A/N: With summer coming to a close and folks heading back to school, I can't help but be glad I graduated a while back. Though for those that are still in school, keep learning and kickin' ass, because the day you leave it all behind will be so much sweeter.
But I digress. I've come to realize that most of my updates are between 2-6 days, depending on what story I'm putting my full attention into at that time. Sadly, I can only do one story at a time, which is why some go so long without updates. But for now, I think I've got a good formula going.
The chapters in this arc of the series will really start picking up soon, and be a lot longer as well, but on top of that a lot of you are in for some big surprises. (I don't own Resident Evil)
Chapter 30:
"People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is bliss when knowledge is so damn frightening." - Laurell K. Hamilton
The STARS office was empty, cluttered, cold and layered with dust, but Claire was reluctant to leave. After her stumbling, frightened flight through the body-strewn halls of the second floor with Sherry at her side, finding the place where her brother had spent his working days had left her feeling weak with relief.
But the consuming fear was still balled in the pit of her stomach, images of the large man, or whatever the hell that had been, crashing through the ceiling etched into her mind much like all of the other horrific things she had witnessed thus far.
Then there was Ethan, even though she didn't know him very long, she felt guilt and regret leaving him behind to fight the monster alone. Despite his words telling her to run with Sherry, she wished she could have stayed and offered support anyway she could.
Glancing over at the desk where Sherry had perched herself on top of, Barry's if she wasn't mistaken, she saw the girl's eyes trained on the door. Posture tense as she waited for the ex-STARS to come through it.
They had heard explosions and gunfire not too long ago, and if it was Ethan that was making them then he was putting up one hell of a fight. But now everything was silent again, too silent. And neither of them liked it one bit.
Claire shook her head, trying to rid herself of negative thoughts as she kept looking through the desks and cabinets around the office for anything useful they could use. Finding a hip pack in another desk that belonged to Jill Valentine, a woman whom Chris had told her about on a couple of occasions, but not much else.
'Where are you, big brother? And what am I going to do? Zombies, fire, death, your weird Chief Irons, Sherry, Leon, Ethan...and just when I thought things couldn't get any more insane, I see one of the only people that have helped me face off against the freak to end all freaks.' she thought taking out one of her findings and looking at it.
'How am I going to get through this?'
She sat at Chris's desk, gazing at the small strip of black-and-white pictures that she'd found tucked in the bottom drawer; the four shots were of the two of them, grinning and making faces, a photo-booth memento of the week they'd spent in New York last Christmas.
Finding the strip had made her want to cry at first, all of the fear and confusion she'd been holding back finally surging to the front at the sight of his well-loved smile, but the longer she'd looked at him, at the two of them laughing and having a good time, the better she'd started to feel. Not happy or even okay, and no less afraid of what was to come.
Just better. Calmer. Stronger. She loved him, and knew that wherever he was he loved her back - and that if the two of them had been able to survive the loss of both of their parents, to build lives for themselves and share a silly Christmas vacation in spite of having no real home to go to, then they could cope with anything. She could cope
"Claire?"
The young Redfield looked up at Sherry to see the girl with her head down, biting her lip and looking as though she were fighting her emotions. "Ethan's coming back, right?" she asked hesitantly without looking up.
Claire's heart went out to her, being alone in all this mess was bad enough, but to be that young and running for who knew how long while people were being slaughtered around you had to be even worse. It was no wonder that she had clung to her and Ethan when they found her in the armor room.
Not knowing how to respond to the girl, Claire decided to at least keep her optimistic. Walking across the room and sitting beside her with an arm around her shoulders. "I'm sure he's on his way. He looks like a capable fighter, and if he couldn't beat that thing he was probably able to get away from it..."
She paused in thought when she remembered something. "Sherry, was that the same monster you were telling us about before?"
Sherry shook her head, "No, that was a different one. The one I saw was just as big, but it had brown hair and its right arm was all messed up." she explained.
'Great, zombies and a few freaks that would make Frankenstein's monster wet itself.' Claire thought shaking her head. Head snapping up when she heard the door knob to the office start shuttering.
She was on her feet, gun in hand aimed at the entrance with Sherry behind her, preparing to pull the trigger at a moments notice should she have to as the door swung open revealing someone standing in the threshold.
