Episode Five Point One: I'll Be Seeing You Again
"Hurry," Hunk snapped, as the pair continued their forced march away from Wesker's estate. In spite of his military discipline, he was understandably agitated by the knowledge that the inhuman executive would most likely be on their tail before long. His pace was brisk and easily outstripped that of the young woman behind him, who was having to move at a semi-jog just to be behind.
"Okay, okay, I've only got short legs," Shakahnna huffed from several yards behind as she followed his lead. She honestly wasn't sure where it was that she was being led, but they had crossed out of the verdant grounds that formed the expanse of land owned by her former captor and had since passed out into a dry and barren wasteland. After almost an hour of walking they had arrived at the outskirts of a small settlement several miles from the mansion where she had once been detained, the town's outer edge formed from a long, wide interstate section that lacked traffic of any kind. Several rusted automobiles stood abandoned on the highway, though some still had occupants, long dead corpses baked by the sun into screaming, mummified husks. There was a motel on the other side of the road, and a group of buildings boasting signs that had once been eye-catching and garish lined a high, stone shelf to the left, showing that the settlement was more of a service stop than an actual habitat, built into the side of a small, rocky mound that peaked several hundred metres away. When the tragedies of the past six years had first visited this place it had been early in that period, and now that destruction was gathering dust and fading away even while other parts of the country were still choked with the undead. "What is this place?" she queried, mopping sweat from her brow prompted by the afternoon sun that was beginning its descent on the western horizon.
"Just a town," the black-clad soldier responded, apparently unfazed by the heat even in his armour and mask, "one of the first to be destroyed and the closest to Wesker's residence."
"So why here?" she asked, fairly certain that he had led her to this place for a reason. When he did not reply she cast around at the disused location trying to determine the answers herself. Now that they had put distance between themselves and the sociopath, she wanted answers to the questions that she had asked him earlier, and she could see no reason why he would not answer her now. "Why come and get me?" she questioned, thankful that he seemed to be slowing down at least a little now, "I mean, you can handle yourself and you're not injured like me; why is it up to me to fight Wesker?"
He was silent for a moment longer as they crossed the wide street, passing a sand-swathed land rover whose driver was sitting sideways in the passenger seat, apparently having tried desperately to escape from something that had entered his door and failed miserably. There was no sign of that something now. It reminded the redhead of the days when she herself had walked through dozens of towns and cities like this, including the place where her fiancé had once lived. "He'd kill me without hesitation," his muffled voice explained bluntly, "you have an advantage that I don't."
"Huh?" the young woman asked, tilting her head in apparent incomprehension.
He turned to regard her with the blank, round eyes of his gasmask, pausing in the middle of the road momentarily. "He wants you."
"Erm, he slit my throat," she pointed out, running her right finger across the wound in her neck to illustrate her point. The motion also drew attention to the mismatched piece of flesh fixed into the hole in her wrist that was further evidence of the matter she was attempting to bring to her attention. The masked face continued to stare at her for a moment, and then he spoke again.
"You rejected him?" the broad-shouldered male asked flatly, to which she flushed slightly when she realised that he had a point.
"Well, yeah, but..." she began awkwardly, before he interrupted.
"Then he did it because he would rather have you dead than not be with him," her companion stated, his tone still as caustic as ever, "it's what I would have done. But since you survived I imagine he'll be eager to convince you to change your mind; it gives you a bargaining chip to use against him. If he thinks that there's even the slightest chance you'll be willing to come back with him then he won't be trying to kill you. And he won't want you to kill yourself either."
This time it was her turn to be silent, prompting him to turn back to his intended path. He was leading her into the front yard of the motel, paying no heed to that structure's car park with its three permanent occupants and the metal staircase that led up the steep incline to the retailers she had noticed earlier. Some of the doors to the rooms stood open, and a desiccated cadaver lay prone on its belly where it had been dragged to the ground by marauding undead, a fallen towel at its feet providing evidence that it had been attempting to leave in a hurry. What flesh remained had turned hard and black in the heat, while the bones of the ribcage and thighs had been bleached white. Even the flies no longer wished to eat what remained. "I still want to know how the Board of Directors found out about me," she called after him, resuming her jog.
There was a moment as he seemed to contemplate the question, choosing his wording carefully. "They had a source," he replied eventually. She took a few seconds for herself in order to think through the implications of his answer, aware that very few people were aware that Wesker was keeping her imprisoned, until she came to the only name that really made any sense.
"Adrian?" she asked, her brow furrowing as she was unable to comprehend why the gentile physician would have so readily betrayed someone whom he claimed to be a friend of to individuals whom he obviously did not have much love for. Almost as though to confirm her assumptions, however, Hunk grunted his ascent.
"You catch on fast," he told her, as she quickened her pace to walk next to him, lest she miss anything that he was saying, "Doctor Lovette approached the Board some time ago talking about how Wesker was becoming fixated on something unhealthy. He wanted their help in staging an intervention, but they weren't interested in returning him to his old self. Over time he had become detached and brisk, delegating more and more responsibility to the Chairwoman, Lady Spencer, whom they could control with greater ease than him, and of course they preferred that. So they convinced Lovette to keep them appraised and when things got really unhealthy, when he called them talking about how Wesker had called him out all of a sudden, when they were certain that he wouldn't be able to help but interfere, they sent me to ensure that their interests were met."
