AN: Hi everyone! It's been a busy several weeks, seeing as I'm almost near the end of the school year. In fact I'm just about to go into finals! I feel lucky to be able to put this out before I leave college for the summer. But when summer comes, I'll have plenty of time to get this story done! I've only got three more chapters to write, ya know!
Speaking of which: How would you people feel if I made this series a trilogy? I've been tossing around ideas and sketches with JediSpartan217. Depending on how what you think, I'll give some more priority to write it.
I got two reviews last time. One from Sarah Victoria Cullen (thank you SVC!), and one from a Guest. Whoever you were Guest, I think most of your message got cut off because I only got two words. So I'll try to interpret what I can.
To Guest: I wish I could update faster, but college life often leaves me with little time and energy to write. I'm not being lazy, just busy. I usually end up not writing for a few days, then writing huge chunks of story when I find time and/or inspiration.
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil, or its characters, or any pop culture references made in this chapter. I am responsible for non-canon characters other than Delfredi and Veronica. Those two belong to my co-writer, JediSpartan217.
Kate stood guard over the campsite, eyes focused on the corridor in front of her, checking back every once in a while to see if her friends were all right. Stevie had dropped off pretty quick once it was time to switch guard duty, and Mattie hadn't moved when much at all since they stopped. The entire area was quiet as a tomb, perfect for noticing anything out of the ordinary. Every so often a breeze would come down the hallway, sweetening the still air. Nothing had occurred since the trio got away from the monstrous forms of Billy, Steve, and Carlos. Even Excella's disembodied voice had been absent from Kate's mind. The quiet agent hoped that the mystery gas had finally worn off, but she knew better than to get her hopes up, and it would be a bit much to ask for the current situation to stay peaceful as it was.
The bespectacled cadet checked her watch. 5AM. The group had stopped at about 3AM. Kate had slept for an hour, then Stevie woke her up to switch guard duty. Which meant that both of them would be functioning on one hour of sleep. They let Mattie have two hours given her recent stint in captivity. But now it was about time for them to get a move on.
Kate turned back to the camp and gently grasped Stevie by the shoulder, shaking her awake. "Wake up. We've been resting long enough."
Stevie's blue eyes blinked open with a groan. "Is it time already?"
"'fraid so."
"Alright, alright." The younger cadet turned to her sleeping companion. "C'mon Mattie. Wakey wakey."
"... Is it an emergency?" the other girl groaned.
"Not really."
Mattie's eyes blinked open and she sat up, letting her short hair hang in her face for a few seconds before brushing it to the side. Stevie and Kate smiled at the sight. Even after years apart, some things still never changed. "C'mon. Let's go," the oldest of the three reminded them.
The group continued up the corridor, making no noise save for soft footsteps and their own breathing. After a couple minutes' walk, the corridor changed direction, branching to the left. Then the echoes started, and a feminine voice bounced off the walls, sobbing.
"You guys hear that too?" Stevie asked. Mattie and Kate nodded in the dim light. "Good. I'd rather not be hallucinating."
The three agents peered up the corridor, seeking the source of the voice, but their eyes were greeted by the glare of another white room waiting at the end of the passage. "I think that voice is from someone up ahead," Mattie whispered, still squinting in the low light.
"Yeah..." Kate replied, "...I sense it too." With a quick signal from each other's eyes, Stevie and Kate pulled their handguns from their belts and pointed them forward. They were NOT going to be caught unarmed this time around.
The three agents crept forward. The end of the passage became closer and closer as they approached, and the echoing voice became clearer. "Let me in!" the voice echoed, and Stevie and Kate exchanged looks, recognizing the owner of said voice. Nevertheless, the group pressed on with Mattie bringing up the rear.
The trio reached the threshold of the passageway and stopped, their eyes catching sight of a certain blonde on the far side of the room, pounding on a metal door. Given her current preoccupation, she had yet to notice the their presence.