"Well...I give you an 'A' for alertness." said a familiar voice as Ethan stepped inside. A black dufflebag slung over his shoulder with his Samurai Edge held in his other hand.
Claire lowered her pistol in relief as Sherry ran out from behind her while he closed the door. The little girl wrapping her arms around his middle and hugging him making the traveler wince. "Easy, easy, ribs are a little tender." he said straining, but keeping a smile on his face as he embraced her back as best he could given what he was carrying.
"I'm glad your okay." the girl looked up at him and saw a few scrapes and bruises on his face and neck. "What happened?"
Ethan shrugged as he moved into the office a bit more and set the bag down on the closest desk, which happened to be his own. "Nemesis and I had a disagreement...he lost." he said as he unzipped the bag and started going through the contents.
"Nemesis?" asked Claire giving him a strange look, "You named the thing?"
The ex-STARS shook his head, "It came with the name. Things been hunting me for a few days now, luckily it's mostly all brawn and no brains. But it's a hard SOB to take down without anything that explodes."
A hand on his shoulder got him to stop what he was doing as he looked at Claire. "You said that you had answers for what was going on around here. I think now would be a good time to explain them."
Ethan sighed as he turned to face her completely. "Alright, but it's a long story so I'll have to give you the short version for now." he said leaning against the desk. "Did Chris tell you anything about what was happening around here two months ago?"
Claire nodded, "Yeah, he said something about a bunch of murders happening around the city. What about it?"
"They weren't regular murders." explained the traveler. "They were the work of cannibals, or so we thought. We were dispatched to the Arklay forest to find out where the suspects were hiding out. Turns out that a bunch of corpses coming back from the dead, human and animal, were the culprits. But when we found out what the cause of it all was and who was responsible."
"The Umbrella Corporation had set up two separate facilities in the mountains, each with a hidden lab where they were cooking up nasty shit. They created a mutagen that was able to bring the dead back to life, and in living subjects cause uncontrollable mutation, they called it the T-Virus. It leaked from one of their labs, along with some of the infected subjects."
He looked at the young Redfield and saw her eyes wide and mouth open, Sherry was paying attention with a smiliar look as he continued. "We managed to shut down both facilities, lost some good friends because we were betrayed by our Captain, and tried to expose Umbrella for what they'd done...but it wasn't that easy."
"Apparently trying to bring about evidence of a billion dollar corporation's illegal activities and corruption in a city that they own outright made us big targets. We were discredited, our team suspended and we were the butt of everyone's jokes in the public eye. But worse than that, Umbrella sent their attack dogs on us, but none of that stopped us as we continued our campaign against them."
Ethan looked around the room and shook his head, "They should have taken our word and evidence on merrit. Because the virus spread through Raccoon like wildfire, the police were overrun and before anyone knew it it was hell on Earth. You've seen the results."
When he finished, Clarie shook herself out of her stupor, swallowing the lump in her throat as she asked the question she was secretly dreading. "What happened to the other STARS? What happened to my brother, Chris?"
"We separated over a week ago." said the traveler, "My girlfriend and our biochemist expert, Rebecca, went with another STARS unit from out of state to deal with an Umbrella lab in Maine. Your brother, Jill and Barry went to Europe to scout out Umbrella's main headquarters in Paris when things around here started falling apart. I stayed behind to try and get another one-up on the bastards."
He noticed the brunette breathing out in relief, no doubt knowing that Chris was safe from all this madness. Turning to Sherry, he saw her looking off to the side in thought. "You okay there, little darlin?" he asked catching her attention.
"Y-Yeah...I'm okay. But, my mom and dad work for Umbrella...are they behind this too?" she asked, her voice shaking in fear of the possible answer.
Ethan mentally winced. How could you tell someone that their parents were involved in the most inhumane experiments known to man. Worst of all, that your own father had a hand in creating a synthesis that was more powerful than the T-Virus and became a monster because of it.
His eyes briefly dropped to the pendant around her neck, having no idea that the last vial sample of the G-Virus was housed inside. Her mother using her as a pack-mule to smuggle it out of the city without anyone knowing about it.
'Mother of the fucking year, right there.' he thought in anger before looking Sherry in the eye again. "There's a lot of people working for Umbrella that don't know what they do behind the scenes. Chances are your parents are in that minority, and even then I doubt they would willing unleash a deadly virus on the people of Raccoon."
