Episode One Point Two: Had To Know It Was In Your Cards
Administrative Director Washington was currently not enjoying his treatment at the hands of his supposed bodyguards. The woman in charge of his security had recently been manhandling him rather more roughly than he believed to be necessary and he was thankful when their three-strong group paused momentarily in another of the penthouse's vacant offices. The Sergeant gestured to her second-in-command and without a word he moved to the outside of the room to ensure that they were not being followed. With a degree of indignation, the executive adjusted his clothing as though the wrinkles that had appeared on them were an affront to his dignity caused entirely by the female standing nearby
"I daresay your professionalism leaves something to be desired," he muttered briskly, straightening his tie as she turned to transfix him with the glowing red pupils that represented her eyes.
"You may feel free to complain to my superior," she said flatly, her tone beginning to aggravate him all the more," my priority is to ensure your safety."
"Oh yes?" he spluttered, raising an eyebrow and marching up to her in a fit of rage, "and you call dragging me through the corridors by my collar concern for my safety, do you?"
It was at that moment that he realised that he was looking up at the soldier, and came to the startling realisation that she was considerably taller than him. "I cannot feel concern, I merely acted on existing data that compared the ninety-nine point nine percent probability that you would survive forcible manoeuvring to the zero percent probability that you would survive apprehension by a member of S.T.A.R.S," she stated, as his recently acquired perspective on their relative builds caused him to mentally retract his comments, in spite of the fact that Olivia was evidently incapable of being violent towards someone she had not been ordered to attack.
"Take off your mask," he ordered, his curiosity getting the better of him. She followed his command without question, removing the breathing apparatus and clipping it to her belt before staring at him with emotionless hazel orbs. Her dark hair fell about her shoulders, as flat and devoid of life as her gaze. Had it not been for the utter neutrality of her facial expression then she may have been considered quite beautiful among those who favoured strong women, but the glaze on her empty eyes and her pallid complexion rendered her entirely unattractive. "I see now why you speak in that manner," he commented, as she continued to watch him blankly.
There was a series of loud crashes from outside the room that they were currently waiting in, followed by a decidedly masculine scream as the U.S.F Lieutenant met a grizzly end. There was also what sounded like a young woman giggling to herself before the area beyond the door fell silent once again. Before the businessman could question his protector as to her intended course of action the expressionless female raised her weapon to her shoulder and aimed it directly at the office's entrance. She had evidently calculated a higher survival rate for fighting than fleeing in this instance. When the door obscuring their view of the corridor exploded open the soldier fired upon the figure that darted through, tracking it with her firearm as it shot forwards before collapsing to the ground riddled with bullets, realising too late that she had been shooting the corpse of her erstwhile second-in-command, though she did not register any shock at this revelation.
Shakahnna was upon her quarry before the indifferent drone had managed to adjust her aim and promptly kicked the MP5 from her hands, sending it bouncing off the veneered surface of a desk halfway across the chamber and clattering to the floor. In the split second that it would normally have taken her to turn her opponent into a human shish kebab, however, the deathly pale brunette had drawn her knife and had neatly met the disembowelling stroke that had been thrust towards her stomach, locking their blades together.
"Estimated output of seventy five percent should be sufficient," she recounted, neither with confidence nor with feeling, simply having analysed the data available to her about the organisation she had been trained to combat and this particular member's build and style.
"Oh, shut thou puss," the other woman said dismissively, rolling her eyes.
The Lieutenant and the Sergeant exchanged glances, one's eternally neutral countenance contrasting with the other's intense and unyielding grin, formed both from malice for a member of the organisation she opposed and simple, honest cheerfulness. It was incredibly rare that the redhead was ever given the opportunity to fight with someone whose skills were comparable to her own, not to mention the fact that even the most worthy enemies were usually shitting themselves when they came face-to-face with her blood-stained, manic and incredibly handsome visage. Here was someone, a woman no less, who not only seemed to be quick and strong, but also completely unafraid. Flexing her right arm, her heavily-conditioned muscles strained against a similarly well-built limb and she came to the conclusion that this was going to be a lot of fun. Unfortunately for her opposition, she possessed claws on both hands.
Olivia's reaction to the swipe at her throat was blindingly abrupt, her body flowing out of her other female's reach in the blink of an eye before she hopped backwards again to avoid the repercussions of abandoning her momentary stalemate as the flame-haired S.T.A.R.S member approached her amid a frenzy of slashes. The U.S.F soldier pushed the executive behind her out of the way with her free hand, unintentionally shoving him to the floor where he proceeded to scramble to another doorway and rattle the handle desperately. His bodyguard parried two of her opponent's strokes before she was knocked backwards by a sharp boot to her stomach just as her managed to open the door and duck through. Shakahnna was denied a killing stroke once again, swiping with both of her blades as she passed through the entrance, only for her intended victim to duck and slice a shallow line of crimson across the front of her thighs, causing her to wince and follow up with a further, upward swipe that threatened to vertically slit her windpipe and would have had she not been capable of deflecting it.
Advancing along the next corridor, the formally-dressed male led the way as the two militants behind him continued to hack and slash at each other, their wild swings scoring deep gashes on the walls as they progressed. The redhead lashed out with her off-hand, only for her enemy to seize her by the wrist and twist her arm to the side, cutting her neatly across the abdomen and missing an evisceration by the merest fraction of an inch by turning her body to the side. The left set of cat claws wriggled from the brunette's grip, however, and scored four parallel grooves in her right shoulder before both fighters backed off.
