Hey everyone still waiting on an update.
Sorry it took so long; life's been busy.
To compensate, this one is a little bit bigger than the others, but it's a big transition, and the action is about to get started!
It was a beautiful evening, but there was a thunderstorm in the distance, close enough to hear the bolts, even with the music and television on very loud and the constant talking of friends and family. The secret service had a security camera terminal and cameras that surrounded the area. Most of the guards were inside the lobby or at the party, thinking that if anything a drunken relative or two might get out of hand. No one could see anyone looking for something from any member of the staff or their friends and family, let alone even the new president now celebrating his first official term in office with no previous issues whatsoever.
They were wrong.
The guards in the watchtowers surrounding the property could be heard checking in with each other at the main facility in the security building and camera room on a nearby section of the grounds. This took place every thirty minutes or so. The rustling nightlife in the woods was a common thing, something that everyone was accustomed to, just like the check in they did with each other. It was like clockwork; a well oiled machine made up of the people and their environment that just kept going and going on and on. All was standard routine procedure that hadn't really changed in several years, common knowledge to any trained soldier guard...
Or an ex...
K1 through K12 all checked in with the random leader for that night, the guard in tower nine. Even during the summer weather it got cold enough for one to see his breath in the area they were. The watchman in K9 did check in, as all the others. He heard a fairly constant rustling that evening, but one in particular had caught his ear. Still, he just assumed things like that ran throughout all the woods and that the other towers could see it all too.
Unfortunately for all of them he was wrong. Silence is deadly.
Tower 12 reported to as some rustling in the trees occurred. A light bird like landing on the roof of the guard tower followed that as the final report was put in. He called into the control room. "This is tower leader, area is secure, ovAAK."
The agent in the monitor room heard weird noise over the end of the transmutation, but it just seemed like he probably let of to early on the walkie-talkie. The man in the monitor room continued with his sandwich. He knew he shouldn't, but he could hear the noises of eating sloppily from tower nines transmutation.
In the moonlight, one could see a rope-like structure attached to the roof of the towers, and each one seemed to contain a human shape leaning down and feasting on something, like they couldn't get enough.
Soon, more loud thunderous sounds could be heard in the distance, like things falling from the sky. They continued moderately throughout the party, assumed to be more thunder booms. One even seemed to make the ground shake a little.
Huge lines of movement would be seen in the bushes by the guards in the tower... if they were still alive. Forms hunched over and tripping, but moving quickly. However, all of the guards seemed hunched over in their towers eating. Whatever it was they were eating must have been huge. Then one could see a hand dropped over the side of one of the towers. The other could be traced back into the tower, where it gripped the walkie-talkie firmly on the ground. This hand could not be followed back, as it was not connected to the body it belonged to.
...
"Hu, this is some storm." A guest said at the last of the booms were heard." Leon had found Ashley, and they were talking nearby as the man asked for the tv to be switched from the new vice-president's presidential inauguration coverage back in DC to the weather channel. When he was refused, he checked his phone to look at his weather app, only to find that the storm had already moved through a while ago... Before he suddenly lost a connection.
...
Meanwhile outside, blue pumps could be seen hooked to the AC outside next to some kind of jamming device where some older ones once lay. The construction services there had their own measure if security and over watch, so the SS didn't bother asking about it much or thinking it a threat.
Also, a man had walked outside for a smoke when he saw a big figure (probably service due to his muscular body type) hunched over by the vehicles used to take the people to and from the airstrip where Air Force One and the other passenger planes had landed. As it turns out there was a special runway made nearby and refurbished just for passengers to the event from other airplanes.
The man notices a dark hulking figure in the near distance, almost more buff than the other guy was.
He seemed to be looking for something as he coughed."Hey buddy, looking for a light?" the man said. The dark figure got up slowly and turned around, blood spewing from its mouth as if it were a zombie!
However, it responded "If you insist."
Ashley went searching for Leon when he didn't come bak right away with that tissue, and thy chatted some more about what their future had in store for them. Leon said he planned to stick with security and, speaking of which, thought he'd go upstairs to check on the group. Ashley was kind of sad to see him go again, but just took the tissue he gave her and walked away, feeling a bit blown off. She thought he might have really been looking for Claire and began her search.
She found the Asian from earlier. Curiously, she went to get a better view and couldn't believe her eyes as the flashback of a woman on the island he was trapped on so many years ago flashed in her head, matching the woman she was seeing now. There was no question about it any more: she was there at the island and she was here right now!
She couldn't believe it and doubted Leon would even take her seriously that she saw the woman Leon had talked to her about on and off the island (by her request only, never brought up by Leon himself), like he did about Claire, only much less and seeming to dodge the subject whenever possible. Ashley struggled to remember the name she had heard before as she moved to a better vantage point.
Now she was certain this time she saw Ada Wong from her rescue four years ago talking now with...Claire!? She rushed for Leon and searched again for the stairs he went up. It turns out there were many flights and floors. Three levels with three basement levels accessed by a freight elevator near where she saw Ada.
Ashley caught up to Leon, all out of breath.
As she did this, the man with the cigarette could be seen against a red blinking device on one of the cars.
Leon asked what was wrong but all he could make out was "Just now, and...earlier..."
...
The bloody figure looked out into the rustling woods as the camera rose up to his face, showing pliers attached to a cable with a lock on the ground next to empty gas cans.
...
"Earlier what? What's wrong Ashley?" Leon replied.
...
Back outside, the face of a familiar looking soldier was lit by the dead man's lighter, igniting his cigarette.
Despite the storm being nowhere close, the car was wet.
He said: "Let the end..."
...
as Ashley said to Leon "I saw..."
...
"...begin." as he tossed the cigarette to the Jeep behind him
The cigarette butt flew slowly, glowing and smoking as the man moved at a seemingly abnormal pace.
...
"Ada!" Ashley said.
"Ada!?" Leon replied.
"Uh Hu, and..."
...
The cigarette hit the vehicle and ignited it in flames as Ashley began to move her lips to finish her sentence...
Several explosions began as the muscular man fiddled with the pliers on the power-box. At this, the people back in the party turn toward outside and the secret service ran to check, some staying behind to protect the guests, calling to the control room through their sleeves.
There was no reply.
Dedicated to Mazzie May...
...wherever you are...
(dramatically looks off into space)