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?

13. Beauty & The Beast

Hey so I know I left you all with a cliff hanger so I'm gonna get right on it. I still can't exactly promise you anything as far as how soon this will be up I mean I could say I'd have it up soon but I don't know how soon soon would be so that's not practical I mean I could say soon and it could be two weeks or so from now so IDK. We'll know how long ago this was from now until I update next when I've done it. So mark your calenders! Also, those of you who favorite and follow me can you please drop a review? It's cool if you like the story but I need to know what you liked about it. With that in mind here we go.

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Josh

He saw his mother and father standing near him. He was walking on the clouds, above his home country. "Where am I? Is this heaven? Or some sort of twisted joke?" He demanded. His father stepped forth to him. "Dike, you are between worlds. The land of the living and the realm of the dead. You are dying but not dead," The agent did not understand.

"Then how can I see you?" It was a fact that both of them had been dead for over ten years. People didn't live long back home. The average man lived to be fifty one while the average woman lived to be fifty five. Both of his parents were around that age when they had passed. He had forgotten because he had wanted to forget.

His mother stepped forth and touched him. She looked as youthful as she had when he had been a little boy. Her eyes were lively and sparkling as they had back then and not sick and weak from disease like when he'd last seen her. "The dying as well as the dead can view those who have already been on the other side for years. To answer your question this is not heaven. Not the Christian idea of afterlife anyway, or the Islamic. It's very much different than what we thought but is still a place of peace. Son, I love you. I always have and I always will but soon, you will , that day is not today."

His father then said to him in Igbo, a language he had not heard spoken in a long time, "You must save your sister, Josh. For this purpose you must live until the appointed time. Every life has purpose and meaning and if one can save even one life even if this costs them their own, it is not a death in vain."

Josh looked puzzled at his parents. "Esther? She has been dead for years. She died when I was just a eleven. There is no one to save,"

His mother touched him again and suddenly he felt weak, like he was going to fall off the very cloud he stood on.

He came to feeling weak but he gasped and began coughing. His whole body hurt. He looked up seeing Sheva, Jill and Chris around him and he could hear helicopter blades. "Josh...! Can you hear me?" He blinked a few times. "Sheva...? Where are we?" She told him, "We're on our way to the mainland. We almost lost you there for a moment."

He tried to sit up but Jill stopped him from doing it. "No, you're not well enough just take it easy and slow. We're leaving Oceana Aldea. Piers almost got you but we stopped him."

Josh had sweat on his head. He looked to Chris. "If that was your old partner...I don't know what the hell you saw in him. The man has lost it. Just like I've seen so many people lose it back where I come from..."

Chris seemed saddened. "He used to be one of the good guys. When he sank with that facility it changed him. Maybe he's right. Maybe it was for the best if he would have died down there," Jill didn't agree. "No. He has an ability that was a curse but now that he's back it's a gift he can use it for good. My abilities aren't much but I'm doing all I can to put it to use. Piers is just making up excuses. There's too much at stake for him to throw a tantrum over what happened in Edonia and Lanshiang."

Just then, Barry sounded on Chris's head set as well as Jill and Sheva's. Josh had his on him but was not using it. "Chris, Jill, Captain Burton do you copy?" Chris responded, "Yeah, we're here, Barry. What's going on? Shouldn't you and your team be on a helicopter behind us? You said yourself there's going to be one hell of a blast."

Barry sounded distressed and they could hear automatic fire in the background. "Listen guys, I have good news and bad news. It's up to you which one you want first,"

Jill asked, "What's the bad news?" Barry was quick to respond but it sounded like he was firing too. "Chris's partner, Piers. He's still alive. Those hydrogen rounds you hit him with didn't keep him down for long. Me and my team are engaging him but we need to get the hell out of here, ASAP before the bombs drop. We could leave him here and hope the bombs finish him off but I'm afraid that's too big of a risk he'll get away clean."

Chris demanded, "What?! I thought I at least made it so he couldn't walk. I mean he might be able to heal damaged limbs but I was hoping that would at least buy us some time before HQ drops the rain of fire on the village! Barry, what are you going to do? You guys need to get out of there, too. You too, Rebecca. You hear me?"