"Incorrect estimation, correction necessary, one hundred percent output in use," the doll-like soldier stated, taking her knife in her right hand before probing the wounds on her arm with the fingers of her left.
"I'm glad you can feel that," the ecstatic female said conversationally, revelling in the feel of her own wounds as the pallid Special Forces member looked at her blankly.
"Pain responses are a necessary mechanism to ensure self-preservation, emotion is not," she recounted.
"Excellent," the Lieutenant asserted, still smiling widely, "because I can't wait to hear you scream."
"Negative," Olivia informed her, before they exploded back into a flurry of motion.
Cecil Washington watched with his heart in his throat as the only thing that stood between himself and a very brief future involving sharp objects stood toe-to-toe with the individual who had every intention of taking his testicles as a trophy. He was not a military man by any stretch of the imagination, and so watching the lightning fast interaction between the people who represented his life and death in a very real sense was disorienting in the extreme. This was also his rationale for running away from the conflict as fast as he could. Letting out an aggravated growl, Shakahnna feinted to the right and promptly kicked her opponent's feet out from under her, abandoning a killing stroke in favour of simply stepping over her and pursuing the fleeing man. Unfortunately, as running was not something that the stout young woman considered a strength, she was not able to prevent the executive from ducking through a door that was signposted as the entrance to a staircase. When she eventually pushed through the door, her quarry was descending in a desperate bid to get away, while the sole remaining U.S.F member pursued her close behind. Grinning to herself, the redhead stepped smartly to the side as the brunette approached, casually taking her arm as she too entered the stairwell oblivious to the other woman's position until it was too late, and jerked her off her feet, hurling her down the concrete flight of steps. The emotionless soldier tumbled to the foot of the stairs, colliding with her charge and sending him rolling down the next set to a rather abrupt stop on the level below.
The gleeful female bounded the first few steps before vaulting to the landing on which rested her deathly pale enemy, who proceeded to spring to life as she approached, holding her weapon in her left hand as the opposing arm hung limply at her side, possibly broken. She struck out violently and erratically, perhaps seeing no other way to prolong her life, forcing her opponent to back away until she was no longer in the mood to do such a thing and swatted the knife out of her grip, leaving a set of cuts on her wrist as she did so. With one of her eyes swollen shut and her nose streaming blood, Olivia had perhaps never seemed so alive since the procedure that had changed her, which was ironic considering that she was on the verge of death, though her face was still a blank and expressionless mask.
The S.T.A.R.S soldier's breath hitched as she gritted her teeth expectantly and thrust her talons through the woman's thighs, forcing her to fall backwards and slump against the wall, the look on her face one of agony restrained only by her mental reprogramming, an exquisite expectancy building in the pit of Shakahnna's stomach as she could almost hear the pierced female's screams welling in her throat. Withdrawing the claws with a flourish, she stabbed again, this time transfixing the Umbrella-created drone at the shoulders and driving a gasp from her lungs. The brunette winced, beads of fluid beginning to form at the corners of her eyes, not because she was driven to tears, but simply because her body was reacting instinctively to the pain. Licking her lips as her mouth went dry, the flame-haired sadist gently twisted the eight blades attached to her gloves from side to side before sliding them out from where they were sheathed in her counterpart's body and, with an almost affectionate softness, pressed them through her armoured gut excruciatingly slowly. At this point, Olivia began to scream uncontrollably, the noise one of pure and primal anguish, and drowning out the satisfied groan of her opponent, who swiftly removed one of her hands from where it rested at her lower torso and used it to pierce her windpipe, halting her cry abruptly. She continued to stare blankly even in death, while Lieutenant Morgan stood up drenched in the crimson that had burst forth from her wounds and stretched, a pleasant smile on her face.
Below, the stricken form of Administrative Director Washington languished, clutching at a knee that had shattered on contact with the stone steps. He was groaning to himself, unable to attempt an escape, and when he heard the sound of the redhead's footsteps on the stairs behind him he realised that it was far too late anyway. Rolling over, he found himself face-to-face with a grinning effigy of blood-stained madness, which was regarding him playfully with bright green eyes.
"Please," he began to beg, wincing as he continued to cradle his wounded leg, "let me live. I can pay you."
She tilted her head to look at him from a different angle, raising a finger and waving it at him as though she were chastising him. "Tut, tut, tut, see this is what I always be talking about," she said sagely, as though teaching him a valuable lesson, "you be's greedy, and worse yet, you think that everyone else is too. If I were to let you go, you'd think it was perfectly acceptable to just carry on as you were, all in the name of profit."
"So you torture and kill people with ambition?" he growled, realising that this was not a situation that he could buy himself out of and suddenly becoming very angry.
"Exsqueeze me? Fuck off, you don't have ambition," she informed him, her brow furrowing as she proceeded to lay down the law for him, "you just wanna be rich. Well here's news, so does everyone else in society; you're nothing special. Be's people like you that are the reason this company is so corrupt in the first place and why I'm doing this now. I kind of wish I could let you speak with all those hippies who say killing Umbrella scum is wrong, but I don't want to miss out on the fifty points."
"I beg your pardon?" he queried, before her expression took on a dangerously perverse leer that made him shrink back.
