A/N: I tell ya folks, writing this story again is really opening me back up. I had so much planned for this series and was hoping to get back into it again, and when my readers, and new ones after a while, asked for it to come back repeatedly I couldn't refuse. And with so much more coming I intend on making it into something worth remembering.
As you've noticed, I've done a bit of jumping around with other characters in the story. I'm basically following the same path as S.D. Perry did when she went into the background detail of the story, I wanted to bring more life into the characters you never really see and really bring it to life almost like a movie. And I think I've gotten the feel of it down pretty well.
For this installment it's only going to be a bit of background detail and a huge fight scene. It's been a while since one of those so I decided to put one in to cement this story's revival. And here it is now!
(I don't own Resident Evil)
Chapter 29:
"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win." - Margaret Thatcher
Annette Birkin sat in the laboritory monitor room, exhausted, staring, up at the wall of video screens centered over the surveillance console.
She'd been there for what felt like years, waiting for William to appear, and was starting to think that he never would. She'd give it a little longer, but if she didn't see him soon, she'd have to do another search.
'Goddamn technology...' she thought bitterly.
It was a brand-new system, less than a month old, twenty-five screens with a channel control that should have allowed her to see any and every part of the facility. A brilliant security advance, except only eleven of the screens still worked at all, and over half of those would only show static, an endless dance of electric snow.
Of the five she could still get a clear picture from, all she could see, all there was to see were dead, rotting bodies and the occasional Re3, either feasting or sleeping. . .
"Lickers. You called them lickers, because of their tongues..." she said outloud, her voice echoing off the silent walls around her.
She thought she'd been past the worst of the pain, but the lonely sound of her own voice in the cold, cavernous chamber and the realization that there would be no answer, that there would never be an answer again, brought on a fresh, nearly crushing wave of grief.
William was gone, he was gone and she was talking to no one at all.
Annette lowered her head to the console, closing her weary eyes. At least there were no more tears; she'd wept an ocean of them in the days since Umbrella had come for the G-Virus, but was simply too spent to cry anymore. Now there was only pain, along with fits of violent, helpless fury over what Umbrella had done.
'Another month, maybe two, and we would have given it to them. We would have turned it over without a fight, and William would have made the executive board and we would have been happy. Everyone would have been happy...' she thought to herself.
There was a faint squealing from one of the muted security screens. Annette looked up, hoping and dreading at once, but it was just a Licker, one floor up in the surgical bay. It had dropped from its ceiling roost to snack on one of the techs, howling stupidly to itself as it ripped into the corpse's guts.
The dead man looked like Don Weller, one of the chemical plant go-betweens, but she couldn't tell for certain; he was almost as mutilated and inhuman looking as the Re3 that was eating him.
She watched the Licker feed, watched the small screen but didn't really see; her mind wandered, running over what was left for her to do. She'd already wiped all of the computers and locked in the countdown codes; the lab was ready, and her escape route was secured.
But she couldn't finish things until she saw him again, saw that he was back in the Umbrella facility. Destroying the lab wouldn't solve anything if he wasn't in the blast zone; they would find him, and extract the virus from his blood...
...and Umbrella won't have it. She'd die before she would let them have it.
Her only consolation in all of this mad, horrible affair was that Umbrella hadn't managed to get their greedy hands on William's synthesis. And they never would. Everything that had gone into the creation of the G-Virus would be buried under a thousand burning tons of stone and wood, along with William and all of the monsters they had created for the company. She would go into hiding for a while, take some time to heal, to consider her options and then she would sell the G-Virus to the competition.
Umbrella was the biggest, but they weren't the only conglomerate working on bioweapons research and when she was through with them, they wouldn't be the biggest anymore. It wasn't much of a revenge, but it was all she had left.
"Except for Sherry," Annette whispered, and the thought of their young daughter made her heart ache, a different pain but pain nonetheless. Since the day Sherry had been born, Annette had meant to spend more time with her, to focus on the child instead of on her part in William's brilliant work.
