A/N: Even with this site being partially down, that didn't stop us from updating all out stuff when it came back online. And I'm no exception, so I'm keeping this note brief and just get right into it.

I don't own Resident Evil.

Chapter 31:

"When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." - Fredrich Neitzsche

The trip back to Irons' office was quiet, nothing living or otherwise getting in their way as they passed the wreckage of the downed 'copter and entered the battle ravaged room.

"Jeez, you weren't kidding when you said you had it out with that thing." said Claire as she observed all of the damage around them.

"Thankfully I was able to avoid it and lead it outside." replied Ethan as he stepped over what remained of the chief's desk and approached the back wall where Nemesis' rocket had blasted a hole clean through, revealing the dimly-lit hallway on the other side.

Sherry approached the hole and peeked inside as well, "There's a secret room back here?" she asked.

The ex-STARS nodded, "The chief had a few secrets of his own." he said before stepping through the opening, helping the young girl through with Claire right behind her. The corridor was very small, and the only other way out was a small elevator at the other end. "This lift should take us down to the sewer entrance."

"How do you know?" asked Claire looking from the elevator to him.

"Me and the others didn't spend months investigating Umbrella from the shadows for nothing." came the reply. "Irons' been taking a paycheck from the corporation for years, he knew about the labs, and what was happening to the city and helped to cover it up. All that plus all of the other shit he's done when he thought no one was paying attention, he's the Fattest goddamn snake in the grass in this town, he can't be trusted."

That being said, he pulled out his Samurai Edge and clicked the safety off as he stepped onto the lift. The girls getting on with him and he bumped his fist against a button on the console, the machinery kicking on and the platform descending a second or two later. Coming to a stop in a dungeon-like hallway.

An icy dampness flowing around them causing Claire to shake with a sudden cold-chill. Ethan had his weapon up and stepped off the lift, his footsteps careful and slow as he made the least amount of noise possible as he scanned the shadows for anything that could be laying in wait.

When he reached the medieval door at the other end he motioned to Claire and Sherry the all clear and they followed him. "In here. Chances are Irons is inside, and given that he was unstable before there's an even higher one that he won't hesitate to attack us." he said quietly and looked at the little girl, "Sherry, I need you to stay out here and wait while Claire and I clear the room."

"But...But you said we should stick together!" replied the girl, her voice raising a bit. "What if something happens while-" she stopped when Ethan knelt down infront of her.

"Nothing will happen, and it'll only take a minute. If the Chief has completely lost it, the last thing that I want to happen is him going after you, or worse. And chances are we'll have to...deal with him if things get bad."

"You mean you might have to kill him..." said the girl. "I'm not a baby, you know. I turned twelve last month."

The traveler smiled and patted her shoulder, "Never said you were, little darlin. And with the way you've managed to avoid trouble all by yourself I can tell your very self-sufficient. But I promised I'd help get you out of this city, and that means keeping you out of danger as much as physically possible. So right now, I need you to be strong and keep out of sight so that we can make sure that the path is clear, can you do that for me?"

Sherry blinked and nodded slowly, "I...I can do that." Ethan smiled at her again as he stood up, weapon in hand as he approached the door again. Claire coming up beside him with her Beretta ready as he grasped the door handle and looked at her.

"On three. You cover left, I got right." he whispered getting a nod from the younger Redfield. "One." he gently twisted the latch until the door clicked open, "Two." he pushed the opening just a crack, the light from inside shining through it. "Three!" Ethan shoved the door open hard and they stormed inside, pistols sweeping every corner of the room.

Nothing moved, the place was devoid of life. Though the interior would have been something Leather-Face would have been happy to play in.

It was as dank and unwelcoming as the corridor behind them, a single naked bulb hung from the ceiling illuminating that chamber. A table sat in the middle of the room, stained and battered with a hacksaw and other cutting instruments scattered on it; a dented metal bucket and mop, slopped against one water-stained wall next to a portable basin with dried red patches inside. Shelves laden with dusty bottles and what looked like human bones, polished and pale, set out like trophies.

Ethan's nose burned when the smell of cleaning and bleaching chemicals hit him. The chief was way beyond mental, he was stone-cold fuck-nuts.

"What the hell is this place?" Claire said with her voice laced with a bit of fear and disgust as she looked around.