"In fact, I just worked out how I can be getting one hundred points," she announced, leaning towards him with a look in her eyes that was decidedly frightening, "fuck yeah!"
With that statement, she crouched beside him and neatly sliced off his ear, which instinctively brought him out of his protective ball as he clasped at the open wound on the side of his head. Taking that as an open invitation, the smiling gamine stabbed him in the crotch.
It had been such a good day that Lieutenant Shakahnna Morgan couldn't help but sing to herself as she followed her path back through the halls of the Umbrella complex's penthouse offices. She was off-key as per usual, but made up for that by being as loud as humanly possible. It was doubtful that her medley went unnoticed by her colleagues waiting at the elevators, or even by those who had remained behind in the lobby. She was looking forward to reuniting with her team in the wake of an ever so successful operation and decided that maybe drinks would be on her tonight in celebration of her having surpassed the one thousand point mark. A mental note formed in her head to have a wank of victory when she got a couple of hours alone as well, since she obviously deserved it.
As she emerged into a new corridor, however, she became aware that there was someone else there. Turning to look, she was confronted by a tall, powerfully built man dressed in an entirely black ensemble standing at the other end of the hallway. From his appearance, he was middle-aged but possessed a countenance that was ageless and without flaw despite its obvious maturity. His blond hair was neatly swept back from his face, which seemed calm and neutral in an entirely different manner to that if the now-deceased Olivia, as though the male were simply in such control of his faculties that he never had need to express them. His business suit consisted of an exceptionally neat ebony jacket, trousers, shirt and tie, devoid of any intricacy or embellishment in order to retain the attire's practical nature, though it was evident that it had all cost a small fortune. He also wore a pair of well-polished boots that matched the colour of the rest of his outfit and continued the theme of functionality. Lastly, perched on the bridge of his nose was a pair of undoubtedly expensive sunglasses that hid his eyes. He stood confidently in place with his arms clasped behind his back, regarding her coolly from his position some thirty metres away.
"Do you be working for Umbrella too?" she questioned hopefully, wondering if she was lucky enough to have stumbled upon another one hundred points.
"Indeed," the imposing individual stated, a grin flourishing on the face of the young woman as she had to suppress a whoop of delight, "might I enquire as to your own affiliation?"
"Nu uh, a gentleman must introduce himself before a lady," the redhead informed the newcomer, freely allowing him to partake of her concept of social etiquette. She was alarmed when, in the blink of an eye, he was standing merely a yard from her, staring down at her intently without the slightest indication of his sudden, impossible movement. Despite herself, she jumped backwards a step.
"In that case, I am pleased to make your acquaintance, my dear," he said, his voice evidently the product of upper class British parenting; a purr that resounded with charm, as well as an undercurrent of self-assured superiority, "Albert Wesker, at your service."
"Albert's an old man's name," she pointed out, his response to which was simply to stare at her humourlessly.
"Perhaps you would do me the honour of identifying yourself," he suggested, extending his hand towards her as though intending to take her own and kiss it in the manner of an aristocrat, "although our relationship will be necessarily brief I would enjoy a momentary repose, if I may."
"I'm Shak," she announced, grinning up at him before there was the sound of four metal claws impaling an outstretched palm from somewhere between them, "nice to meet you, bitch."
The reaction of the man identified as Wesker was not immediate, however, when it eventually manifested it was entirely inappropriate for someone whose hand had recently been transfixed by razor sharp steel blades. His thin lips adopted a subtle upward curve at their edges as he continued to watch her from behind the dark lenses obscuring his eyes. Matching his stare with a bewildered expression on her face, she withdrew her weapon, feeling the slick knives slide easily out of his flesh and suddenly curious as to why that hadn't caused him to cry like a little girl. He lowered his own limb, the embryonic smile having faded in favour of the stoic neutral line that his mouth had previously taken the form of.
"The sentiment is mutual, I assure you," he told her. There was a sudden sensation of unbearable tightness around her throat accompanied by the equally abrupt lack of solid ground under her feet, and in a moment of revelation Shakahnna realised that he was holding her over a foot in the air by one hand, the same appendage that she had wounded only seconds ago; had she been able to breathe then she may have been impressed. That came with the knowledge that she was beginning to suffocate as he performed the function of a hangman's noose, and only one solution came to mind: to cut herself down.
With an almost rabid determination, she began to slash feverishly at his right forearm, shredding his sleeve and bringing forth sprays of blood as she sliced into the skin beneath. He seemed perfectly content to allow her this freedom, continuing to stare at her with his covered eyes as her face turned red and began to make the transition to blue. Seeing that her original course of action was coming to no fruition, she altered her intentions, instead wrapping her arms around the limb that was holding her aloft, before lifting her legs to encompass his bicep also. Feeling the muscle straining beneath the fabric of his jacket combined with the fact that his extended arm did not bow in the slightest under her weight gave her a startling insight into this man's strength, and the flush on her cheeks was no longer simply a side effect of her lack of air.
Reasoning that she was no longer in danger of dying, the black clad male began to tighten his grip around her neck, choking her. Her response to this new stimulus was to bring her right boot back and stamp on his nose, a manoeuvre that succeeded in making him grunt and loosen his stranglehold. With this small victory and no other strategy readily apparent, she repeated the action several times over, slamming the underside of her foot into his face several times in rapid succession, each blow staggering him further still as her vigour increased, until she released her hold on his outstretched appendage and dropped to the floor, quickly seizing her moment and piercing his rib cage with a powerful forward thrust in the correct place to impale his heart. In what should have been his dying seconds, he brought his left hand up and dealt her a stinging backhand that rattled her teeth and sent her slamming into the wall face first.
