The War Ends Now

by Onkwehonwe Kashatstenhshera

Following the events in 2013, the survivors of Raccoon City find themselves in Puerto Rico and eventually New York and India to stop new bio hazard epidemics and to catch the one responsible. But what about a menace they thought was gone? How will they survive as the world erupts into a third world war with the virus used as weapons by the world powers in its vortex?

2. Those Who Conspire

August 13, 2013

Puerto Rico

Josh/Jill

This place would have been beautiful if it wasn't in so much conflict. As they searched the south-east side of the town, Josh had observed several palm trees that reminded him of back home. "Oh god..." Jill exclaimed in disbelief. Josh headed to her position about fifty yards from him. He had his Glock 17 equipped and ready for anything. He came up to her and saw the gruesome sight that had captured her eye. A man, one of the locals, who was dressed in a white floral shirt and khaki pants, had a bear trap around his head. The trap was usually used for one's foot. "What kind of sick minded person did this?" She pondered aloud.

They checked him for intelligence but found nothing. Josh looked around the area. "I think we are dealing with the same type of people as the majini but I am not sure. We will have to wait until we find one of them. I've read Chris's reports from his mission in China and he said they used some of the older B.O.W's like zombies. Why bring them back? Plus they made them able to use weapons."

Jill solemnly replied, "I guess the classics never die. They found a way to mix in the abilities of a majini while being able to infect people. From a subjective strategic point of view its smart. Seems like when we took down Umbrella and Wesker all we did was cut one head off to sprout up about ten more."

Josh asked her, "You think this is a war we can't win? We've at least got to try. The only way for evil men to triumph is if good people do nothing. I am no saint or a martyr but I will always try my best to make the world better. I want to take it beyond just bio weapons. We should be stopping all forms of terrorism, the kind that plagued people long before Umbrella existed."

Jill considered what he was saying and pointed out, "That's actually a really good point. We should try to stop that. You're right. Maybe when we get back to HQ in London we should talk to some of the higher-ups about that? The BSAA is the only para military organization in the world that doesn't have one country's agenda as it's motivation. We could use each branch to take care of certain sections of the world."

Just then, they heard a raspy cry. Josh was alert with the pistol readied as was Jill with her Beretta. "Where is it?" He whispered to her. They shined their light down an alley way behind a building and followed the sound. They took a left around the side of the building and were back onto a street. They searched the area which seemed empty. Josh spotted the source. A man with flesh peeling off his decayed face, wearing stained brown and black clothing, his brown slacks coated with dirt. Josh trained the Glock 17 on him and fired off six rounds. The majority of them hit the thing in the right side of its chest. One round grazed it in the neck while the last one hit the thing in the leg. It collapsed and Jill warned, "You gotta shoot them in the head!"

Josh brought down his boot on it's head and put all his weight into the stomp. Josh withdrew his combat knife which he had in his right hand while he held the gun in his left. He brought the blade down into the center of the back and it did not get up again. "The brain or the spine. Either one will stop them."

He then stood up and warned her, "Watch out! Nine o'clock!" Jill followed his direction and turned the gun to exactly where he said. There was a zombie coming at her, a man in a pair of overalls, possibly from work. He also had blonde hair and tan skin. His eyes were just like that of any Raccoon City zombie but she knew that he was a C virus zombie. She fired five shots at it and they hit the thing in the neck. The rounds tore into the flesh and right through the tissue. It ceased to move after crumpling to the ground as a bullet had severed its spinal cord.

She could hear groans of both agony and hunger as several more C's came after them. Jill fired two shots at the left knee of a zombie in black shorts and a tank top. This man had a kukri in hand. "I thought there was a difference between the ones with weapons and the zombies themselves!" Josh exclaimed. "What kind of shit is this?!"

Jill fired a third shot into its abdomen and the thing grunted. Jill gave him a kick and sent him flying back and he knocked down another zombie. Jill slammed down on his chest with her knees and this wounded him. Josh fired four shots at a zombie who was large in size and brought the man to his knees as three rounds hit him in the abdomen and one hit him in the right knee cap. Josh ran up to him and choke slammed him. Jill saw the zombie she had just attacked was getting back up. It swung at her with the blade and she barely dodged. It swung again despite the blood leaking out of the gunshot wound.

The blade nicked the side of her arm as she rolled away missing the majority of the damage. Jill backed away and it swung at her again. It hit her in the chest and luckily her BSAA uniform was suited with both a bulletproof vest and a vest for not shooting weapons. She felt she was bleeding from the wound as the damage had punctured the skin a bit but were it not for the melee vest, she surely would have been killed by the kukri. Jill fired a shot into it's stomach and then another into the chest. She put a third shot in his heart. The zombie attempted to bite her but she kicked him off of her. She fired a shot into the right eye of the thing and it went down and did not get up again. A female zombie charged at Josh.

She swung the knife at him slashing like a maniac. She wore a torn up tank top and short summer shorts. She had bleached hair which was clearly bleached indicated by how it did not fit well with her dark skin. What really did not fit any of her at all was the dead look in her eyes. She had once probably been pretty and lively. It was a shame. Her knife hit Josh in the armor but she did not stop with just one slash and she kept right at it hacking at the African agent. Josh fired two shots into her left knee and she held the wound shrieking in agony. Josh hit her with a hard haymaker and she flew back as he emptied the last of the magazine in her forehead.

He looked at the cut he had recieved from her and reloaded. He used half of a green herb on himself and half on Jill. There were more coming.. A horde of them in fact. Upon seeing this, Jill unstrapped her H&K G36. Josh had an AK-47 with a 60 round mag in it as well as a scope for accuracy. Josh aimed at the nearest zombie, one of them had a pistol in hand which they were firing wildly. "What is this? These things can shoot guns now? Just like the majini? This is not good!"

The zombie fired at them and four shots whizzed past Jill's ear. Josh fired letting off ten rounds which hit the C virus zombie in the abdomen head on. It stumbled and fell but the others kept coming. Jill fired off eleven rounds at two zombies hitting one in the head which killed it instantly as the rounds punched through the eye socket. The other caught at least five in the stomach. Josh fired more at the zombie he had already dropped even as the others began to stampede it. He it in the back but also hit a zombie in the leg that was near it, a tall Afro Carribbean man who was a construction worker. The man cursed in Spanish as he held his wounded leg.

Jill put three more down before she had to reload. Josh covered her while she did. "This is out of control! I knew this place was infected but I didn't think it would be this out of hand! Starting to make Kijuju seem like it was nothing! We need to move back there are too many of them to take on our own."

They began to move up the hill heading past several shanty towns and luckily the zombies were moving slow just as they had in Raccoon City. They took cover behind a small house and waited to see if the horde would pass by. Much to their relief, they did. The two of them began to head further up the hill. "We need a way back to town. They've blocked that way. There must be a scenic route!" Josh exclaimed.

Jill held her finger to her lips. "You hear that? It sounds like fire," They made their way to the source of the smoke and the fire and their nostrils were greeted with a horrid smell. A man was hanging from a hook and had been set on fire. His flesh was burnt to a crisp and blackened. Jill never forgot the first time she smelled such an awful smell. It had been back at the mansion where this mess had all started for her. She had been given a grenade launcher by her friend Barry Burton and had fired it at a pack of zombies in a hallway. That smell had haunted her long after it was gone.

She had gotten more and more used to it over the years as she had smelled plenty in her last hours in Raccoon City and she had in her early years in thee BSAA. She was, after all, a battle hardened soldier. Still, no matter how bad things are, no matter how tough I try to be, no matter how little I've cried, I still can never be ready for that stink...this must be the aroma of hell if there is one.. she thought.

Josh on the other hand, had gotten used to the smell himself and was easily able to recognize it in combat zones over the years. He had smelled that awful stench since he was a young boy. His parents had once been a part of the Nigerian Civil War which had taken place between 1967 to 1970, four years before his own birth, and they had been on the side of the Biafrans who had attempted to secede from Nigeria since the so called independence day had been set up by the British but they had not considered the ethnic, linguistic and religious differences between various groups.

The British indirectly ruled through various figures in the Nigerian government. His parents had been freedom fighters for the tribes that had been screwed over by the new government. They had considered many of those who were in the country's new government which had only been around for seven years following the independance from the UK to be traitors to the people. The war was over by the time he was born and their side had lost but he was proud to be born to warriors anyway.

His parents had not boasted about what they had done in battle but rather what they did. His mother would tell of how his father and his comrades killed at least two hundred British soldiers and just as many Nigerian soldiers in one week. His father would tell of how his mother had taken on the same type of soldiers, the pawns of the state of the Nigerian government which in itself was an artificial government established by the same colonial powers that the people had wanted to be independant from. His mother had been a female warrior and she had killed many Algerians who were also backing the Nigerian state. They had been for the state of Biafra and not Nigeria.

As a child he had been in awe about their stories but his father told him, "It is not about how many men you have killed. It is a matter of how far you are willing to go and will you stand up for what you know is right even if you stand alone?" His mother had also told him, "There will come a day when this land of ours will see insurection again. Our people are tired and we want to be free of colonialism, whether it is from direct fascism like the Brits used to have over us, or neo colonialism, them still ruling us but doing it through our crooked government leaders while sipping tea from the safety of their homes in London. You must find your own struggle, your own cause when you are our age, Dike. If this uprising I told you would happen,does happen, remember who you are and where you came from."

Josh did indeed remember. Dike was his traditional name. He was given the name Joshua Stone by the missionary school. A more "Christian" name. He had been called Josh so long he forgot his real name for a long time. Now even Sheva, one of the closest people to him called him decided that when this was over he would get his name legally changed to Dike Ojimba, his original name. Now, here, in this small town in Puerto Rico, Dike Ojimba had found his own calling, his own struggle as he had many times, as he had in Kijuju, as he had each time his homeland saw viral outbreaks or any time any country saw bio terrorism. I will not forget who I am, Nne. I never will and when the time comes, I will come home and fight for the real struggle.

"My god...that's a horrible way to die. Do you think the infected did this? Or the rebels?" Jill asked. Josh was not sure. "I saw this in Kijuju too but it isn't something you can ever get used to. This is insanity. I could understand it if a B.O.W with no ability to control itself did this but how can any human being do this? I've seen this over and over again and it baffles me every time. It's one thing if you were a majini under the control of a parasite or if you were infected by the T virus but I just don't understand why a human being would attack people like this for no reason."

Josh quietly observed the horrid sight and softly remarked, "Humans can be far worse than any B.O.W., monster or demon you can think of. If you think about it, we are the true monsters, yes? That is ultimatley who started Raccoon City, Kijuju, Liashang, Tall Oaks and Edonia's epedemics. Even men like Albert Wesker. He can say he was not a man all he wants but every bit of his narcicism and destructive nature makes him a man. That has more weight to it than his abilities ever did."

Jill didn't agree. "I refuse to believe this is humanity. I know that we've done terrible things, I have myself but I couldn't control it. Anybody who would knowingly create misery like this isn't human at all. They're just monsters" She backed away from the burning and they began to head away from it. "Carlos shouldn't be too far ahead. He's UC but he'll be able to get away from the rbels long enough to tell us if he knows anything."

As they headed that way, Josh questioned her, "Where exactly will we meet this friend of yours? Did he give you a specific area? Any information he has could help us. If t the rebels are the ones behind this we need to go in and do what the soldiers they deployed to the island could not. We will have to take every last one of them down. If what you say is true, and you and I are humans and they are not because of their actions, then it is on us to kill them all."

As they walked Josh added gruffly, "Men like these, they give true rebels a bad name," He was thinking of his mother and father. While he knew exactly what he had in mind saying that, Jill could not figure out what he meant by that and was trying to solve the puzzle of his words in her head. They reached the spot they were meant to meet Carlos but all that was there was a dead body of a US soldier with a large bullet hole in his head, his brains leaked out on the ground, his mouth locked in a silent scream, his eyes full of pain. Jill examined his body and saw that he had suffered several prior gunshots and had clearly been wounded. This had been an also sawe several cuts on his head and blood from other sources aside from the gunshot. "He was beaten before they shot him."

Josh's observation was spot on and on cue with her own. "They must have thought of taking him prisoner but then they decided no prisoner, no mercy. This has rebel written all over it," Jill pointed out and Josh's expression hardened a little at her words but she paid no mind. He asked her, "Wasn't your friend supposed to meet us here? How can we find out what he knows if he isn't here?"

Jill stood up from examining the body. "I don't know. He should be here. I just hope he didn't get discovered by them."

Josh thought this was entirely possible but he had no desire to express this. If there was any hope that her friend from Raccoon still alive, why should he deny it to her? "I am sure he is fine and just got held up. If he is as much of a survivor as you have told me, he would sense when they were onto him."

She took a breath and then readied her weapon still equipped with the G36 and she nodded. "Okay. Let's go find him."

Claire

There was a lot of work for them to do. Claire Redfield and the only other helping hand with her, Randy Stevens, were trying to tend to as many of the wounded as they possibly could. Claire examined an elderly Black gentleman in a dark gray suit. His clothing had been ripped and he had blood all over it. He had been hit multiple times by an assailant earlier that night with a crowbar. "Okay, Mr. Winters, I'm gonna need you to look straight into this light and follow it as I move it in front of your eyes."

The man did as she asked and she tested him out and then requested, "Could you please look over here for me? I'm going to shine this light into your eyes if there is pain from it you just tell me, okay?" She first did the test with her fingers to make sure he could focus and then she shined the light into his said, "Okay, you're pupils didn't shrink. That's not a good sign. I think you may have a concussion. Did you have any pain from the brightness of the light?"

The elder man, Mr. Winters answered, "No ma'am. Just my head. It hurts like all hell. I don't know if I'll be able to get down south for my grand daughter's birthday. A couple youngsters just jumped me. I figured they just wanted my wallet and I think if there hadn't been a few good people to help me out, i would have been a goner. They attacked them too...something is going on, making folks crazy."

Randy Stevens, a tall and lean Caucasian man with a bit of five 'clock shadow was stitching up a woman's wound. She had been stabbed by another hostile. He had shaggy blonde hair and blue gray eyes. He was the type to crack jokes and always say funny stuff. Claire had worked with him many times before. "Maybe it's something in the water," He was using an innuendo of course since Claire and he both knew that whatever it was, this was clearly the work of bio terrorism. Whether or not it was the C virus, the T virus, or the progenitor virus, Claire was unsure. Maybe it's all of the above? She thought to herself as she cleaned the gash on the side of the older man's head as she used first aid spray, disinfectant and gauze to try to stop the bleeding.

The woman who was being stitched up, a pretty red head with shoulder length hair and sky blue eyes, in a black halter top and blue jeans shook her head. "I've been watching the news ever since all this crazy stuff started happening. This has only been going on for a day or so but there's supposed to be some terrorist attack? As if New York needed to encounter another one twice! They say there have been people attacking people with knives, bats, clubs, chains, and even guns. They also said several people tried eating them. What are we gonna do?"