"Okay, so that explains how they knew about Wesker going mental," she commented as he finished, "but it doesn't explain how they knew about me."
"Lovette thought originally that Wesker was just hunting down the S.T.A.R.S," the soldier responded, "its not the first time he's done that; later on though, when he confided in the Doctor that it was one woman in particular, he told the Board all about it. With a little research it wasn't hard to find out whom it was that the C.E.O had been looking for. He had been constantly circulating your information for six months around the U.B.C.S and U.S.F before you were finally apprehended; I was even approached at one point. It didn't take them long after that to find the archive footage of your fight the first time you met, when you killed him, and formulate this plan."
"What plan?" Shakahnna queried, tilting her head to look at the side of his hidden face, to which his response was simply to turn to look at her quietly. When he seemed to be unforthcoming with any further information, she decided not to press the issue. They continued on under a stone arch that passed beneath a balcony and the upper rooms of the motel, and came out onto a dirt track that wound upwards to the left, towards a further line of buildings, these ones appearing to be simple, two-storey dwellings in which the people who had actually inhabited the town lived, or at least, had done prior to the devastation that had been wrought here. To the right was a large, mouldering building that had been boarded up long before the catastrophe, in a state of disuse far worse than the other structures. Religious iconography hung over the door and on the spire atop the roof, revealing it to be a decommissioned church. "So they really want him dead?" the redhead continued, as they walked side-by-side.
"All except Lady Spencer," he replied, "but even as the Chairwoman, she doesn't have enough clout to overrule a unanimous decision on the part of the Board."
"And what about me?" she asked him, their eyes locking for a moment, her own bright emeralds confronting the pinpoints of crimson that lurked behind his goggles, a sign of the infra-red lenses that all U.S.F members used as basic equipment.
"My orders made no mention of you other than to find you and bring you here," he told her flatly, to which she couldn't help but scoff.
"Oh yeah, that be's convenient," the flame-haired girl commented, folding her arms over her chest, "because you'd totally tell me if you'd been sent to kill me as well."
He was silent, whether because she was entirely correct or because he didn't think her tone of voice should have been dignified with an answer. They continued to progress forwards, ignoring the curve of the beaten track and trudging through the thick, dried out grass at its edge, past the abandoned church and onwards towards a small concrete building that appeared to have been built into the side of the rock face that extended upwards to its highest point here. The female's eyes drifted upwards to the top of the miniature mountain and she balked when she found herself staring at what appeared to be a cathedral perched above the rest of the town. Suddenly, the reason for why the original, wooden building that had served as the religious centre of the settlement had been left to decay became apparent. It was a huge stone building realised in high Gothic fashion, like something from the Dark Ages, that rose in the manner of a dark and foreboding crown atop the peak above, murals formed from stained glass depicting various Biblical scenes resting above a pair of wide, oaken doors. Now thoroughly confused, she turned her eyes back to her guide, who had not paused when she had done so, and as such was now waiting for her outside of the bunker that was apparently their destination.
"Alright, what is this place?" she questioned, thrashing through the spindly, knee-high shrubbery, which had turned an unhealthy pale yellow in the sun, before coming to stand directly in front of him.
"Some time ago, this area was the base of operations for a small cult group who believed that the second coming was closer than most expected it to be," Hunk informed her, before gesturing towards the worn, boarded construct that they had passed previously, "they built the church over there, and later, as a show of their devotion, pulled their labour and monetary resources into building the cathedral on top of the hill. They armed themselves to combat the perils of judgement day and intended to hide out here. They were wiped out around ten years ago and a tourist spot was built around the cathedral a while later."
"Whoa, wait, how do you know this?" she interrupted, waving her hands in front of her frantically in order to stop him from continuing without answering her question.
"I was leading the unit that wiped them out," he told her, his tone as blunt and tactless as it had been from the moment they had first met, "they were lunatics to a man, but the Pastor was perfectly sane. He was a former Umbrella employee who sold secrets to Sun Enterprises without knowing that the two were related. When he found out, he ran away, surrounded himself with fanatics and sealed himself in the basement of the cathedral. We killed his followers, and to the best of my knowledge he's still in that basement. The point is that they left a large amount of equipment gathered in preparation for the end of the world in this bunker. You're going to use it to fight Wesker."
"Oh really?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and placing her hands on her hips, regarding the solid metal door and the terminal that held it locked with a degree of scepticism, "don't tell me you know the password for this as well."
"I don't," he stated briskly, before reaching into his trouser pocket and removing a small plastic device with three unlit LED's on the front of its smooth, otherwise unmarked case. He attached it to the screen beside the door and flicked a switch on the side, standing back as the red light blinked on, followed closely by the amber light, and then, after several clicks and mechanical whirrs, the green light. There was a hiss of hydraulics and then a sound that was strikingly similar to elevator doors opening as the thick metal bulkhead covering the entrance hummed aside with a flurry of falling dust as ten years of disuse was shaken free from its outer edges. "Come on," he said, stepping inside and slapping a light switch that was directly inside the doorway.