Rebecca answered as she fired her own automatic weapon and said as she reloaded, "Yes, Chris I hear you but we have a job to do and Piers on the loose will be more dangerous for the world that some bombs getting us will be. It's going to be a close call but we're going to try and bring him down! We have

Jill warned, "Okay, you all need to get out of there so do what you can to stop Piers but make sure you're on a helicopter out of there when the clock reaches two minutes til, you all need to hurry and get to the evac point."

Barry informed her, "Roger on your last, Jill. We've got about three minutes and forty five seconds and we're pretty close to the LZ but we can't have it this hot so we need to bring Agent Nivans down. We might be able to drop the bastard with maybe a little under two minutes to go but Agent Chambers is right. I don't want to die here either but I'll be damned if this guy gets to the Mainland in his condition knowing I didn't do anything to stop it!"

Rebecca added, "Chris, I think I..."

The young redhead never finished her sentence. Instead she cried out in agony. Barry cursed and fired his shotgun as they could hear and shouted, "Fuck! Hang on, Becky!" Just then, they heard what sounded like an electrical disturbance. A discharge. The same one Chris's old partner almost killed me with... Josh realized.

They heard garbled transmission and hellish screams combined with Machine Gun fire and after that, static. "Barry, come in! What happened?" Josh sat up and tried to contact Captain Burton but to no avail. He was still weak but he was okay enough to sit up. "Something must be wrong. He's been cut off. Chris, contact HQ and find out what's going on. See if they can tell us Alpha Team's status."

Claire

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're telling me you were at Rockfort Island? How is that even possible Everybody there died except for me, Steve, my brother and a couple of twin maniacs that were after us,"

Angel insisted, "I know it sounds crazy but I was there. Did you see any planes taking off before you got out of there?" She thought back. She had. The two of them had. There were three of them when the self destruct alarm had sounded off. She and Steve had taken the biggest airplane there was. She had often wondered what the deal was with those three planes but had not given it much thought. She nodded, her throat dry. "Then you saw me. Well there was more than just me. There was about six of us left. I remember when they took you in. You had a bag over your head. I didn't know what you looked like but I knew you were a woman. I'm not saying it wasn't a coed prison because it was. We had the hardest cons from the states, the UK and a couple other countries there and that meant men and women but you were dressed still...you know..."

He was trying to hint at the midriff top she had worn that day but was being modest. "You were dressed like a civilian," He wisely put it. "Most of the women in there were as hardcore as the men. I'm not saying you weren't. Obviously you are to have survived but you aint a criminal. That much I knew from the start. It's probably good Rodrigo kept you separate. It was pretty rough in there."

Claire shrugged. "I can handle rough," He said, "Look I'm not saying you can't, I grew up with guns I grew up in a rough area but in there everybody needs friends and if you have a brother for a cop like you say, then that would have been good. I would have tried to help you if I had found you but I was outnumbered by a lot of bad guys. Actually...I...never mind."

She was curious. "What is it? Tell me! If you survived that place and umbrella, you need to say something. You could give testimony to the BSAA,"

He whistled. "Chingado! You sure you aint a cop like your hermano? You're sure grilling me like one. Look, if we don't all die and we make it out of here, maybe I'll tell somebody but right now, there's only two people that know what happened aside from the survivors that got out, and me. That's my sister and Victor. I guess Atonwa counts too since he knew but..." He looked down in sadness. "He's gone..."

They had finally managed to clear out all the attackers that had tried to kill all of them. Claire needed fresh weapons as she had run dry on ammunition for her weapons. She picked for herself a LSAT Light Machine Gun and an M9 Handgun for a sidearm. She found three magazines. Each one had a hundred rounds and the weapon itself had 45 rounds in it.

She also have five magazines for her sidearm. She asked Leon, "So what do we do now? WQe need a new safe place to take the remaining survivors but this isn't a safe spot anymore. Too many zombies are able to get in now," Leon answered her, "I don't know but we need to find Alex Wesker. If he really is the last Wesker he must be desperate. I know we're not the BSAA but we have to do something. Maybe if we end him we can end this."

He turned to the spy and said, "Ada. Do you know where he might have gone?" She checked her PDA which Claire was surprised still worked. Then again maybe she salvaged a new one off the many dead cops, soldiers and even litters of rookie SOU agents that were from the local continental branch but most were not as experienced as her brother and as a result had perished due to it.