It was almost a complete lie, but the last thing Ethan wanted was what little of a good image of her folks she had was destroyed. She would find out eventually, but not like this. And his words seemed to ease her, just a little anyway.
"So, that thing you were fighting?" asked Claire in regards to Nemesis.
The traveler nodded, "One of Umbrella's experiments, programmed to terminate its target with extreme prejudice. And currently that target is me. The corporation will stop at nothing to keep their secrets from getting out, so they sent Nemesis and their attack squads to make sure no survivors make it out of the city and all evidence to their connection to what's happening disappears."
Having the information sink in, the younger Redfield set her jaw and approached him, "What's the plan, then?" she asked, knowing at this point in time, with everything that he knew and his experience, the only one capable of getting them out of this was Ethan.
Ethan went back over to the bag he had brought with him. "Get the hell out of Raccoon, ASAP." he stated as he started pulling out clips filled with 9mm ammo, shotgun shells and a sawed-off 12-gauge. He also managed to find a spare rig with a combat knife in a sheath on the shoulder.
On his way back from the roof he made a pit stop in the armory and gathered up all the ammo that was left laying around, along with what he could find on the bodies of a few RPD officers that he ensured stayed dead. Sadly, but not surprising, there wasn't anymore weapons avaliable, so he stopped in the evidence room and procured the shotgun before making his way to the STARS office.
All together, he managed to collect 10 full clips of 9mm rounds and 30 rounds for the shotgun. It was better than nothing.
"How are you doing on ammo?" he asked as he started checking his own stash. He still had a couple handfuls of clips for his Samurai Edge, five and a half for the HK5, and only three speed loaders for the magnum. There was also two dozen shotgun shells that he didn't give to Claire.
"A clip and a half for my handgun, and I still have the 24 rounds for the shotgun." she replied. Ethan handed her the rig he had found along with the sawed-off before splitting the ammo up between them. Giving her a little extra since he carried more with him.
Claire accepted the munitions, handing back the shotgun he loaned to her as she looked over her new weapon and sllipping the rig on while putting clips and rounds in the proper places. "How do you plan on getting out of here?" she asked once she finished.
The ex-STARS racked his shotgun, "There's a secret passageway that leads into the sewers beneath the station, we can follow the tunnel system out of the city. Trying to go through the streets would be suicide given all the undead milling around, and we can't stay in one place too long without any BOWs finding us."
"BOWs?" asked Sherry.
"Bio-Organic Weapons. Like Nemesis and all the other inhuman freaks of nature running around." Ethan explained as they finished getting ready and heading to the door, Claire right behind him with her Beretta in hand and Sherry behind her. "The path was clear when I came through. Stick close, keep your eyes open, and stay as quiet as you can. If we're lucky we can get out of here without attracting trouble."
Both girls nodded as he opened the door and led them out, shotgun leading as he checked both directions in the hallway. Motioning with his head that they could move, the trio stepped out into the open and began making their way back toward the other side of the station.
"Where's the passageway?" Claire whispered, Beretta in hand as she scanned every shadow around them.
"In Irons' office. Theres a hallway with an elevator behind the wall behind his desk, it leads underneath the precinct." Ethan replied as he rounded a corner and scanned the next corridor, pausing when he saw a pool of blood in the middle of the floor.
Given what was going on it wasn't a surprise to be seeing this, but what was surprising was the fact that there had been a body laying in the puddle of red when he first came through.
Before he could mentally question the sudden change, a loud, wet crunch echoed through the hall making him freeze. Blue eyes looking upward, he was greeted with the sight of the missing body, in the clutches of a Licker as it pinned the corpse to the ceiling and was feeding on it.
Sharp teeth tearing away chunks of flesh, long tongue lapping up the blood that oozed out while heavy drops of saliva splattered on the carpeted floor below. Obliviant to the one that was currently watching it.
Claire came up behind the traveler, wondering why he had stopped until she followed his line of sight. Biting down on her lip and covering her mouth to not make a sound as the creature continued eating.
Looking in her direction, Ethan put a finger to his lips and mouthed 'Back away slowly.' The younger Redfield nodded as they gently eased their way back around the corner, both of them turning to see Sherry looking down to the other side of the corridor shaking.
