A/N: Hello all and welcome once again. After what I consider the fastest bout of updates I have ever managed to pull off, the last chapter of the RE book 'Underworld' is here. And after reviewing the book itself, and my own work leading up to it, I've made a good amount of changes to it that those who have read the story will find most interesting. And for those that haven't, very satisfying...I hope anyway.
Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil.
"Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power." -Lao Tzu
The girl was sick, her skin clammy, her attempts to get away from him pathetic and weak. Reston wished he could get rid of her, just drop her and run, but he didn't dare. She was his ticket through the forces on the surface, surely they wouldn't kill one of their own.
Still, he wished the stupid girl wasn't so ill, she was slowing him down, hardly able to walk, and he had no choice but to continue dragging her along, north through the back corridor, then east at the far corner of the facility, heading for the connecting door to the cell block. From the cells the service elevator was a two-minute walk.
'Almost there, almost done with this impossible, incredible night, not much farther...' he thuought anxiously.
He was an extremely important man, he was a respected member of a group that had more money and power than most countries, he was Jay Wallingford Reston, and here he was being hunted in his own facility, forced to take a hostage, to hold a gun to the head of a sick girl and sneak out like some criminal; it was ludicrous, just unbelievable.
"Too tight," the girl whispered, her voice strangled and rasping.
"Too bad," he answered, continuing to drag her along by her slender throat, her head tucked through his arm; she should have thought of that before she decided to invade the Planet.
He pulled her through the door that led into the cell block, feeling better with each step he took. Each was another step closer to escape, to survival. He would not be gunned down by some pious, self-righteous group of visionless thugs, he'd kill himself first.
Past the empty cells, almost to the door...and the girl stumbled, falling into him so hard that she almost knocked him down. She gripped him tightly, trying to regain her balance, and Reston felt a sudden insane rush of anger at her, of rage.
'Stupid bitch, assassin, spy, I should shoot you right here, now, blow your slack, stupid brain across the walls!'
He regained control before he could pull the trigger, but the loss of composure frightened him a little. It would have been a mistake, and a costly one.
"Do that again and I'll kill you," he said coldly, and kicked at the door that led into the main hall, pleased at the merciless quality of his voice. He sounded strong, like a man who wouldn't hesitate to kill if it served his purposes, which, he was coming to discover, was what he was.
The girl went limp as he started dragging her again. Through the door and into the hall—
Reston's arm was suddenly torqued away from the girls' head, the revolver going off in the air just before something pierced under his arm into his torso. His scream of pain was silenced when he was suddenly airborne, hitting the closest wall hard enough to make darkness darken his vision as he landed on the floor in a heap.
X
Ethan dropped his bloody knife and caught Rebecca before she hit the floor. Kneeling down, cradling her to his chest, he got a good look at her...and felt terror grip his heart.
She looked horrible, skin pale and clammy with dark-purple circles under her eyes, breathing irregular, and with what he could tell from her abnormally warm skin she was running a fever.
"Rebecca? Rebecca, can you hear me?" Ethan pleaded with her. His right hand suddenly felt warm, pulling it from where he had it on her lower back, his blood froze in his veins when he found blood on it.
She'd been shot.
"No no no no no no, Rebecca?! Baby, please wake up! Please!" the traveler begged, his eyes tearing up. Terrified when she didn't respond right away...
...then her eyes opened, slowly, her green gaze clouded with pain but managed to lock with his own. "...E-Ethan?" she asked, her voice weak and raspy.
The smile that spread across Ethan's face could have split it in two as he pressed his forehead down against Rebecca's. "Thank god..." he whispered, kissing her damp temple and thanking every deity in existence.
A low groan broke the tender moment, Ethan turned and looked with sharp eyes as Reston started moving. A pool of blood already having spread around him from where he had been stabbed.
Turning back to his lover, the traveler gently laid her down on the cool floor. "Rest, beautiful." he told her smiling before standing up and turning toward the man with so much hate and rage that it would have reduced the Umbrella man to ashes had he had the ability.
The earlier stab the traveler had done was angled just right to puncture the lower part of the man's lung. A mortal wound that would cause him to bleed out long before he has a chance at medical attention.
But Ethan didn't care about that now, nor did he care about the code book, the bastard had tried to kill him and his friends without a second thought, his sick lab experiments killed an innocent man, and on top of it all, he held the love of his life hostage and brought her pain.
Oh no, nothing else mattered...except to make the one responsible for it all pay.