And yet somehow the years had slipped by, William's promotions had kept coming up, the work had grown ever more interesting and valuable and although both she and William had made promises to themselves and each other that they would make more of an effort to develop their family life, they had continued to put it off.
'And now it's too late. We'll never be a family, we'll never be parents together. All that time wasted, slaving for a company that sold us out in the end...'
It was too late; there was no point in mourning what could have been. All she could do now was make sure that Umbrella wouldn't get anything else from the Birkin family. William was gone, but there was still Sherry; that part of him would go on, and Annette meant to finally become the mother she should have been all along. Of course she'd have to wait until things cooled down before she could collect Sherry, at least a few months, but the girl would be safe.
Unless Irons is still alive. That fat, greedy bastard could find a way to screw even that up if given half a chance.
She hoped he was dead; even if he wasn't directly responsible for Umbrella's awareness of the G-Virus, Brian Irons was a disgusting, arrogant man with the morals of a sea slug. After years of loyalty to the company, he'd been bought out for a measly hundred thousand dollars. Even William had been surprised, and he'd had an even lower opinion of the police chief than she had.
On the screen, the Re3 had finished its meal. All that was left of the dead man was an empty shell, arched, bloody ribs, and a faceless cup of skull, the surely vibrant colors lost to the video's flat shades of gray. The Licker scrabbled out of view, trailing sticky fluids in its wake. Thanks to the T-Virus, all of the reptile series were efficient killers, although the 3s had design flaws, the exposed brain was the most obvious, but they also had a ridiculously high metabolic rate; keeping them fed had been a constant hassle.
Though it was not a problem anymore. There was plenty of canton to go around now, and lucky them, they'II get a chance for a hot dinner soon enough.
Annette felt drained of energy, and didn't want to go back out into the facility, but she couldn't just keep hoping that William would happen by one of the working cameras. She'd heard him up on level three, perhaps two days before, but hadn't seen him in almost twice as long; she couldn't keep waiting.
Umbrella's people were probably already working on a way in, even with the mainframe wiped, there were other ways to get past the doors...
'And William may have found a way out. I can't keep denying it, no matter how much I want to.' she thought with a sliver of anxiety running up her back.
There was an abandoned factory west of the lab, a shipping company that had been bought up by Umbrella to ensure that the underground levels would stay secret; it was how Umbrella had managed to build the complex in the first place without arousing suspicion, hiding equipment and materials in the factory's warehouses and using the heavy machinery lift to transport them.
Although the entrances from the factory had still been sealed off the last time she'd checked, there was a slim chance that William had gotten through, and if he could get to the factory, he could get into the sewers.
Annette forced herself to stand up, ignoring the cramps in her legs and back as she picked up the handgun on the console. She didn't know much about guns, although she'd figured out how to use one quickly enough, after Umbrella came for the G-Virus.
The men in the gas masks, shooting and running, and William, poor William dying in a puddle of blood, and she didn't see the syringe until it was too late...
She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to push that terrible memory aside, trying to forget about the incident that had taken William from her and turned Raccoon into a city of the dead. It didn't matter anymore. The journey ahead wouldn't be a pleasant one, and she had to concentrate.
Escaped Re3s, first and second-stage infected humans, the botany experiments, the arachnid series, she could run into any of the T-Virus carriers, not to mention whomever Umbrella had managed to send.
And William. Her husband, her beloved, the first human G-Virus carrier, who isn't really human anymore.
She'd been wrong to think that she had no more tears inside. Annette stood in the middle of the vast, sterile room five floors beneath the surface of Raccoon and wept lost, racking sobs that didn't even begin to touch the pain of her loneliness.
Umbrella would be sorry. Once she could be sure that William was beyond their reach, she was going to destroy their precious facility, she was going to take the G-Virus and run, she was going to make sure that they understood how badly they'd screwed up, and God help anyone who tried to stop her.
X
Every fiber in Ethan's body was alive with tension, but he refused to let panic take control as he looked at the massive being that now stood before them.