Claire looked at her and assured her, "Don't worry, the police will handle it. If not them, they'll call in the National Guard. Better yet, the BSAA. We contained this thing in Liashang we can do the same here. There's no way somebody like my brother and the people he work with would let this city get destroyed by whoever it was that released the virus."

Old man Winters laughed and said, "You'll have to excuse me if I aint got the kind of faith in your brother as you do. Nothing personal, miss I just never met him. I hope for the sake of us all, you're right."

Randy approached an officer who had his pistol out as he was at the door keeping watch for any hostiles. "Officer, do you have any word on when we can get these people out of here? I don't think we should wait here for them to get through that door. We need a game plan. There's supposed to be a military set up over near Central Park. Why can't we leave?"

The cop, a thin and short man with a goatee, of Korean American descent looked at him with what seemed like both frustration and annoyance. "Look, my partner is on his way to get us some transportation, okay? We can't just go out there these people are unarmed."

Randy looked at the cop with frustration. "Well give them a fucking gun then! We need to get these people out of here or they'll be killed. You may not know what's going on out here but I do. If we get overrun by these things and these people get killed because of it, that blood will be on your hands."

Claire stepped up and said, "Officer Kim, I know you're just trying to do your job but we need to get these people out of here where they'll be safe. Backup might be on its way but they're taking too long."

Officer Kim looked at the wounded who consisted of the two they had been working on and at least two more with head injuries and one had a giant gash on his forearm. Claire stood up and she had a pistol with her. It was a standard 9mm with fifteen rounds. She had three magazines for it but she knew in the long run if she was going to try and get out of this city alive, she would need to find more than that.

They just heard a crash nearby. Somebody had busted through the window. One of the wounded, an overweight Italian man screamed, "Oh god! They got in here!" He backed away as several zombies climbed through the broken window. He turned around to run but he was grabbed by two of them and they pinned him to a wall near a vending machine. Two of them bit into his neck and he cried out in a shriek as they feasted on his flesh. Claire aimed her Handgun at the zombies coming through. She let off six shots, the first two hitting it in the chest, the next two in the stomach, one in the neck and one in the head. The zombie fell to the ground it's brains and skull matter splattered on the ground next to it, an all too familiar sight, after having seen it so much over the years since that one fateful night she had rode her Harley to Raccoon City.

She aimed at another's left leg firing three shots to get the man on the ground. She did a finish on him a kick to the face and she broke his neck as she did. The officer, Officer Kim had began opening fire on them too. "Don't come any closer! Stay back!"

Randy snarled, "Idiot, they can't hear you! They're dead! Just shoot them in the brain that's the best way. I've dealt with these things way too often I know how they work!"

The old veteran, Mr. Winters had grabbed a knife from one of the zombies Claire had already dropped. There was a zombie dressed in an NYPD uniform. She had blondish red hair and blood stains smeared on her chin and around her mouth. Her eyes were as dead as she was. Officer Kim looked horrified as he saw who she was. "No! Amy, they got you, too?" He closed his eyes in frustration briefly before he fired putting a hot slug inside of the deceased officer's brain. The zombie collapsed dead before it hit the floor, her eyes almost closed but not all the way. Still, as close to being as closed as they were, it made her look as though she was at rest as though free finally from the torment of being a mindless cannibal. She could finally rest in peace. Claire saw the anguish on his face as he stared at her. They must have been friends...She thought as she fired the remainder of her magazine at the approaching zombies. As she emptied the ammunition into them, three more fell dead, their bodies slumped to the ground landing awkwardly as the rigor mortise had set in after the initial death even though it still reanimated as a carrier.

She reloaded and the woman with the red hair, whom Randy had been helping out, had taken a lead pipe off one of the zombies Claire had dropped. She cursed herself for coming here. Technically, she wasn't even supposed to be here. She had a daughter now. The same girl from the outbreak at the airport, Rani. Rani had lost her parents to bio terrorism and shortly after the Hardenville incident, her auntie had gone missing and had been ever since. Claire had not wanted to make the same mistake she had with Sherry as she had left it up to the government to take good care of her and they hadn't. So she adopted the young girl as her own daughter. She had used her job to take care of her but the last few times she had, her work had taken her away for long periods of time. She didn't want to do that anymore.

So she had taken a different job as a librarian since she enjoyed reading. She lived in Philadelphia now and had a good life out there but she had come back to New York City to tie up one loose end. The adoption papers for Rani had already been filled out and she was officially her mother but it had not been easy. Seeing as she was single it had been especially hard but she had enough pull within the system to get it done and since the adoption agencies had seen how much Claire did care for her, they had allowed it.

I'm not supposed to be here, damn it! This was supposed to be a short visit, get in and get out! She thought as she fired three rounds into the head of a zombie, a black male dressed in what looked like some kind of tennis clothing. He joined the other zombies on the floor and now there was just a few left. The other survivor whom they had been caring for was punching zombies trying to get away. One of them hit him with a glass bottle and the guy's head was leaking when it did. Another zombie, a female of Caribbean descent, wielded a Kukri, which she stabbed him in the stomach with. The man hollered in pain deafening, and he drowned out the moans of hunger the C virus zombies. She stabbed him again and then one more time. The man staggered back, holding his stomach which bled excessively.

He stabbed him again and the man staggered back. A female zombie wielding a sledgehammer hit the man in the face and split his head open fracturing his skull. He went down in a thud. Randy took the opportunity to snatch up the pistol of the female zombie whom Officer Kim had shot. He began to fire it himself. He let off four shots and hit the female zombie with the sledge hammer. Three rounds hit her in the right breast while a fourth round went straight through her abdomen and severed the spine. He aimed at one of the zombies eating the man near the vending machine who was now slumped against the wall, a bloody mess. They chewed on the flesh of his fat stomach, indulging in the man's cellulite as they feasted like animals with tape worm. He felt sick as he saw one of them, an Asian man with feral eyes, biting into the man pulling his intestines out with his teeth as though it were laffy taffy.

He fired at the zombie doing that and hit him in the right temple. He fired another three shots which hit a large zombie dressed in a construction outfit, in the left side of his back. He squeezed the trigger again but he heard the dry click. A zombie lunged for him but he quickly moved evading it and kicking it away from him. He went back to the corpse of the deceased police officer and retrieved two magazines from her. Each of them had fifteen shots which meant that she had gone down fighting if she only had seven left in the piece. Claire finished the last ones off with head shots. Soon they all laid dead in pools of their own blood. Some were still twitching while others were perfectly still. Officer Kim lowered his smoking handgun and observed, "You're pretty handy with that thing. You sure you're only a Terra Save member?"

Claire sighed. "Not even one of them anymore. I did work for them for a while but I've been trying to live a normal life. I leave the soldier life to my older brother. He was made for it. I just come back on the job even when I'm not supposed to when I se there are still people in need," She smiled and added, "Call it an unhealthy habbit. I just heard a tip that a friend I hadn't seen in ages would be here in New York but so far I can't find her. She works for this organization too."

The police officer narrowed his eyes. "You've seen this kind of thing before, haven't you. You're no rookie at shooting either. Your average civilian can't hit as many shots as you do. Much less, react as calmly as you do when you encountered a group."

Claire explained, "I survived the Raccoon City incident. There were things like this all over that city but they weren't smart enough to carry weapons or do any of the strategic things they're doing. Still, they were deadly if they were in large numbers. It's not easy facing a horde of them by yourself or even a small group.I got out though. My brother, he used to be a cop like you, he encountered this before I did."

He looked at her with disbelief. "Raccoon City? I read about that in the newspapers. My parents read about it for at least a month when that town blew up. I thought it was a nuclear plant accident that blew up the whole city? What does flesh eating cannibals that stink like rotten meat have to do with an explosion?"

Claire sighed. Not this again. "No, that's just the cover up story. This did go on all over that city and the president had to issue a missile launch to completely destroy the city. This was all caused by a pharmaceutical company called Umbrella. They were the ones creating things like these. Bio weapons. They were all test subjects infected with a virus. They reanimate dead brain cells, at least part of them and make humans more like beasts. The person that was there isn't even themselves anymore. It's just some beast like replacement that only knows how to feed on prey."

Officer Kim crossed his arms after holstering his gun. "I remember the Umbrella trials. I heard something to that effect but why would the government go to such great length to cover it up? Why lie about the city's infection all together? Why not just tell the truth? I mean, they didn't even shut them down until 2003. I remember because it was all over the news. They had secret facilities all over the world but in America? Come on..."

Claire looked at him as he got the door open and told him, "Yes, that's why they covered it up. They knew the public would be outraged and panic would spread all over the country if anybody knew what Umbrella was up to and that the US government had destroyed an entire town when there might have been other survivors? The fact is, even while they blew up the town, they didn't know for sure that it had been anything more than an accident. It just so happened to be an accident they were trying to keep a lid on."

The police officer looked distraught. "I can't believe that...I mean I believe what you said but I'm just in shock that the government would pull crap like that. Then how could they make these things now? Who the hell would want to? I saw the news, Umbrella was bankrupt they don't exist anymore. How can this happen?"

They walked outside and Claire, Officer Kim, Randy, Mr. Winters, and the woman Randy had been fixing up who Claire heard him call Brenda, carefully made their way through the streets. Brenda turned to Officer Kim, clearly seeing him as the leader even though Claire had more experience at handling zombies. "What are we gonna do if we encounter more of them? A bigger horde? We need guns or something we can use to defend ourselves better!"

Officer Kim sighed. "As much as I want to be able to do that, it's not as easy as point, pull repeat. In fact, it's one thing to shoot a target that doesn't move or doesn't try to kill you at a range but quite another when you see a moving target coming after you with a weapon or just in general trying to take a bite out of you. At least with that pipe you can't miss. It takes training. Claire seems to have training with it and Randy well...I don't know about Randy but he did find a gun so I guess I'm in no position to argue with that. So long as he doesn't point it at any of us. As for Mr. Winters here, he was in Vietnam so I doubt we need to worry about him being careless with a firearm if we find one."

Randy added, "That is unless one of you gets bitten. Then I won't have a choice. Same thing with me if I get bitten, you shoot me in the head. I don't wanna die tonight but if I have to, I wanna die human. Not a mindless cannibal."

Claire assured him, "You aren't going to die, Randy," As she said this, she remembered what she had told a dying young man in her arms. I told him he was going to get out of there with me...but I was wrong. Just thinking about him made her want to tear up all over again. Even though it was years ago, the wound was still so fresh and it still cut her so deep. She did not cry here. She just swallowed back the lump in her throat and added, "Not if I can help it. None of you. If I have any say in it, you'll all make it out of here alive. That includes you, Mr. Winters! You're going to get home to see your grandchildren."

Mr Winters smiled in response to Claire's own smile that she forced trying to keep an optimistic mood among their small group. "I appreciate the thought, miss, but all due respect, that aint really your call or mine. That's on the all mighty to decide. If the lord is willing and creek don't rise."

Randy rolled his eyes. "Oh great. Religious crap. What a crock of shit. What kind of God would allow this to happen? He either doesn't care or just doesn't like us but either way, the five of us are on our own. I'm putting my faith in guns and ammo. In humanity. By the way, Officer, I can shoot just fine. You saw me put a couple of those things down."

Claire interrupted him and said, "Let's not turn on each other. We all believe different things. If you want to put faith in humanity that's fine but we need to stick together and not be divided."

They headed down a main street and passed a city bus ablaze. As they got past it, Officer Kim ran ahead. Claire gave chase. "Wait!" Randy and Brenda followed while Mr. Winters followed at a slow jogging pace. The police officer approached another cop. This guy was a stocky Caucasian male with auburn hair, gray eyes and who stood at six foot six. He had his gun on somebody, an individual in a black sweater with a hood. "Jim, what's going on here?" Officer Kim asked.

The cop, Jim turned and looked at him even as he kept his Glock on the suspect. Randy muttered with sarcasm, "Let's hope we don't have another Trayvon Martin incident just cause the guy's wearing a goddamn hoody."

Claire could not see the suspects face as his back was to them but he appeared to be white, a male and standing at five foot seven. She couldn't determine how old since she couldn't see his face. Jim said, "Peter, help me cover this asshole! There was rumor of some terrorist attack in this city. I think this little piece of shit was the cause of it and if he aint, he's at least partly involved and even if I'm wrong there he knows who is," Jim ordered the youth, "Get down on your knees!" He did as he was told. Jim came around to the front of the young man. He had on a Halloween mask it looked like a skeleton mask or to some, a death mask. Jim ordered, "Remove the mask. Slowly..."

Peter asked his partner, "How can you be so sure he is? What did he do?" Officer Kim's partner practically spat venom. "First of all, I saw him kill a cop. Not an infected one either. He cut his throat. Just sliced him. I think the guy was from the lower east side. Anyway, earlier today i see the shit hitting the fan and people are running all over the street any which way trying to run away from these...things. Not this guy. He's casually walking like everything is fine. Like he was going to see a play on Broadway or something. That might be a coincidence to some people but to me that's suspicious. Now take that goddamn mask off!"

The man slowly reached for his mask and grabbed it and threw it to the cop. He caught it in his hand surprised by what he had done and in a flash the guy was back on his feet and he kicked the cops feet from under him and took his gun from him. He put the man in a head lock forcing him to his feet. The guy tried resisting but the man threw some swift blows to the back of the head and hit him again and again. Peter pointed his weapon at the guy. "Let my partner go! I swear I'll shoot!"

The man didn't seem at all intimidated by him. He was silent. He had a knife which he brought near the throat of Jim. "Shoot the bastard for Christ sake! It doesn't matter if you hit me! I got a vest on!" Peter obeyed and opened fire letting off six shots trying to not hit his partner but he did anyway and he also hit the guy. The vest caught the bullets while the man in the mask took three rounds in his right arm. He suddenly put his fist through Jim and went through his back and came out of his stomach forcing its way through the organs and his bloody hand came out of the front. Claire was horrified at the sight and so was Officer Kim. Just as swiftly as that had happened, the bloody fist suddenly flipped them extending the middle finger. Perhaps in a movie this would have been funny but in real life it was beyond appalling.

The man threw the lifeless carcass at Peter who discharged two shots on instinct. The corpse fell on him and he was soon covered in his partner's own blood. Randy discharged three shots at the man aiming for his head but the guy dodged them easily as though he were on Smallville. He has the virus...Claire realized. Officer Kim fired an entire magazine at the guy and missed every shot as the guy easily dodged them. He slowed down once Peter did run out of ammunition and had to reload. He held his partner as a death rattle sounded in his throat. "I'm sorry, Jim..." He said, clearly stressed about it. He had tears in his eyes.

The man dodged two more shots from Randy and seemed to stare at Claire but only briefly. It was hard to say because he had a mask on but it was like even behind the mask she could feel his eyes watching her. It creeped her out. "Who are you?!" The younger Redfield sibling demanded. He stood there for one second and growled, "Wesker," Before taking off speeding away. What?! There's no way! He's been dead for four years. There's no way that was him and even if Wesker was still alive there's no way he was that young. Plus he was taller than this guy he was at least six feet tall.Claire thought.

