching on and holding tight. Her lower finds slapped against the side, already starting to reform into legs as she pulled herself up. One of the lifeboats was just above her, she only had to keep climbing and she'd be onboard in a moment. The hood pulled back as she moved, her gills still flexing, her throat filled with salt water as she felt it pump out in slow, wet coughs. It would take a little while, but soon she'd be able to talk again.
It would be hard, but she would explain what had happened and-
"There she is!"
Jill rose up, frozen in shock almost a half-dozen lights shined on her. Through the glare she saw five figures. Black and blue combat armor, tactical vests brightly showing the BSAA logo on each one. Before one of their weapons discharged, the bullet striking just above her chest. She felt the round fragment into her throat as she grabbed onto the boat. More shots hit the support above, the rope snapping off and the boat half falling down with Jill attached to it. She swayed with it, down into a lower open deck and spilled onto the floor, coughing blood, salt water, and bits of lead and brass out as she heard the voices above.
"Goddamn it, Cascos! You were supposed to wait till I gave the order to shoot!"
"I'm sorry sir it won't happen-"
"You're damn right it won't," Grady shouted. "Now get going and find her before she finds the crew!"
BSAA Contact Records
"Come in… do you read me?"
"This is a secure channel for the BSAA. Please identify yourself?"
"Commander Quint Grady, BSAA Special Investigator."
"Why aren't you contacting us through your radio system?"
"Something went wrong after we landed. Agent Valentine… she lost her mind. Butchered the technicians and tried to eat them. I thought I'd killed her but I was wrong."
"... Acknowledged. Why weren't we notified earlier? You've been in the field for almost seven hours now."
"She trashed the radio while on her rampage, I barely got out. Managed to flag down a passing ship that didn't hear about the quarantine."
"We'll send out the helicopter to pick you up-"
"Negative. I told you, I only thought I killed Valentine-the T-Abyss BOW. She got up. And it's still hunting me. She's managed to trash the propeller somehow and has gone after any lifeboats we put down as well. We can't risk getting in the water and I'm going to run out of ammunition before I take her down. Assuming she's not contagious too."
"Understood. What is your tactical assessment Commander Grady?"
"Get me response team out here ASAP, whoever you have… Barker's should still be within range. I need them here on the double."
"I've already put out the order."
"Good. Let's settle this mercy kill like we should have."