She turned, only for the same hand to grip her by the hair at her crown and force her backwards against the vertical surface that was now at her back. Her eyes widened as she became aware of the first intended to crush her skull, and she quickly plunged her claws into the wrist of her opponent, severing the tendons within and causing him to involuntarily release her fiery tresses moments before his right arm sank to the elbow in the brickwork where she had previously been held. Circling him, she struck out, flaying deep gashes in his flesh as she passed and slicing jagged rents in his clothing in the same instant. Unimpressed by the damage that she was causing to his attire and indifferent to his injuries, he reached for her with his free hand and grasped the front of her tactical vest, dragging her around so that she was face-to-face with him. With no small amount of vexation, she noticed that while his slender nose should have been broken it still appeared to be intact and the surrounding area did not show any sign of her desperate attacks.
Breathing heavily, the redhead could feel her cheeks burning as she confronted a man who possessed inhuman resilience. There was a knot of terror tying itself in the pit of her stomach as she realised that nothing she could do would harm him, combining with an entirely different sensation as her blood began to run hot. This was an individual capable of withstanding her attacks and suffering limitless punishment; fitting then that he was an Umbrella employee, and therefore guilty of so many sins. That they had met under such circumstance smacked of destiny and though his expression remained neutral she suspected that perhaps he realised that too. They were at the same time kindred and contrasting in the same manner that fire and ice were both cardinal elements but completely opposed to one another. Wordlessly, the blond shoved his enemy away roughly, the force of the motion causing her to lose her footing and skid to a halt on the floor, the carpet leaving a burning sensation on the skin of her back despite the padding she was wearing. Rolling back onto her shoulders she kicked up and landed neatly on her feet, watching as Wesker flexed his muscular right arm and pulled it through the wall with very little exertion on his part, tearing away a chunk of plaster and a number of bricks as he did so.
"It has been some time since I have faced an opponent who necessitated any effort on my part," he informed her, adjusting his sunglasses in a habitual fashion, "I wonder, dear heart, might you be such an opponent?"
The young woman's face lit up, a grin spreading across her features and her eyes sparkling at the connotations of those words. Anything that allowed her to work up a sweat was good in her mind, on the provision that it didn't involve running, and though the man before her was undeniably Umbrella scum, he was admittedly quite hot as well. "Try me," she insisted, smiling widely as she set her feet apart and clenched her fists, aiming her bladed gloves in his direction.
"M'lady," the formally dressed gentleman said, advancing upon her, "it would be my pleasure."
Bracing herself as he approached, she hopped backwards as he made to grab her, leaving of criss-cross of lacerations across his forearm. Reversing her momentum, the redhead stepped forward on her left foot and delivered a powerful roundhouse to his midsection with her right, the impact causing the male to grunt as he continued to pursue her. Swinging her off-hand at his throat, she made to tear at his windpipe only for her wrist to be taken firmly in the grip of her opponent, who stopped it several inches short of his neck. As though to challenge her, he raised an eyebrow, questioning her intentions. She lashed out with her free hand raking bloody gouges in his chest, which caused his brow to crease in a wince for the briefest of seconds and her smile to broaden imperceptibly, mainly because it was already as wide as it could possibly be. Striking again, she grimaced as both of her upper limbs came to be restrained at their forearms.
She looked up at him as he twisted her arms away from his body, a picture of violence and ecstatic intensity with crimson fluid from her previous victims staining her face and matting her hair in places, her breathing rapid and her cheeks flushed. He remained stoic, but as he leaned towards her she reared back and drove her forehead into his nose, this action causing him to stagger slightly. With his lapse of concentration, she brought her left hand around and sliced at the forearm of the limb currently clutching her right, before shaking both loose of his grip. His jaw clenched in the most subtle manner for the briefest of moments as she escaped him once again, though Shakahnna noticed this and took satisfaction at having aggravated him so. For his part, he no longer resembled a gentlemanly executive. His sleeves had been shredded to bloody ribbons, soaked with the liquid of his veins, issued forth from wounds that had healed almost immediately, while his torso bore more than a dozen further rents courtesy of the young lady's blades. Though he was not a man who outwardly expressed his enjoyment, there was a part of him deep beneath the surface that was snarling with lust, knowing that he wished more than anything to indulge his sadomasochistic tendencies with this female.
He advanced again, one powerful hand seizing her upper left arm as though he intended to embrace her, only for her to twist out of his grasp once again, the majority of her sleeve remaining in his fingers, however. She backed away from him as he regarded the heavy scarring on her upper arm, a look of appraisal on his face as he took in the patchwork of red and silver, almost glowing with the flow of blood from her arousal. The upturn appeared on his lips once again, almost a sneer of satisfaction at having discovered her violent predilections were much the same as his own.
"It would appear that you and I are quite alike, my dear," he said, and though the expression upon her face did not change in the slightest it was clear that she did not appreciate the comparison.
"Fuck off, I'm not Umbrella scum like you are," she informed him curtly, before she developed that same perverse leer that heralded Administrative Director Washington's castration and death, "although if we be playing long enough then I might make it so that neither of us have any knackers."
