Chapter 11
-Return of the Ashfords-
When they went through the doors at the top of the stairs, Chris knew exactly where they were. It had been ten years, but he could never forget a place such as the Ashford manor. The building had been designed to look similar to the Trevor mansion and it really did appear a lot like the mansion which had once been located near the Arklay mountains.
"Ashford manor..." Chris said in awe. "We're in Antarctica?"
"Unlikely." Wesker input. "Someone brought this mansion to us."
"How could anyone bring a building somewhere?" Nathan asked with a frown.
"They can't. It's not possible." Bennet dictated firmly.
Wesker eyed the man. "Do you have a better explanation for our current predicament?"
"No. But it's just not plausible for a person to be capable of moving buildings."
"The last few years I have learned a lot of things are possible." Mohinder said to Noah Bennet. "I learned there were people who could heal themselves, people who could fly..."
"It's not the same." Bennet argued.
"You guys said you didn't know how you came to be in the Trevor mansion, right?" Chris asked them.
The heroes looked at Chris with slightly piqued interest.
"That's right." Noah confirmed.
"So it's possible whomever is making these places appear could be the one who brought all of you to the mansion." Chris pondered.
Noah seemed reluctant to accept such a thing but he accepted it nonetheless. "It's possible I suppose."
"But how?" Mohinder questioned. "More importantly, perhaps, why?"
"Come back here you big sissy!" Eva's voice bellowed.
The group standing in the foyer turned as one towards the source of the yell. The sniper in the red dress jacket from earlier came running through the double doors on their right. The man in the red suit, Alfred, ran right past them and up the stairs. Eva and Sheva came bursting through the doors seconds later. Sheva halted to stand beside Chris when she saw them but Eva headed for the steps. She came to an abrupt stop herself when Alfred stopped running once he reached the top of the staircase. Instead of running anymore, he turned around to face the group and sneered cockily down at Eva.
"Now you're going to pay for hitting me!" Alfred declared.
Eva narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh yeah? Then stop running and come fight me."
"Hahahahahahaha," came the cold laugh of a female. "Do not be so eager to die."
A woman dressed in a long purple dress, wearing white gloves halfway up her arms, came into view. She had obvious beauty which was slightly marred by her cold blue eyes that looked down at them from the balcony. The woman's blonde hair fell down her back and was the exact color as her brother's.
"Alexia!" Chris exclaimed. He ran forward to stand by Eva and drew his gun.
The blonde haired woman peered down at him, her fingers subconsciously stroking a red brooch that she wore around her neck. Her icy gaze examined him for a moment before a wicked smile drew across her lips.
"Ah, the other sibling. You and your sister destroyed my plans for this world. I will destroy you."
Following her promise, she motioned to Alfred. "Fetch the Redfield girl."
Alfred nodded and ran off to do her bidding, disappearing behind a wooden door on the right.
Chris's eyes widened in alarm at Alexia's words. "What are you talking about?!"
He didn't have long to wait. Alfred returned, dragging a woman with him by the arm. The woman appeared to be in her late 20's with reddish brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and blue eyes. She wore tight blue jeans, a long sleeve pink shirt, and a white jean jacket over her shirt. Upon entering the room, she spotted her brother amongst the group gathered at the bottom of the stairs.
"Chris!" she yelled and attempted to run to him.
Alfred yanked her back by the ponytail and she cried out in pain. He dragged her over to stand by Alexia, holding onto her by the arm and hair. Chris stared up at his sister in horror and fear.
"Claire! Don't you touch her!" Chris seethed, glaring at the twins.
"Taking hostages, Alexia? My, how you've lowered yourself. I thought the Ashford family prided itself on honor. Do you consider this honorable?" Wesker ridiculed as he came to stand beside his daughter and Chris.
Alexia shifted her gaze to Wesker and a sly smile crossed her lips. "You again... Peculiar to see you standing beside a Redfield. Perhaps it is you who has lost their way..."
They stared at each other, each with their own manipulative smiles on their faces. He no longer visibly showed his current weakened condition from the extra dose of serum, but Alexia could see it with her inhuman senses.
"Perhaps you are forced to side with such weak creatures because you yourself are too powerless. I told you before when you came for my virus, you are not worthy of its power." Alexia informed Wesker shrewdly.
"Your research on the T-Veronica virus proved to be primarily useless so don't get too prideful, Alexia." Wesker retorted briskly.
Alexia's eyes narrowed and she lowered her hand from her expensive looking brooch. Her already cold eyes seemed to turn to ice as she stared daggers at the tyrant.