Nemesis turned and faced them, its lone eye flickering between them before settling on the traveler. Narrowing as recognition flashed through its pre-programed mind. "STARS." it rumbled as it turned around, the large weapon strapped across its back glinting in the faded light.
Claire's eyes widened and her heart nearly stopped. Seeing the man...thing that crashed through the ceiling was bad enough. But to see it armed a bazooka of all things had her nearly frozen in terror.
"Claire." she blinked hearing Ethan's voice, seeing the ex-STARS keeping his attention on the creature and nothing else as he kept his weapons aim steady. "Take Sherry, and head to the STARS office on the other side of the station. Wait for me there."
"But...what about-"
"I really need you to trust me here." he said cutting her off. "Run, as fast as you can." Nemesis raised its left hand, mutated flesh shifting making the teen's eyes widen. "NOW!" he shouted as he flipped the fire-selector of his Samurai Edge before pulling the trigger.
9mm rounds peppered the torso of the Tyrant, but it shrugged them off as though they were insects as a tendril shot from its palm like a living lance.
Ethan dove to the side as the sharp appendage shot past him and speared into the wall where he had been standing. Resuming fire until his clip was empty as he heard Claire and Sherry make it out into the hall. "Ethan!" the young Redfield called in after him, she and Sherry both looking on with terrified gazes.
"Just go! I'll be fine!" he called back as he finished reloading his weapon and started firing again. The Nemesis pulled the tendril from the wall and began to stalk toward him, its heavy boots thuding loudly against the wooden floors as it closed the distance.
Sherry felt tears in her eyes as she watched the man who promised to protect her face the new monster. It wasn't anything like the one she had seen that was chasing her, but it looked just as big and just as strong.
She felt Claire start pulling her along, she struggled, not wanting to leave Ethan alone like this but the older woman managed to get her moving. "He'll be alright. We need to move, quickly." she said as they started running down the halls to the other side of the station.
The only problem was that she didn't sound nearly as convincing as she wanted to be.
X
The traveler waited until the last possible moment to duck out of the way, the Nemesis' fist swinging through the air and burying into the wall, nearly caving it in with its strength.
Holstering his gun and taking out his knife, Ethan leapt up onto the Tyrant's back and started stabbing at the exposed part of its neck. The blade driving into mutated flesh again and again, blood spraying with each hit as he tried to hit something vital.
Nemesis roared as it pulled its fist from the wall and reached back to grab its target. The teen saw the hand coming and lept off the creature's back and put distance between them. His back against the edge of Irons' desk with bloodied knife in hand as he pulled the Colt Python form its place and aimed it forward.
Bang! Bang! The magnum kicked with each round fired, Ethan holding it steady with both hands, knife pointed down. Fountains of blood exploded from the BOWs body, grunts emitting from its exposed teeth as each bullet struck home and knocking it back half a step each time.
One of the large rounds managed to strike the Nemesis below its eye, shards of flesh splattering across the wall it was standing close to when it tore through the side of its head. But despite all six rounds hitting their target, the Tyrant was still standing.
Blood gushing from the new wounds it attained that it paid no attention to, it reached over its shoulder and unslung the rocket launcher it had been carrying and held it in one hand as though it were a toy.
Ethan's breath caught, "Oh FUCK!" he shouted as he sprinted forward. The launcher fired with a loud Whoosh! The explosive projectile sailing through the air directly for him.
The traveler dropped to his knees, sliding along the carpet as the missile flew overhead. Managing to roll between the Nemesis' legs just as the explosive detonated against the wall of Irons' office behind his desk, blowing a massive hole in the wall and nearly crumbling the whole thing.
Getting back to his feet, Ethan saw the Tyrant turning in his direction with launcher still in hand. 'I gotta get this damn thing out of here before it brings the whole building down!' he thought as he reloaded the magnum and came up with a quick plan.
"You want me?! Come and get me asshole!" he shouted at the monster, firing a couple of shots before making a b-line down the hallway.