Brenda looked at Claire and she asked, "You know that guy? Who is Wesker?"

Claire could not hide the haunted look on her face. "I thought I do...wait I don't know. I knew a guy named Wesker but he's dead."

Peter stood up screaming, "That son of a bitch! I'm gonna rip his balls out and feed them to him! Soon as I get my hands on him!" He reloaded his handgun and brushed a tear aside. "Claire, if you know that sack of shit you better let me in on what you got! I wanna find that asshole and send him to hell."

Claire shook her head. "No...I mean he gave me a name but I don't believe he is who he says he is," As she thought about it, she considered the possibility it might be Wesker's son. She had heard from her older brother about his mission in Edonia and in China and how he met Wesker's own son. The idea that he would even have a son confused her and the idea that any woman out there would give him the time of day made her nauseous. He had said the kid had been angry about it but had a chance to shoot and had not. By all descriptions of Chris he seemed like a level headed guy even if he was a little bit arrogant. Come to think of it, Sherry was with him and she had just as much good to say about him and how he saved her life. If that's true why would he claim the Wesker name and why would he kill two police officers and help start an outbreak in New York? She wondered. What if that isn't Jake Muller at all? Maybe Wesker had other children? The very thought sent a chill up her spine.

Peter Kim was still screaming in a rage but Mr. Winters stepped up and put a hand on the cop's shoulder. "Now look here, son. You've got to keep it together! In my day, I was a leader too but I'm too old to carry this group. You've got to do that. That's what you said when we all first got into that building back there right? Your time is now. If you want to get the man that killed your partner, you've got to be smarter than he is. He wants you to be angry and half cocked."

Peter took a deep breath and nodded. "You're right. You're pretty wise, old timer. I keep forgetting you saved people too. Or fought for people that is. It may not have been the most popular thing but that's on the government, not our boys in uniform. You were a fighter every bit as much as I was. More even! I just fight for the cause I have in front of me. It's my job to keep people safe out here. This city maybe falling apart but I'm gonna do everything I can to help people survive in the mean time and help to preserve order if possible. That is what I swore to do. You and I both took oaths a long time ago. That murderer is going to be brought to justice one way or another but for now...," He sighed. "You're right. I'll do what I can to help people here and now. Even if the N.Y.P.D. falls tonight completely, my duty is still the same. If not as a cop, then as a human being."

Mr. Winters chuckled. "Yes suh. I have seen my fair share of combat and bloodshed in my life. Enough to last a lifetime! Or so I thought, anyway. I was a part of the Tet Offensive, kid. Scariest days of my life! I thought I was gonna catch a bayonet or an AK round or a mortar or something! I did what I had to and tried to overcome my fears and do what we were there to. I got a few bullets in my ass, some shrapnel in the leg, and a medal to prove it. It came with its costs and I lost some good friends, some I met in the war, some I grew up with but overall I'd say we did what we could. Sure, we didn't win our war, and I figured we wouldn't and by the end of it, I didn't even know why the hell we were over there at all in the first place but surviving that God awful mess was a victory in itself. It was good enough for me!"

Randy crudely said, "Look I don't meant to be an asshole but can you guys finish your war hardened circle jerk another time? We need to get out of here. Make our way to Central Park. That is where we said we were going, remember?"

Officer Kim said his goodbyes to his partner and stood up. He crossed himself and then followed the rest of the group. The others were eager to get a move on but Claire, out of respect for his loss had stopped and waited for him to pick up the pace.

Claire rolled her eyes at him. She liked Randy as a friend but sometime he could be sarcastic at the wrong times. She too, was sarcastic but she knew the time and place for it which evidently, he did not. As they walked down the street, Officer Kim asked her, "It seems to me since you've been dealing with situations like this longer than any of us have, shouldn't you be the leader of this little group of ours? I know I'm a cop and I've put away a lot of scum bags but dealing with half rotten cannibals is not something they prepare you for at the academy!"

Claire shrugged. "Sure, but I wasn't given any zombie manual either. In fact, the first time I saw one, I was just in college myself."

Peter seemed interested in her story. "Well what about this Wesker? That's the name that little creep gave, right? How do you know him?"

Claire explained, "That wasn't him, either that guy was lying and is really just a low level disgruntled Umbrella employee who got laid off in 2003 or he's one of Albert Wesker's children. Albert Wesker was a bio terrorist who actually almost destroyed the world. He's dead now and I could tell you who he was but it's a bit of a long story."

Randy chimed in. "You should really listen to the lady! It's a really long story. It takes about as long to tell it as it did to happen and it happened over several years!" Randy, in usual fashion was using sarcasm, in this case to over-exaggerate.

Peter as well as the others were interested still. "We got a bit of a walk before we actually reach Central Park. You might as well fill us in so we have at least a shred of an idea of what we're dealing with here."

She saw no reason not to. These people were now being affected by the circumstances that had came from the virus and B.O.W.s. Might as well spill the beans. "Okay. Well, it all started back in 1998..."

Randy let out a groan of annoyance. "I should have brought something to read," He muttered.

Sherry

The situation was out of control. They had actually had to call in the National Guard because the city was being overrun. There were still plenty of the living still alive but there was no way to know for how long. She spotted several SWAT team members putting down a group of zombies with MP5's. One zombie was still crawling until the police lady put several rounds in its head and finished it off blowing it's head all over the street decorating it with the brains and skull matter of the deceased carrier. "Jesus! This actually makes a bank robbery look like nothing! Never thought I'd see the day..."

A male SWAT member nodded. "Agreed. It's like something out of a bad horror flick. Except it's really happening."

As Sherry passed them, one of the police men approached her. "Ma'am! You need to get of here. No civilians beyond this point! We expect a horde of those things coming our way and we don't want any innocent bystanders to get caught in the cross fire or be a happy meal for one of these things."

Sherry flashed her ID. "I'm not a civilian. Division of Security Operations. I'm here to help."

They moved aside but the man advised her, "It's worse than you think out here. The National Guard were supposed to be deployed in the city but I don't know where the hell they are. They should have called in the Marines. Those are the real men, anyway. Look, I really wouldn't go there if I were you. I have no way to know how many actual civilians are behind enemy lines but we're expected to hold the line here since there will be a big horde coming our way. Now I'll let you past but once I do that, you will be on your own."

She agreed to it and he let her through. She had a Glock 17 on her and five magazines for it. She headed past the blockade and made her way up the street. She had no doubt in her mind that there were still many New Yorkers still on the loose fending for themselves and that the National Guard was trying to purge Brooklyn of the B.O.W's that were attacking civilians as well as the BSAA who had more expertise So as expected, the North American branch was called in. Soon she was away from the radio chatter and it was quieter. As she walked down the street, she could hear screaming and gunshots. The violence was all around but it was far enough away that there was no way to pin point exactly where it was coming from.

She spotted a duo of dogs feasting upon a corpse on the ground. The first dog was chewing away the meat around the rib cage. The other had worked on most of the face which was not recognizable. It licked the cartilage that had once been the nose. Disgusted and horrified, Sherry aimed her Glock at the two and fired two shots aiming for the dog doing the licking. She hit it on the tip of the nose just barely grazing with the first round and the second she hit in the lower jaw even though she had been aiming for the brain. It went down with a yelp but she was not sure if she had killed it or merely wounded it. The other dog came running at her. She fired four shots and each one hit it in its white fur turning it dark red but it kept coming even as she fired another into its back right hind leg. It hit the dog but it was already in mid air by the time the shot hit. It pounced on Birkin and pinned her to the ground and went for her throat. She felt its sharp teeth attempt to lock on her slender throat but she fought it off with her bare hand hitting it and trying to get it away from her neck. It bit her hand too so she brought her gun up to its snarling snout and pulled the trigger. She stood up and saw that the other dog was coming. She fired four shots and three of them hit it, two in the chest and one went down to its underbelly.

She had hoped to hit it in the heart but either she had not or she had and it had done no good. She fired again two more times and the first round went wild as she backed up but the second connected and hit it in the left eye. It keeled over dead on its side. She then checked her injuries. Her neck had not taken as much damage since it had not grabbed her for very long but its sharp teeth had punctured the skin and her left hand was bleeding from the additional bite. Oh God...She thought. Will I become one of those things? A flesh eating cannibal without a brain or a soul? She used a green herb on her wound mixing it it. It stung but it was a good sting. She had two more green herbs and one can of first aid spray in her medical pack. She was not sure what would happen. She had never been certain if anybody in Raccoon had become carriers from being bitten by dogs or if it was strictly from other zombies. She felt her heart beating as she was scared at the thought.

Sherry headed down Mott Street looking to get to Canal. She heard a few gunshots down the street. She headed to the sound of it to see if she could assist in any way. There was a group of at least half a dozen people all armed. One man, a tall Caucasian with a buzz cut in a gray shirt and camouflage pants had opened fire with a pistol. He had taken down three carriers with three well aimed head shots. He had light brown hair and steel blue eyes. He looked to be about Sherry's age. "Goddamn it, Jimmy! You're gonna attract more of those things! They're drawn to sounds! Use that crowbar you have on you, that's what it's there for!" Screamed one of the people with him. The street light was out and she could not see some of the other members of this rag tag survival team but they had weapons used to take out zombies at close range. It looked like variations of bricks, knives, bats and improvised clubs. She saw the man who had scolded this Jimmy got beat a zombie over the head with an aluminum baseball bat. He crushed the skull with a sickening Thwack sound as he did.

Jimmy fired another shot from his pistol at a female carrier looking to be in her teens. He shot her three times in the chest and then once in the head. "Fuck you!" He shouted as his response. "This is the twenty first century, guys! Grow up!" He reloaded and a female said to him, "No, he's right! You shouldn't use them for just a few zombies. Only do it when there is no other choice. It won't kill you! A crowd of these things drawn in by your shots will though!"

Sherry called to them. "Hey! Are you guys all right? What are you g..." Her sentence trailed off when she saw that a horde was coming up the street toward them. A brown skinned man, the one who had shouted at Jimmy snarled, "Look what you did now, you fuckin asshole! Good going!"

There had to be at least twenty of them. Jimmy looked back at Sherry but then was pulled by the brown skinned man with the bat. "Come on!" The female member of the group who had scolded Jimmy joined a larger stocky man who had managed to get a door to an adjacent building open. She called to the rest of the group, "Come on, guys! Get in here! Especially you, Frank you're bleeding and they're gonna smell it!"

As Sherry heard this, she wondered, Was he bitten? They made their way into the building and the woman looked at Sherry and shouted, "Come on! Get over here!" Sherry was going to but was almost bitten by a zombie. They had gotten closer and she retrieved her knife and backed up as it lunged for her, a middle aged man with gray hair and milky white eyes. His skin was pale from death and its breath was sour. She kicked it back away from her and drove her Hunting Knife into the side of its head. As she removed the blade and it fell lifeless at her feet she brought her heel down on the fresh wound she had made and put all her weight into it just to make sure he was dead.

Sherry ran down the alley and noticed that most of the zombies were focused on the group. The ones that did not go for the door that was almost closed as Jimmy fired and proceeded to reload, were lingering in the alley way entrance almost as if trying to sniff Sherry out. She spotted a newspaper recycle bin and lifted it up and hopped into it taking cover inside of it. She could see just barely out of it from the dark inside the recycle dumpster. She was very still and very quiet. To Birkin's surprise they passed the alley and the ones that did not were preoccupied with pounding on the door of the building that the group had just taken refuge in. She stayed low and waited until after the zombies had passed by. She then moved crouched down with her pistol drawn, down Canal street and headed where her PDA coordinates said to.

Sherry made her way down several more blocks. As she walked she couldn't help but wonder what Jake Muller was up to. She had been saved by that boy on a number of occasions that fateful night and all though she had saved him, the truth was, the Ustanak had pursued them and had been relentless. It had been after him more so than it had her and even as hard as it had been to kill the thing she still followed her obligation to protect him since his body had the antibodies but he had saved her just as much as she had saved him maybe even more. Every time they had assumed they had killed the thing for good, it seemed to come back. She shuddered to think of the worst part of that night. When they had to sneak past it. The Oko's that the Ustanak had dispatched to find the pair was hard to get by they had just barely escaped the caverns. That was the part of it she could honestly say she hated more than any other part of that night. He had still been cocky and confident even when they were ducked down in the dumpsters hiding out.

They had exchanged some witty remarks as they had been so close to each other but he had said, "What makes you think you're my type anyway?" Even still, while at first she thought he was an arrogant jerk who was only concerned with money, it had turned out there was more to him. He had shared a lot of details about his life with her and even after they escaped and had gotten back to the lab to get his blood, they had talked like two teenagers on the phone at night. She had been wrong about him. There was a goodness to him and even deep down, she knew he was a sweet heart. He just had put up a defensive shell at first. It was astounding how much they had in common too. Both of them had fathers who were severely fucked up. Both had fathers who had caused many deaths and had left behind a bloody legacy even beyond their own deaths that inspired those rogue agents of Neo Umbrella in every act they committed against the global community. What they also had in common was that they had also lost their mothers. He had confided in her about his own mother and how he had been a mercenary to try and make enough money.

He had not gotten enough on time. She had died and he was left by himself and had to fend for himself. While Sherry's life from the age of twelve on had been anything but easy, she still had friendships with Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy, who respectively had rescued her from Raccoon City. It had actually been longer since she had seen Claire than it had since she had seen Leon. As a matter of fact she had not seen her since she was seventeen. In some ways she had felt betrayed when Claire had left them alone to go and find her brother in Paris but over time she had learned to get over it and understood that if she had been in the same situation, she would have wanted to do the same thing. After all, for those three months between Raccoon City and Claire's breaching of the Paris facility, she had been there for Sherry and she had developed a close relationship with the rookie cop as well. Though her first intention in coming to Raccoon was to find her brother, she had discovered Sherry and had later decided that her brother would have to take a back seat to getting the young girl to safety.

She had done all she could at the time and had stayed with them as long as she possibly could. Though her young mind had been unable to understand this fifteen years ago, she did understand it now. The same could not be said for Jake Muller. He had been without anybody at all and while he had other mercenaries with him during his missions over the years, he had not been close to any of them as far as she knew. He had only loved his mother and then he had lost her. Upon meeting Sherry, it was almost as though she had helped unlock a good part of him that had been hidden away for so long. After years of repression, he had changed when Birkin had entered his life. That was why he didn't take the money he had asked for. Jake Muller turned a new leaf.

She found herself finally reaching Central Park. She had been snapped out of her thoughts from the sound of rapid gunfire. She spotted a soldier laying on a bunch of what had been a bus stop. He was bleeding all over his abdomen and it stained his uniform with dark red. He also had been hit in the leg, up and down his shin and even in the femur. She examined him as she saw he was still alive. He was a Caucasian looking to be in his early thirties. He had reddish blonde hair and facial hair in a goatee and mustache. He had a name tag that said A. Switkowski.