She did as he suggested and stepped into the lit interior of the single chamber that composed the bunker. Directly opposite the door was a workbench for weapon customisation, wiped clean and lined with various oils, greases and powders, the orderly nature of the space providing a challenge even for the obsessively tidy station of the old S.T.A.R.S gunsmith, Ivan. On the right hand wall was a neatly catalogued cabinet filled to bursting with ammunition of all kinds for pistols, sub-machineguns, assault rifles and sniper rifles. To the left were shelves of weapons covering all of the previously listed categories arranged in neat rows for the perusal of anyone who cared to look. Shakahnna could almost feel an orgasm coming on. "This is absolutely bitching," she announced, grinning broadly, before turning to her companion, "if you weren't Umbrella scum I would totally kiss you."
He ignored her, only indicating a large box strapped to the wall over the work bench. There was a green cross emblazoned across its front and the words "First Aid" written beneath it. "Make sure to patch yourself up if necessary," he ordered, ensuring to remind her lest her gun-lust get the better of her and distract her from her own well-being.
"Yeah, yeah," the redhead responded, with a dismissive wave of her hand as she continued to drool over the veritable horde of destructive power she had been presented with.
"If I were you I'd take the time between now and when Wesker arrives to prepare your game; he's playing by your rules now, so its in your best interests to level the field," he suggested, moving back towards the door, "I can't say for sure, but chances are if you push his capabilities to their limits then you can actually fatigue him to the point where he won't be able to regenerate for some time. I think that might be your best opportunity. If he sees me then the game is over, so I'm withdrawing. It's all up to you."
"If you're leaving then you can be taking a message for me," she told him, turning to look at him with her eyes bright, "tell your Umbrella Board of Scum that when and if I get done with Wesker then I'm coming after them. He might be being the biggest bastard that there is, but they'd better not think I'm gonna stop what I was doing before just because I took him out. As far as I'm concerned, he's just fifty points on the League Table."
-
He could smell her. The scent of her blood, her sweat, that undercurrent of cherries, was all that he could focus on as he prowled through the wasteland beyond the outskirts of his ruined dwelling. He followed the trail that she had unwittingly left for him, intoxicated by it and by the thrill of the hunt. It had been quite some time since he had last embarked on an excursion of this nature. The circumstances that had led him to his first encounter with the young lady who now held him in such thrall, and subsequently, his capture of young Amanda, had been business matters. Indeed, the last time he had enjoyed such a personally gratifying chase was in locating his former subordinates in S.T.A.R.S the first time Doctor Lovette had seen fit to interfere in his affairs. That particular endeavour had ended with relative success for the blond executive. He had enjoyed it greatly. Now, however, he was pursuing someone who might even have been called his equal, so vastly superior to Mister Redfield and Miss Valentine, and the anticipation he was feeling as he lessened the distance between them had caused him to clench his hands into fists entirely involuntarily. Lacking complete control of his faculties was not something he experienced with any frequency, and he would enjoy discovering if the precursory sensations he was experiencing were met by the reality of their final confrontation.
This would hardly be a cordial affair, and so he had done away with his usual formal attire, trading his tailored suit for a set of similarly well-fitting black fatigues and body armour. His boots were military-issue and capped with steel at their points, much the same as those that he had gifted his beloved with some three days earlier, while the combat trousers and short-sleeved, button-down shirt was formed from a weave of various special materials developed by Umbrella. They were fireproof and repelled the majority of assaults, the better to ensure that he remained clothed in situations where his body was more durable than his attire. He wore body armour fastened around his torso, though this was a formality as what his clothing could not stop his skin was more than capable of denying. As was usually the case, his customary sunglasses were perched upon the bridge of his nose, the only part of his garb that had not changed in his transformation from businessman to militant.
He approached a stretch of interstate that separated the barren area he was currently walking through from a small group of buildings clustered around a small, rocky peak that jutted up from the dry, cracked soil like a conical throne, atop which sat a large, stone structure, the setting sun's rays illuminating beautiful panels of stained glass that identified the most prominent of the settlement's landmarks as a place of worship. Her scent was stronger here, diverging and crossing itself constantly as though she had run back and forth across this place many times over the past couple of hours. He elected not to head directly into the centre of the town through the motel's yard, and instead circumvented the location altogether, skirting the steep incline to the left and wandering around, eyeing the edge of the rock wall in an effort to locate the individual he was looking for. He did not need to search far.
