Resident Evil: Fate Can't Escape Destiny
Sure enough, the closer Dusty gets, the more familiar the sound becomes, changing from a dull hum to a loud roar of screams and helicopter blades. Dusty storms through a line of trees and brush, his face covered in bright light as he watches hundreds of people fight for what appears to be a very select number of seats on the transport helicopters. One chopper takes off, with scientists, workers, and civilians all hanging on for dear life to the landing bars.
As Dusty watches the scene in horror, a loud voice filters over the crowd, "Everyone needs to stop and calm down now.. NOW!"
Silence covers the immediate vicinity, but is cut by another, completely haunting voice from Dusty's past, "Do it.."
The transport choppers take off, while three gunships slowly rise over the mansion, their gatling guns already starting to wind up. All of the people before him are stunned, but slowly, a couple people at first, then more, begin to move away, cutting through the crowd. Suddenly more screams fill the air as a mass exodus of the open clearing begins. Dusty holds up his hands and starts guiding as many people as he can into the forestry. They begin filing past him as gunshots echo around the area, dirt and grass offering a decent cover so far.
"Hurry! They'll open fire again in a few seconds!" he ushers more and more past him.
As the last few are able to snake through the trees, Dusty pulls out the M79 and chambers a shell, snapping the barrel shut in anticipation. He flips the sight up and aims for the front of the closest gunship. As the dirt finally scatters from the force of the propellers, he squeezes the trigger and smiles as the first chopper detonates in a fiery ball of fuel and explosives. The two remaining quickly rotate toward him, but as their high-powered lights illuminate the area, there is no sign of him.
Oh god, why did I do that? Dusty reloads the grenade launcher and hugs the marble entrance platform of the mansion.
As he contemplates his next move, he hears a female voice from above him, "HEY! HEY! Let me on! I'm a researcher here! HCF ID NUMBER AKECHI ECHO SEVEN!"
"Get down!" he jumps up to save her, but stops as she turns to him.
I… Um… My god… She is absolutely stunning. No one this gorgeous should work for a company like HCF!
She frowns and ducks as gunfire erupts around her, the bullets doing their customary misses before finally zoning in on their target. Dusty growls and pushes off the edge of the entrance, running between bullets, weaving and bobbing out of their path as he dives for the woman, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her with him as he falls over the other side of the platform. Gunfire dots the air above them as Dusty pulls her head down, their bodies hugging the dirt and marble for dear life.
"Ah, Dusty.. Seems you finally made it. Come out and show me that ugly mug!" Thomas…
Of all the times and places for that bastard to show up alive.. Why here and why now? Dusty could've sworn that man died in Riley. The brunette stands up, one hand on the stock of the M79 as he swings around to face the hovering helicopter. Sure enough, as the door slides open, there stands the devil himself. Thomas looks smug as ever standing there with an M4 resting in his crossed arms.
"So, you survived Riley after all?" Dusty calls out over the pattering blades and swirling dust.
A laugh, loud as a banshee scream, "There is nothing in this world that can kill me, Dusty! Nothing! Give up and let me kill you both!"
"What's my alternative?" the launcher is slowly pulled up.
"You," the door is slowly pulled shut, then his voice filters from a speaker, "don't want to do that!"
Dusty fires the M79 and runs back toward the entrance, dragging the woman with him as they disappear into the forest. They run for a few minutes, finally stopping as they reach a large steel and concrete structure. He slides down the wall and takes a seat, then reloads the grenade launcher.
"Who are you? Why did they try to kill me? What is your connection to HCF and Director Weidick!?" the redheaded Asian woman pokes her finger into his chest one too many times.
"Um, darlin', if you don't want to lose that finger, I highly suggest you remove it from my ribs.." he stands up, his full height towering over her 5'4" frame.
She huffs and crosses her arms, "Do not call me that.. I am no one's 'darling'…"
"I didn't call you 'darling'.. I said darlin', ma'am. Big difference."
She laughs, causing his right eyebrow to arch upwards, "What?"
The woman just shakes her head, "Next you'll tell me you're a Southern Gentleman.."