From the looks of him, he was a higher rank of soldier. He had been shot, this much was clear. His sky blue eyes focused on Sherry. "You...it isn't safe here...not...for anybody...! You have to get out of here while you still can. This city...we tried to protect it, tried to help people...from whatever it is that makes dead men get up and walk...but we don't know what we're dealing with...we're in way over our heads! If we kill one of theirs, no problem...if they kill one of ours we either have one less man to defend the people or...or...these walking dead men gain one more person on their side..."

There was great agony in his voice. He spoke with a southern accent. If Sherry had to guess, more than likely, Tennessee.

Sherry told him, "I'm here to help. Are you okay? Where were you hit? We need to get you some medical attention but maybe I can make the pain hurt a little less. What happened here?" She went through the medical kit she had on her and got what had been a green herb. It was now tactical these days for people involved in fighting Bio Terrorism to carry both green herbs in their herbal forms as well as the tablet version of the herbs. The green herbs themselves were for external injuries and Sherry had an herb ready for the gunshot wound on the Staff Sergeant's abdomen. He stopped her by taking her hand. "I'd rather have one of those tablets...please...I'm hit in the liver..."

She did as he asked and gave him a green herb tablet which were used for internal injuries like in the case of a broken limb or ribs, they could be a pain killer or at least a pain reducer while it could also be a remedy for internal bleeding as well. It was clear to Sherry that he was bleeding internally as expected and the pain was unbearable. "Me and my men...we were helping people evacuate on the other side of town...we heard it was a cluster fuck over in Brooklyn...they got overrun there...we put down a lot of carriers out here...I lost some good men to those fuckin things...then we were ordered to hold the line just up the street from here. We did...and we lost more people. Then we were to make our way to the extraction point where civilians would be evacuated...by military personal, they would get as many people airlifted out of the city by helicopter as possible...we were supposed to protect the rest...but as soon as me and my squad were here, we came under fire..."

She gave him a drink of water from his own canteen. He exhaled sharply as he swallowed it and the tablet. He closed his eyes and winced with pain. "Some...para military group...hell if I know...the bastards had better tactical gear than we did...they even had armor piercing rounds. I think there were more of them but we only encountered a few. Like they were waiting for us. Guerrilla warfare...we thought they was terrorists at first...but we saw how well equipped they were...and we knew they weren't no peasant militants...these men were well funded and they probably could have even given NATO a run for their money...they..."

He broke into a coughing fit and hacked up blood all over his beard and his face and his chest. Sherry held onto him to comfort the poor fellow as he finished. He gritted his teeth which were stained red from his own blood. "We took a few of them out...but I lost four boys out of ten...I told them to each of them head into the park...make a run for it...I heard gunfire so I assume they might have made it...but me and Lisa there, we covered them while they ran for it. We had at least three of them still gunning for me and my soldiers. Lisa went down fighting. She took out two of them..and I took out one...well aimed shots but then I took fire to the leg. She started to try and help me over to the park entrance...and somebody from that there window...," He pointed with an outstretched finger at a window on a high rise building. "They must have had one more waiting...whoever it was, they shot Lisa right through the head. Knocked her helmet off...she was surprised she was okay until another round went through her brain stem..."

He began to cough again and Sherry warned him, "You should save your strength and let that medicine kick in. Don't try to talk!" The man stopped coughing again and insisted on being able to finish what he said. "Shot me too...I limped my sorry ass over here and I laid on the bench thinking i was done for...that girl died trying to save me. Four other boys died because I wasn't a better leader...I let my men down. I don't care that he shot me...I care that he shot Lisa. She was a good woman. Trying to do right by her country...same as me. I aint afraid to die but before I do, I want to kill the fucker who did that...who knows how many others will die if I don't?"

Just then Sherry noticed a beam of light focusing on the man's wounded form and then it moved along her body. She froze as she stared into the red beam of light. She saw exactly where it was coming from. A fire escape on the side of a building across the street from where they were about a hundred yards away. Her gun still in hand, she felt herself freeze but her heart was pounding as though it were trying to escape her chest. She had her pistol in hand but knew it would be useless at that range and whoever that was who had just shot this wounded soldier and killed another while they tried to escape, was an excellent marksman and even if Sherry tried to move out of the way or run as fast as she could for cover, she would not be able to outrun him. She counted the seconds as the two seemingly stared directly at each other. Just like that, to her surprise, the sniper lowered the Rifle and went inside of the window adjacent to the hallway which led to the fire escape.

He looked straight into the young blonde's eyes and demanded, "He spared you? Who are you?" She lied, "Nobody important," She then added, "But I am here to help. We're going to get you some medical treatment, just hang in there. I can contact my boss and get help as soon as possible!"

He pleaded, "If you're here to help, then please...help me. Put me out of my misery. I'm going to be dead in five minutes anyway. I'd rather spare myself the pain...but...I can't do it myself."

Sherry stared at the man in horror. "Are you insane? I'm not going to shoot you. That would be murder! Just hang in there and we'll get you some medical attention. Don't give up on me now, your team needs you."

The man, Sergeant Switkowski looked defeated in his expression. "I don't want to go back to Nashville like this. I'll probably never walk again either. I don't want...to go home this way...I know I can't anyway but if i did...just please do this. If i do it, I'd be committing suicide...if you do it, it aint suicide..."

Sherry shook her head stubbornly. "It's a cop out! You got wounded but you're a soldier. That happens. We've got to get you moving. We can still save your legs...," She attempted to move the man and he cried out in pain. "No! I can't take it...please...have mercy. I would do it for you. It aint suicide if somebody else does it. It's a mercy killing. It aint murder either. I want this...mama raised me better than to commit suicide..."

Sherry couldn't believe she was being put in this position. "Do you know what you're asking? This isn't the right way!"

He would not let up. "I'm infected...you don't want me to become one of those mindless flesh eating things! I...was bitten on the way here. Before we made it here. I thought it was nothing but I saw a couple men who had been bitten before me turn. I know I don't have long."

Birkin was frustrated. For one thing this man could have easily been lying to get what he wanted but at the same time he must have really wanted to die if he was making up a lie about it. What if he's not lying? What if he really was bitten by one of those things? Do you really want to take the risk? She asked herself. It would indeed be a crueler fate if she left him to die of his injuries or just waited for him to die and see if he came back. The very thought of it all made her very weary. She had taken this job not only to buy her own freedom but at the chance to do some good in the world but she knew that somewhere along the way she would have to make some tough calls. "How do I know you aren't lying?" She demanded. "Show me where you were bitten and I'll consider it."

The soldier rolled his eyes and sat up in pain and took his own pistol and looked down at it. "Hell...by the time it takes you to consider...I can do it myself. I don't wanna pull the trigger myself but I will if I have to. Hopefully the Almighty will understand that I wanted to die a man and not a beast. The question is...what are you gonna do if one of those things bite you? Can you go through with it?"

Sherry remembered that she had been bitten by the dog and she could not recall if all of the people she had seen bitten by dogs had become zombies but she did remember seeing her own school mates bitten by zombies as well as police officers who later came back as a zombie. She was pretty sure dogs did infect because they had the virus. If this was the case, she was screwed. "We're not talking about me. We're talking about you. Don't shoot yourself! What about what your mother taught you? Doesn't that mean anything?"

He nodded. "It does. I think she too, would understand. Death is natural and while suicide aint a natural way to go and is a sin, it sure as hell beats the alternative and I think it would be the morally right thing to pick between the two...I wish there was another way...but I don't think there is... I'll tell you what. You do what I ask of ya, I'll let you take my Rifle here. They usually give us the hand me downs in the National Guard but luckily those hand me downs are none too shabby...you got sixty rounds in this thing and two more magazines. It aint much but it gives you a better chance of surviving than just a handgun. You got about sixty seconds to choose. Either way you can get the Rifle...but this way, you'd at least get it the honorable way. The other way, you'd be stealing from the dead."

The young blonde agent felt like screaming. She thought she might cry but the days when she was a little girl were long gone and now that she was an adult, as well as an agent for the US government, she had to make tough choices even if the choices made her feel sick to her raised her pistol and aimed at his head. "Damn you for making me do this..."

She closed her eyes and looked away. She heard him say, "Thank you," in a relieved voice before she squeezed the trigger. She took his M-16 variant and the magazines for it and did not look back. She headed into the park and could hear gunfire up ahead of her. She stayed crouched low with her handgun ready. The M-16 rounds not counting the ones already in the Assault Rifle were one hundred and thirty rounds as one was a high capacity 100 round magazine and the other was a standard M-16 mag. She spotted two soldiers, one, a man of Middle Eastern descent standing at about five foot nine who had a crew cut hairstyle and five o'clock shadow, and a Caucasian male with no hair at all firing at something she could not see. "What the hell is this thing?" Demanded the first soldier over the thunder of the Assault Rifle. Sherry could see he was bleeding from an injury. The other backed up reloading and shouted, "Hell if I know, man! It just killed Brewster! We gotta pin it down and stop it here before it reaches the civilian evacuation point!"

Sherry quickly checked her PDA and saw that she was about fifty yards from the evacuation point. The bald soldier fired his rounds off at the unidentified target and screamed, "Is this guy bulletproof?! Why won't he die?!Come on you freak!" It was then that she saw what they were shooting at. It stood at eight feet tall and wore a brown overcoat. Its skull was as white as the moon or the belly of a fish. It was the T-103 model of the tyrant. She had heard of this thing but had never seen it herself but she knew that Leon Kennedy had faced this thing in Raccoon City and it had attempted to kill him. This thing had also been used on Sheena Island. She had thought they had been discontinued but apparently she was wrong. What it was doing here in what some called the greatest city in the world was beyond her. The soldier of Middle Eastern descent fired upon it but made his way to Sherry. "This isn't safe for civilians! Stay by me now! You didn't take the route civilians were supposed to!"

Sherry showed him her ID and shouted over the automatic fire of his team mate. "I'm not a civilian I'm DSO. I came here to meet up with a partner of mine. Behind the checkpoint, is it safe?"

The man yelled to his team mate, the bald man, who had lobbed a grenade at the tyrant as he attempted to reload. "Gavin, she is with the US government! I need to get this woman to safety! Can you keep that thing busy?" The man yelled back, "No promises but I'll try my best! Go now, and then get your ass back here ASAP and help me kill this fucker!"

He escorted her past the checkpoint where two soldiers had set up a blockade and had two mounted Machine Guns guarding it. The man quickly said something to the two soldiers and they allowed them to get by, climbing over the sand bags. "I met one of your DSO agents. I think her name was Elena. She was coming here to ensure the evac point was secured. The BSAA are supposed to be on their way here, some specialty force that has handled these things before. She got past the checkpoint same as you did but I did not see where she went to."

Sherry questioned the soldier, "You mean Helena? Helena Harper? I'm Sherry Birkin. I'm her assigned partner."

The man shook her hand. "Pvt. Muhammad Shaheer. Do you have any idea what is going on? I have heard rumors of some terrorist attack in the city but other than that I have heard nothing about why this is happening."

She explained, "It's a very long story but I'll tell you. We think it was an attack by the terrorist organization Neo Umbrella," She began to further explain when suddenly the two men at the mounted Machine Guns began opening fire. She turned her attention to them and after a long flurry of rounds they stopped firing and one of them yelled, "Hostile down! We need a medic! Gavin has been injured by that thing!"

She spotted a helicopter and recognized that it was BSAA. Just then, she heard a hissing sound and an explosion followed. The helicopter spun out of control crashing to the earth. The blades raised up sparks as it scraped against the ground and then it exploded in a deafening was knocked on her back by the force of it and her ears were ringing. The chopper was down in flames and she looked and saw that many civilians that had been waiting for evacuation were caught in the blast radius and many were wounded or killed. As she got to her feet all she could hear was the ringing and for whatever reason her own heart beat was amplified by what seemed like one hundred fold. There was screaming and crying and shouts of confusion and despair. Every available hand rushed forth to help the wounded. Muhammad grabbed Sherry by the shoulder and was shouting something at her but she couldn't hear him. "What?" She asked but she could barely hear her own voice.

Finally after a couple of minutes her hearing slowly came back. "I said, we need to get this area stable and move as many of these people to safety as we can! The woman you are looking for was headed in that direction. We need to tend to the wounded so unless you can help us here you should go and find her. When you do, please, by all means come and help us. This was a BSAA helicopter, yes? If they were the only BSAA coming to help then we need anybody else who is willing."

She made her way down a path where New Yorkers used to jog before this chaos had broken out in the city. Just then she was contacted by Hunnigan. "Sherry, where are you now? I need you to do me a favor. Helena has gone missing and I need you to find her. She was in the middle of telling me something she said it was important but the communication got cut off before she could finish her sentence. I'm sending you the coördinates to her PDA where it was last when I spoke to her. I need you to find her. Even if she is dead we need to know. Once you do that, head back to the military and stand by. The BSAA will be there soon."

Sherry exhaled. "No they won't. Somebody shot them out of the sky I don't know why they did but it caused a lot of civilian casualties. I think there maybe some fire squads for Neo Umbrella on stand by in the city and they might have attacked police officers and soldiers. I'm near what was supposed to be the evac point for the people in Manhattan. I'm looking at a bridge further down into the park. There's a trail that goes underneath it. I think both joggers and people on bicycles used that path."

Hunnigan seemed to type something in and then got back to her. "Okay, good. You're not too far from where her PDA is. That's the only way we can even begin to predict where she is. I need you to head in that direction. As for the BSAA, damn it! I'm sure they'll send more evacuation helicopters and more personnel to help the wounded and put down all the infected. If she is okay, let me know and I need to find out whatever it was she was trying to tell me. Also be very careful there is some man out there picking off men of the law and soldiers and probably BSAA too. They've been after him for a while but have never seen his face. If you do see him don't try to take him by yourself. He's infected with the virus and has many of the same abilities Albert Wesker was said to have."

Sherry nodded. "Ten four, Hunnigan. Over and out."

Meanwhile...

A few minutes ago he had stared at Sherry Birkin through the eye of a scope, ready to exterminate her. However, Uncle had told him not to. "You can't kill her. She is the daughter of William Birkin. Though they had their distances and their kinship may have ended in a bloody shooting, the daughter of William Birkin is as every bit as important as the children of Wesker. You know that, my son. If you want to accomplish what your father would have wanted, you must let her live. In time, she will be drawn back to us to meet her true destiny."

So he had spared the Birkin brat. He had no name that he could remember and for the longest time he was known only as Grim to his enemies due to the mask he wore, insisted upon by Albert, his father when he had first been chosen to carry out the duty of his mission. No, their mission. Simply because his father had been killed by Chris Redfield did not make his will any less inevitable.

He briefly took his mask off long enough to smoke a cigarette in the hallway of the apartment building he was in. When he was human as he once was, this would have been a detriment to his health but now that he had the virus coursing through his veins, it really didn't matter. He still looked like a human but he was so much more than that.