Reston groaned again, slowly moving up to his hands and knees just before Ethan's foot connected with the side of his head. The force throwing him into the wall and making him cry out in pain again.
Grabbing him by the back of his suit, the traveler pulled him up and threw him across to the other side of the corridor where he connected with the adjacent wall. A crack telling him that a rib or two were broken. "THAT, was for putting us in your fucking testing program!"
Ethan grabbed either side of the man's head, bringing him up and slamming his knee into his face with a sickening crunch. Blood spraying about when his nose shattered from the blow. "THAT, was for Henry Cole."
Reston was whimpering and wheezing desperately trying to stop the blood gushing down his face. Trying to crawl away from the furious teen as he bent down and scooped up the man's dropped revolver and pulling the hammer back while glaring down at him. "And THIS, is for hurting the woman I love!"
The Umbrella higher-up raised his hand in a feeble attempt to stop what was going to happen as the .357 went off with a resounding Bang! Blowing a golfball sized hole through Reston's hand before the slug punched through his left eye and out the back of his head. Bone fragments, blood and chunks of brain matter splattering across the once polished floors as the Planet administrator fell dead.
Turning away from the corpse without even a second glance. Ethan took a deep breath, slipping the revolver into his belt as he went back over to Rebecca.
It was at this point David and Claire came bursting through the door that led to the cell blocks, John and Leon coming around the corner where he had come from before, all with weapons ready as they took in the scene before them.
"...Damn..." John said, looking at Reston's corpse before turning back to Ethan who had scooped Rebecca into his arms in a bridal carry.
The medic opened her eyes again, seeing everyone around her alive and well made her smile. Glad that no one other than herself was hurt. The comfort and warmth of Ethan's arms relaxed her greatly and started to lull her to sleep.
"We have to get out of here, now," Leon said, an urgency in his voice that made Rebecca open her eyes again, the warm and sleepy feelings instantly gone.
"What is it?" David asked, his voice going just as sharp.
John motioned behind him as they all started moving, calling back over his shoulder. "We'll tell you on the way up, but we've gotta go ASAP, no joke."
"Ethan?" Rebecca said, and he looked down at her, throwing her a small smile, but his blue eyes telling a different story.
"We'll be fine," he said, "You just relax, darlin. Start making up stories to tell us about your war wounds."
She'd never seen him look so uneasy, and she started to tell him that she was wounded, not stupid-
A tremendous and thundering crash came from somewhere ahead, a sound like walls being torn down and glass exploding. Like a bull in a china shop.
The traveler spun around, he couldn't see it, but the gasp he heard from Claire and a "Oh, my God," from David. Told him everything he needed to know.
So busy he had been in saving Rebecca that he forgot about what he, John and Leon had unleashed.
In a cloud of dust and rubble, cracked concrete and plaster, Fossil burst into the hall across from the elevator like a vision of hell. Its snout and hands were red, splashes of violent color against its sickly white skin, its impossibly large body filling the corridor a hundred feet in front of them and not nearly far enough.
John and David were firing their M-16s, the clatter of rounds blasting through the long hall. Fossil seemed to brush off the bullets, taking a huge step forward as Leon and Claire started shooting as well, all of them targeting the creature.
The sounds blending together, deafening, Fossil tilting its head to one side as if curious, taking another step into the wall of bullets.
"Fall back!" David shouted, horrified by Fossil's lack of wounds. If they were causing it any pain at all none of them could see it, but it was all they had. Ethan adjusted his hold on Rebecca, drawing his Samurai Edge and firing it one handed trying for the eyes.
He heard Claire screaming something, glanced away long enough to see that she had a grenade out and was handing it to David.
"Go, go, go!" David shouted, John grabbed Leon's arm and they turned and ran, Claire pacing them with the traveler on her six trying to be far enough away to not be hit by the shreds of hot metal from the explosive.
"Fire in the hole!"
BOOM!
Ethan dove, cradling Rebecca tight to his chest and curling around her as he felt the heat of the blast at his back. Someone collided against his side and found it to be Leon, John to his right,. Claire had tried to us her shoulder to cushion the fall, but landing too heavily on her arm instead.
David had thrown himself against her, either on purpose or from the blast, grimacing in pain. Two, three pieces of dark metal stuck to his back, pinning the black fleece to his skin.