A sigh, "Well I am a southern boy, and I have manners.. What about you, Chuckles?"
"Name is Dr. Aya Akechi. You, sir?"
"S.T.A.R.S. Operative Dusty Stracener, nice to meet you."
"What does S.T.A.R.S. want with HCF?" Aya sits down next to him, still a little anxious apparently.
He smiles and rests his head on the concrete wall, "Well I have a personal tie to Thomas. He-" she cuts him off.
"Director Weidick? What did he do to you?"
"Well I kinda, sorta, not really, killed him back in Riley, Ohio. I think it was four years ago. Apparently Riley was an experiment conducted by Umbrella, to test a new virus.. The bio-hazard went much like Raccoon Cit-" she cuts him off, again..
"Umbrella had nothing to d-" he fires back to stop her.
"Don't you dare say that to me. What do you think you and the others were working on here?" his eyes cut deep into hers.
"A cure for AIDS," she actually seems genuinely proud of that.
Dusty stands up and opens the PDA, "Is this how some of your tests end up?" the photo is of a zombie, stage four Decay.
"Mmhmm, the compound exponentially increased the cellular decay."
"You are so naive… They had you working on a reformed T-Virus.. HCF wanted to find a way to create a super-soldier without them becoming a zombie…" she still looks confused.
He growls and snaps, "They weren't dying… They were turning.. You took someone with what? Sixteen years or more to live, and you killed them!"
11
"Fuck you!" Aya has had enough of this man's slander against her work.
Dusty is apparently put off by the phrase, as he turns away and starts looking at the building, "My work is for the betterment of humanity.. I am so close to a cure for AIDS now… I can save the planet."
"Know why you were left here and almost killed?" his words cut deep, "They don't want to cure anything, save anyone… There has been sixteen people in the past two decades who have designed a cure for cancer.. You know what Umbrella and HCF did to them?"
Aya doesn't want to admit that she knows, so she doesn't, "They were caught in a power struggle between medical giants…?"
"Don't" he stands in her face, towering over her, "you ever knowingly lie to me again, you won't like me."
She has to admit, he's actually kinda scary this close, "Fine! Umbrella killed some and burned their work.. HCF…"
"Finish it."
"HCF turned their work into a propaganda machine, twisting the data to show higher fatality rates, lower successes… Even going so far as to steal the samples and replacing them with biological and chemical weapons," it turns her stomach to admit this to him.
"Now we can get somewhere.. Here, can you open this?"
Aya stares at the keypad with optional card reader, "If they didn't set off the High Tide alert, yes.. Now? It'll take me a minute to run numbers."
"You're a numbers person eh?" not the time for small talk, as Aya is already going over probable codes.
Most keypads use a ten-digit stream, Repeat-Capable. That means… Ten Billion codes? That can't be right, so Aya settles for swiping Dusty's PDA. The stylus is wired to the device, but not anymore, she now has the wire split and running from the AUX port and attached to her ID card magnetic strip. With a quick swipe and a DOS prompt, the PDA itself is now running numbers. Several tense moments later, the door clicks and they now have access.
Aya reaches for the handle, but he stops her, "You know what's in there?"
"No…" for the first time, Aya realizes she knows almost nothing about what really goes on here. "I know it's called an Island. There are four of them, each one houses specific types of BOW. Anywhere from three genus to seven. I am not sure what each Island contains.."
"We were in the process of studying behavior and psychology, bu-" he cuts her off.
"They're not animals. They are mindless killing machines. I have witnessed Lickers and Hunters tear their own kind apart. They have no loyalties.. I've seen things that could fill volumes of biological books.. All of which will disprove any theories you might have."
His words cut deep again, "I think we were reall-" again with the fucking cut-offs!
"Doing some good? Yeah, right. And I'm some gun-loving, bible-thumping nut job…"
"Well, you are shooting shit up like hell…" she smirks as she sees his skin crawl.
"God abandoned this world a long time ago. Back in the mid-sixties if you believe the Redfield Report."
"Like I believe that shit.." Aya huffs and crosses her arms.