To his enemies he was Grim, a deadly assassin that had worked in the shadows for Umbrella and more importantly for Wesker. To those that actually knew him, such as Uncle and his father, as well as Hunk and a few others, he was Albert Jr. Or Albert the II. He had only started going by Albert II when Wesker, in a rare moment of compassion, had called him that due to him noticing that the boy when he had first found him, was in anguish over having emptiness instead of memories.

That was one reason he loved Albert. He may not have been a warm man but that had actually been one thing that was beyond his capabilities, to bring him back what he had lost. Maybe when he had died, he had been dead too long and had lost memory yet when Albert injected him with the virus, he brought him back and Grim had been unique enough and had good enough DNA that he came back a super human instead of a mindless monstrosity like the zombies created by the T virus. From what he had been told he had been killed by a gunshot wound and a stab wound. That was what had killed him and they had discovered this when they found him. He still even had the scars. On his arm and his chest. These were not his only scars.

He had them all over his body especially now that he was one of the top guns for Albert Wesker, the man he admired.

He had once been human, of course and had laughed, had cried, had joked and had even fallen in love. Whether or not Grim was a virgin, was unclear. He remembered only fragments of his past life and if he had been laid before, he had no memory of it. Then again, maybe he had!

Most of what he remembered of his past life as a weak human was gone and only came to him in bits and pieces in dreams when he slept. When his father had found him, he had been lost, broken, alone, bloody, bruised, fragile and vulnerable. His father had revived him and made him his own. He had saved his life. Though Grim sometimes did wonder what his previous life as a mere mortal had been like, and who his birth parents had been, who he had been in love with and who his companions had been, he saw it as nothing more than a curiosity.

He still felt the need to question Uncle about some things that were not clear to him. "I don't understand why you are helping out that punk. What's he done to deserve our help? Won't he just get in the way? I mean for Christ's sake, ma he worked with the US government! He actually let them take his blood for a cure."

He was referring of course, to Jake Muller. Grim had never met the man but he seemed arrogant. He was a gun for hire for anybody who would have paid him and he thought he was hot shit. Albert had no contact with him and had left at his birth. His father had never talked to him about there being another son. Sometimes his father could be secretive and had not given him the details on many aspects of his life. Yet he had stuck around and was in Grim's life.

Hell he had even named him after him! No matter how hard his life had been, no matter how much he had almost been killed, no matter how much his dreams at night brought him sorrow and frustration at seeing this different other life he had that he knew nothing about, he was still Albert Wesker Jr. Nobody could take that from him! He lived by the words his father had once said when facing his arch Nemesis Chris Redfield. "Sure, I'm not human anymore but just look at the power I've gained!" He had seen footage of it. In his everlasting brilliance not only had his father managed to survive the explosion of the base but even had managed to salvage footage from a security camera of the fight between himself and Redfield! He had watched it again and again and made him aspire to be more like him.

His father indeed had almost been a God. Yet the doubt in his mind often sounded when his thoughts were empty. What kind of a God can be killed? Does this mean he is not a God? He was so close to getting what he wanted and changing the world for the better and that asshole and his bitch of a partner took that from him.

Even if he was not Grim's biological father as he was to that Muller punk, his legacy, the virus, which his father alone had used to bring him back from the brink of death, to make him as immortal as he had been when he had been brought back, was more of a bond than that little prick would ever have with his father. It was only because Alex insisted that Jake Muller must have a part in the overall destiny of the Wesker family that he was still even breathing. While he saw Jake as a threat to himself as his father's true son, Uncle Alex seemed relieved.

While Wesker had not told him much about the other Wesker children, kids from all over the world to be experimented on by Oswald Spencer, a man who had been like a father to Wesker at one point, he had assured Grim that there were others and he was certainly not the last Wesker child all though he was the most significant of them and the rightful God of the new world he had intended to create.

His job now was to watch out for the Muller kid. If Uncle was to be the eyes watching out for the young man on the streets of the city, Grim was to be the silent arrow that guarded him when he could not guide himself. Maybe there was truth in what dad said. Maybe there is other Wesker children. Maybe I should give this Jake guy a chance. He did survive against the Ustanak so he sure as hell last longer than I expected he would! He doesn't have the skills I do but he is beyond human for sure. Also if my eyes served me right when i watched those surveillance videos, he seemed to have a thing for the Birkin brat. Maybe our destiny is intertwined. He thought.

As Grim took a drag on the cigarette, he asked Alex, "When are we going to get Chris Redfield out here? I've been waiting to get my hands on this guy for a long time. How am I supposed to kill him if he's all the way in Puerto Rico? I've trained hard getting myself ready for the day i can choke the breath out of him. If Muller doesn't have the balls to do it, he aint a Wesker. I'll do it if he won't."

In reality Grim was not fond of Uncle Alex. He had always been there along with Wesker. He often called him Uncle since he had assumed the role Albert had in his life. Alex had been another one of the Wesker children in Project W. In fact he was the only other survivor aside from Albert himself. Oddly enough, he had betrayed Oswald Spencer before Albert did. The two brothers had always planned to do so. Not many were aware that the two Wesker children had ever known each other at all. It was strange that Albert considered anybody family or had any concern for anybody.

Yet he had on a couple of occasions came with Grim on some of the missions he had done that had proved difficult and Wesker had saved his ass. The truth was, all though he was a cold and sinister bastard with a hell of an ego, he missed him. Alex however, though he now had assumed control of the Family, and was the new head of the organization, was still estranged to him and at times Grim couldn't help but feel as though he had no further obligations to even listen to Uncle Alex. He was like a lesser version of Albert even if in many ways they were very much alike.

"I have told you that was my brother. If anybody is going to dispose of Redfield it will be me. I might let you also indulge in the vengeance upon him but before that can happen, we need to get whatever intelligence we can out of him that will aid us in our war with the BSAA. He may have started the BSAA and he may have been a thorn in our side but it will not end with him. We can use whatever he tells us to take the bricks out of the rest of the foundation that is his wretched organization. We have ways we can make him talk. Rest assured, nephew. They will be here. The situation you have caused in New York will soon have all the North American agents here soon. They will not miss a beat and I would even go as far as to say they will leave Puerto Rico as it is, a disaster, just to come and save this cess pool of a city. It is only right you did what you have done here, Albert. This city may present itself as the greatest city in the world but deep down it is full of ugly secrets that would make a sensible man sick. This city needs to burn because with all its sin and secrets beneath the surface of the glamour and glitz, it is the perfect representation of humanity itself. In all its hypocritical glory!"

He had always known Albert as far back as he could remember and he knew for sure he and his father had been around each other longer than Albert and Alex had and he felt as though Alex did not belong. As many secrets as his father had, it seemed his Uncle had far more and he knew a lot less.

With Albert dead there was no reason to even do anything that Alex told him to do. He was still with Neo Umbrella for one reason only. He needed a means of making a living and if anybody had the pull to get Chris Redfield brought to him, it was them. That was one thing he lived for.

So that he could kill Chris Redfield, the man who had killed his father. He was no doubt oblivious to the existence of Grim also known as Albert Jr. but he had made an enemy without even realizing he had. Many members of the BSAA had no idea who he was at all. It was as though he did not exist unless Neo Umbrella needed him to exist. As for Alex, he was not a part of Neo Umbrella anymore but he was partly affiliated through Grim and many of the remaining employees of Umbrella and Tricell were still remembering what Wesker had wanted.

Though they didn't go on his exact whims, there were those who wanted to do exactly what he had wanted to do. To rule a new world that they had created. The thing that stopped them was that they lacked Albert's brilliance and his genius. Alex Wesker, on the other hand, was the new head of the Family which was also bio terrorist now and had been involved in it since Derrick C Simmons. While the Family was initially a secret society that had controlled the Western world for centuries, upon the death of Simmons, a new head of the Family had been chosen. Nobody really seemed to know who it was, certainly not anybody from Neo Umbrella.

Not even Ada Wong. The real Ada that is. Grim had worked with her before and he couldn't help but respect her. She had the right attitude for that line of work and it was not so different from his own attitude on the matter but he knew there was something off about her. Like she knew something about him that she wasn't letting on.

Whatever it was, he didn't like it and while he did like the woman to a point he had decided as far back as 2003 that he would snap her neck if he thought for even a second she was out to fuck him over. He knew she had killed Jack Krauser too so he knew that she was no pushover but unlike Krauser, he would not fuck around. If he had a chance to kill her, he would take it and be done with it. To hell with savoring it.

I'll savor beating the life out of Redfield. If I have to fight Alex, I will. He aint my family. The only father I ever had is gone and I don't know what that shady son of a bitch is up to or why he's spent so much time investigating the area where dad was killed but whatever it is, he's up to something. He's been looking into Dad's death and it's been four years. I tolerated Alex when dad was alive but now, if he gets in my way, I'll take him out too. Nobody is gonna deny me what I want.

Grim did not say this however. He merely nodded. The thirty-two year old flicked the cigarette against the wall and blew smoke. "All right, whatever, Al. Just make sure I get a piece of that asshole. After all, he maybe a brother to you cause of the last name and all but you aint his blood anymore than I am aside from the 'legacy' we have in our veins. I mean let's face it the only one related to him biologically is that Muller rat and he aint anymore of a Wesker than Piss Redfield is! I gotta go. I know what I have to do. If there's anything else, you know where to reach me."

He put the PDA away and walked down the hall. Grim walked down the stairs in the stairwell and peered out of the window. He looked out onto the street and took notice of two people across the street a ways. He looked with his binoculars and looked to see who it was emerging from a building. It appeared to be a man and a woman. As he zoomed in on them, he grinned. "Ada Wong, you sly devil!" She was with a guy he did not recognize. A Caucasian of average height with shaggy light brown hair. He did not know who the man was but he did wonder if this was the man who dad had talked about? Several years ago, he had spoken of some survivor of Raccoon City he had ordered Ada Wong to kill but because of her feelings for him, she had not done it. He wondered if this was the man and he wondered if they knew what was going on in the city.

"He doesn't look like much. Basically just skin and bones. Whatever floats your boat, Ada," He observed aloud. Just then he heard the racking of a shotgun and a familiar click of a hammer. "Freeze! Don't you move! Keep your hands where I can see them. You thought you could get away with it? You thought you''d just release that chemical blue gas into the air and nobody would have seen? Well I did so hold still or I will blow you to kingdom come!"

He looked in the reflection of the window on the right which was adjacent the stairs going up, the way they had come, and the stairs going down, the way he had been headed. There was two police officers. One was a thin Caucasian male with blonde hair and a scraggly beard and he had the shotgun. The other was a clean-shaven Hispanic and was short but muscular. He had his pistol drawn covering his partner. Grim addressed the both of them without turning around. "Well if it isn't New York's finest! I thought I could smell pork. So this it? You gonna book me? Seems kinda petty given what's going on."

The white cop growled, "You think this is a joke asshole? I could blow your head off clean and nobody would say anything about it! Hell they'd probably just promote me! Then again, I believe in law and order even if you don't. I want to see you stand trial. For murder, treason, terrorism, the whole nine yards. Only instead of a needle I'm going to recommend they just feed you to one of those mindless abominations you helped create! You may have noticed me down there when you set off that chemical gas, that blue shit that turns people into mindless flesh-eating freaks! I would have shot you then but I was too busy helping people escape the mess you helped create."

Grim smiled behind the mask. "You should shoot me. If the shoe were on the other foot I wouldn't hesitate. I'd blow your bear claw munching face clean off until there was nothing but chunks of meat. I think you're just making excuses. If I'm so bad, why not stop me?"

The Hispanic officer growled, "We know you would! That's why we're here! You're a terrorist. What's wrong with you, man? You got a Dia de Los Muertos mask on! That holiday is for celebrating the lives of the fallen and honoring them, not by turning them into cannibals that feast on people! What are you a lonely goth kid that cut himself in High School? Your mami didnt hug you enough? Grow up, kid! We all have problems."

Grim cackled at what he said and remarked, "To me every day is the Day Of The Dead! That gas is called the C virus, you morons. As for cutting myself, it makes a lot more sense to cut other people than myself," He then added with a grin, "All though you could say as far as the cutting-just-to feel-something cliché, I do live bi curiously through the pain of others!"

This caused the officer with the shotgun to hit him in the back. He pretended as though it had hurt when in reality it had not hurt at all. It was merely deception to make them think they had him where they wanted him. "Maybe when we put you in the holding tank, we can see how funny you are! Despite what you may think, we haven't lost the city yet! Some precincts are still up and running I wonder how other people in the holding tank would feel about you infecting their family, friends and loved ones with this virus? Think about that! Ramon, book this asshole. Read him his rights and take off that mask. I got ya covered partner he won't do anything while I got this at his back."

Ramon read him his rights and slapped the cuffs on Grim's left wrist and with one hand on the gun, he reached for the mask. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney..." As he pulled the mask off, time seemed to freeze. He pulled aside the mask and pushed the hood off his sweater back. It revealed a man with short auburn hair, arguably of the same type as that of Jake Muller. He also had Forrest green eyes and a scar ran along the side of his face near his right ear. He also had a small scar under his left eye on his cheek.

It was in that moment that Grim moved swiftly. He hit the officer in the groin and caught him off guard. Then he snatched the gun which discharged twice against the hallway wall. He hit the man with a haymaker and send him falling back against the stairs.

The other cop fired his shotgun but he easily dodged the blast, a trait of his superhuman speed. The cop fired again, pumping and missed again. He fired one more time and got him partly in the shoulder with a few pellets. Grim grabbed the shotgun as he was pumping it again and swung it around sending the officer flying into the stairs and he hit his head on the railing.

He then charged him and began bombarding him with a flurry of punches to the face, drawing blood from his nose with the first blow to the face. The other police man, Ramon, hit him from behind. He turned and saw that he had fired his pistol once in the back. Grim just stared at him so he fired again but in speedy blurs he dodged them in the same way that his father would have if he were alive. He dodged seven shots and caught the eighth shot in his hands! He then threw it back at him with amazing strength and it hit him in the stomach. Though it did not go through, it did catch him off guard and he staggered.

He took the handgun from him and not only disarmed him but he stripped the weapon down. He quickly got his night stick out and hit him in the face with it. He hit Grim again and Grim merely turned his face in slight annoyance. This time the officer hit with all of his might. "Was that a kiss? I didn't think we had any misletoe nearby!"

He hit him with a flurry of punches to the chest, stomach and face and as the cop tried to swing back he saw the billy club missed and he tapped him from behind and rammed him against the wall. The other cop had grabbed his shotgun and fired again so Grim threw Ramon into the line of fire and saw that the guy took some pellets in the left arm and right leg. Grim sped up to him and grabbed him by the throat and lifted him in the air. The man struggled to breathe but could not. His partner tried to retrieve his own handgun but Grim kicked him against the wall and pinned his chest there with his boot. He released him and the guy gasped for breath and he carried Ramon to the window.

He grinned at the cop who was choking. "Let's see if we can make this little piggie fly."