"I came for the elder Redfield sibling, but perhaps I shall first remove you from this earth. Witness the power of the T-Veronica virus. I remember the last time you saw it, you fled. You will not escape this time."
With those words, Alexia began to descend the staircase and Chris felt like it was total deja vu. The transformation was happening exactly as it did ten years ago when he first saw it happen. The woman came down the stairs and as she did, her body became engulfed in bright flames. Her clothes burned away, the clasp of her brooch breaking and falling onto the steps. But even as her pale white skin was exposed, it hardened and became stone. Her blonde hair blew behind her and froze as it turned to the same rocky texture as the rest of her body. Her blue eyes began to glow with a fiery power and they became a sickly yellow-gold color. Strange veins of some sort began to spread from her hair to her arm. Around her back they wrapped so that her entire right arm and her left hip and leg were covered in them.
She now resembled the very monster that she was inside. How poetic. Chris thought bitterly to himself. He had already dealt with this bitch once and it hadn't exactly been a picnic. Unfortunately, it didn't look like he had a choice in this. Alexia was dangerously close to reaching the bottom of the stairs and though she was coming to kill Wesker, once he was dead she would most certainly come after the rest of them. Alexia desired for all of humanity to become her slaves. You couldn't get much crazier than that.
"You guys know her?" Bennet asked, glancing sideways at Chris and then Wesker. "What do you think? Can we beat her?"
Noah had his gun out and ready to use but he seemed quite nervous after the transformation he had just witnessed. Chris took his magnum out and pointed it at Alexia.
"Yeah I know her and as for what I think..." Chris fired three magnum rounds into Alexia's face.
Alexia appeared vaguely annoyed by the bullets, but other than that she was unhurt by the powerful rounds.
"Claire! Run!" Chris called out to his sister.
Claire did run. Elbowing Alfred in the face, she took off for the stairs. Hearing Alfred cry out in surprised pain, Alexia slowly turned her attention onto Claire.
"The rest of you get out of here!" Chris ordered and turned back to Alexia who was advancing towards his sister.
Chris hesitated to fire since his sister was so close and then Wesker was running past him in a blur. The tyrant smashed a fist against Alexia's face and the woman simply turned and waved an arm in his direction. Blood spurted from her wrist, onto the floor, and the blood self-combusted into fire within seconds. Wesker flipped away to avoid the flames and Eva sprang into action. The girl was definitely acrobatic. She dove to avoid flames and then jumped onto the railing, running up it and then leaping off, attacking Alexia with a twisting kick. The girl wasn't even using a weapon as she fought the powerful woman. Chris wanted to take this time to retrieve his sister but he was forced to fling himself away from the stairs when fire nearly erupted beneath his feet. Lifting his head, he saw his sister standing by the doorway waiting for him.
"Chris, come on!" she shouted.
He scrambled quickly to his feet and yelled for Wesker and Eva to retreat as well before he disappeared through the doors they had come through. When they left the manor, they stood in a stone courtyard different from the one in Trevor's mansion. This was the actual courtyard which Chris remembered from his time in the Antarctic. Wesker came running out the doors with Eva slung over his back. The blonde haired girl was kicking and hitting at the tyrant to break free.
"Let go! I can beat her! Let me kick that bitch's ass!" Eva shrieked.
Wesker stopped running when he reached the others who had gathered near the large reflecting pool in the courtyard and put the enraged girl on her feet. As soon as she was free from her father, she ran for the manor's doors again. But when she tried to open them, they didn't budge. They had locked for some reason.
"Shit!" Eva cussed and kicked the door angrily.
Anger was definitely one of the more difficult emotions to contain they supposed.
She grumpily made her way over to the group and plopped cross-legged onto the ground beside Nathan and Peter. Crossing her arms firmly, she chanced a glare at Wesker.
"If you hadn't interfered I could have killed her," she promptly told the man.
Wesker gave her a very serious look. "I don't want you to ever have to kill anyone."
Eva got quiet when he said that and after a long moment of silence, her calm composure was once again intact.
"I'm sorry. I was being reckless," she apologized. "You taught me better than that."
Wesker merely nodded and then turned his gaze to Chris. "If you don't mind I propose we rest."
He was taken aback by the fact the older man was asking him if it was okay to suggest something. He stared at Wesker in surprised wonder and the other man rolled his eyes, though it was impossible for anyone to see since he wore his dark shades.
"Are you going to get like this every time I say something, Chris?"
"Sorry just not used to you asking for, well, anything." Chris stammered.
The other man regarded Chris for a moment. Apparently he chose not to say anything because after a minute, he went and sat on the edge of the reflecting pool beside Chris's sister and Sylar. Sylar seemed to be trying to wipe the blood off of his forehead from when he had been shot in the head by Alfred. Noah was making sure his daughter Claire was really okay after all they had gone through, and everyone else was either sitting or standing around.