"Look, woman!" he punches the wall next to her face. "They just tried to kill you! You don't want to believe anything I've been telling you!? You're LIVING IT!"
He's right, again.. Everything… Aya has tried to ignore it, but it's all in front of her face.. She has had a hand in the atrocity here, and now, her research is over.. And her new proposal is in the hands of what was her best friend... And now, after it's all said and done, she has been saved by an enemy of her company.. This is just the most backwards day ever for Aya Akechi.
"What do we do now..? …What are you doing?" she gasps as Dusty is busy pressing keys on his PDA, still hooked into the keypad.
11
"I'm hacking into the camera mainframe for this 'Island' as you call it. I want to know what is happening in here."
Dusty continues navigating the files, hoping to find what he's looking for. While staying at the S.T.A.R.S. base, Leon gave him basic computer hacking lessons. Granted it was nothing compared to what Aya did just a few minutes ago, but it's helped him prepare for what lies ahead. Another click and the cameras are now on the seven-inch screen.
"Okay, it's a mountain like area.." a second click, "River, trees, rocky terrain.. What the hell? Is that a llama!?"
Aya reaches down a pulls the screen up to her, "Project 9F. Spitter. Our main goal here was developing BOW without visible mutation. And it's actually more of a.. Wooly Ostrich?"
"You wanted to hide the fact it was infected, so you made an entirely new species? Subtle…"
"We were moving in the right direction. Judging from the terrain, we'll have Spitters, Behemoths, and Geckos."
"Behemoths and Geckos?" Dusty has to admit, their names are a bit better than Umbrella's..
"Behemoths are mutated Gorillas.. Think, Solomon Grundy.. Larger than normal, as strong as six Silverbacks, and as aggressive as twelve of them…"
She holds up a hand to stop the oncoming joke, "The Geckos are a new climbing BOW, reminiscent of the Lickers, and yes, we have those here too in another Island probably. The Geckos have acid-filled pads that melt a foothold into any surface capable of supporting its weight."
Dusty scribbles a note into his arm with a pen, "Spitters… Shoot in neck.. Behemoths.. Grenade to face…" he looks up, "What? I have to kill them. Geckos, shoot at pads on paws.."
With that, Dusty raises the M79 and pushes the door open. A gust of wind screams past them, birds chirping off in the distance. A loud sound, like someone clearing their throat fills the air, then the chirping stops.
The brunette turns to his auburn-haired companion, "Exactly what does a Spitter do?"
"It immobilizes and digests its prey with an acidic neuro-toxin fired from valves inside the mouth."
"Great, it spits stomach acid…" this is shaping up to be such a fantastic day!
For the first time today, Dusty is second-guessing himself. But that needs to be put on the back burner. Just like back in Riley, where the city itself was the weapon against the Outbreak, these Islands must have something to destroy the creatures within. It's probably nothing in the realm of the Tactical Nuke that rested below Riley City Hall, but Dusty is positive it's either a pile of explosives or P-Epsilon Anti-BOW compound. Before they can move any farther into the Island, a Spitter clambers over the river-bank.
"Gross…" apparently their plan to keep the BOW discreet failed, as the acidic neuro-toxin has started to eat away at the animal's face.
There is good news here however, Aya is right, Spitters look like Ostriches, without wings, and covered in fur. What was once pristine white fur is now every shade from yellow to black, depending on how close to the acid-dripping maw it is. Smoke lightly billows from a few rotting teeth, their square tops now jagged and bloody. As the monster begins to suck air into a large red flesh sack on its neck, that familiar sound reaches them.
"Get down!" Dusty turns to push Aya to safety, but before he can get down as well, steam and smoke are flowing around him.
The soldier tears his red hoodie off and spins around, his M93R poised and ready to fire on the attacking creature. His eyes adjust down, the gun following suit before the trigger is squeezed and the weapon sends a copper round flying down-range. As the Spitter prepares another salvo, the bulge on its neck growing larger by the second, a screech fills the Island as the round connects. Orange fluid explodes into the air, a sizzling sound forces the duo to cover their ears, and in a cloud of smoke, the charred bones of the Spitter clatter to the burning dirt.
