((A/N: Apparently this site has removed my scene dividers. They used to be three dashes but I'm resorting to dash zero dash for scene splits now. If these disappear, I swear I'm going to shoot someone. Sorry about the delay, uni has been hellish, lets dive in shall we?))
-0-
A pair of eyes watches the group walk away from behind a pair of binoculars. In due time she'll follow them in through a different way. She thinks it amazing none of them had chosen the route she plans to follow; it's just a sewer system. There is likely to be less security there once the base has been alerted to the group's presence, so that's where she'll go.
It's a fairly wooded area, and it's easy enough for Claire to maintain a distance between the group and herself. Chris taught her how to move silently in places like this and she's putting it to uses he'd not thought of; tracking their mutual friends. Close to the facility, the group pauses for a few moments. Claire can't see exactly what they're doing but soon enough blaring alarms sound and it's their cue to move in. Whoever their inside assistant is, they hadn't thought to shut off the warnings for them too or perhaps they don't want to give them too much aid. Once she's sure they're gone and unable to spot her she makes her way around to her entrance, an old sewer grating heavily overgrown with grass and weeds. She spends a few tense moments cutting away the roots holding down the covering then uses her knife as a crowbar to lever it up, hoping it doesn't break because she hasn't brought a spare. She's finally able to slide it to the side, the only sound still the blazing alarms inside. Taking a deep breath, Claire lowers herself into the hole and braces her legs against the slippery concrete sides and does her best to slow her descent but really only succeeds in getting her jeans covered in some sort of slime that she prays isn't infested with T-Virus infected microbes.
She lands with a loud splash in the liquid below. Thankfully it isn't deeper than her waist when she's sitting like this on her now aching bottom. She finds it hard to stand up again immediately and instead spends a moment making sure she hasn't broken anything. After the check she struggles to her feet and decides that yes, she has smelt worse than this before. That time in the Rockfort facility hadn't made her smell like roses. But she's used to suffering for the cause, of course, so she wrinkles her nose and plods on through the ankle high water. She isn't quite sure how far to go in, enough that she's supposed to descend a few ladders for that will surely take her right to the lower floors. To Wesker.
As she walks, she thinks about everything that has led to her coming here, the losses they've suffered. Steve, Chris, and Sherry…Faces she'll never see again, but ones she'll never forget. This trip won't bring them back, and if she doesn't kill Wesker, she knows he won't give up the chance to remove the last Redfield from the face of the earth. She'll only get one chance, and she's put all her hope on catching him off guard and ending it before he has a chance to show off those insane powers of his.
Because if it doesn't work, then she'll be joining her brother wherever he ended up.
-0-
She's gone down three ladders, two slippery slopes and fallen more times than she cares to count in the sludge underfoot when she finally finds what she's looking for. The hatch into the lower levels. It's supposed to come out in the showers or somewhere similar. She can't quite remember what the map said, the room name slipping out of her mind. What matters is that she gets inside.
The water is deeper here, running faster. Hand dripping slightly from the last fall, she reaches up to unlock the door, one of those twisting wheel things. Dimly she wonders if she's strong enough to open it, when before her eyes it shudders and begins to open of its own accord. She freezes, not even breathing. Sensors? Or is someone coming down? Before she can step back and hide (never mind that there is nowhere to hide in this sewer from hell) the hatch is pulled open and blinding light enters. She cries out, immediately giving her position away and covering her eyes. It's not a surprise to her when something solid slams into her stomach, sending her sliding back and down into the flowing water.
There's a moment of horror when she realises the fluid is in her mouth, in her eyes, that she's under the water – and then she surfaces, coughing, spluttering, not at all in shape to take on whoever found her –
"Don't be stupid, he says, no one's suicidal enough to go down through the sewers, he says. Clearly I know better than Jack." That voice is oddly smug, youthful…and familiar. Claire's too busy trying to inhale without choking to realise it though. "C'mon Pinky, sic 'em."
Something snarls and there's a splash as whatever 'Pinky' is dives into the water.
Finally Claire stumbles upright and blinks enough gunk out of her streaming eyes to see something Hunter shaped – and curiously enough, pink coloured – stalking towards her. She fumbles for her gun and realised before its drawn that it's useless wet. Instead she draws out the combat knife, a little moss still covering the cutting edge. Toe to toe with a pink hunter in a sewer system beneath Wesker's latest base. She barely has a moment to consider how she manages to get herself into these predicaments and swears if she makes it out she'll be a good girl and stay home next time before the Hunter is on her.
It's terrifyingly fast and her combat knife barely scratches its crocodilian skin. Her heart leaps in its place when she feels the teeth close down a hair's breadth from where her arm was but a second ago. It snarls at her again and suddenly charges, catching her off guard and slamming her to the floor. She lets out a cry as the claws dig into her side, a new fear coming into play. What if I get infected?
