AN: Hi! I'm finally out for the summer as of early May! I hope I can finish this story before I have to go back to school next year!
Thank you reviewers! (AzureSonata23, Toasty2006, SaiyanEpicness, akira-kun.8, and Sara Victoria Cullen) Bet you never saw those plot twists coming! (Although actually, some of you did.) Reviews are awesome!
Short chapter, but it's action-packed! I also did some work on a one-shot I started ages ago, so I might post that later.
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or its characters. I claim responsibility for most non-canon characters. Delfredi and Veronica were imagined by my friend and co-writer JediSpartan217, who also helped me with this story.
Chris stared down at the petrified agents, glaring down as he towered over them, his cat-like eyes fixed on the four women in front of him. The pulse of their accelerated heartbeats pounded in his ears, and he could smell the sweat and adrenaline on them. Despite their terror, they each stood stock still, unwilling to move.
The monster formerly known as Chris growled into the air. Mattie shivered and moved to hide behind her nearest comrade. "Don't move," Stevie whispered to her. "Maybe he responds to movement," she added in an attempt at reassurance.
"Don't move? But he's staring right at us!" the half-blind cadet whispered back.
Jill kept her eyes on her mutated comrade, waiting for the beginning of an attack as Kate's eyes bounced around the room, analyzing the surroundings and searching for places to take cover. "Why isn't he moving?" the senior agent wondered. Any other BOW would have attacked by now. Something was wrong.
Chris growled again, not from the lack of a fight, but at a wall of sound that was slowly building up around him, accompanied by the pounding sensations of a growing migraine. The sounds grew louder and voices became more pronounced until he couldn't tell whether the noise was simply ringing in his ears or some torment devised by the group in front of him.
There were five voices in all, and Chris recognized each one; they were all ghosts that he'd never wanted to haunt him again.
"Kill them! Kill them! kill them!" the voices chanted in unison, the words in time with the migraine pulses in his head.
"You want to be a good boy for us, don't you?" Excella crooned.
"Yeah! Youse have to crush them!" Irving chimed in.
"Go on, Chris. Don't disappoint me," Wesker added.
Chris grabbed his head, struggling not to succumb to the waves of disorientation that had begun to sweep over him. "Stop! Stop talking!" he growled out loud, sounding even more gravelly than before.
"What's going on?!" Stevie called out to Kate and Jill, gun pointed directly forward while holding Mattie back..
"It's probably the Gx-a virus," Kate guessed. "He's been taking pills to suppress the symptoms. Now that he gave himself a full injection, he's most likely being bombarded by the side effects." she explained, backing away slowly. An aggressive opponent was even more dangerous when distressed, and right now Chris fit the bill.
Chris grunted in pain as the voices continued to torment him. "I thought you'd be better than this, Chris. You still haven't changed," an echo of Wesker asserted.
"I-I have changed . . ." Chris rebutted, wrestling control of his own body, if only for a moment.
"Then prove it."
Images of Forrest and Richard in bloodied STARS uniforms swam in and out of his vision."You could have saved us, Chris," they whispered, "But you failed."
"Hah! Whadda loser!" Irving jeered from nowhere.
"Pathetic!" Excella chimed in.
"NO! JUST STOP! PLEASE!" Chris growled, the migraine now beating against his skull.
He could feel Wesker's devious smirk as he tried to calm down. "C'mon Chris, let's finish what you started," his former captain taunted.
Chris fell silent and stared towards the ground, immobile except for steady breathing.
Mattie peered from behind Stevie, anxious for any sort of update in the situation. "Chris . . . . ?" she spoke, her voice quivering in fear.
The monstrous form of Chris looked up. His eyes had gone black where there should have been white, chilling the agents to the core as the golden irises met theirs. "Must . . . Kill!" he growled under his breath, "Want to . . KILL!"
"We're in trouble!" Kate spoke quickly.
"Not good!" Stevie added, pushing Mattie back even more.
"Everyone! Take cover!" Jill ordered as Chris moved to charge. The group of women dived behind a nearby cluster of crates in time for the tyrant to run past and miss them. But the momentum was too great for him to stop. The Tyrant crashed into the wall, impaling the material with his claws, scattering chunks of plaster and concrete about the room. Upon seeing he had missed his targets, Chris tried to remove his arm from the wall. The tyrant strained his arm, trying to pull back with no avail. He was stuck. A tiny breeze of chilled air snaked up his arm and through the hole he had made, meeting his face with little reaction.