Chancing a glance back at the monster...the traveler saw Fossil still standing. Brushing its chest and belly at the blackened patches from the frag grenade. A few shards had pierced its flesh, but from the way it took another step toward them it looked seemingly unfazed.
It opened its maw, exposing strings of some unknown meat stuck between its jagged teeth. Silently, it took another step forward, grinning like the carnivorous beast it was at its next meal.
'...we can't stop it..." Ethan thought realizing the gravity of their situation as Claire, John, David and Leon started firing again. Trying to hit something on it that would make it feel pain. But it was useless...he saw the reports on the computer about what the thing was made of, anything short of C4 wouldn't be enough to put it down.
Looking around frantically for something, anything that could give them even a few seconds to think of a better plan. 'The testing grounds!' his mind screamed. The reinforced doors were thick, they wouldn't stop Fossil, but it would slow it down long enough for them to double around to the elevator.
"The testing area! Reinforced doors!" he shouted to the others. John and Leon got it instantly, David and Claire, both in pain for various reasons only understood reinforced and went with it Covering for a moment longer before they all sprinted toward the same chamber Reston had trapped the three men in before.
Entering the chamber, Ethan passed Rebecca to John who was out of ammo for his rifle. Once they were inside, He turned, saw Leon at the smaller hatch on the south wall, saw the horror in his eyes, the color leached from his face, his trembling hand on the door's lever.
"Locked," he said, swallowing thickly
Ethan felt his mind going blank, the world bleeding away realizing that they had no where to go. Fossil would be on them in seconds and tear them apart, their weapons useless against it.
He looked at the others, everything moving at a crawl. Claire was trying to help Leon get the door open. John and David standing before them, prepared to fight to the bitter end. And then there was Rebecca.
John had sat her down in the corner of the room closest to the door Leon and Claire were trying to get open. The pain in her eyes covered over with fear at how this could be their last moments. Their gazes locking for the briefest of moments before the traveler's mind started working again, this time in overdrive.
Scenarios playing out in his head like a slide show, many not working out in the end, but a couple showing promise for the survival of his friends. The map of the Planet that he had seen before logged to memory and helping him formulate a plan that was crazy and suicidal.
But it was the only one that would ensure that the others made it out of the facility...even if he didn't.
The world came back into focus, a firm conviction on Ethan's face as he snapped a hand out and snatched the remaining grenade from John's belt. The others all looked at him stunned as he spun around and ran for the door leading back out into the corridor.
"Ethan?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" David screamed after him in horror.
Ethan stopped by the door, looking directly at Rebecca with a small smile. "I love you, Rebecca." he said before slamming his fist on the panel causing the reinforced door to slam down and sealing the room.
Looking down the hall and seeing Fossil moments away from his location, the monster now taking quicker strides, no longer interested in a hesitant approach.
Gripping the grenade in his hand, Ethan sprinted directly at the towering BOW. The familiar heat that he had experienced back in Raccoon City flooding his veins, his speed increasing with each step taken until the world blurred around him.
Fossil roared, raising one of its claws and bringing it down to evicerate the teen. But instead speared the concrete floor as the strike was dodged and Ethan slid though the creature's legs. Rolling up to his knees and spinning around in a kneeling position as he pulled the revolver he'd picked up and fired the four remaining slugs into Fossil's back.
The rounds struck the monster's pale flesh. A roar of fury bellowing from its jaws as it turned, eyes zeroing in on the traveler who glared right back with crimson orbs.
"Come on! You hungry?! You'll have to work for it!" he shouted before spinning on his heel and bolting up the corridor. Fossil letting out another roar as it ran after him, the whole facility seeming to rattle with each thunderous footstep made.
Sliding around a couple corners, Ethan saw what he had been expecting. The large hole in the wall where Fossil made its entrance. And if he remembered the layout of the Planet, it had come through the Phase Four testing grounds.
Leaping through the opening, the BOW still hot on his trail, he sprinted through the fake streets he had come through before. Only now most of the buildings had been demolished due to Fossil's escape.
Deep, heavy breathing could be heard roughly seven meters behind him and gaining, along with the crashing of more fake structures being destroyed.
'Need to find...There!' Ethan saw the hatch that would take him into Phase Three. The locks on it engaged but visible.
With grenade in his left hand, he drew his Samurai Edge in the other and took aim while running. Time around him seeming to slow down as he focused on his targets before pulling the trigger.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Each 9mm round fired hit its intended targets, the latches that sealed the entrance to the previous testing area all broke seconds before he was there. Ducking his head down and bracing his arms and shoulders to protect his face as he felt another heated rush run through him.