Stevie silently began to aim her handgun, only for a hand to reach out and tap the barrel down. The younger cadet glanced over to see Kate slowly shake her head, then signaled with her eyes towards their foe. Something was different about the atmosphere. Something wrong.
"Dr. Delfredi! Please open the door!" Veronica pleaded, pounding the metal with a closed fist before jiggling the doorknob. "Dr. Delfredi! Let me in!"
A nearby intercom speaker crackled to life. "Sorry Veronica, but you've already served your purpose. You're not needed anymore," Delfredi's voice responded, this time clear and smooth instead of warped.
Veronica's eyes widened as she backed away, staring up at the speaker as if it just delivered a death sentence. "W-What?!" she cried out, "Please sir! I've done so much! You said I would earn a place in the world with you once we were done! You promised!"
Delfredi laughed, and a look of pure horror crossed Mattie's face. "Yes, and I thank you for all your hard work. But sadly, ruling the world is a one man job," he finished before the intercom silenced itself.
"Dr. Delfredi!" Veronica shouted again, pounding on the door one last time. Giving up, she whirled around to meet the trio's faces. "You!" She whipped out her handgun and pointed it at them. Stevie and Kate raised their own weapons in response."How dare you show your faces here!"
"Hey! We have nothing to do with your problem, lady!" Stevie called back, "Now what the hell is going on?!"
"Guys..." Mattie muttered behind , "I recognize that voice..."
"That's Delfredi's assistant," Stevie hissed under her breath, "She's been spying on us all night."
Mattie shook her head. "No . . . Not hers..." she whispered.
A faint rumble echoed from the tunnel, as if thunder was on the approach. Kate risked a glance backward, remembering to keep Veronica in her peripherals. Her instincts screamed "danger", but the others had yet to notice. "Uh, everyone . . . we might want to move soon," she warned, her eyes switching between the woman, her comrades and the rumbling corridor.
"Why should I? I've been ruined!" Veronica cried out, the gun shaking in her hands.
The rumbling became louder. Before either of her friends could respond, Kate shouted out. "INCOMING!" she barked, shoving Stevie and Mattie out of the doorway before diving out of the way herself.
It was too fast to comprehend. One of the mutated tyrants charged into the room, taking chunks of stone out of the doorway with its claws.
Veronica screamed and immediately started shooting, bullets flying as they were spat towards the monster. The monster charged directly for her, clawed limb outstretched. With a sickly, moist squelch followed by rending metal, the gun dropped from Veronica's hands, followed by small waterfalls of blood. A peek of dark brown hair and gleaming silver tags hanging from one of the claws allowed the agents to identify the monster in front of them.
The three women stared at the scene with wide eyes in silent alarm. "Well. . . . That's one problem out of the way," Kate whispered as 'Billy' withdrew his claws, allowing Veronica's body to slump to the ground. "Now we got a bigger, angrier one to deal with."
"Yeah," Stevie whispered in agreement, nodding her head as she came to her senses, "Let's get out of here before it sees us!"
"Guys! Didn't you notice Delfredi's voice! It sounded like-!" Mattie started.
"No time to stop and check!" Stevie urged, "Move!"
The agents wasted no time. They bolted for the door at the side of the room, quickly finding that it was unlocked. Stevie herded Kate and Mattie through the portal before entering herself, pulling the door shut and dead-bolting it behind her. Before they could take a breath, a thundering sound erupted on the other side of the door, forcing the girls to jump back. Billy was trying to get in. "Run!" the blue-eyed agent called out. The group wasted no time in sprinting away. But this wouldn't be the last time they would have to run for their lives.
Jill had lost track of how long she had been awake. The adrenaline rush from fighting was dying down, and sleep deprivation was beginning to take its toll. She had lost track of how many turns she had taken through the facility's twisted halls, rendering the mental map she had created useless. The battle-hardened agent's limbs now ached from exertion, her eyes threatened to droop closed. She knew that sleep deprivation was dangerous, but there was no time to sleep; she had already wasted hours wandering the facility.