"Warning: Main wall has been breached," An automated message sounded from a hidden intercom, "Self-Destruct sequence has been initiated; Estimated time: 30 minutes."
"Oh, you have got to be kidding!" Stevie complained, disregarding the volume of her voice. "Every single time!"
"What's happening?!" Mattie cried out.
Jill glanced around; similar piles of crates were stacked in various places around the room, providing convenient cover. The crates wouldn't last long if Chris were to attack, but it gave them time to plan. "Stevie! Go with Mattie and find her gear! Kate, you're with me! We're gonna need all the help we can get," the senior agent ordered. With a quick nod and some cover fire, Stevie and Mattie made their quick escape up the hallway as Jill and Kate maneuvered around the crates for better cover. "Kate, What can you tell me about the effects of that virus?" Jill requested.
Kate peeked up at the trapped tyrant for three seconds before returning to cover. "That transformation is exactly what happened to the test subjects that got turned into tyrants," she explained, "Same symptoms before too, short of legal insanity!"
Jill nodded. "Right. We need to figure out how to subdue him before Stevie and Mattie get back. Any ideas?"
Kate looked back up at the monster in time to see him free his claws from the wall, sending pieces of concrete every which way. "Not much yet," she admitted, "This is gonna be tricky."
*S & M near control room*
"Where are we going?!" Mattie shouted, squinting her eyes against the air rushing against her face.
"If Chris is out fighting Jill, then he won't be in his control room!" Stevie explained, pulling her blurry-eyed comrade through every corner as she retraced the path they took before finding Jill. "And thanks to Blondie, we know right where that is."
"You think my stuff's there?" Mattie asked.
"No idea. But we're bound to find SOMETHING."
They returned to the antechamber where the men had transformed. Veronica's body sat stiff on the ground in front of the door, her eyes now lifeless and dull.
"Nice to know the bitch hasn't moved," Stevie commented as she stepped gingerly over the body and checked the doorknob. "Yup. Still locked," she verified.
"I'll get it," Mattie spoke as she stepped forward, hairpin in hand.
Stevie stared down at Veronica as Mattie went to work. "Bye bye, Barbie," the taller agent commented under her breath as the door clicked open.
"Got it!" Mattie declared, pushing the door open before them. A small stairwell greeted them, with iron steps leading upwards. A short trek led them to another door; this one was unlocked. Upon entering the room, Mattie's face lit up in delight. "There they are!" she beamed, running to the other side of the room to claim her things.
Stevie began to follow her, but stopped upon seeing a wall of monitors playing back camera feeds from different parts of the facility. One screen showed Jill and Kate circling Chris and shooting at him with little effect. On top of the console was an orange prescription bottle along with several papers and blueprints. The bottle was unlabeled, full of white, capsule shaped pills. Unable to determine their purpose, she turned to the blueprints. The first set of blueprints showed schematics for a device with a small but sinister needle pointed inside of the collar, designed to give regular or remotely controlled injections. "So that's how the guys got infected," Stevie thought, remembering the collars Billy and Carlos wore.
She turned to the papers, picked up the first one she saw, and began reading. If the blue-eyed cadet had to guess, it was another journal entry from Veronica. Judging from the date, it had been written today, if not a few hours earlier.
"The situation is getting worse," the messy scrawl read, "I've been trying to contact my employers for hours now, and they're not responding to anything! I'm beginning to fear that don't expect me to survive from here on. The BSAA pests have proven to be more persistent and clever than Delfredi and I originally thought, but the side effects of the Gx-A treatments have increased dramatically. The pills I made for him are still doing their job and counteracting the worst of the Gx-A in his body, but lately he's been needing higher and higher dosages. Given the slow manufacturing process, I'll run out of pills before I can make a new batch. If he goes out of control I won't be able to stop him. I'll have no choice but to scrap the whole project and destroy the evidence. Including Delfredi! I'd rather do it while he's still in his human form, for mercy's sake. At this rate it might actually come to that… His temper's gotten worse and I fear any more interference will push him over the edge. If the 'Playtime' can't stop the BSAA pests, . . . then I'll have to terminate Delfredi myself before things get any more out of hand. It's the only way..."
"Okay! I got my stuff! What are you waiting for?" Mattie spoke, breaking Stevie's train of thought.