Crash! The hatch broke and flew into the mountain terrain on the otherside when Ethan ran through it. Rolling across the rocky ground back to his feet, ignoring the pain in his dominant arm that was already dulling as he kept moving.
Another, louder crash reverberated behind him as Fossil went through the entire wall. Powering along the terrain as though it were a flat surface.
The traveler kept moving amongst the crags until he saw the gorge that nearly took John. Pushing his legs and feet, he prayed that the abilities he now had would help him as his foot touched the edge of the long drop and pushed off with all his strength.
He sored, arching over the gorge in a wide jump that would have been impossible for a normal man. The momentum he had built with his speed aiding in the literal leap of faith as he cleared the the twenty foot wide crevice and landed in a hard roll on the other side.
Shaking off the impact of the landing, Ethan looked back to the other side to see Fossil barreling into view. Powerful legs tensing in preparation for a similar jump to reach its prey.
It was exacly what the teen had been hoping it would do.
Pulling the pin on the grenade, Ethan released the trigger starting the timer. Counting down the seconds in his head as the monster leapt into the air. He waited until the last possible second, gauging the range before hurling the grenade straight up at it.
The explosive was an inch from Fossil's snout when it detonated. The blast burning flesh and sending seering hot metal fragments directly into the powerful, and sensative, sensory organ it used to hunt.
A roar/screech pierced the chamber as the monster suddenly reered back mid-leap. Its body pitching back and falling into the gorge, plummeting fifty feet straight down where it landing with an echoing thud that sent rocks of all sizes crumbling everywhere.
Ethan approached the edge he was closest too and peered down. Fossil was getting back up from the fall, but then started to fiercely scratch and claw at the end of its bleeding snout. Barking roars emitting from its jaws in anger and pain as it tried to remove the shrapnel that had damaged its sensory organ.
He had a feeling back when he was looking the BOW's statistics over that it even though it had eyes it must had used another, more effective way to hunt. And if it was anything like the dinosaurs that it resembled, or the reptiles that existed today, then it had to have unique sensors close to the nose to allow it to detect nearby prey.
His plan had worked. And even though the gorge might not hold Fossil very long when it bounced back from what had occurred, he and the others would be long gone.
Turning away from the deep crevice and the rampaging BOW at the bottom, Ethan made his way back to where the others were the others were holed up.
It was time to leave.
X
When Ethan came back, the rest of the team and been relieved and pissed at the same time for the insane stunt he pulled. But they decided to yell at him about it later as they made a mad dash to the elevator before Fossil managed to escape its current confinement.
Piling inside the lift, Leon closed the gate while John slammed his fist on the console. The elevator starting to rise a moment later
All six of them breathed for what felt like the first time in a long while, leaving the near deathtrap that had been the Planet behind them as they approached the surface.
Rebecca was again nestled in Ethan's arms. The traveler not willing to let her go this time for anything short of death.
David was leaning on John, the injuries from the grenade he through starting to take its toll while the two ex-STARS from Maine stood silently while Leon and Claire were together on the other side. Smiling at one another in a way that most couples would have after a long time apart.
The whole ordeal striking something in both of them that would be addressed when they were in a safe place again.
There would be much to discuss, but for now they would enjoy the moment of peace while they had it.
X
Rebecca was falling asleep, the lull of the elevator as soothing as the sound of Ethan's heartbeat. As tired as she was, she lifted one incredibly heavy hand to the flat black book tucked into the waistband of her pants.
Reston hadn't even noticed, apparently hadn't suspected that she could fake a fall with the best of them.
She thought about telling the others, breaking the tired silence in the rising elevator to give them the news, then decided it could wait. They deserved a pleasant surprise.
Rebecca closed her eyes, resting. They still had a long way to go, but the tide was turning in their favor.
A/N: How's that for an ending. Ethan's abilities are growing with each fight he seems to get in, and now he will have to reveal them to the others now that they suspect something. But what is next for our heroes?
And before you start asking about it, this is NOT the end of the arc. It's the beginning of the War Against Umbrella arc which will continue on for a while longer. Code Veronica is next, but there will be a couple of chapters in between to help lead into it as the team prepares. And there will be a lot more surprises in store for them.
It may have been a short chapter, but I'd like to hear from the masses as I keep this train rolling as long as I can.