"Sherry?" Claire whispered to her, "What's wr..." she never got to finish as they looked at where the girl was staring. Two more Lickers were there, heads turned in their direction and making a series of clicking noises.
They were boxed in.
'They haven't heard us yet.' the ex-STARS thought when the creatures didn't lunge at them. His mind began going into overdrive as he started thinking up ways for them to get out of this. The Lickers were fast, and their long tongues gave them an edge at a distance, but they relied on hearing to hunt and their exposed brains were the best weakness to exploit
With the current standing of things, they could fight their way out, or sneak past the one in the hallway behind them. Both had risks, but the stealthy approach was definitely better than getting ambushed on all sides. And fighting the three could make enough noise to attract more, something none of them would be able to handle with Sherry being in the middle of it all.
Coming to a conclusion, Ethan got the attention of the girls and motioned with his head back toward the other hallway. "Follow my lead, and watch your step." he whispered as softly as possible. Claire gave him a shocked look, but when he pointed toward the other two BOWs and gave her a look that said 'got any better ideas?' she accepted his reasoning.
Moving gently along the carpet, being mindful of broken glass shards and and chunks of debris. The trio stood in a tight single-file line and started to make their way toward where the lone Licker was still feeding.
The traveler kept glancing up at the creature as they drew closer, all the while stepping over whatever was in the way that could give away their position. Sherry shivered, doing her best not to look up at what the 'Inside-Out man' was doing, Claire holding her hand as she kept her own gaze locked on the path before them and the monster above.
Reaching the pool of blood, Ethan slowly moved off to the side and skirted around it while more blood and saliva dropped into the center of it from the ceiling. The other two following him closely, all of them halfway to the door that would lead them out and away from the creatures.
Crunch!
All noise in the corridor stopped dead. Slowly looking over his shoulder, Ethan saw a piece of glass underneath Sherry's left foot while she looked right back, tears in her eyes in fear as all three of them looked up...
The Licker was 'looking' down at them, a deep hiss emitting from its throat as it opened its bloody jaws, serpent-like tongue lashing through the air. The sound of claws on the carpet coming from the other direction also telling them that the others had heard it as well.
"Run!" Ethan shouted raising his weapon, both girls sprinting toward the door behind him when the BOW detached itself from the ceiling, flipping around mid-air to land on all fours when a blast from the traveler's shotgun threw it down the hallway and crashing into the back wall. Landing in a twitching, bleeding heap on the floor as the other two Lickers came around the corner and hissed dangerously.
Racking the shotgun, Ethan fired another blast at the creatures as he started to back up. The Lickers leapt apart, attaching to either wall thanks to their sharp claws and began tearing their way across the surfaces. The ex-STARS kept shooting and backing up to the only avaliable exit, a few shots were fired behind him and one of the BOWs screeched and fell to the floor with three holes punched through its exposed brain.
The last Licker lunged, front claws outstretched ready to tear into flesh with its tongue launching out hoping to grab its pray. Ethan braced himself and fell backwards, pressing the shotgun to his hip as the creature flew over him and fired into its chest. The impact sending blood spraying along the walls and floor as the Licker was hurled back down the hall a couple of feet and landed on its back.
Rolling backwards to his feet, the traveler racked the weapons pump and approached the flailing BOW as it rolled over weakly and righted itself, raising its head and screeching at him. But the noise was abruptly silenced when the shotgun registered a point-blank range, the Licker's head blowing open like a watermelon hit with a sledgehammer, sending blood, grey matter and chunks of bone in the air like a fountain.
Ethan wiped some of the splattered blood from his face before turning around and heading to the end of the corridor where Clarie and Sherry were waiting. "Nice shooting." he said to the brunette who smiled at him.
"Learned from the best." she replied as they continued on, closing the door behind them as they went.
X
So beautiful...even in death, Beverly Harris was radiant, but Irons couldn't risk having her wake up while he wasn't watching; he carefully folded her into the stone cabinet beneath the sink and latched it, promising himself that he would take her out when he had more time.
She would become the most exquisite animal he'd ever transformed, posed and forever perfect once he'd prepared her the proper way ... a dream come true.
'If I have time. If there's any time left.' he thought when his task was done.
He knew he was feeling sorry for himself again, but there was no one else to speak with, no one to marvel at the sheer magnitude of all that he'd suffered. He felt terrible, sad and angry and alone, but he also felt that things had finally become clear.
