Chapter 13

-Reality Realized-

Eva peered worriedly down at the sleeping brunette. "Is he going to be okay?"

"The parasite's gone and the cut is superficial." Wesker assured her.

Claire had come over after reviving and she smiled with relief. Sheva appeared similarly relieved and she removed her backpack. "It's a good thing he gave me some spare clothes of his to carry along."

Sheva provided the supplies while Mohinder set to work cleaning the wound and taping a patch over it. They removed what was left of his old shirt and decided to wait for Chris to wake up so he could put his own shirt on. Eva sat down beside Chris's still form to watch over him as he slept, but that was as far as she got before a sniveling voice interrupted their recent moment of calm.

"Ooh what a tragedy! Is the eldest Redfield sibling dead?" came the eerily feminine voice that could only belong to one man.

"No, he's not dead. Ruin your day?" Eva asked Alfred as she sprang to her feet defensively.

Alfred Ashford merely let out a creepy laugh. "On the contrary, Alexia would much rather bear witness to his demise."

"Chris!" a worried voice shouted.

The owner of the voice was a woman who had been standing in the doorway which Alfred had just entered through, and she came into the room for the first time. It was Chris's sister Claire. Alfred pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it at her, a cruel smile playing out across his face.

"There you are! Alexia and I were oh so concerned when you disappeared," he informed her. "You're just in time to die with the others."

Wesker stared at the deranged twin with amusement. "You're going to kill all of us by yourself? I fail to see the advantage you have over us."

"All by myself? No. The sweepers will be more than helpful in dispatching the rest of you." Alfred revealed as he swept a hand vaguely in front of him.

It only took them a moment to see what he was referring to. Without making a sound, six hunters had entered through the open door the group had entered from. These hunters looked slightly different from the previous ones they had encountered in the mansion because these creatures' slimy skin gave off a purple hue and were apparently called sweepers.

"Not cool." Eva muttered, taking in the sight of the half dozen deadly monsters.

"Do not fear." Wesker said to her. "Take care of Ashford."

Eva didn't question him and nodded to show she understood. The rest of the group were eyeing the sweepers alertly and Sylar appeared to be just itching to attack before the bio-weapons did. Eva started edging to the right side of the room and one of the sweepers began to follow her movements with its beady eyes. But when it started to shift towards her, the sweeper immediately stopped its motion when Wesker stared the creature in the eyes. The others watched in astonishment as one by one, the sweepers turned and exited the room the way they had come without incident.

"What the-come back here! Kill them!" Alfred shrieked in angry disbelief.

Meanwhile Eva continued to edge closer to Alfred on the right side of the room without drawing his attention. Alfred's eyes were focused on Wesker as he revealed why his monsters had abandoned the other.

"I control the hunters, remember?" Wesker smiled smugly. "I thought you were supposed to be gifted. Forgetting something as important as that..." He shook his head in mock sympathy.

Alfred took notice of Eva as she vaulted the railing and landed on the balcony to his left. Without a trace of emotion on her face, she ducked as he trained his weapon onto her and struck him in the shin with a swift kick.

"Mistake," Eva told Alfred as he tried to turn his gun towards her again.

The girl kneed him in the face and he collapsed onto the floor of the balcony, blood spewing from his nose. After kicking the gun from his hand she added, "Yours."

Wesker beamed proudly up at her. "Well done, Eva."

She turned to Wesker and a slight smile crossed over her lips but it didn't last long when Chris's sister shouted a warning. "Look out!"

Completely unprepared for him to have a taser in his pocket, Eva cried out in shocked pain as it was jabbed into her leg. Electricity coursed through her entire body and it only stopped when Claire jumped Alfred and grappled for the taser. Alfred was surprisingly strong and he threw an elbow back into Claire's face, causing her to fall off of him. Eva was bent over, face twisted in pain as she tried to recover from the attack. She glanced up to find Alfred heading for Chris's sister who was stumbling back to get away from the blonde man and his taser. With a cry of fury, Eva slammed herself into Alfred and the two went tumbling over the railing. They both fell the few feet and hit the ground hard.

A pained gasp escaped Eva and she clutched her left arm tightly to herself. Alfred shook himself from his dazed state and tried to grab at Eva. Wesker seemed to have had enough when he heard his daughter in pain and he strode over to Alfred, reached down, and snapped his neck in one swift motion. Ignoring the dead man, he turned to his daughter and helped her onto her feet.

"I think my arm's broken," she told him, holding her left arm to herself.

Wesker examined the arm and rectified her diagnosis. "Possibly, or a near break." Searching the ground, he picked up Chris's ruined shirt and made it into a makeshift sling for her arm. "This will have to do for now."

Eva nodded and her attention went to Claire, who was descending the stairs with Alfred's gun held loosely by her side in her hand. She handled the pain her arm must have been in astonishingly well.

"Thanks." Chris's sister said gratefully to the girl with bright green eyes, giving her a weak smile.

Eva watched Claire as she noticed her brother's sleeping form and hurried over to him. She placed a hand over the wound gently and then brought a hand to her brother's face. "Oh, Chris..."