"Jill! Jill!" Great, now she was hallucinating voices, accompanied by what sounded like the pitter-patter of rapid footfalls. The female agent whirled around, inspecting her surroundings. Nothing. Minor hallucinations had been one of the many symptoms described in the BSAA's medical pamphlets. She wouldn't be surprised if the timing was right on the mark, too. "Jill!" the voices called again, this time sounding closer than before. "Jill!"
Jill couldn't ignore the noise anymore. She turned around, only to see three familiar bodies rushing toward her. "There you are! Is everything alright?" she asked, holstering her weapon as the cadets came close.
"We found Mattie," Kate reported quickly, slowing to stop before gasping for breath.
"But now there are even bigger monsters running around here!" Stevie added as she dragged Mattie to a stop, "And we still haven't seen Chris!"
"Status report!" Jill ordered.
After several gasps, Stevie was finally able to catch her breath. "Traumatized, but okay," the younger agent reported, "except Kate inhaled some weird gas and started hearing the voice of Excella in her head. It's been like that for several hours, actually."
Mattie stepped forward next. "After I sent Parker to safety, the same stuff Kate was hit with came out of the fire sprinklers. I passed out and woke up in a prison cell hearing voices as well. My equipment has been confiscated and I've sustained an infection in my left arm."
Jill took in the information. "Damn it . . ." she said, "Delfredi's been working on something called Gx-A. Both of you are probably infected with it. We'll try to figure out something."
"From what Delfredi's assistant told us while using Kate as a guinea pig, the side effects these two have aren't the worst that can happen," Stevie warned, "People with more severe infections have yellow eyes. It apparently also turns people into Tyrants."
"Then we have to make sure Gx-A doesn't get out of this building," Jill confirmed.
"Jill," Mattie added, her voice deathly serious, "I can also report that Chris is definitely here."
Jill turned to her student and began a barrage of questions. "How do you know?"
"He rescued me just before I lost consciousness."
"Was this the last time you saw him?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Have you talked to anyone since you woke up here?"
"Aside from Alfred, I also spoke to Delfredi's assistant. She just got murdered, so we're outta luck there. There were some other test subjects that we freed, but they've mutated into Tyrants."
Jill raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Who's Alfred?"
"Hallucination," Stevie silently mouthed. Thankfully Jill was good at reading lips and understood.
"Aside from that, not much else to report. Care to fill me in?" Mattie requested.
"Delfredi created something called the Gx-A virus," Jill quickly explained, "He plans to start a global outbreak."
"Sounds an awful lot like Wesker, if you ask me," her student commented.
"He's been here for a while," Jill added, "and this is the area where Chris' last known coordinates were recorded. I wouldn't be surprised if Chris had a run-in with our personal terrorist."
"Wait, hold on a sec..." Stevie interrupted, a hint of impatience in her voice, "He had coordinates? We had coordinates this whole time and you haven't told us yet?!"
"The BSAA was able to track him to this building," Jill explained, "A tracer was placed on him before Edonia, in case emergency evac was needed; it was most likely disabled once he got here. If Chris is here, someone doesn't want us to find him."
"Speak of the devil . . ." The other members of the team turned to Kate. The other girl had been quiet the whole time, letting the others talk, but now her eyes were fixed on something down the hall. The others followed her gaze, landing on a tall, slumped shadow, barely visible, coming towards them. The figure moved slowly, as if limping.
"Is it him?" Mattie whispered, squinting down the corridor.
Jill stared into the shadows, examining the figure. The body type was the same as Chris, and the silhouette looked similar enough, but Jill could not dispel the knot of worry that appeared in her gut. "It looks like him, but something's off," she decided, "Be ready."
The figure came closer and stepped into the dim light cast overhead, revealing its features. Messy brown hair. Broad shoulders. Dirt-stained BSAA fatigues. 5 o'clock shadow. Everything about him screamed Chris, but the details did nothing to soothe Jill. The trio of cadets watched him too, unaware of their leader's doubts.