Ada frowned. "I don't know. I've got it narrowed to a two block radius. It's around this area here," She showed him. "I don't remember exactly where it was but I think some of White Umbrella's major founders met up a round this area but before and after Raccoon City. It's been a while though."

Steve appeared out of nowhere, startling Claire and Leon but not Ada. "I can answer that. It's the Empire State Building. Ada, you don't know because you're a traitor. At least as far as anyone who ever worked for Umbrella is 're marked for death and sooner or later they will get you. You've been out of the loop so that's why you don't know but I've been there before."

Steve cleared his throat and then continued. "I went there before Wesker died. There's a room that you need a high level of clearance to get to and Wesker, because of his ties to Alex and the Family indirectly, was able to get us in there. When the building was made, there was a secret project going on. A lot of the same men who were up there building that sky scraper also built an underground base. It was used as a meeting for the Global Pharmaceutical Conglomerate companies when they were deciding what to do to Umbrella during the trials."

Victor overheard them and he was hunched in the corner. "Funny you should mention that. My great grandfather was one of those men. He got hired as a steel worker so he moved from Kahnawake to Brooklyn. He told my father and my grandfather stories about it. My grandpa was just a kid when the building was originally constructed. He told us President Hoover was behind that project but said he also couldn't talk about it in great detail. Classified information. We all knew he had built that place along with other men from the tribe. We were the only ones not afraid of heights. Some men even jumped from scaffold to scaffold hundreds of feet in the air."

Steve crossed his arms skeptically. "What does that have to do with anything?" Victor smiled. "It's funny. I can tell you're older than me, but my Uncle would tell you, you have the patience of somebody younger. I think my great grandfather worked on that underground facility. My grandfather told me this story. He had wanted to know what it was he built for President Hoover but he said he couldn't tell him. Said the authority went even higher than the president."

Claire's eyes widened with curiosity. "Higher than the president...?" Ada nodded. "The leader of the Family. Whoever runs the Family pretty much runs the industrialized world. They hand pick their presidential candidates even. Steve asked the leader of the New York survivors, "So what do you think was down there?"

Victor said, "Back then, they were testing things on animals. See my great grandfather did eventually tell his wife, my great grandma, and by doing that he had broken the rules. My Great grand father was one of the men to die in the building of the Empire State Building. It was seen as an accident but the thing is, all the other workers who had died, more than likely talked too. Of course the New York Times and every other media outlet back then covered it up. Chalked it up to an occupational hazard."

Leon looked to the younger man and said, "Yeah, I remember hearing about that on the history channel. The Twin Towers were bigger than the Empire State Building before 9/11 but after that it went back to being the tallest building in New York. So you're saying those men who died up there were killed by The Family? Or Umbrella?"

Victor shrugged as he reloaded his AK-47 variant and said, "Who really knows? It's probably both. I really wouldn't know. Umbrella was a new organization back then."

Claire was curious, "You were in Raccoon City so how do you know any of this? About Umbrella?"

He beckoned to Angel. "He was at Rockfort Island. You may not have had it easy there but he was on the island both before and after the outbreak. It wasn't much better before. With a sociopath owning the prison and sadistic guards treating everybody like animals and punching bags."

Angel confirmed this. "You know what it's like in the big pen? Let me ask you, you ever saw a cop car behind you and got real nervous?" Claire shook her head. Leon, though he had been a cop for a day said, "I was a police rookie for one day...but when I was in college, I did get pulled over when I'd been drinking. So yeah, I do know the nervousness."

Angel continued, "What it's like being in the pinta is that exact feeling. You feel like that 24 hours a day only now those beat cops are corrections officers. To make matters worse you're surrounded by people who feel that exact same way just as much as you do and are paranoid of every other person so it doesn't make it an easy situation for making friends."

Steve looked at Angel with a sudden realization. "I know you...I just realized I know you...I was with you on that island. So was Claire but she arrived later than we did. Do you remember me?" Angel looked at him and said, "I don't..."

Claire asked, "How is it that you were at Rockfort if you don't know him? Steve was an inmate there," Steve removed a photo. "This is me...I was taken there with that man..."

Angel's dark eyes widened with realization. "That was you?! Jesus! You look almost the same age now as then! Only your scars make you look older. I thought you didn't make it, homes! What happened?"

