Chapter 23: Copper Mill

I don't own anything. Resident Evil belongs to Capcom and Tomb Raider belongs to Core Design, Crystal Dynamics, and I think Square Enix. The only thing I own is the changes made to the stories of the Tomb Raider games/comics and Resident Evil games/comics/CG movies, the Government branch S.P.E.L.L., the person that has taken over Kathrine Warren's life, and Rose Warren. This story also will be bloody, violent, and have cursing. It's rated T for Teen.

Country: Russia, State: Siberia, City: Siberian Wilderness, Place: Near Kitezh, Area: Soviet Installation/ Copper Mill Yard, Month: November, Day: Monday 27th, Year: 2000, Time: 05:12 KRAT…

They finished lighting the fire. The yard was small, had a rusted truck that would never be functional again, a boarded-up gate with some rotted ropes around it, tall, rusted statue of a military leader, and a small shack with no windows they could see.

Lara had pulled out the horned bow and some whitish strips from her pack. Leon looked at them with curiosity as Lara started braiding them together in four groups. He watched her fingers looping a strand over another, making it tight.

"What is that string made of?" Leon asked as he didn't know what the material was.

"Sinew and Animal hide. I don't have access to the modern synthetics out here." Lara informed him.

Leon wrinkled his nose. "Sinew? As in…tendons and muscles?"

"Yeah. That's what bow strings were made of long ago." Kat said. "Some cultures still use them. I'm sure the people out here do." She told him. "But I suck at weaving. Braiding, I'm fine, but what Lara's doing, keeping it uniform. I'm not good at it."

"Really?" Leon asked curiously as he poked at the fire with a random stick. "I've seen you braid Rose and Sherry's hair. Looked good to me."

"That's different. Human hair is, depending on the thickness, easier to braid." Kat said as she looked over her arrows.

"Thickness?" He asked confused. "Hair has different thicknesses?"

"Yeah." Lara nodded. "Kat's hair is a bit thicker than mine. It's why her hair holds a curl more than mine does. I'm not sure on Rose or Sherry's."

"The thickness also adds to the weight. I've been keeping my hair short for more reasons than just for combat." Kat shrugged.

Leon nodded. "I never knew about that."

"What are you looking for?" Lara asked looking to Kat.

"If there's anything we should know. Like enemies." Kat voiced.

"Like what?" Leon asked. "I'm already worried about Trinity's living forces and those Deathless you talked about before."

"Wildlife, like snow leopards and bears." Kat voiced thinking about the bear she and Lara killed, but then her eyes widened. "Baba Yaga? Zombies? Wait…when did I write that?" Kat muttered getting both Lara and Leon's attentions.

"Kat, did you just say zombies?" Leon asked. "Our kind of Zombies or magic ones?"

Kat was flicking her pages back and forth. "Hang on…It was a DLC…"

"A what?" Lara asked, finishing up her new bow string.

"Downloadable Content. Sometimes with games you could pay for more missions and story. And sometimes it was cannon." Kat said. "Okay here we go. I didn't remember much at 17. But I remembered four DLCs for this game we're living the scenario of." She spoke. "Blood ties, which was Lara exploring her manor, finding out her mother's location and history."

"That happened." Lara breathed. "I told you guys about it on the phone. About my uncle and my family's crypt."

Leon nodded. "So, if that one's true…what about the other three?"

"Two have zombies in them." Kat swallowed. "One is in…an old bunker out here, somewhere. There's a virus that many effect's men, turning them into zombies." She looked at Leon with fear. "I have no idea how 17-year-old me remembered that."

"You said you were focused on anything to do with Umbrella. Maybe this was remembered because of that." Leon offered but was worried now too. "And I think I know about that bunker."

Lara and Kat's eyes widened. "What?"

"I overheard some trinity people. They said that Black Umbrella might show up later. They mentioned a bunker being weird." Leon voiced. "Really wishing we packed more than one Sat phone."

Kat nodded. "Could you get mine out? Let's see if we can get a signal out here?"

Leon nodded as he stood up. "Yeah. Small packet?"