He knew now, knew why he was being persecuted, and that awareness had given him a focus, as depressing as the truth was, at least he was no longer lost.
'Umbrella. An Umbrella conspiracy to destroy me, all along...' Irons sat on the scarred, stained table in the Sanctuary, his special, private place, and wondered how long it would be before the young man and woman came for him.
Ethan Mercer, things really started falling apart after the little bastard had joined STARS. He wasn't supposed to survive the mission into the Arklay mountains, Wesker had promised that, but like a cockroach he managed to come crawling back to the city with the others and started kicking up the hornets nest with their so called 'evidence'.
Now because of him and the meddling of the STARS members that couldn't be bought or threatened, Umbrella had turned against Irons. And now it was all coming to an end.
It was all Mercer's fault, him and the woman he brought with him, the one with the athletic body who didn't tell him her name. They were responisible for his newfound clarity, an irony that he couldn't help but appreciate. Their appearence had given him the truth that he had been denying for too long.
They would find him, of course. They had to be working with Umbrella, as spies, or assassins. There was no possible way for Mercer to have so much on the company unless he had ties to it in some way. Probably having lists of everything he owned, volumes of psychological profiling reports, even copies of his financial records.
It all made sense, now that he'd had some time to think; he was the most powerful man in Raccoon, and Umbrella had designed his downfall, tailored each vicious backstab to cause him the most acute agony possible.
Irons stared at his treasures, the tools and trophies that sat on the shelves in front of him, but felt none of the pride they usually inspired. The polished bones were simply something to look at as his mind worked, absorbed with Umbrella's treachery.
Years before, when he'd started taking money to turn a blind eye to the company's doings, things had been different; then it had been a matter of politics, of finding himself a niche in the power structure that really controlled Raccoon. And things had worked smoothly for a long time, his career had progressed on schedule, he'd earned the respect of officials and citizens alike, and for the most part, his investments had paid off. Life had been good.
And then there was Birkin. William Birkin, his neurotic wife and their brat daughter.
After the Spencer estate spill, he'd almost convinced himself that the STARS and goddamn Captain Wesker had been responsible for all the trouble, but he could see now that it was the arrival of Birkin and his family, nearly a year before, that had started the ball rolling; the destruction of the Spencer lab had only hurried things along.
Umbrella had probably started monitoring him the day he'd had the misfortune to meet Birkin, at first, just watching, planting bugs, and installing cameras. The spies would have come later...
The Birkins had come to Raccoon so that William could concentrate on developing a superior synthesis of the T-Virus, based on the research being done at the Spencer lab. As quirky and unpleasant as William could sometimes be, Irons had liked him, right from the start. The male Birkin had been Umbrella's boy genius, but like Irons, he wasn't the type to brag about his position; William was a humble man, only interested in fulfilling his own potential. They'd both been too busy to have much of a friendship, but there had been a mutual respect between them; Irons had often felt that William looked up to him.
'And my mistake was to allow it. To allow my regard for him to cloud my instincts, to keep me from noticing that I was being watched, all along.' he thought with anger bubbling beneath the surface.
The loss of the Spencer lab sent some big ripples through Umbrella's hierarchy, and only days after the explosion, Irons had been approached by Annette Birkin with a message from her husband, a message and a request for a favor. Birkin had been worried that Umbrella was going to demand the new synthesis, the G-Virus, before it was ready.
Apparently, he'd been most dissatisfied with the application of his previous work, something about how Umbrella hadn't let him perfect the replication process. Irons couldn't remember exactly, and with Umbrella looking to recover from the financial blow of the Spencer loss, Birkin had been concerned that they might compromise the integrity of the untested virus.
Through Annette, Birkin had asked for assistance and offered him a little extra incentive to keep things fair. For a hundred grand, all Irons had to do was help keep the G-Virus under wraps, in short, watch out for Umbrella spies and keep an eye on the surviving STARS, making sure they didn't do any more "discovering" of Umbrella's research.
That was it. A hundred thousand dollars, and he was already watching the city, and keeping tabs on that rebellious little pack of troublemakers. Easy, easy money, and more to be made if everything went as planned. Except it was a trap, an Umbrella trap...