"I think it's best if we don't ask." said the traveler as he started moving forward, ensuring that there wasn't a hiding spot Irons was laying in wait in. And after a few seconds, he lowered his weapon when there wasn't a sign of him. "It's clear...for the most part anyway." He went back around the table and saw something on the floor by a corner, bending down, he found a 9mm VP70 laying beside a puddle of blood.

More than that, there was more of it smeared across the floor like something was dragged leading to the adjacent corner where the trap door he was expecting to find was. The wooden covering smashed open and painted crimson along with the walls and floor that surrounded it.

And with the way the blood still dripped, it was fresh. Very Fresh.

"What is it?" asked Claire.

"Blood, and a lot of it." said Ethan picking up the dropped pistol and checking the clip, finding it full, he tucked it into his belt before moving over and checking over the opening to the pit below the torture room. "I gotta feeling we're not going to find Irons alive...or in one piece."

He removed the blood covered trap door and uncovered the opening completely, peering down into the darkness and straining his hearing to pick up anything. "Looks clear, come on, we better get moving."

X

On the rooftop of an apartment building a block away from the police station, USS Delta Team, AKA The Wolfpack, regrouped and were discussing what Spectre had reported in almost an hour ago.

"That kid took out Umbrella's pet?" asked Beltway with a whistle, "Shit, that takes some serious sack. The fact that he's even alive after facing off against that thing is fucking unreal. And we wasted all that time getting that damn parasite into the fucker too."

"The way you described his fighting style was unique." said Four-Eyes as she brought up the file of their target on her wrist computer. "His files say that he's educated in self defense, but nothing relative to what was witnessed."

Spectre shrugged, "I saw what I saw, and after our last encounter it's safe to say he's too skilled to be a simple cop. Though if command is correct about him surviving the two Arklay facilities, maybe there is more to him than we first believed."

Vector leaned against a nearby wall, flipping his combat knife between his fingers as he leered down the street at the precinct. "Doesn't change the fact that we gotta deal with him." he looked over at Lupo who had yet to say a word as she looked out over the street, a few undead milling around amongst various pieces of wreckage in their never ending search for flesh.

Bertha was beside her, the teams medic wrapping her arm with a fresh bandage after the fight at city hall. Their mission had almost been a success, but the building came under attack by a group of US marines led by some special ops group that rivaled them in terms of skill.

The resulting firefight had caused the infected to swarm the building turning it into a free for all. And in the confusion, the enemy managed to make off with valuable intel about Umbrella's operations in Raccoon City they didn't get a chance to dispose of. Command had been pissed beyond reason.

"Delta Team, come in." they all perked up when their superiour spoke over the radio link.

"Pack mother here, go ahead." replied Lupo.

"We received your intel regarding Mercer. It was...troubling, to say the least. Our handlers have lost connection with the Nemesis and are attempting to reestablish, but that could take time that we do not have at the moment."

"If he is inside of the Raccoon City police department, then he is more than likely going to use the sewer tunnels as a means of escape given the intel he must have gathered. The tunnel system runs straight through the main Umbrella facility where Birkin had been working."

"The main access point of the facility is not far from your location, you need to head him off before he locates a way out of the city. Ethan Mercer must not leave with the knowledge he possesses, if you are unable to capture him... then you are to terminate him along with anyone else he has managed to rally with him."

Lupo nodded, "Copy, Command. Wolfpack out." she looked back at her team who were now all standing and ready to go. "Lets go find this kid." with that she led them toward the stairs.

X

Mr. Irons had been a very bad man, a sick man. Sherry supposed she'd known it all along on some level, but seeing his secret torture chamber, like some made doctor's workshop, and Ethan's words about how unstable the man was, made it a lot more real.

The room was just gross, bones and bottles and smell even worse than the zombies. Perhaps that was why seeing the shape of the floor, all of the blood that was wet and shining under the lone light above, didn't bother her as much as Claire seemed to believe it would.

After being alone this whole time, she had seen many horrible things and was used to it. If anything, it made her curious about what had happened. Did he get eaten? Torn to pieces?

A hand on her shoulder brought her out of her thoughts, Ethan steering her away toward the trap door in the corner where Claire was waiting. Neither of them told her about what could have happened, but she had been safe to assume that Mr. Irons had died in some horrible way before they had gotten there.

Sherry thought about saying that she didn't care that the police chief was dead, but she didn't want to appear rude or disrespectful. And besides, Claire and Ethan were doing their best to take care of her, and she didn't mind that in the slightest.