They were all probably trying to wrap their heads around everything that had happened because that was certainly what Chris was trying to do. He was trying to make sense of this mess they seemed hopelessly trapped in. Remembering his sister was a new arrival to the group, he figured he had better explain what was going on. Chris was actually fairly surprised Claire wasn't in his face trying to get answers. She was always very protective of her big brother, just like he was with her and wanted to know what was going on at all times. He shrugged it off, owing it to the shock of being Alexia's captive.
"Claire, I suppose introductions are in order. This is Sheva Alomar, my new partner from the BSAA's West African branch..." Chris started.
"Africa?" Danko asked, mildly puzzled.
Chris realized he had never actually told the group where he had been before stumbling upon that mansion.
"Yeah, our Delta and Alpha teams had been deployed in Africa to search for Uroboros. That's where Sheva and I were when the mansion I found you in appeared on the map."
"Whoa, from Africa to Colorado to the Antarctic. This is getting weird." Claire Bennet commented.
"I don't know what's going on but I just have this bad feeling." Nathan told them, frowning up at the night sky above them.
"Yeah, me too." Peter said. "Somebody's messing with us."
"For now we should forget about the why and just focus on surviving." Chris told them.
"But if we can't figure out who or what is doing this, we may never get out of here." Sheva lamented.
Chris knew she was probably right but he didn't want to think about that right now. He was just glad his sister was okay and safely with them.
"So anyway, Claire, introductions. This young woman over here is Claire too, and with her is her father... Noah right?"
Noah nodded affirmation with a polite smile. Chris continued on.
"Sylar, Peter... Nathan, yeah that's it. Um, I wanna say Matt? Yeah? And Mohinder. Oh yeah and can't forget Danko over there fuming to himself about how he's stuck here with us."
This elicited a chuckle from a few members of the group and Claire smiled at everyone in turn.
"It's nice to meet everyone," she said. "Sorry it couldn't be under better circumstances."
Murmurs of agreement all around.
"And we're working with Wesker and his daughter Eva for the time being."
Claire looked at Chris blankly for a moment as if registering what he said. Then she nodded and glanced at the man sitting next to her. "Okay."
"Okay?" Chris uttered, shocked by her lack of reaction.
Even Wesker raised his eyes to peer over his sunglasses at the younger Redfield.
Claire shrugged. "Yeah. I'm okay with working together."
Staring at his sister for a long moment, he shifted his eyes to Wesker and then back at her. Chris was suspicious now and he was getting a very bad feeling.
"Well good because we're doing it as a favor for mom. She just couldn't stand me and Wesker fighting all the time. You know mom." Chris said to his sister.
"Yeah, okay." Claire replied calmly.
Immediately Wesker got to his feet and Chris pulled his gun on her. Claire's eyes widened at the sight of the gun and she got to her own feet, her hands up in surrender. Everyone else looked as shocked and confused as Claire did.
"Whoa, Chris! What gives?!" Her face portrayed genuine surprise and confusion.
But Chris knew it was all a lie and he finally understood that he was face to face with whomever or whatever was messing with them.
"What gives? You're not Claire!" Chris yelled at her.
"Of course I am. Look at me, it's Claire." She stared at him innocently.
He glared at her. "I told you our mom asked us to do a favor and you said okay."
"Yeah..."
"Our parents have been dead for over fifteen years! They died in a car crash! The real Claire would know that!" Chris exclaimed.
Slowly the Claire look-alike's innocent stare melted away and she smiled at him.
"Darn. Well there just wasn't enough time for me to absorb all of her information yet. It always starts with the most recent on back or the more important things. Very unlucky for me that you asked a question from the past. You're good. Wasn't so good when I was running around as your female friend there."
The Claire look-alike pointed at Sheva and something clicked in Chris's mind. "You were the one who led us into Excella and Wesker's trap!"
The malicious smile widened and Chris didn't like it. His sister never smiled that way so it bothered him to see this thing doing that.
"Where's Claire?! Was she ever really here?" he demanded.
"Oh yes. Probably still in the hands of the Ashfords since you left her behind," the Claire look-alike informed him, almost accusatory sounding. "Since you abandoned your own flesh and blood."
Chris clenched his fists in anger. "I thought you were her! I never would have left her if you hadn't tricked me!"
He tightened his grip on the gun and his finger flexed on the trigger. The Claire look-alike observed this and started calmly strolling back and forth among them.
"Hey, don't move!" Chris yelled at her and she merely laughed.