Irons had walked right into it, and that was when Umbrella had started plotting against him, using the information they'd gathered to seal his fate. How else could things have gone wrong so quickly? The STARS had disappeared, then Birkin, and before he'd even had a chance to assess the situation, the attacks had started up again. He'd barely had time to seal Raccoon off before everything had fallen to shit.
'And all because I was helping a friend, for the greater good of the company, no less. Tragic.'
Irons stood up and walked slowly around the cutting table, idly tracing the dents and scars in the wood with his fingertips. Behind every mark was a story, a memory of accomplishment, but again, he could take no comfort. The cool, quiet atmosphere of the Sanctuary had always soothed him before, it was where he practiced his hobbies, where he was truly able to be himself, but it wasn't his anymore. Nothing was.
Umbrella had taken it from him, just as they'd taken his city. Was it so far-fetched to deduce that they'd unleashed their virus to get at him, to rob him of his power and then sent that smartass Mercer and that scantily clad brown-haired girl to rub his nose in it?
Why else would the young STARS bring an attractive partner with him? Just like that medic he was fucking. They knew his weaknesses and were exploiting them, trying to keep him from retaining even a shred of dignity...
'And soon they'll come for me, maybe still playing dumb, trying to force information out of me.' he thought with his anger rising in level. 'Umbrella assassins, spies and an exploiters, that's all they are, probably laughing at me...'
Maybe the spill had been an accident; the last time they'd met, William Birkin had seemed unsteady, paranoid, and exhausted, and accidents happened even under the best of circumstances. But the rest was fact, there was no other explanation for how completely Irons had been ruined.
Mercer and that girl were coming to get him, they'd been sent to murder him. And they wouldn't stop there, oh, no; they'd find Beverly and...and defile her somehow, just to make certain that nothing he cared about was left.
Irons looked around the small, softly lit room that had once been his, gazing wistfully at the well-used tools and furniture, the sweet, familiar smells of disinfectant and formaldehyde emanating from the rugged stone walls.
'My Sanctuary. Mine.'
He picked up the handgun that lay on his special cutting table, the VP70 that was still his, and felt a bitter smile curl his lips. His life was over, he knew that now. This whole affair had started with Birkin, and would end here, by his own hand. But not yet.
They would come for him, and he would kill them before he said his final good-byes to Beverly, before he admitted his defeat by taking a bullet. But he would see to it that they understood his suffering first. For every torture he'd endured, the they would pay, the bill settled through flesh and bone and as much pain as he could inflict.
He was going to die, but not alone. And not without hearing the girl scream in agony, creating a voice for the death of his dreams, a voice so clear and true that the echoes would reach even the black hearts of the company executives who had betrayed him. And he would make Mercer watch before ending his pathetic life just as painfully.
X
Irons continued his descent into madness, completely unaware of the trap door in the far corner of his sanctuary being forced open. The old wood giving way as a long, fleshy tentacle slithered out and began making its way across the stone floor, the creature the limb belonged to could sense warm flesh in the cold, stone room and craved for it.
It needed to feed, needed to kill so that it could achieve this goal. And the portly man who was mentally raving to himself would provide the perfect first meal of its recently birthed existence.
The chief of the RPD didn't have a chance as the tentacle rose and speared through his back, severing his spine and piercing through flesh before exploding out of his chest. Blood and bone painting the wall infront of him as he slowly looked down in shock and horror at what was now sticking out of him.
No words escaped his throat, only a bloody gurgle as fluids dribbled from his lips and the newly made hole in his torso. The tentacle then coiled around the man before dragging him toward the trap door, his body prone as he left a crimson smear across the floor, but proved to be unable to fit through the small opening when it reached the far side given his gerth.
This problem was quickly amended when a large, clawed hand reached out of the darkness below and grabbed the nearly dead Chief Irons, and with a loud CRUNCH literally broke the man in half as it pulled him into the depths.
All was silent in the room, save for the shuddering sounds of flesh tearing and wet chewing from below.
A/N:...That ending was a complete spur of the moment thing, but I think it had the predicted impact.
I've thought about switching up one of the pairings in this story, making a Claire/Leon pairing instead of Leon/Ada Claire/?. Don't get me wrong, Ada is both hot and a badass, but her mindgames and proof of being a flight-risk puts a damper on the idea.
I'll let you guys decide that before I go through with the final decision on the matter.
Reviews=Update, keep 'em coming guys!