Ethan went down into the hole first, calling up to them a second later when it was safe to come down. Sherry stepped carefully onto the metal rungs, a sliver of excitement running through her the deeper down she went. They were leaving the RPD, for the first time in days felt like she was closer to escaping the city of nightmares.

The older male helped her down to the metal floor at the bottom on the last couple of steps when she reached the bottom, Claire coming down shortly after her. Sherry looked around with wide eyes. "Wow," she said, her voice echoing back from the shadows after bouncing off the strange walls.

"Something different, huh?" said Ethan taking out his shotgun, "Come on."

They started walking, his and Claires boots clanking out echoes with Sherry following closely, still looking around in amazement. It was like a bad guy's lair in a spy movie, some factory passage inside of a mountain or something. They were on a catwalk surrounded by rails, a murky green light coming up through the grate floor from somewhere far below and although there was rough brick to their right, to the left was an actual cave wall. She could see giant, dripping pillars of stone that stretched off into the dark, natural formations of rock that were stained green by the weak and ghostly light.

Sherry wrinkled her nose. As interesting as it was, it smelled pretty rotten. And she didn't like the way that sound carried in the chill air, making everything seem hollow. "What do you think this place is?" she asked softly.

"I'm not sure. Between the smell and location, I'd say we're close to a sewage treatment plant." said Claire with a shake of her head.

Ethan said nothing, instead approaching a turn in the walkway and then the ladder that was visible at the other end that led upward. He peered into the opening above, shotgun aimed at it before lowering the weapon.

"I'll head up first, you two come up behind me when I give the all clear." he said getting a nod from both of them as he slung the shotgun over his shoulder and started climbing up. Disappearing through the opening, Sherry started climbing and stayed in the middle of the ladder until Ethan's hand reached down and helped her up the rest of the way, Claire coming up soon after.

The new place they were standing in was much brighter than the cave they had been in. A short cement hallway with a motionless river of sludge water on the left that ran off in either direction, one end through a low, rounded tunnel, the other stopped by a big metal door, all of it overlooked by a kind of balcony.

The smell wasn't as bad as before, but it was easy to tell that they were still in the sewage plant. But one of the things Sherry noticed was he lack of stairs or ladders...which meant.

"Do...Do we have too?" she asked scrunching up her face in disgust as she watched Ethan climb down into the gross water that went up almost to his knees."

"I'm afraid so, little darlin." the ex-STARS said with a sad smile, "Look on the bright side, what monster in their right mind would come after us in this crap?" Sherry smiled, and she could see Claire shaking her head with a smile of her own.

'They're trying to shield me from how bad things really are...' the girl thought to herself.

Sherry liked that, so much so that she was already dreading the moment when Claire and Ethan would leave her for good. Eventually, she would; they had lives somewhere else, their own friends and family, and once they got out of Raccoon, they would go back to wherever they came from and Sherry would be alone again. Even if her parents were okay, she would be alone...and though she wanted very much for them to be safe and well, she wasn't looking forward to the end of her time with Ethan and Claire.

She was only twelve, but she'd known for a couple of years that her family was different from most. The other kids at school had parents who spent time with them, had birthday parties and went on camping trips, and had brothers and sisters and pets. She'd never had any of those things. She knew that her parents meant well, and that they loved her, but sometimes, she felt like no matter how quiet and good and self-sufficient she was, she was still in their way...

"You ready for this?" Claire's soft, pretty voice brought her back to the situation, reminding her that she needed to be more alert. Sherry nodded, and Claire stepped down into the dark, dirty water, reaching back to help her while Ethan looked out for trouble.

The water was cold and greasy, and came up to Sherry's knees; it was gross, but not puking bad. Ethan motioned toward the big metal door to their left with his gun, "We're going to have to-"

A loud noise from the balcony cut him off, and they both looked up, Sherry instinctively moving closer to Claire as the noise came again. It sounded like footsteps, but too slow and too loud to be normal...

...And Sherry saw a man in a long, dark coat walk into view, and felt her mouth go dry with fear. He was a giant, maybe as tall as ten feet, and his bald skull gleamed as white as a dead fish belly. She couldn't see him clearly because of the angle, but she could see enough - and she could feel that he was bad, that there was something very wrong and bad about him.

It radiated off of him like sickness.

"Claire? Ethan?" she squeaked, her voice breaking as the giant man stalked across the balcony, as he started to turn toward them, slowly, so slowly, and Sherry didn't want to see his face, didn't want to see the face of a man that could frighten her so deeply by just walking onto a balcony...