She was sitting at the edge of the plateau, some ten feet above, her left leg dangling from the stout rock face while the other's foot was set in front of her on the precipice, utilising her right knee as an arm rest. Unlike their last encounter she seemed content and untroubled, a cigarette that she had acquired from somewhere placed between her lips and releasing feathery wisps of smoke from its lit end. It was clear that she had noticed his approach immediately, but had elected simply to remain where she was, prompting him to move to the base of the stone shelf directly in front of her and glare upwards reproachfully. She offered him nothing more than a pleasant smile as he came closer, that expression splitting into a wide and self-satisfied grin as she tilted her head back and puffed a delicate ellipse of smog into the air above her, the wavering shape floating above her head like a grey halo before it dissipated. Fortune appeared to have been with her, as she appeared to be well-equipped. She wore black fatigues evidently lifted from her surroundings, complimented by similarly-coloured armour that covered her torso, elbows and knees. A crude S.T.A.R.S emblem had been painted onto her right breast in matt green paint to give the impression that she was still loyal to her old organisation, even though it had perished. That fact perplexed him, though he recognised it as a secondary concern when compared to the other equipment she had gathered. At her hips were holstered a pair of high calibre handguns, behind which were loops that grasped two handheld scythes, Kamas as they were commonly known. At her shoulders he could see the straps of a harness, attached to which were an Assault Rifle and a shotgun, held in a cross on her back so that she could access them both with either hand when the situation called for it. There was a string of grenades across her belt and lying across her lap was a box-fed heavy machinegun hanging from a strap around her neck.
"Hey," she murmured as they exchanged eye contact across the space between them, before taking a deep drag on her cigarette until it was down to a stub, rolling it back to her finger and casually flicking it at him. With her usual pinpoint accuracy, the ember ricocheted from his forehead in a small cloud of loose ash and fell to the floor at his feet.
His eyes took in her form, armed to the teeth with weaponry that she had acquired from an unknown source, and raised an eyebrow questioningly. "You would challenge me then, is that it?" he asked her, lifting a hand to idly adjust his sunglasses upon their perch.
"Why? You wanna play?" she asked him, still grinning broadly, the facial injuries he had dealt her making this no less a glorious sight. She was exuberant, cocky and enthusiastic; fortune smiled upon him it seemed, and had seen fit to grant him one last foray with the young woman who had first caught his attention almost a year earlier. Now free of restraints and away from confinements, she finally seemed ready to indulge him in the manner that he had always wished.
"Indeed," he responded, a sneer breaking out on his features with such intensity that it rivalled her own jubilant expression, "I must admit that the thought of a game to see who lives and dies is magnificent."
"Dies?" she queried, placing her hands flat on the rocky ground behind her and pushing herself up onto her feet, her various equipment harnesses rattling against one another as she did so, before fixing him with a playful stare, "you first."
"Though I am certain that your efforts will provide me with ample opportunity for exultation, I sincerely hope that your bravado is not unfounded," the black clad male told her flatly, to which her face became a mask of derision, undercut by the mirth that was constantly tugging at the corners of her mouth, as though the thought that she could be considered his inferior was laughable. He folded his muscular arms across his chest, looking up at her levelly. "Very well," he continued, "let our game commence."
"If you want me," she purred, lifting her right hand to her face and gently parting her bared teeth to allow the pin of the hand grenade clutched there to enter, before pulling it away with a shake of her head and spitting it to the side, "come and get me."
He was moving even before the explosive hit the floor by his feet, surging towards the rock face where she stood in a blur. His hand gripped the lip of the precipice, while his boot slammed into the stone, pulverising the eroded wall, before he pushed up and scaled the shelf in one swift motion. Kneeling atop the next level of the uneven ground, he was uncaring as the grenade detonated behind him with a concussive blast that sent shrapnel and hot dirt in all directions. His beloved was falling back towards the grimy facades of the retailers to her back, one offering a variety of automobile components while two others plied visitors with various comestibles, all three having been abandoned long ago. Seeing him rise to a standing position, she levelled the machinegun hanging around her neck at him. It was a bulky, ugly weapon, lacking in finesse, designed to shoot hot, fat stubs of metal in an unrelenting torrent in a morbidly unintelligent manner. And when she pulled the trigger it did just that, the firearm bucking and snarling in her grasp as she unleashed its destructive power, the leather, fingerless gloves on her hands wrapped tightly around the grip at its base and the handle on top to prevent the aim from going wild.
Bullets raked the parched soil on either side of him throwing up clouds of dry dirt, while others punctured his skin in bursts of crimson spray as he began to stride forward, the barrage rocking him back and forcing him to utilise more effort in his approach. She edged back, maintaining the distance between them, even as her rain of smouldering lead peppered his body with wounds, one slug exploding his palm in a shower of blood and broken fingers; it began to regenerate almost immediately after. His advance quickened, his other hand reaching for her face, when she shrugged the weapon from its strap and threw it to the ground. It had run empty and she had neglected to bring more ammunition for it, reasoning that it was too heavy to carry indefinitely, and that reloading it would take more time than he would be willing to permit. She darted away from his clutches, turning to run for the auto parts store. Blunt plugs of heavy metal clattered to the floor as Wesker willed them out of his body, before following after her at a steady, measured pace.
Shakahnna's arrival to the interior of the building she had been heading towards was in the form of a running dive that took the wooden door of its hinges and sent both her and it crashing to the floor with a loud bang and a thick cloud of dust. She scrambled up and hurried past the rusted racks of items, and the long-forgotten counter across from them, turning at the back of the room to find the looming silhouette of her pursuer standing in the broken entranceway. She reached her right hand up to take hold of the shotgun's grip where it was strapped to her back and pulled it loose, aiming it at the interloper and pulling the trigger. It barked fiercely and the dirt-encrusted window to his right shattered, fragments of buckshot leaving streaks of blood across his skin where they were only powerful enough to scratch it. She vanished into the narrow stairwell at the back of the disused structure, and he pursued her, his boots thundering heavily on the decaying floorboards beneath his feet. Entering the enclosed passage that led upwards to the floor above, he found himself staring directly into the barrel of the weapon she was toting, hearing only the sound of her racking the slide before it roared a second time.