At that moment a groan escaped Chris's lips and his eyes opened to reveal brown iris' filled with tired confusion. A happy smile broke out across Claire's face and she punched him in the uninjured shoulder lightly.

"Don't scare me like that! You're not supposed to get hurt, understood?" she demanded of him, her tone playful.

"Ow..." Chris complained, bringing a hand to the spot where she had hit him. "Sheesh, sis. Aren't you supposed to go easy on the injured guy?"

Before Claire could get a reply in, Chris seemed to realize who he was talking to and he sat up as he looked at her in surprise. "Claire! You're okay! Wait, where's Alexia? Or Alfred?"

"Whoa, take it easy. I'm not sure where Alexia is. I managed to get away from them in the mansion when you guys distracted her. And Alfred is dead-" Claire answered but was cut off.

"Dead and disappearing... Am I losing my mind or do you guys see that too?" Chris asked them, staring at the spot where Alfred's body laid sprawled out.

Sure enough, Alfred's body was disappearing. Claire gasped in surprise as the gun in her hand vanished into thin air as well. Soon the blonde twin's body was gone and not a trace of him ever being there could be seen.

"Well that doesn't happen a whole lot." Chris commented, getting to his feet.

Noticing the clean shirt Sheva had placed out for him, he grabbed it up and quickly put it on. "So... Was he an illusion or something like that?" Chris suggested.

"Couldn't have been. He attacked me and Claire." Eva shared with him.

They all stared at the spot, where Alfred's body had once been, in complete puzzlement.

"Then maybe that wasn't really Alfred." Claire theorized, squinting as she thought hard. "Steve shot him good back on Rockfort Island ten years ago. He was only human and I doubt he could have survived wounds like those. Besides, you said you saw his body too."

"Yeah and he was definitely dead. Unless Alexia created a way to bring her brother back to life, he was definitely a dead Alfred." Chris concluded.

"Maybe it was Sin." Sylar offered.

All eyes shifted over to him. Sylar stood near the doorway and seemed undaunted by all of the attention now focused on him, waiting for an explanation. He straightened his stance and looked at Chris as he spoke, seeing as he was the unofficial leader of their group.

"Well this Sin guy was telling the truth when he told us the mansion and all these other places were put here by him. He was also telling the truth when he claimed to be actual Sin. I know this because I have an ability that allows me to know when someone is telling the truth. So if this guy is really powered by people's sins and can become anyone dead or alive, and learn everything about these people when he transforms into them... It wouldn't take much for him to learn about our biggest fears." Sylar explained.

"Are you suggesting I am not real?" a Spanish accented voice questioned.

Saddler was once again standing on the small balcony at the top of the stairs. He looked down upon them with great contempt and he zeroed in on Chris.

"Pity you failed to embrace such a wondrous gift. The power you could have wielded would have been marvelous to behold." Saddler told him.

"Yeah, at the cost of free will. I'm not giving that up anytime soon." Chris retorted.

As always, Saddler seemed to find something amusing. "The naivety of outsiders is beyond me. Perhaps I must simply show you the error of your ways..."

"You're not real." Eva informed Saddler as she stood firmly before the robed man. "You got killed by Leon Kennedy so there's no way you're here now."

Saddler raised an eyebrow as he shifted his gaze to her. "And yet here I stand before you. Next time the American agent should make sure to do his job better."

Claire narrowed her eyes at Saddler. "Leon makes sure he gets the job done. If he fought and killed you, then you're dead."

"Such faith in him. You should use that faith towards something more beneficial." Saddler told her. "My religious community is currently lacking in members. You would do well to join and embrace the power Las Plagas has to offer."

Claire crossed her arms. "I don't think so."

"There isn't much sense in her joining a man who is dead." Wesker added.

"Yeah, cause you don't exist." Eva reminded the purple robed man.

Chris seemed to catch on to what they were working to accomplish and joined in. "Saddler, you're not real. It's impossible for you to be here just as it was impossible for Alfred Ashford to be here. He disappeared when he died because he was never really here to begin with. So you know what I think?"

Saddler still appeared quite amused by all of their musings. "Please, do tell."

"I think you should disappear."

Saddler's amusement vanished at those words. "Silence. I will hear no more of this."

"You heard him, Saddler! You don't exist! Scram!" Claire called out to him.

Now the religious man was shifting his stance with great discomfort. "Be quiet."

His order went unheard as Eva began to repeat that he wasn't real over and over. The entire group was staring at him now and their looks were all ones of disbelief in his existence. He began to feel hollowed out inside and suddenly his right hand was empty for his staff had disappeared.

"No..." he uttered, refusing to believe they were right.

But his entire body was beginning to feel extremely light, and lifting his now free right hand, Saddler found he could see clear through it. Lifting his eyes to look at the others one last time, he muttered, "No..."

Then Saddler completely vanished before their eyes and Claire audibly released the breath she had been holding in her lungs.

"Phew, I'm glad that actually worked. I have faith in Leon but I've seen things come back to life before."

Chris glanced sideways at Wesker, who was standing slightly behind him and to the left, and thought about all the times he had believed the tyrant to be dead only to have him show up again.

"Yeah, funny how that happens sometimes."