X

The T-103 class Tyrant was more human looking than any of the previous classes before it, save for the extremely pale skin and the eight foot height. Though this knowledge didn't do much for Ethan's thoughts as he leveled his shotgun in the direction where the hulk was currently coming toward them.

If it was anything like the others, then chances are they wouldn't stand much of a chance against it with the weapons they had on them.

'Need to get out of here.' he thought looking toward the metal door on the other side of the pool of sludge they were standing in. "Get to the door." he said to the girls as he kept the weapon trained on the Tyrant coming toward them.

Claire took off toward the exit, holding Sherry's hand as they reached the end. The woman slamming her hand on the panel beside it causing the door to slide open vertically and running inside.

Ethan spun around and ran after them, the T-103 continuing the low, methodical stomping as it came after them. Finding another panel inside the opening and slamming his fist against it and sealing it up again. Plunging the three of them into darkness.

"Stay quiet and don't move." the traveler whispered as he pressed himself against the metal door. Seconds passed with nothing happening as he leaned away, switching weapons and clicking on the light of his HK5, the beam cutting through the heavy darkness around them.

Claire and Sherry were standing off to the side, the young Redfield holding the girl's hand with her Beretta in the other. "Well...we're not going back that way." he said getting uneasy smiles from the other two.

They started moving down the dark corridor, the light from the ex-STARS' weapon lighting the way as they sloshed through the water at their feet, the only other illumination coming from a dim bulb several meters down from where they were standing. Nothing moved in the pitch blackness, but they still remained on alert incase something else decided to come out of hiding.

All of Ethan's senses were on high alert, straining to pick up anything as he led the girls farther inside.

Clink.

A sharp metallic sound echoed through the corridor making them tense, the water around them suddenly starting move and pull back toward where they had come from. A loud yelp was heard followed quickly by a splash.

"SHERRY!" Claire screamed. Ethan spun around, catching the little girl laying in the water struggling as she was sucked in the direction the water was now flowing. Machine gun dropping and dangling from the strap around his shoulders as he ran as fast as the water would allow after her, throwing himself forward and grabbing her small hand just before she disappeared into an open grate in the side wall.

Keeping his head above the nasty water, Ethan gripped Sherry as tight as he could, his other arm bracing against the wall beside the grate as he fought against the current that was now trying to pull them both in. But with the size of the opening, he wouldn't be able to fit inside, but the girl would be lost to only god knew where.

Sherry's terrified blue eyes locked with his own, both her hands gripping onto his for dear life as she tried her best to stay above water as well. The oily water making it harder and harder to hold on, but the traveler refused to let go as he tried to pull her out, Claire coming up behind him and gripping the back of his vest tightly trying to help in any way that she could.

Then it happened.

When Ethan went to pull her the rest of the way out, his hand slipped out of hers. The girl disappearing beneath the current as the grate shut behind her as he tried to scramble and catch her again.

"NO!" the ex-STARS shouted slamming his fist against the sealed opening. "Fuck! FUCK!" he bellowed with another hit to the metal, putting a dent in the bars that had blocked him off.

"We have to find her!" exclaimed Claire, trying to overcome what had just happened, "She could be anywhere, and who the hell knows what's running around down here!"

Ethan stood up, water dripping off his form as he unslung his HK5 again with his face a mask of stone. "We will find her." he said with his tone now cold and calculating. "That off-shoot heads down to the lower levels, we'll follow the path leading to where it could have taken her."

Without another word they started jogging in the direction that would hopefully lead them to Sherry. Before something else got to her first.

X

Annette no longer doubted that her husband had escaped the laboratory levels. Not only were half of the facility entrances unsealed, the fences that surrounded the factory had been breached and the sewer tunnels, the tunnels that should have been mostly empty, were crawling with human carriers that had to have come from outside.

Even as advanced as they'd been in terms of cellular deterioration, she'd had to shoot down five of them just to clear a path from the tram to the sewage operations room.

After what seemed an eternity of trudging through the semi-treated, inky waters of the labyrinthian system, she came to the platform she'd been looking for. Annette stepped up into the concrete tunnel, gazing warily at the closed door a few meters in front of her. Closed and undamaged, a good sign, but what if he'd gone through before he'd lost all trace of human intelligence, before he'd grown into an unthinking, violent animal? Even now, he might still retain something resembling memory; the truth was, she didn't know. The G-Virus hadn't been tested on humans yet...