"Indeed? Then perhaps an adjournment is in order," the black-clad individual stated, adjusting his sunglasses in the same manner as he had done earlier, before he lashed out with a strike that caught the younger woman in the mouth and rocked her backwards. Seizing her around the throat, he steadied her and then forced her backwards into the wall. A trail of deep vermillion spread from her mouth where it had burst as he held her in place, and she glared up at him through her fiery locks as he brought his face to but a few inches from her own.
With an almost caring gentleness, he opened his mouth and allowed his tongue to trace the line of her lower lip, the motion provoking a sense of confusion and desire in the redhead, whose body fidgeted awkwardly. Unsure of what else she could do, she plunged her claws into his sides, their mouths in such close proximity that she could feel him grunt as much as hear it. Impassioned, he kissed her, and in the heat of the moment she allowed herself to reciprocate. Though not overly experienced with romance, indeed, she had only had one partner in her life to this date, the Lieutenant liked her kisses in the same manner that she liked everything else, as hard and as violent and as bloody as possible. Luckily for her, Albert Wesker was not a man who treated his lovers with any great kindness, and their momentary tryst was fulfilling to them both. When they parted, Shakahnna allowed herself a moment to take laboured breaths and regain her composure, before looking up at him again.
"My team's gonna be wondering where I am, so I'll be going now," she told him bluntly, without contemplating the notion that she may not have had a say in the matter. As far as she was concerned, it would take a better man to keep her when she had prior engagements. The blond sneered ever so slightly.
"I somehow doubt that your compatriots will wonder anything ever again," he said, his voice heavy with malice, "you see, my love, you are the sole survivor of that particular unit."
Any suggestion of levity vanished from the young female's features, and her eyes widened in the face of the older individual's revelation that the rest of her group was dead. "What?" she asked, her voice hollow and tainted with disbelief as he matched her gaze with a level, emotionless stare of his own, the dark lenses shrouding his eyes making him seem all the more inhuman and callous.
The towering man's shoulders began to shake gently as he started to chuckle, at first quietly and then progressively louder. He laughed as she wrenched her claws from his body and lashed out, ripping deep gouges in the flesh of his chest and upper arms in a desperate attempt to earn her freedom. Her right hand slashed his cheek, tearing into his skin and bringing forth blood, as well as causing him to loosen his grip around her throat giving her the ease of movement she needed to pull away from him. He made no attempt to apprehend her as she fled away, the well-being of her partners all that was on her mind as she forced past him and made for the elevators, the laughing executive in her wake.
Sneering, Albert Wesker reached to his face and brushed the scarlet fluid from it, as the four wounds there scarred in an instant, turned a subtle silver in hue and then faded completely.
Shakahnna was clammy with sweat and panting heavily when she reached the area in which the elevators were located, her body both numb and quivering as she pressed the call button feverishly, willing the mechanism to work faster. She hoped against hope that the stranger had been incorrect in his assertions about her fellow S.T.A.R.S members, but considering his power and the menace in his voice when he had told her, it was unlikely that he was lying, if only because he had no reason to. Her heart was in her throat as she continued to jab the button, watching the doors slide open and stepping forward to view a sight that made her stomach lurch and her spirits sink.
Lying crumpled in the elevator were the corpses of her two partners. Kane lay amid a pool of rapidly cooling blood, his face an unrecognisable mass of tortured flesh where something had ripped a hole through his skull. The redhead had the sneaking suspicion that it had been a fist. On the other hand, Chris's body had not been violated in such a manner, and would have seemed in perfect health were it not for the fact that his head was pointing in entirely the wrong direction and his glazed eyes were staring lifelessly at the ceiling. Unsure as to whether she was going to vomit or cry, or perhaps one after the other, she allowed her mouth to fall open and her natural reaction to take its course.
"No," she whispered, placing her hands over her eyes as though perhaps doing that for long enough would make it so that it had never happened. Unfortunately, anything that is done cannot simply be undone; if such a thing were possible then what she was doing would be unnecessary.
"I often wonder if the revival of S.T.A.R.S was instigated with the express intention of causing me an unreasonable degree of vexation," the voice of Wesker mused from somewhere behind her, startling her out of her reverie, "my own former membership notwithstanding, I went to considerable trouble eradicating your predecessors. That the organisation would be resurrected to oppose me a second time is something of a personal affront."
The Lieutenant allowed her hands to fall from her eyes, taking in the bodies of her erstwhile companions once more, before clenching her fists angrily. "There's no way you were a S.T.A.R.S member," she growled, refusing to turn and face him.
"On the contrary, my dear, I was once a Captain," he informed her, and though she continued to look away, she could practically hear the sneer on his lips, "which, I believe, would make me your superior."
She bristled silently and furiously, angry that he was obviously being truthful, that he had once been a part of the organisation whose ideals she believed in earnestly and sincerely, and that he had cheapened those beliefs by turning his back on them and orchestrating their downfall. It was the icing to a cake which was already making her quiver with rage. Her right hand came to rest on the grip of the high calibre weapon holstered under her opposing arm and she removed it, thumbing off the safety catch and pulling back the hammer. Intending to test the true extent of the male's power, she turned to aim the firearm at him where he stood at the other end of the corridor.