A shotgun is a poor choice of weapon in distanced combat, particularly against a superhuman being such as Albert Wesker; however, at close range it has its chance to shine, no matter its opponent. With the barrel of the twelve-gauge firearm pressed almost flat to his temple, it did not surprise him when the discharge blew the skin from his scalp and mangled his right ear in an eruption of blood. His sunglasses, shattered and twisted, dropped from his face and smashed upon the floor at his feet. In spite of the fact that the majority of the flesh covering the back of his head was missing, he turned to glare up the inclining passage with malice heavy in his eyes, watching her disappear around the top of the landing. Even as he stalked up the stairs after her, the tissue covering the reverse of his skull was beginning to regenerate, soft muscle and fibres covering the exposed section of his skull before in turn being shrouded by fresh, pink epidermis, the recreated follicles sprouting blond hairs to match those that surrounded them until one could hardly tell that he had been wounded. His torn ear twisted and morphed back into its original shape, the blood dripping along the length of his neck the only clue that he had even been injured to begin with.
His ears twitched as the slide of the shotgun was racked once again, and he powered to the top of the stairwell, gripping the barrel of the weapon and turning it aside as it bucked violently and sprayed the wall with shot, blasting apart the plaster that covered the upper floor's interior. She prepared the next shell with her left hand and pulled the trigger again, this attempt also missing him completely and exploding the window at the far end of the room in a cascade of broken glass. Trying vainly to tug the gun free, she was jerked towards him and then thrown backwards into the vertical surface behind her, the black-clad male outmatching her easily using only one arm. Grunting as she was forced against the crumbling mortar, she glared up at him as he came to stand directly in front of her, the fingers of his left hand still clasping the armament while the digits of the other appendage came to take hold of her lower jaw gently. He leaned towards her, monstrous eyes appraising her as they came to be mere inches apart. "You cannot deny me," he asserted, watching as she bit her lower lip in trepidation, moments before that expression split into a wide grin.
"Can and will, bitch," she announced in response, her voice haughty, moments before she drew her head back as far as his proximity would allow and hammered it into his nose. There was a wet crunch and he reeled backwards, taking her weapon with him, allowing her to run past him, hop up onto the sill of the window she had shot through previously, and vault out of the building's second floor. Frowning, Wesker followed her to the opening and looked out over the open area that stood before the abandoned retailers. Shakahnna landed heavily, stumbling to maintain her balance as the impact stung her feet and almost toppled her. Then she reached into the pocket of her uniform's trousers and removed a small, handheld device, longer and more rectangular than a grenade, but without the blade of a knife. It appeared to be just a handle. Or a remote control. Or a detonator.
-
The Semtex that the redhead had located among the stashed weaponry within the bunker had prompted a considerable amount of pondering on her part, as she struggled to come up with a use for it that would utilise the full force of its destructive power. There had been a considerable amount of it, and so any explosion she had rigged would have been huge. Small explosions would have been no good against Wesker anyway. In the end, she felt that she had made the right decision.
The blast from the trap that she had set sent a ball of atomised concrete, mortar and flames roaring into the air as the three retailers were blown to smithereens. The force of the detonation knocked her flat and sent her curling into a ball as hot dust and larger fragments of the buildings she had destroyed rained around her. Before the devastation wrought by the initial part of her plan had even begun to settle, however, there was a terrible, lengthy groan as the four, two-storey residences used by the settlement's citizens before their collective demise yawed backwards and tumbled down from their perch on the next level of the tiered town and collapsed on top of the rubble that had already been made of the stores at their backs, burying the blond all the more beneath concrete blocks and wooden supports.
Thick, gritty smog choked the landscape as the gamine righted herself, throwing aside the spent remote that was clutched in her right hand and placing a hand to her forehead as she tried to navigate the myopia that had settled over the surrounding area, seeing nothing but ghosts and shadows at the periphery of her vision, and constantly having to blink away eyes full of tears and irritation at the dust and sand that was refusing to settle. Those watery orbs widened as a dark, humanoid shape loomed out of the miasma, cursing loudly as her dogged paramour reappeared, his clothing torn, his body lacerated and his face a mess of blood and angry, purple bruising where he had been punished by the downpour of stone. These injuries were gradually fading even as she watched, however, and so she felt that now was the time to move on, turning her back on him and running away along the shelf in the direction that she remembered the motel to be in.