...and if he did go through? If he made it to the police station?

No. She couldn't, wouldn't entertain the possibility. Considering what she did know about the progressive chemophysiologic changes, what he would be capable of doing if the virus worked the way it was supposed to. The thought of him getting to an uninfected population...well, it was unthinkable.

'The station is safe,' she thought firmly. 'Irons may be an incompetent ass, but his cops aren't. Wherever William is, he couldn't have gotten past them.'

She couldn't afford to believe anything else; Sherry was there, if she'd done what she was supposed to do and besides being her own flesh and blood, which, she reminded herself, was reason enough, Sherry played a very important role in her future plans.

Annette leaned against one cold and sweating wall, aware that time was running out but simply unable to go on without resting for a moment. She'd been counting on the encoded territorial instinct to keep him close to the lab, and had been so sure that she would find him, that her live, human scent would lure him to her. But she was almost at the end of the contained area, and all she'd found were a dozen ways in which he could have escaped.

'And Umbrella will be here soon. I have to get back, I have to activate the fail-safe before they can stop me.'

William deserved to be at peace, but beyond that, destroying the creature that had once been her husband would eradicate all of her doubts about the success of her objective. What if she blew the lab and escaped, only to find that Umbrella had captured him? All of her struggles, all of his work, for nothing.

Annette closed her eyes, wishing that there was an easy way to make the decision that had to be made. The fact was, William's death simply wasn't as crucial as getting rid of the lab. And there was a good chance that they wouldn't find him, that they weren't even aware of his transformation...

'And it's not as though I have a choice. He's not here, he's not anywhere.' she thought weakly.

She pushed away from the wall, walking slowly toward the door. She would check the last few tunnels, perhaps see if the conference rooms showed any sign of damage and then she would go back. Go back and finish what Umbrella had started.

Annette pushed the door open...and heard footsteps, echoing through the lonely corridor from somewhere up ahead; the hall was shaped like a "T," the sounds melting into themselves, making it impossible to tell from which direction they were coming, but they were the strong, sure steps of an uninfected human, perhaps more than one, and that could only mean one thing.

Umbrella. They've finally come.

Rage boiled up through her, making her hands shake, her lips curl back from gritted teeth. It had to be them, it had to be one of their murdering spies; besides Irons and a few of the city officials, only Umbrella knew that these tunnels were still in use and that they led to the underground facility. The possibility that it was some innocent survivor of the spill didn't cross her mind, and neither did running; she raised the handgun and waited for the heartless, murdering bastard to appear.

A figure stepped into sight, a woman in red, and Annette fired...

Bam! She was trembling, screaming inside, and the shot went high. It ricocheted off the cement wall with a whining, zipping sound, and the woman was raising a weapon of her own. Annette fired again, but suddenly there was another one, a blurred, flying shape that leapt in front of the woman, knocking her out of the way, all of it happening at once...

And Annette heard the cry of pain, a man's cry, and felt a burst of roaring triumph. 'Got him, I got him!' she thought in elation.

But there could be more, she hadn't hit the woman and they were trained killers.

Annette turned and ran, her dirty lab coat flying, her wet shoes slapping against the cement. She had to get back to the lab, fast. Time had run out.

X

Ada Wong had her weapon out as she dropped down beside the cop that had been helping her all this time.

Leon Kennedy slumped against the wall on the floor, blood seeping through the fingers of his hand, pressed to his left armpit. "Leon?" she asked worried as she helped check his injury.

"I'm...okay," he gasped, and although his face was pale, his eyes clouded with suffering, she thought he was probably right. It undoubtedly hurt like a son of a bitch, but it wouldn't, shouldn't kill him.

'It would have killed me, Leon saved my life...' she thought in shock at the event that had transpired. Even though she had her mistrust of him in the beginning, and did her best to get separated from him, he still took a bullet for her.

And on the tail of that thought, Annette Birkin. Still alive.

"That woman," she blurted, the guilt hitting her even as she turned to run. "I have to talk to her."

Ada took off, sprinting around the corner and down the hall, the door at the end standing open. Leon would live, he would be fine, and if she could catch up to Annette, this whole goddamn nightmare would be over. She'd studied the file photos, she knew it was Birkin's wife and if, by chance, the woman wasn't carrying a sample, she'd sure as hell know where one was.

She ran through the door and stopped short of jumping into yet another water-filled tunnel, pausing just long enough to listen, to scan the surface of the rippling murk. No splashing sounds, and there were still lapping waves to the left...

