OldGlory - Pretty nice prediction you got there! We'll see how that holds up in a bit... ;)

Adam Luck - Thanks man, for everything! And I really mean every word of it. Very glad you loved the way I pulled off the previous chapter. :)
And yes, I agree. While realism isn't always necessary when it comes to entertainment media, I don't mind it in works of fiction because honestly, it all pretty much stems down based on our perspective of the real world, and it would also make sense to have it in any type of story if you want your audience to relate to it in some way, shape, or form. At least that's my personal belief.
Of course, I still remember the whole Sherry Woods scenario. That's always been in the back of my mind ever since, and it will be even after I finish the fourth book. If Hudson still lives around 2013, I'll think about making him the Director of the CIA somehow.
To answer your questions, I was actually planning on taking Steve out of the picture, not because I hate him (I actually kinda like his character, even more so in Darkside Chronicles), but mostly due to wanting to focus more on Claire and David's relationship. However, by adding Steve into the mix regardless, I feel like there will be some jealousy drama going on that I think could be pivotal to both Claire and David's characters. Shouldn't be too hard since my high school years should help me revisit some teenage drama experiences that I could properly rely on anyway. I survived writing down romance for this one after all... XD
Speaking of which, I was actually thinking of having David involved with RE4's events somehow, like his very first covert operation as a Task Force 141 member; to infiltrate Valdelobos in Spain and look for evidence of rumored bioweapon development, with Harper (and maybe Javier Salazar) as his partners, and the three of them encountering Leon, Ashley, Luis, Krauser, and Ada along the way. Maybe something called "Operation: Lupo" ("Lupo" meaning "wolf" in French) which serves as a reference to "Lupo" from ORC, the covert nature of the mission itself, as well as the name of the rural region in Spain (Valdelobos - Valley of Wolves). I've also been thinking of using some early RE spin-offs as individual origin stories of characters from Task Force 141 and even some of their allies. An example would be to maybe have Leon send in Alex Keller instead of Ark Thompson to investigate Sheena Island during the events of Gun Survivor in November 1998 or have them both tag along. I mean, Alex Keller looks like he's in his late 30s/early 40s in 2019 so he must be around the same age as Leon, if not, slightly older. Maybe I could also add some more CoD villains in the mix, but honestly, I think we have more than enough in the Resident Evil universe as it is lol. Still, I could give it a try, like having Leon and Krauser not only have to deal with Javier Hidalgo during the events of Operation: Javier but with Raul Menendez as well. I feel like I'm setting myself up for something I probably won't ever have the time to fully write and think about, but it's worth noting that it can be a possibility regardless!
Also, I forgot to mention that I recently got MW2019 for $20 on Series S so I'll definitely be playing it at some point as soon as I'm done with the whole Dead Island 2 stuff first (game's amazing, btw! Ryan's a chad!). Still need to get my hands on MWII(2022), but I'll probably be watching an entire movie playthrough of it instead. I really want to get to know the Modern Warfare characters better since we are going to be heading into MW territory soon enough as this whole crossover goes on. I'm mostly going to be focusing on the reboot series of MW since I completely forgot everything that happens in the original MW timeline lol. I may revisit them someday, but honestly, that's probably gonna require me a lot of time to play and research so I'll be saving it all up by the time I already have Code Veronica written. And don't worry, I do plan on taking a rest at some point when I get a few chapters done on the next sequel, just so I can have some story grounds to think about during my break. Appreciate the concern!

Recommended BGM:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Main Menu Theme

2. Resident Evil 2 (1998) - Credit Line

3. Resident Evil: Extinction - Desert Walk

Chapter 25

Where… where am I?

David looked around, confused, and he sat up inside a tent, a green one with a rather simplistic design that his father used to love having around during camping trips when he was just a boy. Everything was empty inside, except for a lantern, its flame burning dimly. Shrugging, he decided to crawl out of there, until he heard the sounds of something moving outside, twigs being crunched from somewhere not far from the tent…

What was that?

He stood still, his heart hammering inside his chest, almost skipping over toward his throat, his breath caught to a standstill, and whoever or whatever was outside the tent, they were surely coming in his direction. Snow could be heard being moved through heavy steps that crunched fallen twigs, drawing ever so closer to him, and all he could do was listen… hoping that whatever predator was walking by to turn back around and go away…

Need a gun… a knife… anything.