"What are you going to do? Shoot your own sister?"
"You aren't Claire!" he shouted.
The Claire look-alike ignored him and turned on Sylar. "Oh my... Now you're a fun one. So many deaths and zero guilt. You're my kind of guy."
Sylar stared at her in confusion. "Excuse me?"
His confusion turned to shock when suddenly the Claire look-alike transformed into a young girl with very light blonde hair and blue eyes. She couldn't have been much older than Claire Bennet and she stared sadly at Sylar.
"How could you kill me, Sylar? I think I might have loved you... How could you kill me like that?"
The girl was Elle Bishop. A girl who had indeed been murdered at the hands of Sylar so that he could acquire her electricity ability.
"You aren't her." Sylar said simply. "Elle's dead."
The Elle look-alike cackled. "I know, Gabriel."
She extended the pronunciation on the name, making sure he caught the use of his real name.
"You killed her. Killed her just like all the others you murdered. And you don't even feel bad, do you? You just keep on killing without thinking about how these people have friends and family... Simply admirable I must say."
Then the Elle look-alike shifted her eyes to Peter and a smile grew across her face. "Do you know what your sin is, Peter?"
She was transforming again and now she was a man with longer brown hair and brown eyes. He had a few days growth on his face and he wore a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans. The heroes all recognized him as the late Isaac Mendez.
"Didn't you ever hear of the rule, never date your friend's ex?" the Isaac look-alike asked Peter, tauntingly. "It was your love for her that got her killed, Peter. Her blood is on your hands because you were selfish."
Peter winced but kept his sturdy stance as he faced this thing. "You're not Isaac cause he's dead too. Who the hell are you?"
"A shape-shifter of some kind?" Noah pondered to Danko.
The Isaac look-alike sneered at the two men as if insulted. "I am no mere shape-shifter!"
He was changing again and now he was Chris, decked out in the entire uniform. "I am not even human. I am so much more than that."
"Ugh, don't be me when you say that asshole." Chris complained, aiming his weapon at..well, himself.
The Chris look-alike chuckled. "You want to know what I am? I am Sin. You pathetic humans give me life, and the amount of sinning this particular group over here has done has helped me to become quite strong."
"You're...what?" Chris asked uncertainly.
"I am Sin," his look-alike answered, speaking each word slowly so that they could understand what he was saying. "And you have caught my attention, Christopher."
Chris's eyes narrowed at his look-alike using his full name. No one ever called him by his full name. What did this thing mean by calling itself "sin" anyways?
"Sin? Is that your name or something?" Chris asked, trying to understand.
His look-alike scoffed. "Technically I have no name. I am quite literally sin. You know, evil. Every time someone sins I get a little stronger. As you can imagine, I have quite a bit of power."
Chris's look-alike, or rather Sin, smirked at the group as he scanned his eyes around them all. "Did you like my mansion? Getting to see all your friends again, Christopher. Wasn't that nice?"
Chris clenched his teeth tightly, glaring at Sin with growing anger. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through this thing's skull but he couldn't do it. Not when he had no proof that the thing was a threat to them at the moment.
"What do you want?" Chris asked Sin.
He seemed to find this question amusing. "What do I want, Christopher? I want to keep playing my game. You all are playing it so nicely. Lost some friends along the way though, haven't we?"
Sin was changing now, from Chris to a woman. He had transformed into Jill and Chris immediately flared up in rage.
"You son of a bitch! Don't you look like her. Not her!" Chris shouted with great fury.
Sin laughed. But it was Jill's laugh. Something Chris hadn't heard in a long time and it hurt him so much to realize he was never going to hear her laugh again. Not the real Jill anyways. Because she was dead. Chris had failed to save her.
"Shame you let this one go, Christopher. Your partner of ten years and you just let her die like that. And now you're walking around with the man responsible almost like teammates." Sin shook his head in mock disapproval.
Knowing that Sin was referring to him, Wesker took this moment to join the conversation.
"So this game is about Chris, hm?" Wesker asked him and strode up to Chris. "Well then why don't I end it now."
He grabbed the back of his neck, dragging him against himself, and placed his gun to the side of Chris's head. Startled by the sudden attack, Chris's own gun slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.
"Wesker! What the hell?!" he shouted, his anger growing even more.
The other man ignored him as he peered at Sin, waiting to see its reaction. Confused interest registered on Jill's features and Sin shifted its stance a few times before saying anything.
"No fun, no fun. Taking him out of the game so early on ruins all the fun!" Sin pouted, crossing its arms across its chest and tapping a booted foot.