"I think I found his pills! They were being used to counteract the Gx-a virus," Stevie reported. "Seems like Barbie downstairs was scared of Delfredi too, and he caught wise to her plans just in time." The younger cadet turned to relay more information to her friend only to stop abruptly. "Mattie . . . What are you wearing?!" she asked incredulously.
"These are my goggles!" the rescued agent explained, looking at her comrade through a translucent screen attached to the helmet on her head. "Quint made these special for me after a little 'accident' in 'Rookie Pinball'. This is just the 2nd prototype. But nevermind. Grab those pills!" Mattie replied, checking her gun one last time before running back to the door. "We'll need all the help we can get."
*W/ Kate & Jill*
"HQ This is Jill! We need back-up and a medic ASAP!" Jill shouted into her radio behind cover. She peeked over the crates, watching as Kate drew Chris' attention away from her hiding place. "We've got a huge BOW on our hands. We should be in the south side of the building!"
Kate ran to flank him from the side, making sure to stay in Chris' peripheral blind spots. She shot into the back of his knees, forcing him to the ground before she rushed forward, shooting at his arm. One of her shots hit a pulsing orange sac on his shoulder. The sac burst, spewing golden-yellow gas right into the cadet's face.
Chris gave a pained roar, and Jill looked over to see the younger agent stumble back and cover her face. "Kate!" the older agent shouted,, "Are you okay?!"
The bespectacled agent gasped for air, speaking when her lungs were clear. "Those gas pockets produce Gx-a! Don't breathe it in!" she reported.
"Oh, don't hold your breath on my account, darling," an unwelcome voice crooned into her ear.
Kate's spine and shoulders went rigid. "You again?!" she shouted to the air, shooting until the gun clicked empty in her hand, "Perfect time to show up!" She snapped out of her thoughts in time to duck under a swinging yellow arm. "Jill! Any luck?!"
"We've got back-up on the way!" the older agent reported, as she emerged from cover. Chris took notice and turned towards her, allowing her partner a chance to reload.
"Great!" Kate replied, "Where's Stevie and Mattie?!"
"No sign of them yet!" Jill reported, leading the tyrant to the opposite end of the room.
"They really need to hurry . . ." the younger woman muttered to herself as she grabbed a clip from her belt.
"Tsk. You saw how quick your 'friends' were to run away," Excella drawled, "I would't be surprised if they decided to abandon the fight."
"Shut up," Kate growled as she ejected the empty clip.
"I told you they'd betray you. You are nothing to them!"
The younger agent slammed the magazine into her gun. "I told you to SHUT UP!" she roared, wasting no time in running out of cover and firing into Chris' exposed back. Aggression wasn't the approach she and Jill had agreed on, but as long as it didn't get them killed, so be it.
*Outside*
The BSAA helicopter slowed and hovered above the building, lowering itself enough far enough for three men and a petite woman carrying a first aid kit to drop onto the ground.
"Jackass here! Jill, do you copy?" Quint inquired, shouting into the radio to be heard over the aircraft's blades.
"I copy!" Jill replied, "Are you the reinforcements?!"
"Cavalry's here ma'am!," Keith replied through his own radio, watching the fourth member of the team wave off the helicopter. "Grinder reporting for duty! We brought an old friend of yours!"
"We're at the south wall!" Rebecca added, "Where's the entrance?"
As soon as she spoke, a noise like a cannon erupted from the wall. The reinforcements were flung backwards with the spray of rubble, landing harshly on the ground. Once they got their bearings, the soldiers stood up, advancing cautiously towards the opening that had exploded in front of them, peering into the chalky dust. Rebecca, Quint, and Keith decided to hang back while their fourth teammate, another reluctant volunteer, took point. A guttural roar sounded through the wreckage. Before anyone could comment a gigantic shadow materialized in front of the point man, and a set of claws pierced through the back of the soldier's uniform, staining the cloth with blood. The rest of the team froze, pulling their weapons up in retaliation and aiming at the shadow.
With a quick shake the corpse slid off the claws and landed on the ground, its limbs distorted like a rag doll. The figure stepped through the opening, revealing green skin and a mop of scruffy orange hair atop its head. The creature soon joined by two other, taller monstrous shapes, only when they emerged their skin was tinted jaundiced yellow.
Quint grasped blindly for his radio, staring up at the creatures above him in utter disbelief. "Jill? We got more problems out here!"