Kat nodded. "Yeah. The other Zombie one…is just a nightmare, for Lara."

Lara strung her new bow and looked at Kat. "A nightmare? They made a game of a nightmare?"

"Not the first time." Kat said as Leon unzipped the small front pouch of Kat's pack. "Capcom made a game for Claire's nightmare, and she said she had one or two after the Ashford's."

"Any other games with nightmares you playthrough?" Leon asked as he pulled Kat's old sat phone.

"Yeah, some are just cutscenes, others you play. Jill said she had a nightmare of being an experiment in an Umbrella lab with six other people. She couldn't fully remember everything, but she mentioned enough for me to know she was dreaming about a multiplayer game. Sometimes she says she still gets nightmares of the mansion, that happened in the comics." Kat voiced, and felt Leon stiffen up behind her. "Anyway…yeah, most dreams are just cutscenes."

"Got the phone." Leon said as he walked back to his seat and sat down. "What about the other…DLCs?"

"The last one is about Baba Yaga."

"The Russian fairy tale witch?" Lara asked.

Kat nodded. "If the bunker's real, and your little adventure in your manor happened, then we're gonna be hallucinating a lot at some point. From what 17-year-old me remembered, it's not the real witch. It's a skilled herbalist and chemist that the Soviet's forced to work for them. She lost her mind when they tricked her into thinking they had killed her family and took over a whole area with her hallucinogens. Her daughter is the one that sends Lara to go find her dad in the forest her mother resides in. Lara finds out about the whole history and gets the woman to realize the cold war is over and she can stop. Ends happily. But we have a problem."

"What?" Both asked.

"The world we live in now. I'm a real fallen Valkyrie, I've worked with real witches, Demi-gods, Banshees, werewolves, vampires and more. We've seen ghosts, zombies-magic or science- and I we've dealt with magical artifacts and will again." Kat swallowed. "I'm worried that this Baba Yaga might be the real deal, not a crazy woman."

Leon swallowed and Lara looked down.

"What's the story of Baba Yaga?" Leon asked gripping the sat phone.

"She's a Slavic mythical being. An old fearsome ogre witch. She eats children she lures into her abode. She rides on a mortar that flies, wields a pestle, and lives deep in the woods in her hut that walks around on chicken legs." Kat began. "Sometimes you can make deals with her, but most of the time she doesn't care. If she's real this time round, we'd have to kill her."

"Let's hope it's the old woman then." Lara voiced as Kat put her journal away.

"I'm gonna try and get through to STRATCOM." Leon voiced as he stood and moved off to the side.

Lara looked at Kat. "How do you think the girls are?" She asked softly.

"I'm hoping they're okay. Wesker can't be after Sherry anymore given that he's got a sample of her blood." She spat that last bit out. "Both are going to therapy." Kat sighed. "Rose is 9 and she killed a living man. The last person she shot didn't die from her shot and every other thing she shot was already dead. This time it was with my climbing axe. More personnel then with a gun. Her nightmares aren't as bad as they used to be."

Lara nodded. "And Sherry? How's she doing?"

"She's okay. Still gets nightmares of Raccoon or her kidnapping. Not as bad as a year ago. So that's a good thing."

"Shit…" Leon hissed as he came back over. "I think the mountains are messing with the signal."

Kat sighed. "It was worth a shot." She looked to Lara. "That bow ready?"

Lara nodded as she handed Kat her reserve one. "Yep. We should get moving though."

Country: Russia, State: Siberia, City: Siberian Wilderness, Place: Near Kitezh, Area: Soviet Installation/ Copper Mill Yard, Month: November, Day: Monday 27th, Year: 2000, Time: 05:18 KRAT…

Their radios beeped as they got close to the middle of the yard.

"Lara, Kat, Leon!" Jacob's voice filtered through. "Are you all okay?"

Lara pulled her radio as well as Leon and Kat. "Yes. We're at the base of the old Soviet mill…" She voiced as they looked around at the large, dilapidated mill of red chipped walls and bright chipped yellow Soviet hammer, sickle, and star.

"I'm making my way to the mine entrance at the top of the facility." Jacob told them. "Can you three meet me there?"