"How dare you," she snarled, her teeth bared in a manner that lacked the joyous enthusiasm of her previous grins, instead filled solely with aggression and enmity towards her suit-wearing antagonist. There was a flush on her cheeks also, however, this one of embarrassment at having allowed herself to feel any pleasure from his company.
"A futile effort," he insisted, though he affected no change in her stance. Smirking ever so slightly, he began to stride forward, advancing on her at a steady pace.
Levelling her Desert Eagle, Shakahnna fired. With an almost blinding speed, he sidestepped the bullet and continued to approach. She adjusted her aim and pulled the trigger again, watching his form become a dark blur as he moved out of the way. Grunting, the young female continued to shoot at the figure that was drawing closer with each step, each of her rounds perfectly on target but for the fact that he never seemed to be occupying that spot, leaving only empty air in his place. Before she even realised it she had expended all but one of her shots and he was standing directly in front of her, the handgun clutched between her palms almost pressed into his chest. He looked down at her, expressionless, matching the furious glare on her own face, and raised an eyebrow once again. In the mind of the redhead this was tantamount to a challenge and the mood of her features altered in a split second. Her mouth became a broad leer and her emerald eyes gleamed with an expression of playfully malicious intent, moments before she adjusted her aim and shot him in the groin.
There was a silent second in the aftermath as the two individuals both seemed to be waiting for something and then Wesker sneered. "I am sorry to say that your favoured anatomical target will only affect a lesser man than I," he recounted flatly, causing her mouth and eyes to widen in horror.
"No way, you cheated!" she cried, to which his response was to seize her around the throat with both hands and lift her easily into the air, where she began to kick and struggle as he started to suffocate her for the second time since their original meeting.
"I did no such thing," he stated, holding her aloft as her feet struck his thighs and the bloody hole where his crotch should have been repeatedly without causing him to acknowledge his injury in the slightest, going so far as to adopt a subtle smile as she attempted in vain to do him harm.
Suspended only a few inches from the doors of the elevator, the female S.T.A.R.S member was well within arms reach of a sanctuary, but only if she could convince the other individual to release her. And since she couldn't speak, and because he was unlikely to listen, diplomacy was out of the question. She lifted the empty pistol in her right hand and slammed the butt of the handle into his temple as hard as she could, the impact splintering the metal frame of his sunglasses and knocking them off his face. He turned his head to the side in order to shake the broken remnants from his features before turning back to look at her without his shades for the first time since their paths had crossed. Rather than the azure colour she had been expecting to complete his Aryan composition, she was confronted by slit-like cat's eyes ringed with gold and red circles. His previous superhuman abilities in mind, it was difficult for her to feel any amount of surprise, particularly considering that she was currently focusing more intently on not dying.
Throwing her weapon into the elevator behind her, which was refusing to close due to her proximity, the eternally playful soul wrapped her arms around those of the man who was attempting to murder her and lifted her legs, setting her feet solidly on his chest. His eyes narrowed slightly as though he were attempting to understand her motives for doing so, until she struck out with the claws attached to her right fist and tore into his face, causing him to grunt and recoil. His grip weakened in the brief moment between losing the majority of the skin on the front of his head and realising that his right cheek was missing, and the Lieutenant seized the opportunity, pushing off from his torso. She flew backwards as his fingers parted ways with his neck and slammed roughly into the rear wall of the lift, denting the metal as she crashed and slumped to the carpeted floor. With the sudden force of her full weight, her enemy staggered backwards as she scrambled to the control panel beside the doors and pressed the button for the ground floor quickly and repeatedly.
Using her free hand the young woman pulled one of the grenades from her waist, jerked the pin away with her teeth and rolled the small bomb to the feet of her tormentor. Wesker was only just regaining his balance when the doors closed with a cheerful musical chime and the chamber began to descend. Moments later, the elevator was rocked by a loud explosion, which, thankfully, occurred several metres overhead. Panting heavily, Shakahnna placed her back to the wall beneath the gilt surface of the row of buttons and let out a deep breath. Almost as though reality wanted to ensure that her survival did not go to her head, her gaze fell upon the bodies of her two fellow S.T.A.R.S operatives, which were lying across from her. Staring blankly, she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, before her eyes began to water and she started to shake uncontrollably.
When the elevator reached the lobby where the revolutionary group had begun its mission in relatively high spirits, the stout, flame-haired soldier was resolute as she walked out into the main chamber of the ground floor. Her eyes were bloodshot and there were thin trails in the grime covering her cheeks caused by her tears, but any sign of emotion was no longer present on her features. Though she had yet to return to her usual ebullient attitude, she had at least gone some way to regaining her composure. Behind her she dragged the two male corpses that had rode down with her by their jackets, Chris's eyes closed and their arms folded reverentially over their chests in a bid on the female's part to grant them a degree of dignity in their death. Once she had removed them from the lift's interior she lay them down outside the door respectfully, stepping forward to scan the entrance hall quickly. Though she had been expecting it and had attempted to remain in as stoic a mindset as possible, she was disturbed to find that there were three fresh bodies on the room's floor that had not been there when she had left, and all of them were wearing the same uniform as her.