With that he threw him out of the right window shattering the glass and he went flying three floors down and landed on the hood of an SUV. This set the alarm off. Grim figured that if that had not just killed him, the C virus zombies would soon be attracted to the noise and come pick him off. Either way it was one hell of a way to die. He turned back to the other police officer. He mockingly read his name tag. "Well, Officer McGee. I told you I smelled pork but I don't think you're quite done yet. We need to make sure you're cooked well done so that these hungry bastards don't get food poisoning."

With a twisted grin, he advanced toward the officer who was attempting to crawl for his shotgun.

Carlos

He observed the mutated humans in front of him and the other rebels. They had been US soldiers but now they were mutated. He had read about these things before but had not seen them. He had read about it in a BSAA report. It had been such a long time since he had been to his hometown but he remembered the same kind of chaos the same kind of war, and poverty.

He had in fact been an anti government guerrilla soldier but a lot of his comrades had died he had seen them die at a young age as they fought alongside each other against an oppressive government. When that had happened, he had been left without much option so he had left for America and had joined up with the UBCS. Now here he was, some fifteen years later, a member of the BSAA, trying to put terrorists down but these guys didn't strike him as terrorists even though it was his job to look into the para military group.

The mutated creatures had horrid blue veins on their disfigured faces. They were known as J'avo, a Sero Croatian word for devil. These of course, were dead. They had gunshot wounds to the head as Carlos and

Their teeth appeared uneven, jagged and discolored. The most notable mutation were their large, rounded eyes with small pupils. The irises were filled with tiny specks and ranged from an off-white or pale yellow, to a darker yellow or brown.

The J'avo had more than two eyes, usually scattered along their face and forehead. These eyes appeared in different patterns, positions and sizes such as large vertical eyes or clusters of four smaller eyes. The newly formed eye-sockets from their mutation caused the skin around the area to appear ruptured and even bleed profusely. They were observing several dead ones that they had put down. He turned to one of the rebel soldiers and asked, "¿Cómo se hicieron estas cosas? ¿Sabes? ¿Cómo terminó aquí?"(How were these things made? Do you know? How did they end up here?)

One of the soldiers, a dark-haired olive-skinned woman named Paula Salvador answered, "No sé. Vimos en la villa y estaban atacando a la gente. No lo sabemos. Sospecho que tal vez los estadounidenses trajeron aquí pero no podemos saber con certeza. Todo lo que sé es que tenemos que poner todo."

(I don't know. We saw them in the villa and they were attacking people. We do not know. I suspect maybe the Americans brought it here but we can't know for sure. All I know is that we need to put them all down.)

Carlos looked down at the ground. Then back at her and the two men with her. They were out patrolling when the other two had come across some of the J'avo and they had engaged them. They had been a bitch to put down but with the assistance of Paula and Carlos they had been easier to handle. "No parecen las cosas que tomamos anteriormente. Los muertos que me refiero. ¿Las cosas eran más fáciles de matar, pero estos? Sólo he escuchado de ellos."

(They don't look like the things we took on earlier. The dead ones I mean. Those things were easier to kill but these? I have only heard of them.)

One of the rebels, a man of average height but with an athletic build, Pedro, a man of Afro Carribbean descent, mixed between Afro Puerto Rican and Taino Indian, turned to Carlos and asked, "¿Dónde has leído esto antes? Creemos que fueron creados por el Gobierno de Estados Unidos para acabar con la rebelión y destruir poblaciones enteras! Pediré más adelante nuestro comandante. No estoy seguro acerca de usted, Olivera. ¿Cómo sabemos de lo que dices es cierto?"

(Where have you read of these things before? We think they were created by the US government to kill off our rebellion and destroy entire populations! I will ask our commander later on. I am not sure about you, Olivera. How do we know any of what you say is true?)

Paula, who was a revolutionary from Mexico, had come there to help the struggle as well. To help La Causa. He was not sure if she was above suspicion herself but she was supposedly a Zapatista where she was from. She defended Carlos. "Él es quien dice que es!" (He is who he says he is!)

Just then they heard a shout. Pedro turned around, bringing his scoped AK-47 around to face what it was. There were more J'avo coming their way. Carlos, wanting to conserve the ammunition for his Assault Rifle, cursed, "Chingada!" (Fuck!)

He withdrew his Walther P99 but by the time he had it ready to fire, Pedro already dropped it to the ground with some rounds to the knee caps. The thing fell over onto its back. Juan brought his hunting knifre down on the thing piercing through its abdomen and drove the blade right through the liver and he severed several major arteries in doing so which meant that the thing would surely bleed to death rather soon, virus or not. Carlos fired six shots at one of them coming at him, a sun burned Caucasian man, presumably of Spanish ancestry rather than mestizo or mullato as many Puerto Ricans were.

Three shots hit him in the abdomen lodging into his left kidney. The man coughed blood and acid from his mouth as the next three shots went into his chest cavity. Carlos fired two more shots and hit him in the head. This caused it to explode and it rained brains and skull fragments. The thing began to shift due to the virus before his very eyes. Two protrusions emerged from where the head had been. One resembled the front of an insect or rather the head of one and the other was two hook like appendages. It came at him and began slashing at him. He backed away, firing at the thing but cursed when one of the hooks got him in the side. He emptied the entire magazine of the fifteen into him but it did not stop him.

Carlos backed away trying to keep distance between himself and the thing. He ignored the blood dripping down to his leg from his wound at the hip as he switched to his AK-47 and fired twenty rounds into its head and it died falling and dissolving into the ground, practically melting. He fired off ten rounds at the hip at two J'avo coming at them. This wounded one of them as it hit a female in the chest, legs, and the waist. The rounds missed the other one. The other rebel, a man named Luca, who looked more like your average Boricua as he had slicked back hair, tan skin, high cheek bones. He had hazel eyes and was dressed in a striped black and gray T shirt and military cargo pants. He fired his AK-47 at another one which had just mutated from a J'avo he had killed. He let fifteen rounds off aiming for its center and hit it in the abdomen. It attacked him with the same hooked appendages and kept slashing the man until he collapsed, blood gushing from his chest.

"Luca! Bastard! Morir ahora!" He unloaded on the thing from behind crowning it with rounds to the side of the face as he came around it. Paula had a shotgun as well as an Assault Rifle but was using her shotgun. She pumped and fired, eliminating the face of a carrier as it came after her, his face exploding in a messy burst as the blast destroyed his skull. She fired at another two carriers, hitting a female in the chest and killed her as it blew her chest cavity open exposing her heart. She wounded the man, taking his left arm from him as he came at her. The arm bled excessively but he was not yet done. The thing thing grabbed her by the throat. She used her shotgun to hit him in the face and she sent him back drawing blood as the butt of it hit him in the forehead. He went down and she finished him by bringing her boot down on its skull. Carlos switched back to the P99 and reloaded rolling away to evade a swing from an axe by one of the carriers. From the man's side as he staggered forward, Carlos fired three shots into the side of his leg near the left knee cap. He then grabbed the thing and broke its neck.

"Dispara a la cabeza! Van hacia abajo más fáciles de esa manera!" (Shoot for the head! They go down easier that way!) Olivera called to them as he fired his pistol at another, this time a brown skinned woman with bleached hair in a tank top and shorts. She was armed with a hatchet but he shot her in the left arm twice and she dropped it so he shot her one more time in the head.

She went down with ease. He drew a bead on another carrier, a man in a leather jacket and sunglasses, which hung from his head like a took him with with a shot to the head too before he could go after Paula with the hammer. Just then his leg was grabbed and he was pulled to the ground by the same woman he had just shot. He had hit her but she was still going! The wound must not have been fatal and it had not killed her. Or maybe it did but just like a chicken wthout its head, she was still going. He thought to himself.

He kicked her off of him. She fell back and he was going to finish her but saw a tall burly man with a sledge hammer swinging for him. "Whoa!" He rolled away and it connected with right where he had been. Pedro shot the man from behind in the back of the head with a burst from the AK and from where Carlos looked it almost looked like his head imploded from the back. He jumped toward the woman and pistol whipped her and a sickening sound of both impact and squishing filled his ears as he hit her with the gun in the same place he had already wounded her.

He stood up firing the remainder of his magazine taking out another J'avo. He reloadede as Paula and Pedro finished off the last few of them. He looked at his wound and then back at the rebels. "Debemos averiguar que causó este estallido." (We need to find out who caused this outbreak.)

Pedro had a scowl on his face as he looked at his dead compadre as well as the many J'avo they had just killed. "Creo que sé que los americanos, que vienen a esta isla, cuando nosotros tenemos nuestra revolución para tratar de detener su. hace unos meses hubo no abominaciones como este aquí ahora hay. ¿Quién más podría ser."

(i think i know who. americans. they come to this island when we have our revolution to try to stop it. a few months ago there were no abominations like this here now there is. who else could it be?)

Carlos thought to himself, I know exactly who but I guess you don't. Maybe your commanders do. I'll just have to find out from them. Somebody is connected to Neo Umbrella It's just a matter of who.

They decided to head back to regroup with some of the others.

Leon/Ada

He had gotten into the shower and hoped that when he got out of the shower she would not be gone. As Leon washed feeling the warm water rain down on him and as he scrubbed with the bar of soap, he found himself pondering if what had happened had really happened at all. Would he wake up in a minute only to find he was by himself? As he got lathered with soap thought, No If it had been a dream it would have ended long before it got good and even if didn't there's no way we would have finished.

He washed his light brown hair and got out drying off and wrapping a towel around his waist, he stepped out of the bathroom still playing over the scenario in his head of the fight they had and the thrashing she had given him followed by passionate sex. Though he could hardly believe he had finally had her, it also felt like this night had been a long time coming. Thirteen years to be exact...

He looked for her to be in his bed, hoping to see her tan voluptuous naked form laid out in front of him, only to find she was not there. He felt some disappointment and his heart sank. "It fucking figures..." He muttered to himself.

He got dressed and answered his PDA as he saw that Hunnigan was contacting him. "Ingrid, what's up?"

She sounded frantic. "You haven't been watching TV today at all, have you? Turn it to channel 7 you need to see what's going on."

He sat on the bed and turned on the TV. There was news footage of New York City and it seemed to be falling all to hell. In reality he had know idea. He had been asleep for two days straight off and on prior to the awakening to Ada being there. Though he kept on having bad dreams every time he drifted off, he still needed the sleep. He had been up about a day and a half filling out some finishing touches on one of several reports he had to type out regarding the incidents a few months prior. There was footage of some police officers attacking a civilian who looked to be infected, hitting him over the head with night sticks.

"Looting and rioting has broken out all over the city ever since the first series of catastrophies took place in Brooklyn. The NYPD as of now is highly overwhelmed by crazed civilians biting on people and attacking with weapons. Some even have fired automatic weapons at any and everybody who happened to be in the area. The National Guard, the FBI, the NSA, and FEMA have all been called in to help with the situation but this seems to be spiralling out of control. Martial Law has been declared and the curfew is now at 7:00PM. Several military and police check points have been set up all over Manhattan as attempts to take back the city are being made. Citizens are advised to stay in doors and wait for help. The governor has just issues a state of emergency and until whatever epedemic it is in the blue gas that has caused people to became flesh eating cannibals and blood thirty murderers is contained. Riots have broken out in Harlem, Washington Heights, Flushing Park and several other greater NY areas as a quarantine was issued just last night. Citizens armed with bats, bottles, bricks, knives, machetes, clubs and other weapons clashed with anti riot police forces. Several gun stores have also been raided and looted by marauding rioters in the city. Shootouts between these armed citizens and the police have also ensued in the downtown area as many citizens do not want to be kept in the city when such danger is imminent."

Agent Kennedy stood up, alarmed at what was going on. He knew that bio terrorism was always a possibility and that the leftovers from white umbrella would do anything but the Big Apple? It didn't seem right. He observed a citizen being questioned by the reporter at the scene of a checkpoint in Times Square. He was a black man who spoke with a Carribbean accent. He wore a brown jacket and had a sign on it that said John 3:16 "Lady, ya need to read your bible. The good lord said if ya haven't got a sword, sell a cloak and go buy one. This is judgement day right now! In modern times a sword is a gun. These things are demons straight outta hell..."

Leon answered her. "What are we gonna do? Does this mean I'm on the job? This is looking like it might get as bad as Tall Oaks or Liashang."

Hunnigan informed him, "Yes, I'm sorry to ruin your week off but I wouldn't have bothered if this wasn't a life or death situation. I got Agent Harper at the checkpoint in Central Park. We're going to attempt to get some of the civilians to safety. The state is saying that nobody can get in or out but the BSAA are coming and they are trying to use all the influence they have to override that so long as they can make sure that the people they transport out aren't infected. I'm sending Agent Birkin down there as well. Can you rendevous with them? We need as much help as we can get. We'll be needing to escort the civilians to Grand Central Station if we can't airlift them out through Central Park. Get there as fast as you can, Leon. Over and out!"

Just then he felt a breeze and a sound and he heard a loud noise in the window. Ada was fully dressed aside from the red top, the same one she wore in Liashang, which she now had tied in a not revealing her flat toned tummy. He stared only a brief moment. She still looked good for her age. While some women figured they were too old to wear something like that at thirty nine, Leon knew such rules would never apply to a free spirit like Ada Wong. Besides, she took care of herself and she looked significantly younger than she was.

He was getting on in years was in his own late thirties just a bit younger than she was. He felt some regret that he had never had kids of his own or anything like that, let alone, a steady relationship. In his line of work, he was considered a player by some. He had indeed had casual flings with many women, in some cases, just one night stands, in other cases, friends with benefits. He had been with several of the women he had befriended. He had hooked up with Claire on a number of occasions back when they had first met. He had been vunerable thinking he had lost Ada and the same went for her regarding some boy she had fallen for in that island prison she had escaped from. They had actually still maintained a friendship even while being "Fuck buddies" which to Leon seemed like the middle ground between a relationship and a one night stand.

They knew each other like the backs of their own hands and yes, there had been feelings unlike in most cases but he had still dreamed about Ada and sometimes he had heard her calling the name of that boy from so long ago. Steve. Leon remembered. His name was Steve. He had actually seen her crying a few times in her sleep as she had lay next to him years ago after they had both gotten drunk off red wine and had sweaty but passionate sex. Though Leon greatly cared for Claire and considered her his best friend, he knew that they both had hearts that belonged to another. He was just lucky enough that the woman he was after was still alive but for a long time it seemed like there was just as great a distance betwen himself and Ada as there was between Claire and that young boy Steve, the younger Redfield sibling being alive and well, and Steve, in some cold and lonely grave.

Still in a way, he felt lik a sleezy scumbag. He had not only slept with Claire on many occasions but also Helena Harper three times. He had done so just before the plane ride to China and twice after the mission was over. He wasn't even sure that he had a reason for it. Aside from that they were both under a lot of stress during and after the mission and both had lost somebody. Though he was glad Ada had not been killed after all by Chris Redfield, he still had lost his friend Adam Benford, the president of the United States due to the outbreak in Tall Oakes and because of it, had ended up shooting him. Helena had gone through a similar ordeal herself and had lost somebody too. Her sister, Debra Harper who had been infected and later mutated and attacked Leon, Helena and Ada, who was there to assist them.