"We're on our way." Leon said as he looked at the building.

"Let's check in here before going farther. Might find more ammo or plants." Lara voiced nodding to a small shack.

They walked in and found it was slightly warmer as it was solid so it blocked the cold wind. It seemed to have once been a meeting place/barracks. There were bunk beds in the corner, black board on wheels, and a dart board. As they looked around, Leon stopped by an open journal. He lifted it and frowned.

"Great…now I need to learn Russian." He sighed as he looked to Kat and Lara. "Can either of you read this?"

Kat walked over from the board and nodded. "Yeah. My Russian's better than my Mongolian."

Freedom Station Operational Report - 25 July 1970

Comrades, this report comes to you following an unprecedented discovery in the mountains of Freedom Station. Our deep mine crew has broken into a massive cavern filled with incredible ruins and artifacts, the likes of which have never been found in the Motherland.

The workers that we acquired from the native population have become agitated following the discovery - they clearly know something about these ruins. We will begin working the prisoners around the clock, for I believe we're on the verge of an even more amazing discovery.

Kat finished reading it out loud in slightly broken English as she needed to get back into practice of speaking and translating one of the Slavic languages. But weirdly being subconsciously fluent in old Norse helped with remembering. She supposed it was because Old Norse branched off to a lot of the different Slavic languages.

"Communications from the Soviet Commander..." Lara breathed as she listened.

"They found ruins here!" Kat said with a bright smile at them finding this.

"Think you could help me learn Russian and help me in Japanese?" Leon asked Kat as she put the journal away in her pack.

"Sure. They're good languages to learn." She paused as they walked out and headed for some stairs. "I should start having Sherry and Rose learn them too."

"It's good to have a lot of people learning the same languages. Keeps you in practice." Lara pointed out as she pulled her climbing axe. "Door's locked and rusted."

"Reminds me of the times you did this in Raccoon." Leon smiled as he nodded at Kat.

Kat snorted. "Yeah. If we didn't have the time for finding a special key, this was easier."

Lara slammed her axe into the small gap of the door and its frame. She then ranched it back and forth. With a whining crack the door popped open. There wasn't much in the room. But Leon found a box on a table and opened it.

"What is this?" He asked lifting a wooden box-like object. "Kinda looks like a board game."

Lara came over from looking at a basket of dried plants. "I think so. Looks like some sort of mosaic box. It's got some of the tiles here. But I don't know how it'd be put together."

Kat looked at it. "Yeah. I'll bet it was a way to occupy the prisoner's minds from the mines and melancholy."

Leon grimaced. "I couldn't imagine living through something like that."

"Good news, as far as I know, you won't ever have to." Kat sighed.

"There's good news." Leon nodded as he put the box back.

"Well…looks like we'll have to climb up." Lara called out from the open hole behind them.

Leon and Kat joined her and saw what she was talking about. Many of the structures in the Mill area had fallen apart over the decades. What was left was a few train cars that could be used to climb up to the upper platforms that were the remains of a building or scaffold. But whatever the normal way up had been, it had long since been taken back by nature and time. They didn't speak much as they climbed around and through the wreckage. Giving each other boosts when it was needed, using the rope arrows to pull open short cuts or blocked pathways. But it was as they climbed; they saw the extent of the slavery that had once happened here in the 70s.

Small bunk beds that would just barley fit a grown man, were crammed into small rooms, it was clear more than four people would've been in them. They couldn't stay to dwell on it. This was part of why they weren't really speaking. They were giving respect to the, no doubt, many people who'd died within the shabby walls.

Kat stopped as they came to a small room and found it had been broken into already. On a table was an abandoned tape, like the other ones they'd found. She picked it up and put it in her player, pressing the play button in curiosity.

"I don't think Ana shares our faith. Or she's in this for something else. She's conflicted. I get that. I used to be the same way. But we've all got a part to play in this.

Took another patrol to see if I could get another kill. Sure enough, caught a Remnant at the perimeter. Took my time. Did it with my hands, so I could see the light in her eyes go out. Stayed with her until she went cold. Magic.