Mattie was the first to speak up. "...Chris?" she asked. A dull, rattling moan echoed up the hall in response, chilling the agents' bones down to the marrow.
"No . . . " Jill breathed, eyes wide in horror. " . . . Delfredi got him. He's a zombie."
A choking sob erupted from Mattie's throat. "Chris . . ." she wept, tears sliding down her cheeks as she stared. Stevie and Kate stood silent, holding back emotions in favor of focus as they unholstered their guns, ready to point them at their former companion.
Jill forced herself to swallow her grief, staring coldly at the approaching monster as she aimed her handgun. "I'm sorry, Chris," the survivor apologized as she placed her finger on the trigger.
"No!" Mattie cried out.
In that moment, the corpse of Chris Redfield leapt towards the clustered cadets.
A shot was fired, and the zombie fell to the ground, blood gently pooling around the hole in his head.
"Chris!" Mattie shouted as she broke away from her friends, falling to a kneel at the corpse's side.
"Stand down Mattie!" Jill ordered, coming to stand above the corpse."There's nothing else we could have done!
"What about a funeral?!" her protegé objected, turning to look at her mentor through red, puffy eyes, "We owe him that much!"
"We don't have time for a funeral!" Stevie argued, "We have to find Delfredi and get out!"
Kate stood by and let the others argue. The dispute was messy enough without more people getting involved. Instead, she let her eyes roam over the corpse in front of her, stopping at a suspicious mark under the zombie's shirt collar. "Jill," the older cadet spoke, grabbing the older woman's attention, "Did Chris ever have a tattoo on his neck?"
"What?" Jill knelt near the corpse's head and pulled down the back of 'Chris's' shirt for a better look. She sighed deeply, for once glad to see the familiar bar code tattoo and serial number inked in the soft skin. "It's not Chris. It's another clone."
"Clones?" Stevie asked, a bemused look on her face, "What are you talking about, Jill?"
"Delfredi's been making me fight copies of people from my past," the female survivor explained, before turning to walk back up the hall. "That body is a fake. We need to keep moving."
Mattie's face brightened as she stood. "So Chris is okay!" she said, a relieved smile spread across her face.
"For now" Jill replied as the others caught up to her. "But finding and arresting Delfredi should be our first priority."
"Delfredi. . ." Kate muttered, thinking to herself quietly. Then her eyes widened. "Wait a minute..." She pulled one of the memos she had saved out of a pocket, stared at it, then began pointing her finger in the air, as if counting something. Her eyes widened even more, the she turned towards the wall and began writing letters in the dust at a manic pace, as if she was possessed.
"Kate, what is it?" Stevie asked, observing as her partner began drawing lines and circles around the letters. "You haven't finally snapped, have you?"
Kate ceased her drawing and stared up at the wall in disbelief. "No way. . . ," she whispered, shaking her head in shock. "This is it?!" she said, her voice growing louder before growling in frustration, "It's been staring us in the face the whole time! It's an anagram!"
"Ana-what?" Mattie repeated, as she looked over to squint at the wall, "What's going on?"
"An anagram! Look!" Kate explained, turning back to the wall, "If I switch around the letters in Delfredi, they spell out-!"
A slow clap echoed up the hall, causing the agents to freeze in place. "I was wondering if you ever were going to figure it out," a masculine voice drawled. The women looked towards the voice, only to discover that the hall ended in a domed, high-ceilinged room with a staircase at the opposite end. Jill was reminded too much of the foyer in the Arklay Mansion, and deduced that it was another one of Delfredi's tricks to make her revisit her worst memories. But what chilled her most was the figure at the top of the stairs.
Mattie's eyes widened. "Chris!" She started running towards the voice, only for Stevie and Kate to block her path.
"Don't go near him Mattie," Jill ordered, "he's the one who caused all this."
Mattie stared at her mentor in pure confusion. "But . . . It's Chris. He's on our side!" she objected.
Chris chuckled darkly, and the half-blind cadet blinked up at him, stunned. "The truth hurts, doesn't it?" he said, "Too bad some people are still too stupid to believe sugar-coated lies."