"STARS!" Nemesis roared as it gave chase, heavy footfalls nearly shaking the entire floor as it barreled its way past the helicopter wreckage and make the sharp turn at the end. Ripping the door to the helipad clean from the wall and standing on the rooftop of the station.
The Tyrant paused, the Heads-Up-Display that was its vision scanning the immediate area for its target and not seeing him anywhere. Growling, the monster started to slowly trek around the helipad. Rocket launcher held tightly in its right hand as it searched.
As for Ethan, he remained crouched out of sight beneath the supports of the old water tower, watching the large BOW as it lumbered around the rooftop looking for him. Knowing full well that he didn't have nearly enough firepower to take the thing down the conventional way, he'd need to get creative to either slow it down or disable it.
If he could get ahold of its rocket launcher, he'd stand a better chance, but that was even more unlikely than trying to kill it with his pistol.
Looking around the area closest to him, he tried to find anything that could give him an advantage. Eye locking onto a set of fuel barrels that were off to the side away from where the aircraft had crashed. A plan formulating in his head as he looked back to make sure his attacker was distracted.
Slowly coming down from his spot, Ethan crouched low and moved quietly over to the barrels. Grabbing the closest one and laying it on its side, using his knife to remove the small covering on the top, before giving it a gentle kick that had it rolling across the helipad. A trail of gas following along in its wake.
Nemesis paused when it heard the sound emitting from behind it, looking over its shoulder and seeing the old, red barrel rolling in its direction. "Hay smiley!" the BOW spun around completely and growled.
Ethan drew his Samurai Edge and flipped it the middle finger as he shot the ground next to him. The bullet kicking up sparks when it hit the ground and lighting the fuel which shot down the long line leading toward the barrel.
The Tyant had enough time to bellow another roar before it was lost in the explosion that followed. The traveler threw himself back and covered his head as flaming debris fell down around him, the station shuttering from the blast.
Pulling himself back up, Ethan looked at the blaze while brushing off a few burning pieces from his shoulders. The fire adding to the one that was still burning from the 'copter crash making a larger blaze that had black smoke billowing into the darkened sky above.
His blue eyes swept over the fire, searching for any sign of Nemesis and not seeing anything. 'No way in hell it was that eas-'
A burning tendril shot out from the blaze and slammed him in the chest, sending the traveler hurling back through the air and slamming into the brick wall on the other side of the helipad. Dazed and the wind knocked out of him at the same time, Ethan gasped in air, holding his chest as he tried to stand.
Nemesis stomped out of the fire, its kevlar bodysuit burning away at the waste revealing its upper half, mutated flesh blackened and still burning in some places. Flesh cracking and splitting open, pieces falling off and hitting the ground with wet slaps as they hissed and popped.
When it was out of the flames, its body began to change. Massive tumors forming and expanding along its form, causing the already damaged skin to rip open exposing ribs and organs underneath. The largest of which covered most of its left side all the way up to its shoulder, pulsing like it was a completely seperate organism.
The Tyrant's right arm sprouted half a dozen tendrils that snapped and writhed through the air like angry serpents, several more exploding out of its back making it resemble a humanoid kraken.
Ethan looked at the creature with a mixure of horror and awe as he stood back up. "Well, that's new." he muttered, swallowing dryly while raising his Samurai Edge at it.
"SSSSSTTTTTTTAAAAAAARRRRRSSSSS!" The mutated Nemesis roared, charging forward like a raging bull with its tentacle laced arm cocked back. The ex-STARS fired several bursts of 9mm rounds before having to dive aside, the Tyrant's arm smashing through the wall where he had slammed against, tentacles exploding from its limb and tearing away sections of brick as though they were made of styrafoam.
Rolling into a crouch, Ethan fired a few more times before one of the back tentacles shot out and wrapped around his neck. Reacting quickly, he drew his knife and sliced the small limb in half before it could get a tight enough grip. But he wasn't expecting the backhand that nearly crushed his ribcage and sending him rolling across the helipad and toward the edge of the roof.