All he was wearing was a white tank top undershirt with blue jeans and Nike shoes, feeling out of place with the outfit that he was wearing for a cold climate like the one from his hometown in Alaska. He checked his pockets, but nothing was available to him, though his curiosity for what kind of animal was out there was slowly catching up to him, almost getting the better of him.

Could be a bear or a wolf… perhaps looking to stockpile food for the upcoming winter.

Not wanting to risk his life unnecessarily, he stood his ground, becoming as silent as a mouse…

…and then he heard a sudden growl, a thundering roar of pain and rage that sounded neither animal nor human…

"DAAAAAAAVVIIIIIIDD!"

He knew that faint voice, the longing in the thing's voice, the pain it felt that David could also feel in himself, a pain that had come out so suddenly and powerfully, it had paralyzed him, making him collapse on top of the tent's empty ground…

Blood began to appear across his right arm, forming a laceration that glistened over the faint lantern light. More blood began to pour through his jeans on his left thigh, hurting him with the worst agonizing pain he's ever felt in his life, making him unable to move anywhere. His arms began to feel as though he had been punched and kicked hundreds of times over, his chest heaving as his lungs felt heavier than ever, and he was unable to breathe…

…and the tent was suddenly cut open, cold air rushing inside, revealing a towering, shadowy figure, calling his name in an inhuman, bellowing roar.

David knew he was about to die, his time arriving to an end. As one final act, he needed to know what the monster looked like and see the killer directly in the eyes. Grabbing onto the lantern beside him, he raised it up to reveal something terrible and out of a reality he never wanted to believe in - ever.

"Dad?!" he said breathlessly.

He had turned into a creature so horrific, his whole body did not seem recognizable anymore, other than his disfigured face, half-melted through his oversized shoulder, arms huge with grown talons that had ripped the tent apart, a bloodshot eyeball the size of a dinner plate shimmering over the light of the dimly-lit lantern on his huge, mangled bicep. Immediately, David remembered something, remembered everything, and tears began to drop over his face before he felt the oversized arm impaling him directly into his stomach, blood gurgling out of his mouth, the taste of bitter iron being the last thing he'll ever taste… the last thing in his mind yearning for his own dad, who had been mutated by the G-Virus, murdering him in cold blood…

"David! DAVID!"

He opened his eyes, jolting awake, gasping as he heard the desperate pleas from the trio of survivors he had met the previous night before. His vision was slowly clearing, but all he could see were the rays of sunlight from the early morning. Every inch of his body still felt that horrible pain he had received earlier in the day, clutching his head as he felt a thin stream of blood coming out of his hairline, and the biggest headache yet had come to greet him.

"Oh, thank goodness!" said Claire, her eyes bloodshot with tears and exhaustion as she kissed him briskly on the forehead.

"David!" Sherry cried out, hugging him on the ground, making him grunt in pain slightly in response and she apologized for hurting him by accident. He returned a firm hug back to her, knowing she must've been scared to death after having witnessed her own mother dying in front of her not-so-long ago.

"We thought we lost you," said Leon, who was sitting against a large rock, smiling at him with a weary look on his face.

David looked in his direction on his left and managed to bring a smile for a brief moment before frowning at him.

"You could've gotten yourself killed," he said. "With that injury, who knows what would've happened if —"

"It didn't," Leon interjected, and his voice slowly began to break. "And I would do it again hundreds of times over in a heartbeat, especially after…" Leon's words died immediately through a slightly higher-pitched tone at the end of his unfinished sentence, and David immediately knew what he tried to tell him, not bothering to pry into his own personal reasoning any further than necessary.

"How are you feeling?" Claire said immediately, knowing exactly what Leon was thinking, and tried moving their focus to David's safety.

"We'll I'd like to say I can run a marathon, but uh… I guess that's out of the question, right?" he grinned before wincing slightly as he sat up, feeling a sharp sting of pain across his back for several seconds, and Claire put a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking at him as though he were a stubborn child. "How long was I out?"

"Twenty minutes - more or less. Leon was also knocked out for half of that time. You should probably rest here for a bit," she said as she helped him lean over another rock formation that was just across from where Leon was sitting against. "The morning sun should make you feel warm in the meantime - and what was that all about your dad?"

David looked at her with a raised eyebrow, feeling the drip of blood above it already dried up. "What do you mean?"