Steve's expression went blank. "A part of me didn't make it. I died and was reborn a different person. My dad...he died back there too. I escaped the island with Claire. I escaped with her to Antarctica but I didn't live after that. Still, I had enough of the virus in me that they brought me back to life.

Victor looked at all of them. "We may not agree on everything but if you can stop this I really wish you luck. If we can't get back here I hope you don't hold it against us. You know, if there's no cure for this thing and it ends up being too ate to stop whatever caused this, then we'll have to purge the city of these undead demons the old fashioned way."

Claire nodded. "Thanks. You handled yourself well so far. For what it's worth it might have been a lot easier in Raccoon City if you guys were around back then," Victor said, "I didn't believe Angel at first. I thought he was crazy. Then when I saw what was happening here and I knew he spoke the truth."

With that, as they all began to head out of the station, Victor began to sing something in his language or at least it seemed like singing. "What is that?" Claire asked with awe and curiosity. Leon saw that he was near the two bodies his Uncle Atonwa as well as Jimmy. The other Mohawks that were mostly very quiet or at least had not talked to any of Claire's group, were chanting with him. One beat a drum to a certain rhythm. "That's their death chant. It's a ritual I think. We should leave them to it."

Steve curiously asked, "Why? He's not one of them," He said beckoning with his head toward Jimmy. "I think in this case, they made an exception. Probably to ease Tashini's mind. Even if it's only a little bit,"

Steve shook his head with a frown as he turned away from the Mohawk death chant. "Just goes to show. Human beings will never unite in life but we sure as hell will in death. Maybe that's the only place we are all truly the same. There's too much in this life that keeps us at each other's throats. Religion, race, politics, money. When you're dead none of that matters. That's the only time it doesn't matter."

He looked back at the death chant one more time and added, "Only the living are bothered by death. Whether there's an afterlife or not, they left their troubles with their last breath,"

Claire asked him with concern, "How can you say that? Steve, when we have the possibility of a worldwide infection, our humanity does matter. Why are you suddenly so cynical?" Steve denied it. "I'm not. I'm just a realist. If humanity could ever unite as a whole, we would have already."

Leon chimed in, "Well we never had B.O.W's as a world wide epidemic. They may have survived so far on their own but we'll need to all work together if we want to survive extinction," Steve sighed. "I am what I am but it doesn't mean I can't see the other side of it. I mean their side. The government once bought Manhattan from them for like 24 dollars. Would you trust people after being screwed over again?"

Ada turned to Steve. "There's nothing anybody can do about that now. I'm not quick to trust anybody myself because I know human nature. I trust Leon but I don't trust you. I've seen what you did. Everything I did was a means to an end," Claire defended him. "He didn't mean any of it, Ada. You did what you did out of free will. Steve was under control."

Ada shrugged. "Be that as it may, it looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Everybody was so afraid of Jake Wesker when they found out about him in the BSAA. Yet here you are starting to sound just like the man who was your father for so many years."

Steve growled, "He's not my father! He never was! My father died fifteen years ago. I killed him myself. Wesker was just an asshole. I owe him my life but he made me do things I never wanted to do," Leon said, "I hear what you're saying, Steve. Still, while you're saying Ada is worse than you just remember, she never saw him for anything more than he was. She told me that you saw Wesker as a father figure before he even put that device on you. He only put it on you in the first place to control what you remembered, right?"

Steve looked down. "I'm not him. It's not just Wesker who could see the flaw in the human design. I remember being human more than he does,. I remember it more than he did. Even if we both lost it the same year. He was thirty eight. I wasn't even a man yet."

Ada warned both Claire and Steve, "I thought the two of you should know...Alexia Ashford is alive. I thought it was just some experiment Wesker was trying but he found a way to resurrect her before he died. I was going to tell you both sooner but we had our hands full."

Claire's heart skipped a beat. "How is that possible? Steve, did you know?" He closed his eyes. "I do now...I forgot a lot of things when you first took that device off of me. I'd heard rumors that she was alive but I didn't see how. They said she was using the body of Excella Gione, who your brother killed. Or at least a reconstructed replica of her that is. I thought it was just a joke. I mean the two have similar personalities and both are a couple of rich spoiled bitches that were the heir to a company. I don't know why I didn't connect the dots."