The teen coughed, chest burning as he looked up to see Nemesis coming his way again. His pistol was dropped when he had been hit, but he had managed to keep a strong enough hold on his knife which was still with him.
Reaching for his magnum, he was stopped when a tendril fired at him, nearly knocking him over the edge. Two others followed making it harder for him to keep his footing but still managing to stay upright...
Until a large hand clasped around his neck cutting off all airflow.
Nemesis raised him off the ground as though he weighed nothing, legs kicking in the air while he tried stabbing the arm that was holding him to no avail. "STARS." the Tyrant hissed raising its other arm, the tentacles that flowed out of it, in addition to the ones on its back coming up and going ridgid. Like spears ready to pierce their target.
Ethan gagged, trying to suck in air and break the monster's grip at the same time as it was about to stike him down, feet dangling several floor above street level. Sore and unable to fight back, he had nowhere to go and his time was about to run out.
It all seemed hopeless now, everything he had been through and this was where it ended? Struck down by one of Umbrella's sick experiments and leaving those that were counting on him behind? His comrades...his friends...Rebecca...
His eyes snapped open, their blue color slowly bleeding over until they were crimson. Teeth gritted as his grip on the Nemesis' arm tightened. '...no...NO!...No way in fucking hell it's ending like this!' he roared in his thoughts. Anger rising at the situation, along with a strange heat that started in his chest and spread through his whole body like wildfire.
The BOW narrowed its eye and struck, time slowing to a crawl as the tentacles lanced toward their victim.
'Opponent is large and powerful. Lacking speed and intelligence. Only programmed to kill its target.' Ethan thought robotically. All of his emotions fading into oblivion as instinct and logic too its place. 'First strike, eliminate immediate threat.'
Ripping the knife free, the traveler slashed the sharp edge through the air cutting through the attacking appendages. 'Second strike, break grip and concentration.' Flipping the weapon around, he stabbled it down as hard as he could into the bullet hole he punched through the stapled side of its face from before, forcing the blade into the monster's head until it reached the hilt.
An inhuman screech of pain reverberated through the night as Nemesis stumbled back, tossing its target aside while gripping the side of its face in agony.
Ethan flipped in mid-air, landing on his feet before launching forward at the BOW. 'Now distracted, it's unable to counter in close-quarters. Capitalize.' He punched it in the other side of the face, the force of the blow making it stumble back a step as he followed up with another strike, then another, and another.
Each attack hitting home and forcing the creature back with each one.
Nemesis swung its tentacle arm at the ex-STARs, but the teen had seen it coming. 'Blind haymaker, dodge then counter.' He dropped low enough to avoid the hit, coming up with his padded knee and nailing the monster in the mouth with enough force to shatter two of its teeth and send its head reeling back.
'Use avaliable weakness as leverage.' Ethan jumped up, grabbing the knife hilt that was sticking out of the Tyrant's face and used it to swing around and latch onto its back. Using his knees to force down the tentacles that were there so they weren't a threat.
'New vantage point, attack.' he drew his magnum with his free hand while still holding the knife's handle with the other, pressing the barrel into the back of Nemesis' neck where the spine would be located and fired.
Each pull of the trigger splashing blood into the air with each loud discharge from the powerful weapon. By the time the last bullet was fired, two of them had burst out of the BOWs front above its collarbone.
The Tyrant stood motionless for a beat before collapsing to its knees, upper-half slumping forward before hitting the ground face-first, its tentacles falling to the ground with it, unmoving. Silence encompassed the helipad as Ethan climbed off, pulling his knife free with a bit of effort as he looked at the fallen monster.
There was no way to tell if it was really dead, the same could be said for most of Umbrella's pets, though for now at least it was down.
Ethan took a deep breath, his eyes changing back to their regular blue color before he fell to one knee. His mind and body both trying to comprehend what he had just experienced.
In that one minute, he was stronger, faster, and could think on a level he wasn't even aware of before. Almost like he became something else entirely. It reminded him of those few times in the mansion, moments where he didn't even know he was capable of such things. The fast healing, the speed and awareness...where was it coming from?