Claire sighed anxiously. "Just before you woke up, you kept moaning… pleading to your dad about… something… and then you kept twitching your legs and arms too. I thought you were having a seizure. We all thought you did. And…"

"Oh," David said, nervously, breaking his gaze from her slightly, looking back at their surroundings somewhat vaguely, a place that looked as though they were in a desert. He gave a deep sigh, clutching his head slightly from the headache that was still lingering inside. "I guess I'm…" - he paused for a short moment - "I think I'm already suffering from PTSD after…"

Claire gave him a sympathetic look. "I'd be surprised if none of us do after everything that happened last night and earlier this morning." She looked back at Sherry before embracing her for a good moment. "Especially you, sweetie. To think about the things you've been through…"

Sherry seemed rather happy about everyone having escaped out of the city now, the warmth of Claire soothing whatever distress she had harbored inside. Before long though, David heard Sherry whimpering under Claire's grasp, muffled, but just audible enough to make him feel even more sorry for the girl that had gone through the whole outbreak since it first began. If anyone had the worst case of PTSD in the group, it was Sherry, and the nightmare he had earlier was nothing compared to what she would have to live with for the rest of her life.

Looking back at his surroundings in order to try and think of something else entirely, he scanned the environment more thoroughly this time.

All he could see was the plains of a desert, with one road stretching across the horizon directly into a mountain range. The railroad tracks behind Leon weren't too far off, and although there was gray smoke coming out of the tunnel they'd come out from, there were at least no monsters walking around or dead bodies to be seen anywhere, making him have some slender hope that the G monster blob wasn't coming back any time soon either.

After some time, Leon got back on his feet, slowly walking past Claire and Sherry as they broke their hug, all while seeing him heading toward the road behind David.

"And where do you think you're going?" Claire asked him, standing up to look at his back.

Leon stood still for a moment, apparently making up his mind about something in silence.

"I think it's time we should go," he finally said, his head still facing the road ahead.

"Is something wrong?" David followed with another question. "You don't think that creature is…"

"It's not that - it's um…" - he paused for a moment, rubbing the back of his head - "We need to go find help. And after we do," he finally turned around to look back at them, "It's up to us to take down Umbrella."

Claire nodded in agreement. "Yeah - you're damn right we will. But… What about David?" she looked back at David, her expression still etched with an overwhelming worry for him. "I don't suppose he'll be able to walk for a while — Hey, wait!"

With the greatest effort and difficulty, David somehow managed to stand up, feeling the burning sores and pain all across his body, his left leg unable to hold him for a long moment when Claire caught up to him, keeping him from falling back to the ground as she adjusted her arms over him.

"David, you can't just —!"

"I'll be fine," he said breathlessly, gasping slightly. "If I don't keep my body moving, it'll just make it all worse."

Leon walked toward them, helping Claire carry David by the arm over their necks as David kept grunting from the horrible pain he felt on his leg, and across his back. His bruised arms were also extremely sore. Not to mention his bandaged injury on his arm as well.

"C'mon, then," said Leon, panting slightly. "I think I know a motel we can go to from here. It's a few miles over, but if we stick closer to the road, we're bound to find someone who can give us a lift to the town nearby."

Claire sighed deeply. "Alright, then we better hurry."

"Wait, but… shouldn't we take him to the hospital first, or something?" Sherry asked, staring at them grimly.

"Too risky," said Leon, shaking his head. "They'll probably think he's infected and God only knows how they'll react."

"But he's not! The doctors can help him!" pleaded Sherry, and then she looked up at David with uneased eyes. "Right?"

David merely stared at her for a second, trying his best to hide the fact that even he did not know whether or not he was actually infected. After all, he received scratches from monsters that were made from Umbrella itself - and who knew if they'd also given Mr. X the ability to infect others after a mutation like the one they saw the last time they encountered him. "I… uh… I don't think…"

"He's not infected, honey," Claire said hurriedly. "If he were, he'd have a fever by now, just like you did before, remember?"

Sherry looked elsewhere in the distance, apparently trying to connect the dots about her previous experience of being infected with the virus that almost killed her earlier that day. Finally, she shrugged at them.

"Yeah… I guess that makes sense."