...and a ladder bolted to the wall, leading up to a fan shaft that led to operations.

Ada plunged into the water and made for the ladder. There was a hallway farther along, but it was a dead end; Annette would surely have opted for escape. She quickly scaled the metal rungs, refusing to let herself think about Leon and the state he was left in as she peered through the shaft and saw that it was clear.

Mrs. Doctor was probably still running, but Ada wasn't going to walk into another bullet.

Through the shaft, a quick peek past the dead, massive blades of the vent fan at the far end, and back down another ladder. The giant two-story chamber that housed the sewage-treatment machines was empty of life, as cold and industrial and strewn with equipment as she'd expected. There was a hydraulic bridge that spanned the room, raised to the level she'd exited on - which meant that Annette must have gone down via the west ladder, the only other way out.

Ada flipped through her mental maps as she started across the bridge, remembering that it went down into one of the treatment center's dumping grounds...

"Drop it, you bitch!"

Behind her. Ada halted, mentally cursing as for the second time she'd screwed up, badly, in as many minutes, but there was no way she was going to obey Annette's hysterical command. The woman's aim was for shit and Ada tensed, preparing to drop, to spin and fire...

Barn-ping! The shot hit the floor next to Ada's right foot, glancing off the rusting bridge. Annette had her.

Ada dropped the Beretta, raising her hands slowly, turning to face the scientist. 'Jesus, I deserve to die for this...' she said seeing her opposition.

Annette Birkin walked toward her, a Browning nine-millimeter trembling wildly in one outstretched hand. Ada winced inwardly at the sight of that shaking gun, but saw a possible opportunity as Annette moved closer, finally coming to a stop less than ten feet in front of her.

'Too close. Too close, and she's right on the edge of a total collapse, isn't she?' she calculated mentally.

"Who are you? What's your name?!" the other woman exclaimed loudly.

Ada swallowed heavily, putting a stutter into her voice. "A-Ada, Ada Wong. Please don't shoot, please, I haven't done anything."

Annette frowned, backing up a step. "Ada...Wong. I know that name. Ada, that was John's girlfriend's name..."

Ada's mouth dropped open. "Yes, John Howe! But ... how did you know? Do you know where he is?"

The disheveled scientist glared at her. "I know because John worked with my husband, William. You've heard of him, of course, William Birkin, the man responsible for the creation of the T-Virus."

Annette fairly glowed with a mix of pride and despair as she spoke, giving Ada hope; it was a weakness that she could use. Ada had read the files on William Birkin, read about his steady climb through Umbrella's hierarchy, the advances in virology and genetic sequencing... and about the scientific ambition that had made him a veritable sociopath. It looked as though his wife was operating on a similar plane, which meant that the woman would have no problem pulling the trigger.

'Play it dumb, and don't give her a reason to doubt it.'

"T-Virus? What's..." Ada blinked, then widened her eyes. "Doctor Birkin? Wait, the Doctor Birkin, the biochemist?"

She saw a flash of pleasure cross Annette's face, but then it was gone, and there was only despair. Despair and the flickering of bitter madness, deep in her bloodshot eyes.

"John Howe is dead," she said coldly, "he died three months ago at the Spencer estate. My condolences, but then, you're about to join him, aren't you? You're not going to take the G-Virus away from me, you can't have it!"

Ada started to shake all over. "G-Virus? Please, I don't know what you're talking about!"

"You know," Annette snarled. "Umbrella sent you to steal it, you can't lie to me! William's dead to me now, Umbrella took him from me, they forced him to use it! They forced him..."

She trailed off, her gaze suddenly far away. Ada Tensed, but then Annette was back, her eyes welling up with tears, the weapon pointed at Ada's face.

"A week ago, they came," she whispered. "They came to take it, and they shot my William when he wouldn't give them the samples. They took the case, they took all of the finals, both series - except for the one that he managed to keep, the G-Virus..."

Annette's voice raised into a shout suddenly, a pathetic and somehow pleading shout. "He was dying, don't you see? He didn't have any choice!"

Ada understood. She understood all of it. "He injected himself, didn't he?"

The scientist nodded, her limp blond hair falling across her eyes, her voice a whisper again. "It revitalizes cellular function. It...It changed him. I didn't see what he did, but I saw the bodies of the men who tried to kill him, afterwards...and I heard the screams."