'Could it...be the serum?' he thought looking down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. Though the idea didn't make sense, he experienced this before injecting himself with the synthesis Oracle had left for him. But now it seemed...better, almost like whatever he could do had been given a boost.
Either way, something inside of him was changing. Evolving. And whether or not it was good or bad was unknown to him, but for right now he would have to just rely on the man's words and hope that he meant the truth when he said that it would help him in the long run.
Shaking his head, the traveler decided that right now wasn't the time to worry about it. He had more pressing matters to attend to for the time being, then he would address the benefactor that had been leading him around about what was happening to him. He turned to head toward the door leading back into the station-
-A rumbling growl stopping him cold as he turned and watched wide-eyed as the Nemesis started moving, albet slowly, as it started to pull itself back up.
'You can't be fucking serious!' he thought in disbelief. Even though he knew that this class of Tyrant was tough, you could never truly grasp the concept until you've thrown just about everything you have at it and it still continues to come at you.
Looking around for something, anything that could keep the beast down, Ethan's eyes saw something glint in the light close to the slowly fading fire that had been burning all this time. The BOW's rocket launcher laid a couple meters away, its exterior looking a bit singed but otherwise still in one piece, meaning that it could still be operational.
"Anything's good at this point." he said to himself, sending a fleeting glance at the still rising Nemesis before running over to the large weapon. Picking it up and stumbling a bit from the weight as he checked it over.
He was in luck, nothing important on it was damaged meaning it still worked. And a missile was already loaded in the chamber ready to fire.
Hefting the launcher onto his shoulder, getting a strong enough grip on it, the traveler grounded himself to keep his aim steady as he looked down the sights at the Tyrant as it finally stood upright. He only had one shot, if he missed the chances of getting it down again were very slim and he'd run out of ammo long before that.
The Nemesis turned, tentacles waving around in the air, some of them spraying blood from where they had been severed, as it leered at the teen. "STARS!"
"Oh, I got your STARS right fucking here!" he shouted back while pulling the large trigger.
Whoosh! The force of the rocket being fired knocked Ethan flat on his back, nearly pulling his shoulder out of socket when it left the barrel and flew toward the large target. Nemesis roared as the projectile hit home and exploded, the blast strong enough to throw it from the rooftop and down into the street where it crashed through the top of the bus it had sent after the traveler a while back.
Pulling himself up, Ethan made his way over to the side the BOW had gone over and looked down toward the front of the station. The bus was completely caved in and nothing moved, save for a few zombies staggering toward the wreckage out of curiosity.
"Get up from that one, freak." the teen muttered, holding his sore shoulder and spitting over the side of the building before making his way back inside. Hoping that Claire and Sherry didn't think him dead.
X
Across the street on an adjacent rooftop, a man in a full black suit lowered the sniper rifle from the extended eyes of his face mask before tapping his earpieced. "Lupo, I've found him again...and your not going to believe what I've just seen."
X
Down in the street, the living corpse of what was once a middle-aged man in a dark-green business suit shambled along the side of the wrecked bus. Half of the undead's face having been rotten away with maggots squirming amongst the decaying flesh.
The loud noise had attracted it, and several others, their only remaining instinct telling them that food was close. But when they found nothing they moved on, like they always do, insearch of fresh meat elsewhere.
A sudden creak had the zombie turning back toward the wreckage, just before a sharp tendril speared through its skull.
A/N:...Come on, did you all really think it would be THAT easy?
I put a lot of thought and effort into the fight scene, using similar outlines like I did with the fight against Wesker in the first part of the story. And at the same time, Ethan is starting to really notice that something is happening to him and that the abilities he has may not be natural. But the question is, what is happening to him, and why?
By the way, for those that think the fight isn't believable, think about the final fight in RE6 where Jake fights Ustanak hand to hand and wins. It's not really that hard to believe in the end.
Keep the reviews coming guys, and I'll update soon!