Ada confirmed this as they all walked up the street, taking alley ways to be safer. "I knew as soon as she was brought back. I didn't tell you, though. With your device I wasn't sure if you'd be able to remember her anyway. Wesker had tried to get her to come with him before but she didn't want to. When she learned about his ambitions I guess she had a change of heart. Actually, if Excella hadnt been killed by the BSAA, he was going to use her body after it had been injected with Alexia's DNA. It never would have worked with just Excella's alone. He needed her body to store Alexia's harvested mind. After Excella injected herself with the Urobuos virus, she had ruined any chance of that and at that point was expandable to him."

They listened to her as she told them what she knew. "He didn't live to reconstruct Excella's body but his brother knew Albert's plans and did what he didn't get to. Why, I'm not sure though. I would think maybe he wanted her for himself but that would be too easy. Alex Wesker is a complicated man. I don't see much reason to keep her around now. He must have something planned. Maybe he the same kind of ambition for world domination that his brother had. That is why Alexia started to realize what a mistake she'd made after Albert died."

Steve shook his head. "I think I'm going to be sick..." Just then, they heard a squishing sound followed by a scream. Then another sickening sound. They came out of the alley and saw two dead bodies, one of which had been decapitated. The other, was an overweight man with a beard in overalls, a Caucasian male with bushy brown hair and gray eyes and his intestines were removed from his fat stomach.

A woman was firing an Uzi, she was a petite and attractive woman of Jamaican descent. She wore a blue halter top and black pants. She was firing at a mammoth beast in front of her. It slashed at her breasts and she cried out, falling, dropping the automatic weapon still firing. She bled out excessively, her right breast severed completely, the other leaking out the fat from the open wound. She cried out helplessly, "Help me...this demon..." She was going into shock from blood loss.

The thing brought down a night stick on her head and cracked her skull open. She let out a grunt of pain as it hit her. Her mouth hung open and she let out a groan. It hit her again with a blood thirty grunt. Blood ran freely from the gash on her head. Claire drew her Machine Gun on the thing. It was Officer Reese except he was no longer sentient at all.

Leon raised the H&K and Ada put in some explosive bolts even though she only had a few left, luckily able to find some at all.

Steve didn't use a weapon. He just raised his fists as if to take the thing on hand to hand. "Not this asshole again..."

Chris

They were at the hospital in San Juan. It was over crowded but as BSAA agents, sadly, they were given importance over the locals. Barry was being checked out on a stretcher the man's fatigues covered in blood. "Barry! What happened?" Barry sighed, his eyes looking worn out. "They wiped out most of my team. Your old partner . Rebecca took some nasty cuts from him too. We managed too put him down...at least I think so. HQ bombed the shit out of that town and the Marines had their drones take out any stragglers left. ALF or B.O.W.'s. So hopefully if we didn't kill him, that did."

Jill was also being treated for her wounds. My God, Barry. I'm so sorry..." Barry sadly said, "Not as sorry as me, Jillian. It's not your fault. Chris, on the other hand...Redfield...how are you going to ever make this right? I just lost all but a few of my agents. Of all the rookies, Agent Vega is the only one left. At least Agent Suzuki is a Raccoon City survivor. Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

Chris closed his eyes, wincing in pain but also from the guilt. "You know I do, Barry. I'm sorry..."

Barry growled, "If you know what it's like how could you let it happen to another Captain? I've got to explain to the families of the men and women of my team that I let their loved ones down! All because you were attached to your partner and you couldn't do what needed to be done? You selfish son of a bitch! When this is all over, you stay out of my life."

Chris put his face in his palms. Jill touched his arm, "It's going to be okay, Chris. He's just upset..."

He was brought into the operating room. The doctors conversed in Spanish and the said to him English to count back from ten as the anesthesia kicked in. They had to get those bullets out of him. As he began to nod off, as their own voices faded they asked him questions if he could feel anything and he said his lips were numb yet he couldn't even feel them move. He finally drifted off and his last thought was that he wished he would go to sleep and never wake up from this surgery. Piers was right. Why should everybody else die when he got to live?

Meanwhile...

Piers was battle damaged. He had used his abilities to kill a most of the BSAA team. He was unconscious from the team's Captain. He made his way toward Excella. Or is it Alexia...? Damn it's getting hard to remember...