Ada took a step closer, reaching out as if to comfort her, her own features set into a mask of sympathy, but Annette thrust the gun at her again. Even in her sorrow, she wasn't going to let Ada get any closer.

But it's almost close enough...

"I'm so sorry," Ada said, lowering her arms. "So the G-Virus, it leaked, it changed all of Raccoon..."

Annette shook her head. "No. When the Umbrella assassins were stopped, the case was broken. The T-Virus leaked, the lab workers hit by the airborne were contained, but there were rats, you see. Rats in the sewers..."

She paused, her lips trembling. "...unless William, my sweet William has started to reproduce. Implanting embryos, replicating...it shouldn't be time for that yet, but I..." She broke off, her eyes narrowing, the madness sweeping over her again as visibly as a crashing wave.

High color flared in her pale cheeks, her red-rimmed eyes glossy with paranoia.

Get ready...

"You can't have it!" Annette screamed, spittle flying from her cracked lips. "He gave his life to keep it from you, you're a spy and you can't have it..."

Ada ducked and leapt, pistoning both of her arms beneath Annette's, shoving the gun up and away from both of them. The Browning discharged, sending a round clanging off the ceiling as they fought for control of the weapon. Annette was physically weaker, but she was driven by demons of hatred and loss, the edge of insanity lending her strength, but no sense.

Ada let go of the gun suddenly and Annette stumbled, not prepared for the unexpected move. She crashed against the railing of the bridge and Ada charged, driving her elbow into Annette's lower belly, hitting her beneath her center of balance.

Annette half-turned, her mouth an open darkness of surprise, her arms pinwheeling for balance - and she plummeted over the railing, silently, not a sound until the dull thump as her body hit the floor some twenty feet below.

"Shit," Ada hissed, stepping to the rail and looking down. She lay there, facedown and motionless, the gun still clenched in one thin white hand.

That's just great. Walk into an ambush, not once but twice for hell's sake, then kill the one crazy bitch who can tell you where the samples are...

A low moan floated up from Annette Birkin's body and she moved, hunching her back, trying to roll onto her side.

'Shit shit shit!' Ada mentally cursed over and over as she turned and ran across the bridge, scooping up the Beretta as she hurried for what looked like a control panel next to the fan shaft ladder. She'd have to lower the bridge, get to Annette before she could crawl away...

...except the panel was for the fan, and as another painful moan, a slightly louder moan, echoed up through the chamber, Ada knew she didn't have much time.

'The dump, I can go through the dump, circle back around through one of the tunnels.'

Even as she thought it, she was jogging for the west ladder, hoping that the pitiful scientist was injured enough to stay down for a minute or two. There was a small balcony at the end of the bridge that looked over the dump, and the metal ladder hung down from an opening at the far right. Ada lowered herself down as quickly as she could, dropping the last several feet onto a cement landing.

The dumping area was a large boxy room, the walls heaped with industrial debris - smashed crates, rusting pipes, wire-encrusted panels, and rotting card-board. She stepped off the landing and into almost three feet of black sludge, the cold, gooey muck rising up to her thighs. She didn't care, she only wanted to get to the lady Birkin, to bring an end to her time in Raccoon...

...Except something moved. Beneath the opaque and stinking liquid, something big moved. Ada saw what might have been a reptilian spine slice through the murk in front of her, saw and heard a stack of boards topple into the water some ten feet away in the same instant.

"You gotta be kidding me..." she said outloud. Whatever it was, it was big enough to change her mind about the hurry she was in to get to Annette. Ada backed to the platform and boosted herself up, never taking her gaze from the indeterminate shape as it curled back through the lapping sludge.

Rising up in a sudden, violent spray of darkness, coming straight at her. Ada raised the Beretta and started to fire.

X

It had taken a while to get out of the sewage tunnels, running into a couple of zombies along the way but nothing neither Ethan or Claire could handle. Though the ex-STARS startled the woman when instead of shooting the undead, he would instead pull out his knife and stab them in the head.

He had said he was saving ammo doing it this way, but in truth he was working out his frusteration at losing Sherry. His mind working in overdrive at how the girl was lost to them when he vowed to protect her.

Now she was lone somewhere in the bowels of Raccoon City, with her mutated father hunting for her. He needed to find Sherry before that monster did, before she got implanted with a G-Embryo.

"Ethan." the traveler blinked at Claire when she had spoken, lost in his thoughts as they stood in a conference room they had entered after leaving the tunnels, both of them with fetid water dripping from their clothes.