"What . . . .?" Mattie whispered, staring up in disbelief.
"Chris, I'm gonna say this once," Jill warned, glaring up at the madman with her gun at the ready, "Whatever has got you thinking like this, you've got to snap out of it!"
"Or can we even call you that, "Delfredi"?" Kate added, her soft voice fully laced with venom.
"My name is not Chris!" Delfredi growled, the noise echoing around the recreated room.
"Then go back to being 'Chris'!" Jill barked back, "We can't let you hurt anyone else! Enough damage has been done already!"
"Shut up!" Delfredi roared. "I'm getting a headache from listening to you. . . I thought making you find the truth would enlighten you, but it seems that confronting your fears hasn't helped either!" He pulled a syringe full of yellow liquid from one of his pockets and held it up to the light, a maniacal glint in his eyes. "But I have other ways . . ."
Stevie and Kate gripped their handguns, fingers inching towards the triggers. Jill paused, searching for his motive. "You wouldn't dare."
"This virus will help change everything," Delfredi explained, "All of you have witnessed horrors no civilian has seen and lived to tell the tale. But the rest of the world doesn't care about what happens! I assume you all know what happened to me in Edonia."
"Edonia . . ." Mattie whispered, recalling that fateful day in her mind's eye.
"That battle changed me!" Delfredi continued. "I lost so many men that day . . . only my partner and I survived. I'll admit, I lost my mind. But all of that will quickly change!"
"Do you really think fabricating more zombies will change anything?" Jill inquired. She knew Delfredi was dangerous; the longer she could keep him talking, the more she would find out about him and keep him from doing something rash. But Jill could only stall for so long.
Delfredi gave a short laugh. "Who said I was bringing them back?" he replied, grinning down at the small group. "There are quicker, more effective ways to bring about change. If you saw what happened, you would know what I've been going through. The men that were lost that day . . . They all screamed as they were dying. And now . . . You will do the same."
Mattie stared at the syringe, her eyes fixed on the yellow liquid swirling around inside. "Mattie? What are you thinking?" Kate whispered, noticing the odd behavior.
"Don't listen to anything he says," Stevie warned, still pointing her gun at Delfredi, "He's crazy."
Mattie shook her head, hazel eyes still wide in shock. "Chris isn't evil. He saved me. . . ." She looked back up at Delfredi with wide eyes. "Right Chris?"
Yellow eyes became dangerously narrowed. "My name. . . is not Chris!" Delfredi roared, raising the needle to hover above his bicep. "I am Delfredi! No more lies. No more games. You think you can stop me? Ha! you're just like everyone else in the world! Following simple-minded ideas, hiding the truth, going about your lives without worry. No. It doesn't work like that. Now that you're trapped here, I'll just show you the truth . . . even if I have to sacrifice myself in the process!"
Delfredi stabbed the needle into his arm. As the sickly yellow fluid sank into his body, his skin began to take on the same color, starting from his arm and spreading over his body. His skin began to bubble, and small areas of tinted skin broke, revealing pulsating, sickly orange pockets of infected flesh. With a harsh grunt, a line of shark-like spikes emerged from his spine, ripping his shirt to ribbons as it fell away. His fingers grew and became pointed, mutating into large claws. "You see . . . No matter what we do . . . We're all monsters!" he roared with a mad grin, staring down the agents through a set of black marks that ran down both sides of his face.
"C-Chris!?" Mattie cried out.
"Oh shit! " Stevie hissed, pushing her blind comrade behind her as they stepped away.
"My thoughts exactly . . . . " Kate breathed in reply, backing up beside them.
Jill steadied her breathing, gripping her pistol tightly. "That virus is causing a full-on mutation similar to Uroboros; it's even affecting his mind," the senior agent thought to herself. Her blue-gray eyes met Delfredi's, only to feel an intense pang of sympathy for her mutated comrade. "Chris . . . What have you become?"