For the next ten minutes, they continued their walk down next to the road, the morning air just warm enough for their bodies to start becoming more sweaty as they paced across the empty land. None of them were saying a word to one another, and surprisingly, David had just enough strength to walk for an entire half mile. It was all thanks to his childhood and teenage years of training with his father and uncle that had helped him keep up the pace for as much as he could, despite all the injuries he had endured in one whole night.

After stumbling upon a huge rock formation with a rather slightly curved, but smooth surface on top, they decided to take a small rest for a bit, with David sitting on top of the rock as Claire stood beside him. Leon and Sherry took a seat near the enormous rock just underneath. They planned on staying there until David could gain enough energy to start walking again. Following up with an awkward silence between the four of them, Sherry kept staring at the three adults, putting most of her attention between David and Claire as she looked above her, and decided to finally ask the question she was so curious about having an answer for.

"So, um…" she started, looking down for a moment before finally looking back at David and Claire again. "Are you two like… boyfriend and girlfriend?"

David looked back at her with unsure eyes and shared a quick look with Claire, both of them feeling quite uncertain whether or not to tell anything to Sherry. Neither of them even knew if they really were in an actual official relationship by now since they hadn't had the time to put much thought into it after everything that's happened. Through the uncomfortable silence, Leon looked away from them, trying his best to act as though he hadn't heard the question being asked.

"Well…" Claire started nervously, now staring at David again to meet him in the eyes as though he could tell her in silence about what she should tell her in return. "We - uh… We just…"

"Just think about it like…" David said suddenly, now looking at Sherry as he bit his upper lip slightly, "Like a start of a relationship. Like in a position where we're ready to get to know each other a little bit more."

"So, like… boyfriend and girlfriend, then?" said Sherry, giggling in the end.

Claire laughed nervously. "I guess you could say that." - she turned to look at David - "What do you think?"

David leaned closer to Claire and gave her a brief kiss on the lips. For the first time since he woke up from having passed out, he felt no pain across his whole body, all washed away by a growing sense of wonderful bliss and ecstasy for a quick moment. He continued to stare deeply at her weary blue eyes, the stink caught from their previous survival experience not being enough to keep their distance away from one another.

"That's what I think," he said slowly, putting a hand on Claire's chin as he gave her a smirk, and Claire couldn't help but smile back at him.

"Someone's coming," Leon announced suddenly as he stood up and kept his attention on the road ahead of the horizon.

The other three turned to look in the direction he was facing, and true enough, there was a car approaching them in the distance. It looked like a shining black SUV, and it was speeding unusually fast in their direction.

"They might be able to give us a ride," Sherry uttered hopefully.

Claire walked toward Leon, looking up front and back at him.

"What if it's not just the city?" she whispered with a stern voice.

Leon gestured a hand to where Sherry and David were still sitting. "Go stay with them - I'll handle it."

Claire nodded and ran back to the huge rock as she helped David get off and slowly began helping him move to a sitting position on the back where they couldn't be easily seen, while Sherry followed after them.

Leon stood just a little way on the road, moving his hand closer to his holstered gun. None of his weapons had any ammo left so he was just as defenseless as an unarmed person. However, if it were some Umbrella jerk or anyone else that wasn't friendly, he would at least be able to intimidate them since he was still a cop after all; a cop that had survived the disasters of a doomed city.

Be ready for anything…

As the black SUV drew closer, he saw that the windows were too dark to see anything through them, and immediately, he had a harrowing feeling of trepidation, unsure if it was even a good idea to confront whoever was inside by himself, let alone confront them at all.

The SUV stopped just ten feet in front of him, and for a short moment, no one was coming out of the vehicle. Leon kept his cool as he continued to slowly wave his fingers over the grip of his holstered magnum, hoping it wasn't going to be any more trouble than it was worth dealing with…

…and about four different men in suits with military gear came out of the car, all of them armed with assault rifles and wearing dark sunglasses, looking as though they were a part of some sort of covert operation. Leon prepared himself for whatever was coming.

"RPD?" one of them said almost in surprise. "Didn't think there was anybody left alive from the RPD itself."

"May I ask to whom am I speaking?" Leon said with a firm voice, trying his best not to show that he could be easily intimidated by four armed military officers.

"My apologies," the same man said, taking a few steps in front of his other fellow army officers. "Name's Agent Hudson. Jason Hudson." He pointed at the people behind him from left to right. "Agents Adam Benford, Derek Simmons, and Grigori Weaver."