Dusty slides the weapon back into the holster and sighs, "That's six..."
"Six what?" Aya slowly rises from the ground he pushed her to, swiping the dust from her lab coat as an eyebrow arches at the brunette before her.
"Six rounds left for this gun... Then I'm stuck with the six shells for the M79. I'm gonna have to find more ammunition before we go much farther..." Dusty slowly runs a finger along the barrel of the grenade launcher as he pulls it out and prepares the sight for aiming.
A feeling of dread washes over him, making him wonder why he is here, but all of that gets pushed aside rather quickly as a tree is promptly uprooted and thrown at the man and woman invaders. Dusty drags Aya into the forest, dodging trees and stray branches as heavy footsteps pound the dirt behind him. His eyes ever forward, mind already planning an escape, Dusty almost runs into what appears to be a swollen dog-paw. He rolls under it, but Aya isn't so lucky, her lab coat sizzling immediately upon contact. The garment is discarded as the Gecko makes its first appearance, its eyeless face staring directly at the brunette soldier.
"Can they see us?" Dusty pulls out the handgun and slowly pulls back the hammer.
Red locks are thrown around as Aya shakes her head, "Not that I can recall. From the report the only real sense they have left is taste.. Their pads react much like our taste buds, picking what it wants from the taste of the air nearby..."
"Then we need to move, cause it found m- WWWAAAHH!" Dusty jumps back as the beast pounces toward him, swatting the air, tasting for him.
His gun fires, the round digging into the soft flesh of the shoulder, prompting the animal to slash at the direction of his shot, missing Dusty by inches. The paw keeps swinging around, slamming into another tree, the plant burning and snapping in half from contact with the acid. Dusty prepares another round, but everything is darkened as a Behemoth parts the trees around them. She wasn't kidding, the monster is huge, skin gray and cracking all over, blood having dried on the crevices long ago. It roars loudly at them, its nose flexing at the scent of fresh meat, muscles contracting in nearly uncontrolled hunger for the duo.
11
Aya grabs the taller male and drags him with her toward the large metal doors off in the distance, "COME ON!"
What am I doing? Aya can't grasp why she is saving him, it would be so easy to leave him to die, let the Behemoth kill him with one swoop.
Her green eyes flash as she already knows the answer, she can't be as cold-hearted as HCF wants her to be, she cares too much about the people around her. Aya has always had a caring heart, but even that is being tested as Spitters lob acid at them, Geckos try and trap them with their paws, and Behemoths trying to squash them. Dusty breaks her grip, yells something about meeting back up at the door, then she feels the weight of the PDA in her back pocket. He wants her to open the door while he buys her the time she needs, easier said than done. Aya drops under a low branch, grimaces as a Gecko jumps over it and lashes out at her, then she spins around, her back to the large metal door leading to the Island-Specific Lab.
Where is the card reader!? Kiwi-colored eyes scan the wall for the requested artifact, but that has to be put on hold as a Gecko corners her.
It swipes the air, getting her scent, its useless nostrils flaring as it keys in to her location. Slowly it creeps toward her, walking like a lion ready to snack, its paws burning footholds in the ground. Suddenly the beast stops, twisting each paw, burning deeper ruts in the ground as it slowly lowers into a crouch, poised perfectly for a run. Its ass end raises into the air as the chest lowers so much to touch the ground. Jagged teeth clatter together as the Gecko snaps at her, then it pushes into the air, running at its top speed, hell-bent on making the Asian scientist a snack.
Aya closes her eyes and prepares to jump out of the way, but an explosion off to her left demands her attention, "Nanja korya!?" (What the hell is this?)
Before the Gecko reaches her, something large cuts through the forest and slams through it, spewing blood and body parts into the false sky. As the attacker slams into the nearby wall, Aya gets a good look at the scenario. Its a Behemoth, with the face horribly burnt and mutilated. On its back is Dusty, using his M79 to 'steer' the monster where he wants it to go.
The chocolate-haired male drops down from the beast as it has become stuck in the metal wall, punching the steel useless in rage, "Well, get the door open yet?"
What a strange man...
END