"I'm fine." he said with a shake of his head as he approached a tiny elevator that was in the corner that led into the floor. A hand on his shoulder stopped him and he turned at the concerned eyes that looked back. She was just as anxious as he was at finding Sherry, feeling helpless as she was sucked into the drainage pipe and into the unknown.

"I may not have known you long, but I can tell that you're anything but 'fine'." she said after a moment.

Ethan sighed, "Sorry, I'm used to calculating all possibilities and all variables in situations like this. But when something goes wrong that I didn't expect it makes me feel lost before I can get my head on straight again. And knowing that Sherry's out there alone after I promised to protect her..." he trailed off.

"I'm afraid for her two, but we can't afford to lock ourselves out from one another." replied Claire. "Don't forget, we're in this together."

Nodding, the ex-STARS stepped onto the elevator and looked over the controls. "This should take us farther down, but who knows what could be waiting for us, so be ready." Claire nodded back at him and took out her shotgun as he hit the switch.

The one-man lift was a tight fit for the two of them, but they managed as a hidden motor whirrled to life and the platform descended, inching down through the floor very slowly. Ethan gritting his teeth wanting to reach the bottom quickly so they could continue their search.

After what felt like hours, the lift stopped in another concrete corridor that had another lift at the other end and was intersected by a second hall about forty feet away, and next to the junction was a body propped up against one of the cement walls, wearing a dark-blue RPD uniform and rig with a head of brown hair.

"Leon!" Claire shouted, jumping down before the lift hit the floor and ran toward the crumpled figure. It was Leon, and he wasn't moving, unconscious thankfully since they could see him breathing, and as she crouched in front of him, his eyes flickered open. His hand was high on his left arm, his fingers wet with blood.

"Claire?" His blue eyes seemed clear, tired but aware.

"Leon! What happened, are you okay?" she asked concerned as she looked him over, Ethan coming up behind her.

"I got shot, must've blacked out for a minute..." he replied breathing heavily. He carefully took his hand away, exposing a small ragged hole just above his armpit, oozing red. It looked painful, but at least it wasn't gushing.

Wincing, Leon pulled the shredded fabric of his uniform over the hole and put his hand back over it. "Hurts like all hell, but I think I'll survive." he looked up and saw Ethan standing there, "W-Who are you?"

"Ethan Mercer, ex-Special Tactics And Rescue Service. You're the new rookie, Leon Kennedy, right?" the man nodded slowly. "Not a good first day on the job, huh?"

Leon shook his head and winced, "No...not really. Ada, where's Ada?" he asked the last part almost frantically, struggling to push himself away from the wall. With a soft groan, he fell back, obviously in no shape to move.

"Lie still, just rest for a minute," Claire said. "Who's Ada?"

"I met her at the station," he said. "I couldn't find you, and we heard that you can get out of Raccoon through the sewers. The city's not safe, there was some kind of a leak at the Umbrella lab, and Ada wanted to leave right away. Somebody shot at us, and I got hit, Ada went after the shooter, down that hall, she said it was a woman..."

He shook his head as if to clear it, then frowned up at them. "I have to find her. I don't know how long I was out, but not more than a couple of minutes, she can't have gone far..."

He started to sit forward again and Claire stopped him, pushing him back gently. "You're in no shape to keep moving." said Ethan after getting a good look at his injury. "We'll go. We were with a little girl not long ago, and she's lost somewhere in the sewers. We'll find both of them."

Leon hesitated, then nodded, resigning himself to his injury. "How's your ammo?"

"We're good, Ethan raided the armory at the police station before we came down here." said Claire.

Leon nodded again, his head rolling back tiredly. "Okay, that's good. I should be able to follow you in a few minutes...be careful, alright? And good luck."

Claire stood up beside Ethan, wishing that they had more time to explain everything. Leon had closed his eyes, slipping back into unconsciousness, the duo turned and started down the intersecting hall.

The traveler's mind started running on all pistons again, he knew Ada Wong, and he knew the woman who had shot Leon, but most of all, he knew that said woman wasn't far away.

And he had some strong words for Sherry's mother

A/N: I know I haven't revealed anything involving Leon's part in the story, which was way I added his and Ada's point of view in this chapter and given them a more active roll in this installment. With the Wolfpack now back on the hunt, and Mr. X making an appearance, the odds are starting to stack against Ethan, and with Sherry now MIA his mind is all over the place as he tries to help the others escape the madness.

That's all for now, see you guys next time!