Claire had told Leon everything about the things she uncovered within the lab, from Umbrella having military personnel to Alex Mason's profile and the experimentations the guy endured over thirty years back. With this whole information in mind, he kept himself on guard, in case the men in front of him were either Perseus or Umbrella.

"Agents, huh?" said Leon with a bit of a scoff in between. "And what brings you all here?"

"Right to the point - I see…" said Hudson, slowly smiling. "That smoke behind you," - he nudged his head toward Leon's back, some distance away - "Something tells me you and your people done it, haven't you?"

Leon could tell they already knew of Sherry, Claire, and David as they began scanning the rock formation on his left, though he still acted as though he were alone. However, as he looked behind his back, seeing the clear, billowing smoke still coming from the tunnel of hell that they'd come from, he saw in the corner of his eye that David was moving out of the rock formation, struggling and staggering to stand up.

"No, wait!" Claire whispered loudly as she tried to gently pull him back in vain, but David shrugged off her grasp as he staggered closer to the leader of the pack, his leg apparently still giving him stings of pain for every step he took. Claire saw she had no choice anymore, so she stood up, along with Sherry, and the two of them followed after him, both of them whispering something to one another that Leon couldn't tell what they were saying.

David narrowed his eyes at their leader, and after a couple of seconds, his jaw dropped slightly.

"Jason?" he muttered.

But his reaction to seeing Hudson was nothing compared to the leader himself, who looked even more stunned than he did.

"David?" he said, slowly putting away the sunglasses as he took a deep stare at David's features, his aged face contorted in bewilderment and, in some way, concern. "But… aren't you supposed to be in — why are you here?" He looked over his head, arms, and leg, all of which had several forms of injuries he had sustained over the whole night. "And what the hell happened to you? Why were you in the city anyway?"

Hudson took a few steps closer to him, but David stepped back, glowering at him in complete disgust.

"You left Dad and Uncle Woods for dead…" he said, and it seemed like he struggled to form the words even before they escaped from his mouth. "Seems like you couldn't have cared any less about them after they both went through that hell in the Arklay Forest before it slowly seeped into the city, huh? Where were you when I gave you multiple calls the night before?"

Hudson simply stared at David in a mild stupor, unable to answer him at all. After a short moment of silence, he was about to speak up when David quickly interrupted him, swallowing and almost choking on his own words in a bereaved voice.

"You have no idea what I've been through - what we've all been through - the shit that this little girl behind me has seen! And I'm here thinking… what if that was Dad, turned into a horrible monster… or Uncle Woods… what if I found his corpse, walking among the dead? What's your excuse now!? Huh!? WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING EXCUSE!?"

Leon and Claire grabbed hold of him from the back to prevent David from doing anything harsh against Hudson and prevent him from hurting himself as well. Sherry kept herself behind them, shuddering, clutching at her locket as tightly as possible.

Hudson closed his eyes shut, shaking his head apologetically.

"I'm… deeply sorry about Frank," he said in a defeated voice. "He was like… a brother to me… and —"

"A brother?" David repeated reprovingly, his voice cracking. "No, no you don't get to say he was like a brother! YOU NEVER CARED ABOUT MY FAMILY —!"

"Hold it!" Simmons, the guy with a slick back and light brown hair, ordered him as he raised his weapon at David, who was already on the verge of punching Hudson in the face, only to be stopped by Leon and Claire once again.

"Stand down," Hudson demanded him as he put a hand up in his direction, not even looking back at the man who was about to pull the trigger on a mentally drained David. After taking another moment to scan their surroundings, he looked back at Leon and Claire, staring at them with interest as he motioned his head in Sherry's direction. "Who's she?"

"Sherry," Claire informed him, stepping back to hold Sherry in her arms. "She's a tough girl. Survived on her own for about a whole week before we found her."

Simmons was seen talking in whispers to the guy on his right with buzzed crop-cut black hair, Agent Benford. Weaver, a guy wearing an eyepatch with black-grayed hair who looked just as old as Hudson, leaned forward and started telling him something none of the other survivors could hear, while both of them kept their gaze fixed on them.

"We can't trust them," David said in a whisper to the trio of survivors next to him. "My uncle never fully trusted Jason for a reason so whatever they tell you, don't let'em fool you."