Konstantin tells us that with the Source, we'll live forever...that we'll finally look upon the face of God. But I already have.

This is where I'm supposed to be. Took me so long to find it. but this is it. I'm home."

Kat stopped the recording and swallowed a bit. Leon glared at the tape as she popped it out.

"What the hell? He…He sounds like a serial killer." Leon said looking to Kat and then Lara. "Like one who's just starting out."

"Chasing that fist high." Kat nodded.

"Trinity has to know what he's up to..." Lara breathed. "Kat and I found two other tapes from this same man. This is proving he's getting worse."

"Do we have a map of the facility?"

They all froze at that voice, but quickly moved to the ladder out of this room, but with more care to keeping quiet than before.

"Negative." Said another voice as Lara reached the top and looked around. "Even if we did, there's a lot of structural damage from the revolt." He continued as Lara slid onto the floor and waved back down for Kat to come up.

"Gonna be dangerous, getting up higher." Said the first as Kat reached the top and Lara found a bottle of alcohol. "Weather, elements have taken their toll." He reminded as Kat waved for Leon to climb up, looking to the left as she drew her spear.

Lara waved the pair over once Leon was up and showed them what she'd found. Bottles and cloth. They could make Molotov Cocktails. Just as good as the can explosives Lara could make.

"So, this is where the Soviets broke through?" Asked the voice getting them all to look to their left.

They spotted them then. Men in white out winter gear. The three grabbed two bottles and clothes each and ducked down behind the crates.

"Yeah." The other said as Leon, Lara, and Kat made their explosive firebombs but didn't light them. Not yet. "First contact was in one of the mine shafts, they shifted all operations to retrieval." He said as trio low crouch walked into the room, Leon lit one of his Molotov's on fire. "But it looks like the revolt came within the week." The man said as Leon got close enough to see they had their backs to the three and were by a frost covered crate.

"Workers finally had enough?" Asked the other guy as Leon raised his Molotov, making the aiming calculation.

"You've seen this place, right?" The other guy asked like it was clearly obvious. "Seems like a safe bet."

Leon then threw the bottle. It sailed through the cold air, leaving a trail of flame that looked like it winked out as it flew. It landed at the men's feet right between them. When it shattered, the contents of the bottle mixed with the last bit of flame and splashed up and over the men's legs. The fire did the rest, quickly spreading over them as they screamed in pain and fear.

It was only after Kat and Lara spotted more men that they realized they should've been stealthier. They all pulled bows and nocked arrows as they pulled themselves into better cover behind an old iron mine cart. Kat peered over cover and spotted a man. He was armed with an assault rifle. She drew her bow back and aimed down the arrow, the world for her distorting a bit.

Then she loosed as the world turned to a smoky battle field in a land far more icy than this one, before snapping back to the copper mill. The arrow cut the man's ear off as he screamed and ducked down into cover.

"Hit his ear." Kat voiced as she ducked back down and switched to her rifle.

"Let me try." Leon said as he peered over the cover.

He struggled a bit to aim. It was different than aiming with a gun. A gun has clear sights. They were usually brightly dotted too. But a bow like the one he held had no such aid. He gritted his teeth as he squinted at the arrow point, trying to line it up with the man's leg that was sticking out of cover from the upper platform's wooden railing.

He then loosed. And watched in annoyance as his arrow flew over the cover. He'd aimed too high. He ducked back down as the man came out and fired a few shots at them. "I missed. Totally missed."

"It's your first time using a bow." Kat told him. "Not everyone's a master on their first try. Especially with a small target."

Lara stood and turned her bow sideways. Then loosed. The man made no sound or any other shots as her arrow cut deeply into his head, dead center of his forehead. She looked around them. No other enemies appeared to be in sight.

"It was a good show though." Lara told him. "It hit the wall right behind him. Aim a bit higher and it might have fallen into his chest or head from the air."

Leon shook his head though. "I can see how much skill is needed with bows. Heck, I can understand it being an Olympic sport."

Kat smiled. "Airsoft guns are Olympic sports too."

Leon nodded. "True."