She reached the metal steps that led down from the rocky upper level to the car park she had noticed earlier, three rusted automobiles parked indefinitely in their spaces. Reasoning that she had no time to descend the stairs, she gripped the handrail and vaulted over the side, plummeting down to land atop the roof of one of the unfortunate vehicles below, leaving two large dents where her feet slammed into the metal and cracking the windshield and rear window with her weight. She hopped quickly to the tarmac via the trunk and began to run for the metal gate that led into the yard of the abandoned motorists' resting place, believing that the blond would be right on her tail. Her assumptions proved to be correct when she was drawn by the sound of steel being tortured in a manner that sounded far too peculiar to be ignored. When she turned her head she needed only a brief glimpse of what the male was doing to know to throw herself down onto the floor, moments before the car that she had landed on was thrown through the air at head-height and mangled the wrought iron gate that she had been moving towards, as well as a fair section of the wall. Seeing that exit now unviable, she clambered to her feet and turned to her left, running towards a second door in this yard, this one covered with various notices that prohibited entry. Unfortunately, she didn't rate her chances of climbing over the wreckage that was blocking the fence or circumnavigating the wall via the stretch of freeway that ran alongside both, and though she did not know for sure where this building went, it might at least give her an opportunity to slip back the way she had come without him noticing.
She kicked through the entrance of what could only have been a generator room, running across the metal grille that made up the floor and in among the various, complicated electrical devices, secreting herself between two in particular and pressing her back against what felt like a control panel, an array of buttons and levers jabbing at her back. The electricity, and most likely the water, had been cut off in this place for some time, and so everything was veiled with the same thin layer of the grime that covered everything else. Not only that, but the interior of the building was pitch black, without windows or lighting to illuminate it in the way that the other buildings had; she regretted not having done something with this room prior to the blond's arrival. When Wesker entered after her, she tensed and tried to remain as quiet as she could, though she didn't rate her chances of avoiding him for long. If worst came to worst then she could always use one of her grenades again, but the chamber was composed almost entirely of metal and that would make for some unfortunate shrapnel were she to unleash an explosive. Instead, she simply waited.
"Perhaps you assumed that you could evade me, my dear," he purred into the darkness, "however, you underestimate the capability of my senses. It is only a matter of time before I locate you and then there will be no escape."
The redhead's right hand brushed against a large, round button that stood out from the rest of the items on the control panel, and she hoped against hope that the generator was still primed, even if it were not active. "Keep listening," she whispered, barely even breathing the words so that she had his full attention, before she pressed down on the switch behind her.
Lights blinked on moments before there was the thunderous cacophony of an electrical system sputtering to life. The noise made the young woman wince and clamp her hands over her ears, though for how painful it was for her, it must have been a hundred times so for the man whose senses were enhanced by the virus flowing through his veins. Almost to confirm her assertions, there was a more organic roar added to the storm of noise as the older individual threw back his head and cried out from the sudden and overwhelming sensory input. Seeing him illuminated, standing merely ten metres from her position, she whirled out into the metal-floored corridor he was standing in and whipped her Assault Rifle over her shoulder, switching it to fire on full-auto and pulling the trigger. The weapon flared at its barrel and bullets struck her target, ricocheting off the iron fixtures where they occasionally missed. One stray round struck a pipe to the male's left and stale, pressurised water erupted out in a spray that drenched him from head to foot and peeled the skin from his arm and cheek. He began to pursue her again, his jaw clenched and his eyes flaring with murder, so she threw the spent firearm at him crudely and darted away. To her great relief there was another door, equally laden with warning stickers as the first, that stood almost opposite the original entrance but for the twisting, turning nature of the structure's interior.
She kicked it open and burst out into a yard that was silent compared to the small building behind her. A small device, possibly a water pump, worked in relative quiet, but apart from that there was little to truly concern her. That was, until she looked around and realised that she was standing inside a fenced compound which appeared to be, to all intents and purposes, a dead end. Running up to the chain links, she gazed through at the church she had been heading for before Wesker had cut her off, having gotten so close but then been denied. The top of the boundary was covered in barbed wire and though this would not have bothered her otherwise, the fact that the blond was most likely on her heels even now discounted the possibility of her climbing over. A gap had been cut in the fence, but was far too small for her to squeeze through without employing some considerable effort, yet another course of action she could not take due to time constraints. Casting around for anything that might give her the upper hand in the same manner that the generator had done moments ago, she resigned herself and withdrew her Kamas from her belt, twirling the weapons up and setting her feet as she waited for him to emerge from the power room.
His clothing was sodden when he emerged into the bronze sunlight of the evening, glaring at her as the left side of his face began to recompose itself, muscle tissue swathing bone and wrapping in new flesh. Before long the only sign that he had even been hit with a geyser of compressed water was the fact that he was still dripping with it. Trails of blood were running from his ears where the internal drums had burst, though she had no doubt that those too had healed now. When he cast an eye at their surroundings, however, he almost started to smile again. His right hand moved to the sheath harness on his left shoulder and removed the blade that had been placed there with an almost nonchalant air, twisting it in his hand so that it was held downwards. "Shall we?" he enquired, bowing his head in a display of mock gentility.
"If you think you can keep up," she responded, adjusting her stance so that she was holding one of her weapons across her body horizontally, while the other was lifted upright in front of her, the scythe-blades positioned so that they could be swung in any direction to parry his attacks and injure him at the same time, whichever angle he elected to strike from.