Needless to say, when they had both fucked their second time hooking up, it had been after they had both drinking. It was not enough booze for me to black out and forget it happened but it was enough for me to wake up feeling like shit the morning after. He recalled. In hind sight, they both had lost somebody and needed any kind of companionship they could get even if they didn't know each other aside from Tall Oakes and China.

Thinking back, however, it still wasn't as irresponsible as what he had done when the presidents daughter in Spain had offered him some "Overtime" which he intially declined. I should have let my yes be yes and no be no. Instead what did I do? I thought with my dick. If I would have gotten her pregnant, that would have been the end of my life then and there. He thought looking back on the post mission sex. What can I say? It had been a long time since I got laid even one night stands. Still, she was seven years younger than me I do kinda feel like an asshole. Does that make me some kind of predator? He shook the thought from his mind as he saw the curious smirk on the Asian woman's face.

Now here she was in front of him. He still couldn't believe it wasn't a dream. He finally had done what he had wanted to do for a long time. To Leon, it wasn't that surprising the way it went down seeing as he had never seen Ada as some girl you could just take to dinner and a movie. Which was not to say that he didn't want to also do that with her but he knew that a fight leading to long awaited sex was more up her alley. "Cat got your tongue, handsome? We need to go. The city is falling apart. I know Neo Umbrella is behind this too. The BSAA were supposed to be able to stop the outbreak from getting any further than China but it's too late. I think this was a move of desperation on their part."

He looked at her and said, "Why didn't you tell me? The city is under attack, there's a C virus outbreak out here and you didn't even tell me?"

Ada sighed. "I wasn't entirely sure myself. I'm off the grid now so a lot of the information I have now may not be a hundred percent. This thing just got out of control during the night while we slept that was how it really got out of hand. It just spread like wildfire. What's worse is I think I might know who's behind this but I can't tell you who until I know for sure. I don't want to be wrong."

Leon's eyes narrowed. "You aren't really off the grid are you? I'm only asking, I'm not accusing."

She looked into his eyes and told the truth. "I still work for the organization, if that's what you mean. I didn't work for neo Umbrella. That's all Carla. Look, we both have seperate people we work for but in a way I'd say they both want the same thing. We just have different ways of trying to get them. I still do work for them but I can at least promise you that everything I know you will know and I won't lie to you. I just had to get you to listen to me. Then...that happened."

The government agent chuckled. "I'd say that was a dance that took two to tango," He then added, "I get it if you want to fight Bio Terrorism the same as I do but I've heard that Albert Wesker co-opted your organization. Even our people don't really know anything about yours. What we do know is that you were rivals of Umbrella. We also know that Wesker took over your organization and that was the only reason you worked for him. There's no way anybody could have known he'd betray their interests with his own secret agenda to bring Umbrella back for himself."

Ada shrugged. "That maybe true but he's dead now. I had an idea of what he was up to. I stayed one step ahead of him. I wasn't really in the kind of position to try to take him on at that point. Now that he's dead, we can go back to trying to bring down Umbrella. He maybe out of the picture but Neo Umbrella was his legacy. The organization was kept in the dark about his intentions and about Neo Umbrella until he was already dead. I knew even if nobody else did but I was their top spy."

Leon could not tell if she was being haughty or being honest. They heard gunshots outside followed by shouting and screams of pain. She tossed Leon his handgun and advised, "We need to get out there and help, Leon. I think I might have an idea who was behind this but I need to be sure. I overheard the conversation between you and that woman you work with and what she wants you to do. She's got the right idea. Get the people out of here. They don't have the slightest clue what's going on but it affects them the most."

He was oblivious to the fact that she had been listening in. Though she had not been directly outside of his window when when he had been contacted by Hunnigan, she had been standing up on the power lines near the window having used the grapple gun to get back up after retrieving it in the street. She had seen the chaos that was breaking out already overnight as there was already two cars on fire and she saw some people looting from stores but she had come back for Leon. Though she was aware he could handle himself, she wanted to earn his trust back.

Leon corrected her. "It affects everybody!" He pointed out, "Look, I'll work with you if you swear you'll keep me informed but don't play any games this time, Ada. I meant what i said last night but I'm sick of being kept in the dark myself. Now as for who you think started this outbreak, you mind filling me in?"

Ada shook her head. "Not yet, Leon. I will when I'm sure. I've got it narrowed down to two people. Their names don't matter. At least right now they don't. They will if I turn out to be right. One is more of a shadow, a man who's been living in the shadows for years now. I don't think anybody has seen his face and lived to tell about it other than Albert. The other person, well, let's just say it's somebody we haven't heard from in quite some time. Some people weren't even sure he existed. Either way, if that is the case, both of them are highly dangerous."

She stepped onto his window sill and pushed the curtaibs aside. "Need a ride, handsome? It's faster than the stairs."

Leon had a fear of heights that nobody really knew about but himself and that fear had been greatly increased since the mission in China when he and Helena were literally climbing for their lives to get away from an enraged and mutated Simmons. He had also had nightmares of that as well. Either of himself falling or Helena falling or both. Or them not climbing fast enough to get away from Derrick. He swallowed but decided to take a leap of faith and took her hand. She smirked, "Now we're living on the edge."

With that, she fired it toward a power line across the street and they held onto each other as they rappelled across and pulled themselves down. As their feet were back on the ground, Leon looked at her with discomfort and asked, "Would it really be that bad to take the stairs next time?"

She just smirked. "What would be the fun in that?" Her smile quickly. "Now come on, handsome. We need to put down as many of these things as we can. I'm not saying we'll stop the infection all by ourselves but at the very least we can make a big dent out of it before the BSAA get here. If we save even one life because of it, I'd say that's progress."

Leon's mind flashed back to the survivors that he had helped back in Tall Oaks. "Yeah, funny you should say that. Back in the Tall Oaks infection, even after losing the president i found some survivors. Rag tag survivors with guns there were more of them so I thought maybe they would have stood a better chance at survival than I did. They probably would have been if we had just been in Raccoon City but this time it was worse. When they died, they had almost been home free. Then the bus we were trying to get away in got hit and they got pulled out by zombies. In any case those are long odds you're talking about."

They headed up the street and Leon had the Glock 17 that he had kept under the pillow that he had drawn on Ada before she had pretty much kicked his ass. He had two magazines for it. As much as he hated to admit it, he expected he would find some dead officers and they would provide more ammunition for when he needed it. He looked at Ada and saw that she still had her crossbow. He chuckled and said, "You're like Daryl with that thing."

She shot him a blank look. "Who?"

His smile faded. "Not a Walking Dead fan, are ya?" She still looked at him like he was crazy. "What kind of question is that? Why would I be a fan of B.O.W's made by Neo Umbrella? I take them out pure and simple. You're asking the wrong girl. Maybe Albert can give you a better answer. If you get your hands on a Ouija board that is."

He laughed again saying, "No, it's a TV show. You don't get out much, do ya? Or I mean you don't stay in much. It's a TV show. About zombies but they call it Walkers."

Ada thought it over as they walked but simply said, "Leon, I hardly even get any time to myself. They've always got me on the job. It doesn't sound like my cup of tea anyway. I doubt they could ever make anything that would be as nerve wrecking or morbid as the real deal."

Leon shrugged. "Hey to each his own. Or in your case, her own. What do you do when you're not on a mission? Don't you have any hobbies or anything?"

She smiled sadly. "I don't know. I would have to have time to have a hobby first," At this answer Leon thought to himself, Jesus, does she always gotta pull the mystery lady angle all the time? I'm trying to get to know you better! She then added, "I think I did a while ago. When this job wasn't so old but I can't remember what it was. It's too bad I couldn't have gotten to know you back in 98'. That was when I remembered."

Though that was a more straight answer than he was used to from the double agent, he was saddened by her answer. Maybe that's why she was...why she is afraid to get close to me. She then asked him, "You still didn't answer my question. Who is Daryl? Friend of yours?"

He laughed again this time from somewhere deep inside in a way he hadn't laughed in a very long time. "No. He's a character on the show. He's got a crossbow just like you and it's his signature weapon. He kills zombies with that thing. He's kind of a bad boy. Come to think of it, that sounds like you except for the boy part."

Ada smirked at that. "Maybe one day, if this is all over and if things go right, you can show me, handsome. I am a sucker foor bad boys," She then winked and added, "I'm also a sucker for cute good guys like you. Much easier to get wrapped around your finger."

Leon didn't know what to make of that remark. On one hand it was hard for him to imagine her doing regular stuff with him like something of a regular couple. Even harder than that to imagine was the idea that she would ever let him in enough to have that kind of trusting intimacy with him or even to ever consider the two of them a couple. He didn't doubt that she had the same feelings as he did but she was a woman who liked her freedom almost a little too much and Leon wanted some stability. Hell, he was tired of one night stands and fuck buddies. Sure, he cared a lot for Claire but it wasn't healthy at this point in their life. They needed to move on with their life and get in stable relationships. From what Claire had told him of Steve, if there was indeed a chance he would ever come back to life there was a better chance of them being a couple and having a couple rug rats than there ever was of Leon finally getting to be with Ada Wong.

She would never allow herself to be that vunerable, she must not have had a normal upbringing so maybe because of the way she had grown up or just the way she was, she could never be tied down. Thinking about it made him crazy. He was drawn between trying to get her to stay with him and not leave him again and telling her to fuck off out of his life for good. Even as much as he was tired of being strung along and toyed with he knew that if he did pick the latter choice, he would regret it for life. It was the worst catche 22.

"What?" He replied. "What makes you think you got me wrapped around your finger? Because of what happened last night?"

Ada simply smiled at him and said, "That would be one way. No offense, stud but I did always have you following me around like a lost puppy. It was cute in a way," She said haughtily. He felt his face growing hot at hearing her words. He wanted to chew her out because of it but had no idea how to respond to that. He crossed his arms. "It took two to tango, Ada. We both did that. Let's not waste each other's time pretending otherwise and besides I could have resisted you. I had as much say in it as you did. Were both consenting adults, right?"

Her smile remained and her eyes pierced him almost as if she could see right through his bluff. "Who are you kidding, Tiger, you would have went along with whatever I did with you. I do give you points on at least the fight at first but I think we both know even if you had it in your head you were gonna kick me out, If I wanted to do it we would have done it. If I wanted us to screw back in Spain even among all the Ganados you would have done it. It's not your fault at all and there's nothing wrong with it. I'm a lot more than most men can handle."

Leon still didn't know how to respond so he said the first thing that came to mind. "You know, don't flatter yourself, Ada. You remember how you told me I looked like I had seen a ghost? Well you might as well be one. The way you just vanish whenever you feel like it and the way you think that you can just come in and out of people's lives with no regard for the emotional damage it does to them, you are a ghost. Hell, I don't even know anything about you."

Her smile faded and he could see hurt and regret in her eyes. She told him, "I'm sorry you feel that way, Leon. Maybe we should go our own way. I know you're right. Maybe you are better off without me." With that she turned around and headed down a back alley equipped with her Crossbow. "Where are you going?" He demanded. "Just because we're having an actual argument doesn't mean you get to walk out on me. This is what normal people do, Ada. I'm just tired of being played with and I want to know that you're gonna be there for me instead of abandoning me again."

He went after her but she fired her grapple gun and zipped up to the roof of another building and climbed in through the balcony overlooking the street. "Damn it, Ada..." He cursed. He looked up at an apartment across the street. He could have sworn he felt somebody watching them. Just then he heard gunshots and screaming. He kept his pistol handy. He figured it might have been coming from across the way. He could also hear screams inside the building Ada had just grappled to. He found a dumpster near a fire escape and he climbed onto it and used it jumping to the fire escape. The young agent pulled himself up and got up it all the way to the window it led to into a looked down the narrow hallway. There lay a man against the wall near a door, his head split open by a blunt object. He lay lifeless as blood still poured from the wound and dry blood was blacking and caked on the walls behind him. Leon carefully examined the body with one hand and kept his hand on his pistol with the other ready to shoot if it reanimated as a zombie. The C virus carriers were a lot more tricky like that. He examined the wounds and determined that teh poor bastard had died from this. He had been a middle aged man, probably of Eurasian descent and he had a graying beard while his hair was jet black.

Just then he heard more gunfire from outside where he had just come from and he looked outside his gun aimed at the source of the noise which was followed up by an ear piercing scream as well as shattering glass. A man fell to the floor below and Leon could see that it had been from the same window he had been staring at. He felt they had watched him and Ada from the start as soon as they exited the apartment. He jumped out of the window to go and assist the poor bastard, hopping down from the fire escape. The guy was a cop and was in very bad shape as he had been cut to hell by the glass and had other injuries along with it. He had been shot also. Leon looked at teh name on his uniform. It said R. Gonzales. He was barely alive. He coughed up blood and he had it all over himself already his face and arms and legs and torso cut up from the glass. He had been tossed out of a window, had landed on his own squad car and had rolled off into the street sustaining further injuries from the fall, light as it was.

Leon had a hankerchief he kept in his back pocket he had a couple of them in fact. He began to try to put pressure on the wounds, at least the worst of them. "Jesus...are you all right? What happened. Actually never mind, don't try to talk, I'm gonna try and get you some help. I'm gonna call in for help and find out where I can find a medic. I'm with the DSO I'm here to help," He was going a mile a minute, freaking out for fear that he could not save the man's life."The bastard...not human...he's got my partner up there...ya gotta...help him. He...he started ...this...same guy..."

Leon tried to hush him. "Don't try to talk, save your strength. I don't have any herbs or medicine but I'm gonna try and stop the bleeding as best as I can okay? Now do you got a medical kit in your c..." He didnt finish that sentence as suddenly another body flew out the window, this time it was a man on fire. The man screamed all the way down in pain but was silenced as he hit the ground. He briefly moaned in agony writhing but laid back against the pavement as the flames peeled the rest of his face away. Leon could see he was also a police officer. He considered putting a bullet in him but he could see the man was already unconscious if not dead. He wouldn't spare him much more pain since the worst was over and the fall had helped him get closer to his own death. Just then, a man in a skull mask appeared at the window brandishing a shotgun. "Bon voyage! Hey, what the fuck are you looking at? You got a problem?"

He pumped and fired almost hitting Leon who fell back away from the fallen officer he was already helping. The blast hit the already mortally wounded cop in the chest and in the head and finished him. Leon rolled to cover as the homicidal maniac fired again, aiming at him. The guy blasted out two windows of the cop car. Leon fired his pistol blindly around the side of the car. The shots hit around the window but had not hit the guy himself. "You aint one of New York's finest! What are you doing here? You may wanna get on the first plane outta town. I can't promise that this plague aint gonna follow you though."