The fear is shoved aside as the beast is called off by that voice again. She freezes where she fell, afraid to move in case she makes things much worse. The Hunter shuffles back and a person comes into view, hard to see in the dim light, but there is something familiar about the way he holds himself, how the light reflecting off the water hits his features. Red hair, curious eyes, pale skin…
"…Claire?"
Her eyes widen when she realises who stands before her. "...Steve."
-0-
Jill leads them into the base, Carlos and the others following. They fan out behind her, eyes watching for any sign of movement. When they come across someone in their way, they are taken down swiftly, the assailant's gun clattering to the floor. They move on, deeper into the complex. The way upstairs is easy to find, surprisingly so. It is not that which they seek.
Before the come upon the much better hidden passages to the lower levels, they are set upon by a strike team. Cornered, left without a choice, they fire upon the strike team.
-0-
She stares up at him in shock, unable to comprehend what she's seeing. "You're dead." she says bluntly, despite evidence to the contrary.
Steve blinks and offers her his hand as proof that he's real. "No I'm not." He pauses. "Well. I was. But Wesker brought me back-"
She takes his hand, almost jumping at the warm touch under her fingertips. "Brought you back?" she echoes. "But – you're-"
"Infected." He says it easily, having accepted this as part of himself long ago. "It keeps me alive, and I can control it. I won't be chasing anyone with an axe anymore, promise." he laughs softly, genuine pleasure in his eyes. "I missed you..."
"I – I missed you too -" She's thrown for a loop, mind trying to wrap itself around this new development. "What are you doing here? I get that Wesker brought you back but why didn't you leave? Send me a message to come get you, something, anything?"
He cants his head to one side slightly, looking at her. "Would you have come for me, knowing what I am? Or would you have let them kill me, experiment on me?" he asks softly.
"Neither! Steve how could you think that?"
"Because I have seen it done. I'm not a lab experiment. Here, I'm safe. There's others like me and they might not like me at times but Jack, Wesker and Chris are my family-"
"Chris?" For a moment she thinks of her brother, dropped from a helicopter, all Wesker's fault. But Chris is dead, it can't be him. But the look Steve has on his face makes her hesitate. It's a look that says I really should learn to keep my mouth shut. "...Steve, what do you know?" she advances on him, unheeding of the growl from the pink hunter nearby.
"Nothing!" he stammers, stepping back. "It's just a – a guy, you know, you wouldn't know him, you've never met him or known him! No relation what-so-"
"Tell me!" she yells, voice echoing around the otherwise deserted sewer.
Steve blurts out the truth in a moment of weakness. "It's your brother and Wesker did something to him and now he's a crazy murderer!"
Claire stares at him, heart feeling as though it's stopped in her chest. She doesn't know what to focus on, the fact her brother is alive, or that her brother is apparently a killer.
"He's alive!" she whispers. "What – what did Wesker do to Chris, tell me Steve, please. I need to know what he did to my brother." She grabs his hand, holding it in both of her own. Her knife lies somewhere in the dank sewer water around them, forgotten for the moment.
Steve's freckled face is filled with hesitation and he swallows, looking everywhere but at Claire. When he does, the pleading, desperate look on her face makes his heart ache and all he can do is nod.
-0-
"We move in now." Birkin orders. "The strike team is already in place, while they distract Wesker, we take back what is rightfully mine!"
The group of twenty or so men nod and turn to suit up. To Birkin's right stands a faintly buzzing hazmat suit. Dr Cameron looks to the scientist. "I will come with you." she buzzes.
He barely glances at her. "Don't get in my way."
-0-
"Wesker found your brother on the side of a cliff." Steve begins. "I don't know how he got him back here, but he turns up with Chris out cold in the back of a helicopter. You know those tanks you see hunters and other experiments it? He put Chris in one of those and pumped him full of stuff. The only details I got about it was that it was some amalgamation of my virus and whatever it is that Birkin put together for Wesker."
Claire holds tight to his hand as she listens, heart beating fast as she thinks about her brother becoming an experiment. Poor Chris...
"He's been in that tank for two years, and then I was stupid and hit a switch to let him out. The viruses in him seem stable enough but he's completely lost his memory. He doesn't know who he is or anything aside from what Wesker's told him."
"And Wesker's told him lies." She concludes.
Steve nods. "And worse. You can't go in there, I don't even know if he'll recognise you."
"I don't have any choice Steve." She says softly, already looking to the door with determination in her eyes. "He's my brother. I have to help him."
Steve looks at her, sees the determination in her eyes, the longing to see her brother again. He's missed her so much, he doesn't want to lose her again. If Chris doesn't recognise her, then she'd get hurt. He couldn't let that happen. He places his other hand over the two holding his. "I'm coming with you.