Her eyes fell on the van that was still parked halfway through the complex's front doors and it occurred to her that, as there no longer seemed to be a driver, it would be up to her to evacuate the unit, or at the very least deliver its remains to her superiors. The problem manifested itself in the fact that she was not certified to drive, but she was a quick study and was vaguely aware of the basics, at least to the point where the term "screaming metal death-trap" would not be applicable. She had always wanted to drive, but her recent past had granted her access to more interesting fields such as firearms and explosives, and as such driving had taken a back seat. Giving the lifeless husks that had once been her companions a wide berth, she advanced through the shattered entrance and circled the Transit, moving to the driver-side door. She recoiled when she noticed that the driver was still there, sitting upright and with his hands on the wheel, only with his head lying severed in the seat next to him. Cursing to herself, she opened the door and began to reposition the unit's chauffeur as politely as possible, noting with some relief that the keys were still in the ignition. In her current state of mind, she didn't think of the possibility that prior to his demise, the male in the vehicle's cab had been intending to flee the scene in an attempt at self-preservation. Once she had moved him aside, she returned to the building's interior.
There was no doubt that it had been Wesker who had executed the other individual's that comprised her team. Far too much brutality had been used on the three men who had remained in the lobby to attribute it to a member of the security force, or even to the U.S.F. In fact, she only knew of one other person capable of exacting that degree of punishment on someone, and she was almost certain that it had not been herself. However, there was something very human about the extent of the mutilation that discounted the possibility that it had been one of Umbrella's escaped B.O.W creatures. It was an intrinsically personal slaughter that had been carried out, and one that lacked the mercy of the deaths in the lift. Even Matt, whose stature was great enough to dwarf even the black-clad sadist, had been disembowelled and dismembered, and seemed to have been completely incapable of defending himself. Manoeuvring the formerly lumbering male into the rear of the vehicle was no minor feat, and she was relieved once that was done. Though the Captain and Sage were not small men, in comparison to the largest member of their unit, moving them was considerably easier.
Once she had placed them within the confines of the van, she returned to the two bodies that were lying by the lift doors and made to carry Kane away, only for the sound of the second elevator arriving on the lowest level to draw her attention. Almost as though it were occurring in slow motion, she head the chime of the bell and watched as the small compartment opened, her eyes widening in horror as Albert Wesker stepped out, his motions fluid and efficient. He turned to stare her down, his sunglasses restored and his clothing no longer tattered and torn, giving the impression that their previous battle had never happened. She let the corpse slump to the ground and took up a combative stance, intending to attack him if he approached. The options of fight or flight appeared in her mind, a decision that was as old as time, but with motives beyond simply survival. On the one hand, Shakahnna wished to honour her comrades by returning their bodies to a safe place, and though she would never admit it out loud, she was also aware that in her current condition, and armed as she was, she would stand no chance of defeating the man before her. Alternatively, her desire to tear him to shreds for killing them in the first place was almost overpowering, and it was doubtful that even if she did choose the first option he would simply allow her to leave. Given the choice between doing right by her dead team mates and avenging them, she was quick to make her decision.
He made no move as she sprang towards him, looking on coolly as she closed the small distance between them in an instant until she lashed out at him. He blocked her strikes casually, each one strong enough to shatter the bones of an ordinary man but merely bouncing from his enhanced forearms and leaving dark purple bruises on her own. Gritting her teeth, she kicked him stiffly in the side before he could bring his guard down to meet her, only for him to turn and do the same thing, striking her with a roundhouse solidly in the midriff beneath her arm and sending her flying off her feet, before she collapsed in a crumpled heap several metres away. Wincing, she pushed herself up, her hands stained with the blood of her former partners, before turning back to face him, snarling as he appeared over her. He lifted his foot and pressed it into her chest, forcing her down onto her back, ignoring her as she drove her clawed right hand into his calf, and began to push downwards onto her.
"You will have to forgive my tardiness, dearest," he said, as though he were honestly remorseful, though only in a detached manner, "but I am afraid that you caused considerable damage to my attire and I was forced to seek a change of clothing."
"Get bent," she replied, his response to which was to press down on her with his boot, eliciting a wince and a gasp from her.
She slid the blades out of her opponent's leg, rocked her body to the side and rolled with as much force as she could muster in the opposite direction. Escaping the pressure that had threatened to flatten her rib cage, she rose to her haunches drenched in the gore that had previously been covering the ground and was caught completely off guard by a second kick that sent her skidding across the floor on her rear end.
He appeared over her again as she began to clamber to her feet, seizing her by the throat and lifting her up, the knives attached to her gloves sinking to the hilt on either side of his torso as he did so, ensuring that she had some purchase in case he attempted to lift her up once more. Any effort he made to strangle her would result in a quick and painful evisceration that would at least stun him for long enough to escape his clutches. Her expression changed to one of consternation, however, when he leered down at her as though he were suddenly very pleased. His left arm encircled her body and crushed her close to him, which, with her hands positioned at his stomach, left her no possible recourse. Rather than seeking to turn their embrace into a deadly, vice-like hold, however, he merely held her in place, denying her movement but permitting her to breathe. She looked up at him as he removed his right hand from her throat and moved it out of sight, her brow pinching as she frowned.
"What are you doing?" she asked, offering up only a minor struggle due to the fact that she was well-restrained and totally incapable of doing any more now that her hands were locked into his sternum.
"It would be quite discourteous of me to leave you without a lasting token of my affection, would it not?" he questioned in reply, though his own query was entirely rhetorical. His right hand emerged into her field of view holding a long and incredibly sharp combat knife in a downward grip.