Leon looked to see his reflection in the left side mirror of the police car. "I was a cop once. Only for one day. That doesn't matter, I work for some people that make life hell for guys like you. Why don't you toss the shotgun and come down so we can settle this face to face? Be a man. That officer you just murdered was saying you were behind all of this. Is that true?"

The guy tossed the shotgun away. "I'm doing it because I don't need it. Not because I fear you. If anything you should fear me! The BSAA sure do."

Leon took his chance to pop off five shots aiming this time. Two shots hit the man in the right shoulder. The other three he dodged. Leon currsed to himself upon realizing he had the virus. "I'm not ther BSAA and you don't appear to be human either. Another B.O.W. You know most Bioweapons can't talk but the ones that can always seem to have high opinions of themselves. You caused a lot of innocent deaths tonight. You have to answer for that. You aren't the first of your kind I've encountered."

The man snorted and shouted down, "Yeah, you're just a Raccoon City survivor running around with one of the most wanted Bio Terrorists ever. Ada Wong? So you're the guy that she pretty much ended her life for, huh? That's too bad. She could have really been something in my fathers new world."

Leon stayed where he was in cover but said, "Your father? What the hell are you talking about? Do you hear yourself? Wesker only had one son and he wasn't even a legitimate child!"

This seemed to enrage him. "If you're talking about Jake Muller, he isn't anymore of a Wesker child than you are. Just another would be hero thinking he can stop what's going to happen. The Mayans predicted it. This will happen whether you or Muller or Redfield want it to or not."

Leon just chuckled. "Actually, the Mayans got that wrong. We're still here! You doomsday morons need a new hobby."

The man was now outside and not far from him. He was fast. Leon backed out of cover and drew a bead on him with his Glock. He had a skull mask on and wore a hoody. He stood about five foot seven. He was thin but athletic. "It's you who's the moron, pal. The Mayan prophecy was never about the end of the world. It was about the end of an era and the start of a new one. Your world is gonna end and ours will begin."

Leon kept the gun trained on him. "That's far enough! You're just another geek in a mask. Who are you, anyway? Some disgruntled Umbrella employee? Did your health care plan go up shit's creek when they shut white umbrella down? Well guess what it may have had some benefits for you but for most of us, it meant the dead walk and the unnatural happen. Life is hard, deal with it. It's no excuse to attack innocent people. I don't hear an accent either. You're American , aren't you? Well you're gonna see how the US government deals with traitors."

The man crossed his arms. "Agree with me or get out. Isn't that against the principals of your founding fathers who said to question the government? Besides, Muller doesn't have an accent either. Yet you know he's from Eastern Europe! So what are you going to do, Agent Kennedy? Shoot me?"

Leon demanded, "How do you know my name? You aren't one of the higher ups you're a petty are you?" The man didn't seem threatened at all. "I'm Albert Wesker II. Most of my enemies refer to me as Grim. Even if you don't know me I bet your superiors know me. I know that the BSAA knows me. They want me as bad as they want Ada Wong. Maybe not as much since your girl gets around and she let off that missile in China but it's early yet."

Leon was getting tired of his nonchalant attitude. "That wasn't Ada! That was a look alike! Carla Radames. They were trying to frame her. As for Albert the II, there is nobody by that name. Wesker was a surname given to children involved with the project. I got a friend in the BSAA so everything he knows, I know."

Grim chuckled. "Would that friend be Redfield? The son of a bitch I owe a knife to the jugular I gotta give you credit, Kennedy. You did your homework. Or should I say that whore did it for you and she let you copy her answers," God what a wise ass! Even if Wesker was his old man I don't see him as the type to tolerate back talk like that.

Grim continued, "So you know Ada had nothing to do with it. That doesn't mean the BSAA knows it. We intend for it to stay that way. Derrick Simmons's little project, Carla, they don't need to know any of that. So even if I don't gut that bitch myself, the BSAA aren't going to forget the woman who infected an entire team and destroyed a city in China. The real Ada Wong won't be able to get up from a Sniper Bullet to the chest. I'm gonna see to it she ends up on the scope of a BSAA marksman."

Leon growled, "Shut up!" He fired six shots. He hit him with three of them but the next three whizzed past him as he dodged the bullets like they weren't even there. Leon fired two shots at him as he came toward him, still dodging. Just then, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Leon turned around to fire but the gun clicked three times. He had ran dry. Grim punched him hard in the stomach. He took Leon's pistol and tossed it aside. "Guns...they're so juvenille. Why don't you fight like a man...fair and square?"

He hit him in the face with a left jab. "Not when I'm facing a guy roided out on the virus!" Leon shouted and kicked him in the groin, hoping that even if he was super human, this would at least still hurt. The guy grunted but grabbed his leg and punched him in the face and Leon staggered back. He lifted him up by his right leg and flung him as though he weighed two pounds. Leon bounced off the pavement and slid along the ground. "That hurt," Grim growled as he advanced toward the fallen US agent.

He grabbed him by the hair. He punched him again and again as he got him to his feet, Leon's lip was busted and Grim punched him again causing it to bleed more his blood dripping to his chin. Leon drove his elbow into Grim's gut, then hit him with two jabs, one from each fist. He hit him in the face as hard as he could. Grim backed up a little bit grunting with annoyance but he punched Leon in the stomach and floored him again. As Grim stood over him, he looked down and said, "I expected more out of you. Let's hope Chris isn't this much of a pushover."

Ada searched the apartment building for any carriers. She was not entirely sure why she was in there. Something about what Leon had said got to her. It was childish to run but she had not exactly had an easy life or that many healthy relationships. She was not sure how to act or how to transition from her own Independence into the vulnerability of a relationship. She couldn't see herself as settling down, and having kids yet she knew that was the kind of man Leon was. That was why she often thought he was too good for her and that she would end up hurting him even if that wasn't her intention. She sighed. She considered going back to him to apologize. She did love him but she couldn't see how it would ever work. They worked for people with different interests and they both were always on the move and always on the mission. Then again, they could always give it up. She didn't know how she would ever transition from living on the edge, dodging gunfire and shooting B.O.W.'s to civilian life but she knew that even as dedicated as Leon was to his own job and to keeping Bio Terrorism at bay, she knew he would give it up for her in a heart beat. This made her feel even more guilty.

Then she thought of the pros and cons and she decided that if they survived, why couldn't she? Though she loved the freedom she had as a free spirit and hated the idea of being tied down, in a marriage or in some boring house in the suburbs, she didn't entirely oppose the idea of stability. She just had not known it in so long, if ever. She also knew that it was their job and the need for it that might be a problem. Why is it our job to save everybody? Why do we have to be the ones that give up our whole lives, literally, to keep this world from falling apart? When do we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor?

She knew the truth though. If they chose to ignore it, that could come back to haunt them down the line. Would it be worth the risk? It may not have been ideal having to dedicate their lives under mining and trying to destroy Umbrella for different reasons but it was a necessity.Why can't somebody else take the reins? Haven't we put in enough years into this? Still, even as she thought of it, she knew that wasn't always the way it worked. It seldom ever was. The need to fight would not go away and she didn't think it would any time soon. She wanted to just leave it up to the BSAA to clean up what was left of the mess. Maybe in time, she would. She had the fear that another Wesker was just waiting to rise up from the ashes even though seemingly, he was the biggest threat to humanity and he was dead now but that didn't mean there weren't others out there.

Still, if she wanted to kill zombies and other B.O.W.'s the rest of her life she would have joined the BSAA. At the same time, maybe it was possible to have a relationship in this line of work. Who better to have one with than somebody who was also just as experienced at it as she was? The thought alone of that and the other thoughts she had all conflicting with each other was enough to drive her crazy.

She headed to where she heard screams from a woman and shouts and grunts indicating a struggle. She turned the corner and saw a man being eaten by two carriers who were chewing on his corpse one biting his neck, the other into his fat stomach. There was a younger man who was struggling with two zombies and was attacking them with a wooden baseball bat. "You fucking assholes! Get away from her!" He was talking about the girl, a young woman with curly blonde long hair and blue eyes who was struggling with a zombie and hit it, a man in his forties who looked like he recently had turned, in the face. Another zombie grabbed her from behind lunging at her and pulling her to the floor attempting to bite her. Ada fired her crossbow and put an arrow in the back of the other zombie's skull. It went through the brain stem and poked out through its eye killing the thing instantly.

She kicked the other zombie away from her who was trying to get her but he had a pick axe in hand and he came at her until Ada fired two arrows into his back. The man grunted and Ada fired again putting another one dead center into him and severed his spinal cord. The man fell to the ground dead, blood soon covering the ground under him. Ada put another arrow in the neck of a female zombie, in her sixties. The zombie let out a groan on pain and she put another in her head. The zombie knocked the male with the bat to the floor and he hit the floor. Then the zombie lunged at Ada with a fire ax. She backed away but before she could load another shot he was onto her so she kicked him in the stomach and he hit the wall. She kick him and he sprawled on the floor so Ada finished him with an ax kick to the head.

She looked to see if either of the two residents of the apartment places were bitten. They were not. "You should get out of here while you still can! There's a military checkpoint at Central Park, police too they're getting as many people to help out as they can. They're evacuating people."

The woman and the man thanked her. "Are you coming too?" The woman asked. "I'll be behind you but I have some things to take care of first," The man nodded and said, "Be careful."

Just then Ada heard shots from outside. She went downstairs and headed outside. She saw Leon being strangled. She kicked the door open and retrieved her 9mm and began firing. She hit the guy in the back twice and he threw Leon aside at a vehicle, into the windshield. He dodged Ada's next three shots and he came up behind her. She gave him a spinning kick from the front turning back. He countered with a punch. She recognized the dark figure. She had worked with him more than once. He seemed human when in a conversation with him but she had seen the brutal ways he had slaughtered anybody that Umbrella had deemed deserving of death. She knew he was ruthless underneath his cavalier Western wit and humor.

She punched him and followed up with a left forearm to the face. He grabbed her arm in response and flung her as if she were weightless and she hit the ground hard. He kicked her in the side and she felt the wind live her lungs. She struggled to breathe. He pinned her shoulder to the ground before she could do anything else. He growled, "I'm gonna let you live this time for old times sake but if you fuck around again, I will personally break your neck. Got it?"

Ada just glared at him and he kicked her again and screamed, "Look at me when I'm talking to you! If you know what's good for ya!" Two shots rang out. One hit him in the side of the face, or so it appeared. It actually just blew the tip of his left ear off. It still did hurt even to a super human virus mutant like Grim. He briefly removed the mask so that he could see so that the blood all over his face would not blind him along with the mask as the two combined might. He dodged the next three shots and saw Leon was back on his feet. "Get away from her! Leave her alone!" Grim disarmed him quickly snatching the gun from him and tossing it aside. He then hit him with three hard jabs to the abdomen. He then waited for Leon to fall to the ground and grabbed him by the hair. "You should have stayed on the ground and played dead. The dog maybe loyal to the cat but the cat don't care. It can get the dog turned into dog meat."

He threw him into the side of the same vehicle he had been thrown into already and Grim plucked a bullet from a wound and in a snarl of fury threw it as hard as he could making it as fast as an actual gunshot. It hit Leon in the stomach. Leon cried out in pain and Grim stood up looking at the bleeding agent. Ada attempted to get up to help him but he kicked her in the back to keep her down. "Like I said. You get to live but I never promised your boyfriend would. You won't be alive long if you stick around, Wong. You pissed off my father I intend to take care of all his unfinished business."

In a flash of speed he took off down the street, likely to wreak havoc on another poor soul. Ada rose to her feet trying to ignore her pain. He was crawling. "Ada...help me...!" He then stopped crawling and fell down against the ground. Ada spun him around to face her so she could get to the wound. She checked for a heart beat and could not hear anything. Tears ran down her cheeks beyond her own control. She had an adrenaline needle. Her heart was pounding very fast and she decided then and there that if he survived, she knew what her answer would be to him about where they would go. I'll do whatever I have to. We can fight bio terrorism together as lovers and as fighters or we can leave it all...I don't care...just please God...let him live! He doesn't deserve to die. If you gotta punish anybody let it be me!

"Leon!" She sobbed as she got ready to inject him with the needle. She was crying more than she had in years. Possibly ever. "Come on...! Please wake up," With that she brought the needle down into his chest.

---

That's all for chapter two people i had a deciding crisis with the title of the story a few times but I decided to just go with this one. Sory it took a while to update. Now for an explanation. The reason that Grim referred to Leon as a dog and Ada as a cat is based on my perception of the two characters. Leon is like a dog, loyal, faithful, at your side, willing to put his own life on the line. Ada is willing to do that too but for her own reasons. She is more like a cat to me and i consider her the Cat Woman of the Resident Evil world. Think about it, femme fatal, bad ass, sexy, myserious runs off half the time leaving her man to be frustrated I mean come on! You do the math...

I decided despite trying to portray Ada as close to her character as possible i also wanted to explore her deeper and show sides of her that I know are there like her crying upon Leon being seemingly dead cause of what Grim did. Oh and the thing about Carlos too is I made him an operative under cover in a guerilla army because in the RE story line before he joined the UBCS he was an anti government guerrilla fighter in his home country. Also he is the only Native American character as of yet and I can identify with him on a cultural level even though he is from South America and i am a NE NY tribe.

I still say a brother is a brother :) plus they got his race listed as Native American/Hispanic which maybe why they took his accent away and that wasn't necessary since the vast majority of natives live in Latin America not just US and Canada which is First Nations but then again Hispanic isn't a race 's an ethnic group and it implies he is a slave to Southern European culture simply because he is from a Spanish speaking country. That's bullshit I speak English that doesn't make me a Brit it makes me somebody who was colonized by them! But yeah, i relate to him most i wish they'd bring him back and let him get a chica from his homeland.

I am portraying different people in different ways according to character. Also i for one do not like cops and even in a zombie outbreak would not team up with one but I know Leon or Chris or Claire would. So nobody can accuse me of putting my own views in the story. know how fascist other authors are about shit like that. I used to have another account and that's how they were. Oh as far as typos feel correct me on what it was and I'll get to it.

I even made Leon "Patriotic" as far as what he said to Grim about betraying country. Chris seems the more likely of the two to question the US government based on what i saw in RE 5. Also his perception and probably yours on 2012 was wrong. The Mayans did not predict the end of the world they predicted the end of the 13th baktun and start of the 14th. There will be some more OC's but that's for later.

Oh and as for the lemon in the last chapter let me know what you thought of that it was my first one and I need feedback. Constructive not flaming. Ok, so that about wraps this up for the night I will try to update ASAP. Also, on Carlos and the Espanol translations, I did my best i did use google and in further chapters will use what i am learning in class from now on but I am still in the learning stage.

So please leave a detailed review :) the longer the better and more likely I'll respond to it and answer questions you might have. I wanna know what you didn't like if there was something if you feel i portrayed somebody wrong (If) but i also wanna hear what you like so leave nothing out!

Ok. Nia Wen if you read this! (That is Kanienkehaka, AKA Mohawk, for thank you)

Hope you had a good read :D