"I guarantee it," he asserted, lunging forwards with a straight swipe that she denied with the blade of her vertical weapon, twisting it around so that the sharpened edges sparked against one another and then swung clear, flicking her opposing wrist and opening a wide gash on his forearm as it passed her, moments before he reversed the motion and came at her again from the other direction, forcing her to jerk backwards to prevent the weapon from stabbing her in the throat, before darting into his reach and slicing neatly across his abdomen, ducking under his left hand as it reached for her and reasserting her guarded stance, having changed their relative positions in the yard.
He struck forward again, this time aiming for a stab that she parried to the side and twisted out of the way of, before bringing the scythe that was an extension of her left arm around and cutting into his extended wrist. She spun, catching him in his exposed side with her right weapon, and whirled past him, bringing the bloodied off-hand blade down to impale him through the reverse of his ribcage. Convulsing as he lurched forward, the sharpened edge was pulled from where it was lodged in between his ribs, having punctured his left lung. She spread her arms, bringing the dual weapons out in preparation to swing them both across his neck in one motion and decapitate him, only for him to round on her faster than she could comprehend, his knife whistling through the air dangerously close to her face. Starting backwards, she almost lost her footing as the point sliced the tip of her nose in an exceptionally painful manner, causing her to scream involuntarily and abandon her attempts at taking off his head. Almost completely without her knowledge, she parried two more strikes completely through reflex and hopped backwards in a bid to recover her bearings and find her place in the fight that was continuing in spite of her momentary disequilibrium. She whirled the Kamas around in her hands, bringing them up in a cross as he attempted a vertical swipe and came to meet the centre point with a clatter. Willing her weapons to stay in place in her hands, lest they slip and allow him to wound her, or worse, slit her from throat to belly, she forced all of her muscle power into keeping the items raised. Once again, he was matching her easily using only one of his hands.
Completely without warning, he released their impasse and allowed the force of her pushing to carry her past him, whipping his blade across her back as she tumbled forwards. The wound ran along the area of flesh just beneath her shoulders, cutting through the cloth of the armour that she was wearing, her momentum almost sending her careening face-first into the water pump she had identified earlier, though she managed to stop herself and spun around to face him again as he came for her once again. She evaded him, fuelled by adrenaline and rage at having been duped in such a manner, whirling around him for a second time. There was a wet stabbing noise as she embedded her left-hand weapon in his back, where it was promptly ripped out of her grip, moments before there was a dull thud and she backed away from him, holding up her remaining scythe and glaring at him as she backed away. Her eyes opened wider when she realised that the arm which had been clutching his knife was now lying amid the dirt on the ground, severed just above the elbow. She gaped, moments before he lunged forwards and kicked her firmly in the gut, sending her reeling backwards and falling through the narrow hole in the fence that she had noticed prior to their battle. The cut sections of chain link sliced into her arms, leaving thin, bloody trails across both of her upper appendages, and she fell backwards onto her rear end on the outside of the small compound, her second weapon wedging in the fence. She looked up as Wesker stooped to retrieve his sundered limb and watched in horror as he lifted it to the stump she had left him with, a sickening crack followed by a more lengthy stretching sound heralding the fusion of bone and flesh. He lifted his right hand and clenched a first, looking at it as though satisfied, before walking towards the place where she was sitting.
She scrambled up, ignoring the agony flaring in her stomach, and began to run even as he gripped the section of fencing she had fallen through and tore it out of the ground, casting it aside as though it were no more substantial than paper. Darting across the open ground between the yard outside the power room and the boarded up Church which was her intended destination, she thought that perhaps the blond would catch her before she was able to get there. The way he was acting made her reconsider that thought, however, as she considered that he had mostly been walking after her throughout their confrontation, perhaps intent on reminding her that he would always be following her, persistent and unrelenting. If that was true then she imagined Hunk's assertions to be right, he wanted her and was trying to convince her that fighting him was a futile effort; he had told her so many times in the past, after all. On the other hand, she knew that he was capable of regenerating whole limbs, and his decision to reattach his severed arm was a fairly telling action. She thought that maybe she was pushing his body to its limits, not giving him enough time to heal his wounds, forcing him to play it safe; she hoped to God that this was the case, because if she could wear him down then eventually she could kill him. As much as she hated to rely on anything other than her own capability, she had to hope that he was too blinkered by his desire for her, as well as his own arrogance, to realise what it was that she was doing and finish the battle before she was able to make the killing blow.
Reaching the abandoned Church without incident, she hopped up onto the frame of a window that was lacking its boards and vanished into the gloom of its interior. Dust was heavy on the wooden pews and cobwebs strung the ceiling and walls, though someone had moved through the structure prior to her entering. Indeed, she had pried the boards off herself and prepared this building for just this moment, moving past the disorganised furnishings and coming to stand by the stripped altar at the far end of the main chamber. Even as she did so, the stalking sociopath exploded in through the decaying double doors that marked the only entrance, shattering one to pieces and knocking the other off its hinges in a clatter of splintering wood with a simple spread of his arms. He stepped forward, eyeing her suspiciously as she leaned down to pick something up that had been placed behind the box that formed the focal point of the crumbling building's inner recesses. As she rose up, her right boot slammed into the empty shrine and knocked it over, revealing the weapon that she had just retrieved. She twisted the valve on the Flamethrower's chrome nozzle, igniting the harshly whispering blue flame at its end, and aimed it in his direction. A broad grin split her features once again, as her plan began to come to fruition after a minor setback, and she tilted her head to appraise him cockily. "Burn, baby!" she yelled exuberantly, pulling the trigger.