"So it seems," said Leon, stating the obvious as he looked back at David. "But shouldn't we at least give them the benefit of the doubt?" - David raised an eyebrow at him - "I mean, we're not exactly in good shape to be walking several miles away to —"

"The four of you need to come with us," said Weaver curtly. "Especially the Birkin girl."

Leon's eyes widened. "How'd you —?"

"What?" Claire gasped suddenly, aghast about the same lingering thought of them knowing anything about Sherry as well.

"We're not going anywhere with you," David said coldly, limping back as he moved in front of Claire and Sherry, his expression showing he had completely forgotten about the pain his body that he'd been getting for the past hour, his features contorted in a hidden rage and protective instincts. "Not unless you tell us what the hell has the US government done in response to the outbreak in the city!"

"I'm sorry," Hudson sighed, stepping slightly closer to him. "You of all people should know we can't divulge classified information to —"

"To hell with classified bullshit!" he rasped angrily, wincing slightly at the pain he felt across his weakened body. "Don't you understand? My uncle is dead because of those exact same reasons! If you haven't —!"

"Frank's alive!" Hudson blurted out bluntly, ignoring the wave of stunned expressions from the survivors in front of him. "But even if he was still alive after all this time… I don't think he…" For a moment, he stood silent as he gazed blankly at the ground as they tried to digest what he said, apparently unable to tell them anything more.

"What?!" said David, feeling his body tingling with a surging shock overwhelming him completely. "W-what do you mean by that?!"

Their leader stood silent, looking back at his companions with uncertainty. The survivors could tell there was something they weren't telling them, and David was now feeling even more anguished and restless.

"Tell us!" he demanded frantically. "What is it that you know about Frank?! - Answer me!"

"None of us are allowed to be in the city any longer," said Benford before Hudson could tell them anything else. "We've had too many casualties and everyone outside the quarantine zone had been given orders to retreat."

David continued to glare at them in contempt, shaking his head in disbelief. "Why am I not surprised?" he uttered in a low voice.

"Retreat?" Leon repeated in stupefaction. "But why? Can't the army do something… anything… about the outbreak? It's chaos out there, and I'm surprised you're the only group of military people we've seen so far."

"Shouldn't we just let'em know?" spoke Weaver faintly to Hudson, just enough to be overheard. "There's already evacuation mandates in effect anyway."

"Let us know about what, exactly?" Claire followed up with a piercing look at the group of government agents.

Hudson gave another deep sigh, and without waiting for another silencing moment, he immediately spoke to the four survivors.

"By daybreak tomorrow morning," he started, "Raccoon City will be annihilated off the face of the earth by an experimental thermobaric missile strike. Payload's designed to destroy anything biological. No survivors will survive the blast by any chance."

An intense wave of shock and incredulity rose across each of the survivors' faces. None of them could believe it. How could the United States not care about its own citizens and leave every other trapped survivor to die within the confines of the city? It all sounded like a sci-fi horror movie, but after their experiences with zombies and mutated monsters, that type of terrible fantasy had turned into a horrible reality long ago.

"N-no…" said Leon in complete disbelief and denial, reminding himself of the few survivors he encountered while he had been inside the city. "They can't do that! There are still survivors out there who need help! Whole families could still be trapped in their homes with the dead roaming around the streets!"

"This is insane!" David followed up. "And what about Frank? If there's a chance he's still out there, then why aren't you moving your asses to go get him before they blow up the city sky-high?!"

"Like I said," said their leader, now looking back at David with piercing eyes. "Our hands are tied up. I've got a contact who told me earlier this morning that, as recently as two days ago, Frank was seen a couple of blocks away from the hospital. They sent in someone to retrieve him and they have yet to hear from any of them since. Sometime later, we were informed about the news of the city's upcoming obliteration. Couple of hours after, that was when we saw smoke coming from all the way back there. We feared the worst had already happened, but we were proven wrong when we found you all."

"Hudson, it's now or never," said Simmons, who kept looking front and back again, as though some unknown entity was following them from elsewhere in the desert plains.

The leader looked at him in the corner of his eye and swiftly nodded back at the younger man before putting his whole attention back on the rest of the survivors. "We can talk more about this later. Right now we need to escort you all out of here quickly."

"Where would we be going?" Claire inquired as she kept a firm hand pressed on Sherry's hand, feeling reluctant to go anywhere with them after what she and David had seen in the recording of Operation: Nestwrecker. For all they knew, these people could easily be either Umbrella or Perseus soldiers coming to kidnap and interrogate them.