Her eyes widened as he brought the weapon towards her, still sneering with malice as he did so, as she wondered what a sentimental gift courtesy of Albert Wesker would entail. She did not have long to ponder this matter, however, when he tightened his grip around her body suddenly in a manner that caused a rather suspicious crunch in the area of her ribs. Gasping, she threw her head back and gave a yell, only to feel the blade slice cleanly through the right side of the ellipsis her lips had formed. She screamed involuntarily, the tear in her face splitting her cheek apart as her mouth strained open, before she realised what was occurring and forced her teeth to grit tightly, blood flowing around her gums and down over the edge of her jaw. Attempting to provoke another pain-filled wail from her, he crushed her to him once more, though she continued only to grimace up at him, refusing to allow him to do her a further injury.
She twisted her talons within his abdomen desperately, struggling against him with all the strength she could possibly muster until, with a violent jerk and a loud tearing noise, she pulled them through either side of his body. He grunted as she ripped him open, the constriction pressuring her organs loosening as she cleaved eight deep grooves in his torso. Raising her arms, she thrust her right hand upward and stabbed him in the throat. His lips cracked and blood strained from them, running down over his chin as his windpipe and mouth filled with the scarlet liquid, moments before he unexpectedly toppled backwards and fell to the floor, carrying her with him as he did so. As they hit the ground, the young Lieutenant rose up atop him, straddling his chest and striking again as quickly as she could, her claws shattering his sunglasses, impaling his cat-like orbs and transfixing his head.
Sliding her weaponry from his skull and neck, she reared back and began to repeatedly drive them into his upper body, her visible grimace curving into the manic grin that had not graced her features in some time, a brutal mockery of its former glee due to the fact that the expression extended all the way to her temple on the right hand side of her face, her teeth stained with her own life fluid. She was breathing heavily as she stood from the maimed individual, her body trembling with adrenaline and her claws dripping the human B.O.W's mutated gore onto the tiles beneath her feet. A deep snorting noise rose from her throat before she pitched forward, a gobbet of blood and phlegm landing neatly on his cheek.
"Fuck you," she said, keeping her lips as close together she could manage to prevent the wound on her cheek from opening further. When he did not answer, she permitted herself a moment of celebration, shimmying as best she could with however many broken ribs her suitor had seen fit to impart upon her.
With her mood considerably lighter, Shakahnna walked the length of the lobby to stand beside her deceased companions. She shot them a look of dismay, but set aside those emotions as best she could because the next bit was going to be a whore. Gritting her teeth, the woman hauled Kane up onto her shoulders and carried him to the van, straining beneath his heavily muscled frame and trying to ignore the burning pain in her upper torso that complimented the rip in her face. On reflection, the formally-dressed gentleman had been a nice distraction and their brief moments together had been to her liking, though she could have done without the whole "murdering her friends" part. Even though he'd been Umbrella scum, he had been an exceptionally attractive individual. Unfortunately, they were now incompatible because he was dead and she was not. Haha, she was glad.
Once she had deposited Chris with the rest of the S.T.A.R.S and ensured that the five were well within the confines of the Transit's interior so that she didn't catch any part of them in the doors, she slammed them shut and made her way to the front of the vehicle. She clambered into the driver's seat and pulled the single door there closed also. Lingering for a moment as she gripped the lower part of her chest in one hand and her torn face in the other, she attempted to bring her breathing under control and focus. That accomplished, she started the van and put it into gear, reaching out through the window to adjust the wing mirror and catching a glimpse of Wesker's corpse again. She tilted her head as she looked at it and then stuck out her tongue, before sharply reminding herself not to do that again until she had at least managed to get her cheek stapled back together.
Pressing her foot down on the accelerator, the lone survivor made her exit.
Albert Wesker's eyes opened to gaze upon the ceiling of the administrative complex's lobby, the inhuman orbs having grown anew within their sockets and rotating into focus as they became acclimatised to their rebirth. He lifted his right arm fluidly and removed the second pair of sunglasses the young lady had shattered since their first meeting, reminding himself to rid her of that particular habit lest it prove irksome at a later point in their relationship. He was rather unaccustomed to dying, having only experienced it once before and rarely having entered into a situation where it proved a concern. This was not to say that he shied from conflict, quite the opposite in fact, he thrived in such instances, but his prowess was considerable and his capabilities were superhuman, and as such he had no equal who posed a threat to his life. Until now, that was. Luckily, death was merely a minor inconvenience for him.
That the young redhead had been capable of causing him a second demise was perhaps his most prominent reason for wishing to grant her his prolonged attention. Though decidedly uncivilised, she made for pleasant company, in the sense that his concept of pleasant was somewhat skewed. She was loyal to a fault, talented in combat and unwilling to concede, and it was these qualities that made her exceptionally appealing. As he had informed her, it had been quite some time since he had last had an opponent quite so capable and he would delight in testing her to the very limits of her fighting ability and stoic denial of his advances.
He stood up from his prone position on the floor and looked out over the dark courtyard in front of the building, lit only by the luminous fittings that decorated the interior. The claw marks and bloody, ragged holes in his suit no longer corresponded to wounds on his body, those having healed long before the more grievous injuries to his throat and head. He frowned slightly, reaching to his cheek and wiping away the spittle that the female had left on his cheek, making a further mental note that her manners required some refinement.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow, my love," he said, as he straightened his jacket and stepped out of the entrance hall and onto the street, "but rest assured that we shall meet again, when I make you my own."