A tongue of shimmering yellow flame erupted from the end of the device in her grasp as the fuel ignited and streaked through the air towards him, dousing him in fire. She adjusted her arm, liberally spraying the area around him and ensuring that the building was completely ablaze. Mouldering beams broke as they burned through, collapsing around him, several striking him and momentarily holding him trapped amongst them before he threw them off, his silhouette in the fire seemingly completely undeterred by the raging inferno around it, continuing to stride towards her across the now-smouldering floorboards. She reared back and tossed the weapon to the floor at his feet, before turning and hurtling towards a particularly rotten section of the wall, smashing it into fragments and falling to the ground as she almost tumbled down the slope that led downwards to the right. Her hands worked to rid her of the spider's webs caught in her hair and on her face, prioritising her immediate comfort over running from the murderous B.O.W who was currently pursuing her, before she dusted herself down and began to run back into the settlement, passing the concrete bunker that Hunk had led her to previously on her right. There was an explosion as the metal tank of her Flamethrower gave out, the heat of the burning structure at her back increasing exponentially as flame spurted from every open point on its exterior. Soon it would be nothing but a charred husk, if that, but she doubted it would stop her monstrous paramour. She was rather counting on that fact, as she had not yet expended every weapon in her arsenal.
She hurried past the broken façades of the settlement's four residences, now with nothing behind their front walls but a straight drop into a pile of rubble, and pushed herself onwards up the incline towards the start of the steeper slope that led to the cathedral at the very apex of the small town. By this point she was in considerable discomfort from the minor injuries he had caused her during their battle, as well as the more serious wounds she had suffered at his hands prior to her escape. Her throat was raw, her back felt like it was on fire and her right wrist was aching, though the graft was at least doing its job at keeping her sealed shut. Doctor Lovette's work on her tendons also seemed to be holding up, as she was not experiencing any twitches in her fingers, indeed, her aim seemed steadier even than before with that hand. She was also panting heavily and soaked with sweat, neither of which were states she particularly favoured when she wasn't getting laid, though she reasoned that whatever her situation, Wesker was worse off. Even with his inhuman abilities, there was no way being burned to a cinder wouldn't at least hurt considerably.
Rounding the corner to begin the climb up to the very top of the staggered community, she shot a look back towards the burning building further down the hill. The fire was now raging out of control, flames rolling from the roof and thick black smoke drifting up into the sky. Emerging from the broken doors, however, was Albert Wesker, or so she assumed. He was a black, featureless mass of charred skin and baked fireproof clothing, striding inexorably onwards in spite of the fact that he should have been dead now, his mutated, inhuman organs cauterised internally from the intense heat. That he was coming for her still was proof of his resilience, of how much the virus running through his veins had separated him from the rest of the species he had once belonged to. It was also proof of how fucking mental he had gone, considering that he was following her so willingly after being burned to a crisp.
Wasting no time with further staring, she bolted up the path, scrambling in the dirt when pieces of stone dislodged under her feet, pulling herself up with her hands when walking became too difficult, before finally reaching the irregular plateau that held the crowning glory of the cult Umbrella's soldiers had once exterminated. Gasping for breath, she pushed through the doors into the building's interior and slammed them shut behind her, before lifting a long, cast iron flagpole bearing a vision of an angel passing judgement from its stand by the entrance and thrust it through the handles, barricading the portal for the time being. She turned to look out across the wide hall of the structure before her.
The floor was shimmering white marble that stretched from corner to corner of the forsaken sanctuary, underlying the stone pews that ran in four lines, two on each side of the chamber, several of which had been moved out of position some time ago to block the passage down the centre and were riddled with bullet holes, the final stand of the men and women who had opposed the ruthless aggression of the U.S.F, and later, the citizens of the small township who had still been alive to fight the zombies. Any survivors had fled; any dead had staggered after them. At the far end of the structure was a huge statue of that same angel of judgement that had been embroidered on the flag, evidently the symbol of the deviant church that had been led by the corrupt Umbrella employee, carrying a sword and shield, her mouth set in a tight frown of determination, standing behind a wide, stone altar that seemed to be the position from which the pastor had performed his oratories. On either side were further, smaller carvings of men and women clad in tatters, holding the world aloft in triumph, as ugly, little gargoyles cowed from their glory. The smaller statues were supposed to be weeping, she realised, but the fountains had long run dry along with the well beneath the town. From large, colourful windows streamed the golden light of the setting sun, causing everything to glint and glimmer beautifully. The ceiling was high, almost in excess of one hundred metres overhead, set with large, stained glass murals depicting the angel locked in mortal struggle with a creature that could only have been the Devil. Neither looked as though they would yield in the slightest, and she supposed that this was fitting. Because this would be where she and Wesker, both unwilling to back down an inch, would have the last battle of their little war.
This would be the last stand.