"There's a place we've set camp near a small village not far from here," Hudson informed her casually. "We have food, water, and medical staff that can treat all your injuries - no problem. Now, if you all follow me inside, we can hurry this up." He looked back at David with concern as he put his sunglasses back on. "David's not looking so hot himself. We should move."

Leon looked back at Claire, who had an odd expression on her face, feeling quite unsure whether or not they should really follow them. Sherry was looking both ways, not entirely feeling safe around the group of troopers herself, and David seemed like he wanted to snap the necks out of each and every one of them, narrowing his eyes in disdain and hatred…

…but before any of them could step forward to follow the other group of four, David suddenly pulled out his gun directly at Hudson's back and Weaver was the first to react as he aimed his M16 in response, ready to shoot at the younger man at any second.

"No, wait!" Leon said in a hurry, stepping up in between them, spreading his arms both ways in each direction as David struggled to keep his aim steady with the injuries he had sustained, while Simmons and Benford followed up with their weapons aiming toward Leon and David.

Claire put Sherry behind her, making sure she wasn't about to watch a violent scene suddenly erupt around them, automatically being put in a protective mode for her.

Hudson turned around, looking neither frightened nor apprehensive. If anything, he looked rather calm, too calm, almost as though he expected this type of behavior from David himself.

"David," said Leon, looking back at him with pleading eyes, "I know you don't like him. He'll I'd say all of them look like your typical assholes, but you don't wanna do something you'll regret in the future. You need to think this through."

David's vengeful expression did not change or falter, his eyes transfixed on a growing sense of bloodlust Leon had never seen on him before.

"It won't be my first time," he said grimly, slightly grunting in pain as his aim continued to shake visibly. "He's the reason why my family got involved in this whole mess in the first place! If that bastard never met Frank or my father, none of the shit I've been through my whole life would've ever happened! Now… " David cocked his gun furiously, making sure it was ready to fire. "Get out of my way, Leon, or you'll be the one to regret it yourself…"

Hudson silently gestured at the rest of his team to lower their weapons and paced around Leon, putting himself directly in front of him as he stepped closer to the gun's muzzle, making sure it was firmly aimed at him instead.

"I wouldn't blame you if you want to pull the trigger," he said casually as the muzzle was now firmly pressed against his chest. "I've done many unspeakable things myself, things I will never be forgiven for, and I don't expect anything less from you or your father, but I want you to know one thing. Everything I've done for the past twelve years was to protect your father, protect your uncle… protect you above all…"

David started to tremble even more than before. Whether it was due to fear, pain, or rage, none of them could tell, but one thing was certain for Claire; David's done it before and it wouldn't be far-fetched to say he'd do it again if his buttons were to be pushed too far.

"You're lying…" he said in a hollow, shaky voice, "You only ever cared about making yourself feel better, but tell me… what do you know about Dad seeing random numbers inside his head? Has Perseus or Umbrella had anything to do with it all those years ago?"

David's words stunned Hudson in place. His partially hidden expression froze completely as the rest of his team stared at each other, bewildered by the uttered statement from the nineteen-year-old.

"How do you know about —?"

"Cut the bullshit, Jason!" David shouted back in fury, his eyes forming tears of mixed emotions rushing over him, his gun still firmly pressed against his chest. "TELL ME!"

Hudson lowered his head slightly and then slowly turned his head around, looking back in Leon's direction, nudging his head in the process. Instinctively, Leon somehow knew what was about to happen next, but it was too late the moment he immediately became knocked out by one of the men from behind. There was a shout from someone through his ringing ears and blurring vision after toppling to the ground. Then someone from behind him voiced something closer to his ear.

"It's for your own good," one of them said, and it seemed to have been a Russian accent, an accent that was all too recognizable from Agent Grigori Weaver himself.

David…Claire…Sherry!

It was all Leon could think about. He had been so naive to think he could've ever trusted them to give them a ride to safety. And now the world around him was falling apart and all he could hear in the background were grunts of a fierce struggle between David, Claire, and the other agents, both of the youngsters not being able to fight off any of their attackers completely. Sherry began to scream in terror, and this finally triggered Leon to try and use the last of his remaining strength to stand up, to fight them off somehow…but it was just too much. His legs couldn't support his whole weight anymore and the massive headache had overwhelmed him for good - everything becoming dark after that.