It seemed so odd to see Jill acting like a small child who wasn't getting what they wanted. Chris knew it really wasn't Jill but Sin looked exactly like her, so it was hard not to get a little confused whenever it reacted or said anything in her voice and body.
"Christopher is the heart of this. It's beautiful how pure a soul he has and I want to see it get dirtied. I wonder how much heartache it will take to break you, Christopher." Sin pondered, now speaking directly to him.
Sin backed off, clearly intending to exit the area as it backed towards a door off to the right of where they stood.
"A word of caution for you, Christopher. Everyone in your little group isn't as trustworthy as you might like to think. Someone is lying about their real intentions here. Someone is going to try to kill one of your group and they are going to try to kidnap another. Can you imagine who would do such a thing? I know I can. Find the deceiver and much will be answered for you, Christopher. But do you have the heart to take such betrayal?" After a pause, Sin added, "Again?"
Then he..or it..was gone, pushing through the door and out of the courtyard. As soon as Sin was out of sight, Wesker removed his gun from Chris's head and let him go. Stepping away from Wesker quickly, Chris rubbed the sore spot on the back of his neck and anger flashed across his features.
"What was that all about? You turning on me, again?!"
"That person or thing which calls itself Sin, wasn't going to leave without someone dying unless I did something drastic. Since you seem to be the main event for it, I thought threatening you would work best. And it worked so don't complain." Wesker told Chris nonchalantly.
Chris stared at him in shocked disbelief. His anger quickly returning as it struggled to be greater than his confusion. "You used me!"
Wesker turned his gaze towards him. "When have I not?"
Something snapped in Chris and he ran for Wesker. Seeing what was about to happen, Nathan and Peter quickly interceded and held him back as he struggled to jump the offending man.
"You two can sort out your differences later." Nathan informed the BSAA agent. "Now's not the time for fighting amongst ourselves."
"I'm not so sure about that." Danko piped up.
Chris ceased his efforts to attack Wesker, who had been watching him try with great amusement. Instead, he forced himself to block the man from his mind and focused on Danko. "What do you mean?"
"Assuming Sin is telling the truth, one of us is a traitor. One of us doesn't want the same things we do."
He waved the comment away. "That thing was just messing with us. There are no traitors here. Well except for Wesker but he's going to behave, right?"
Wesker scoffed but said nothing when Eva elbowed him sharply in the side. Sheva glanced around at the others and agreed. "Chris is right. This thing is lying."
Chris scooped up his gun and returned it to his thigh holster. "Alright. We need to figure out what that thing meant by playing games with us. But we can do that while searching for my sister, and a way out of this place. Now I don't..."
He trailed off and he stood staring straight ahead, looking very confused.
"Chris?" Sheva asked him, concerned.
Chris placed a hand to his chest as his face contorted in pain. "My chest this time...nguuh..."
He gasped out before releasing a grunt of pain. He started to cough harshly and he brought up a hand to cover his mouth. He retracted it though, staring at his palm. There were specks of blood which he had clearly just coughed up. He didn't have much time to worry about the blood though, because he was clutching his chest with both hands now and stumbling forward as he continued to emit sounds of pain.
"Aaaughh!" the agent screamed out and then his body went quite still.
The group watched as he collapsed to his knees before falling over onto his back. He fell unconscious almost immediately after. Everyone stared at their unmoving leader and Eva was the first to reach his side. She checked for a pulse, confirming that there was one and that he was breathing steadily.
"What happened to him? What's wrong?" Sheva asked, worriedly.
The young agent came to kneel beside Eva, who shook her head. "I don't know."
"He's been having these fits of really bad headaches before losing consciousness." Peter mentioned. "This is the first time it was his chest though. The first time he coughed up blood too."
"I know what this is." Wesker stated. "Did you see him get injected with anything?"
All eyes moved over to him. Eva frowned at her dad. "No. What is this? What's wrong with him?"
"Las Plagas. What I used to help make the Uroboros virus." Wesker answered, coming over to examine Chris.
The tyrant opened an eye-lid to check the eye color. "His eyes aren't red yet; that's good. But it won't be long now. Coughing blood means the eggs have hatched. It's only a matter of time before the parasites are able to control his mind."
"But there's a cure, right? The President's daughter and that American agent from the report were infected but they got cured somehow. So we can cure Chris too, right?" Eva questioned.
"They used a special laser to destroy the parasites in their bodies. We don't have a laser like that here." Wesker answered her.
"But you'll find a way to save him, right dad?" Eva asked him quietly.
"What did I say about using that name?" the man said to her, ignoring the question.
You'll find a way, right?" she asked again, pressing for an answer.
"For now we should just wait for Chris to wake up," was all Wesker would say.