She took him into the helicopter. "We must go. This town is about to become an inferno. Your destiny awaits you," He did as she asked. He was unable to change back to his human self. He was stuck in mutant form. The helicopter was loud as he got in almost not even able to fit due to his width but he managed. The blades were less loud once they were airborne. He could thankfully still speak. "Where...are we going? You and I? What destiny are you talking about? You still haven't told me anything...! What am I going to do? All my friends want to kill me now. You owe me some answers.. whoever you are."

She observed his wounds. "Those will heal in time. The man you faced was a long time friend of Chris Redfield. Did you kill him?" He felt like she was deflecting from the question but he knew playing ball would likely get him answers faster than being difficult. "No...I almost did but he was tough...his team was helping. Some redhead got the drop on me. Took me by surprise...a girl. Then they both did a number on me. When I came to they were gone. The only ones left was his team mates I killed."

She smiled. "Neither Excella Gione or Alexia Ashford ever met him but ever since my own Resurrection, I have learned quite a bit of this Captain Burton. One of the original 11. An enemy much hated by Oswald Spencer. He and Redfield are like crusaders in a misguided cause. If Redfield is King Arthur, Barry Burton would be Lancelot."

He looked to her and then back out at the town that was getting farther and farther away from them. "What...is my destiny? What are you expecting me to be? I heard you talking on your PDA to a man. That's him, isn't it? The new leader of the Family. If that's who he is then what could my involvement possibly be? Are you asking me to lead Neo Umbrella? I'm not okay with all of this going on. I only came with you to get a fresh perspective. The BSAA keep on failing at what they say they're going to do."

She looked on him with intimidating eyes. "You will be our leader. You are qualified for it. When I first heard of you being alive after the underwater facility was destroyed I did not believe it until I saw you. You are chosen by nature to be the God this world needs."

Piers looked at her with confusion, "I don't have the kind of mind to handle something like this. I can't imagine what kind of sick bastard would want to change the world through terror! The world we had before wasn't perfect but this is way worse."

Alexia was holding a syringe in her hand. "I'm afraid it is not your mind we seek. Only your body. Your mind is indeed too resistant to the change this world needs, by any means needed. You are simply a follower and not a leader. There could have been a chance that you on your own could have been the new leader. This is why I not only saw to you being resuscitated under my careful watch but kept an eye on you. However, you have failed in the psychological war. I am afraid this is the end of the line for you."

Piers tensed up. His wounded face scowling would have been intimidating to anybody else but she did not flinch. "What are you talking about? If you don't need me how can you use my body? You're going to make me one of your pawns? I should have died back in China. Now I'm going to. The ocean is going to swallow me up."

He started to prepare to jump out but the woman grabbed with strength that took him off guard. She forced the half human man to a sitting position and stuck him in the chest with the needle. Even with his super human strength it hurt. "What did you do to me...?" He gasped, demanding an answer from the psychotic aristocrat. "You could have been somebody important Mr. Nivans. An Ant King. If you prefer to be a worker ant that is your choice. Your mind is simply not the kind that we need in order for a leader to take over however your body will be the perfect host. Not only this, but your memories as Agent Piers Nivans will still be dormant in the Master King's memory."

Piers felt his vision blur. "You bitch...! What did yo do to me?! I'll kill you..." She let out a haughty laugh. "You have nothing to fear, Mr. Nivans. You have served your purpose quite effectively. I am afraid that you in your present form have worn out your usefulness. It is not I who will make you a pawn but the one who you now belong to. You were not too far from being correct, my dear child. The idea is that Neo Umbrella who could have been under your rule had you stepped up to the plate, would have combined forces with Alexander Wesker and his position as the head of The Family."

A tear went down his cheek and he was not sure if the drug or whatever she had given him was messing with his tear ducts or if he was crying. He hoped it was the latter. Alexia stood over him as he collapsed. "You're turning back to the form of a human being rather than a B.O.W. Though you have many abilities that you have not tapped into, you are weak because you don't have the type of mind to use them. However, those who are afraid of the impending change would need to see a human face not a Bio weapon's. Even if you are being assimilated, we must keep up appearances."

Piers breathed out, "I shouldn't have helped you...Chris...if he's still alive...he's going to bury you...for good this time..." She put a foot on his chest, her high heel pressing into his chest wounds. he cried out in pain. "You should be happy Agent 're getting what you want. Though we will still use you as one uses any other kind of weapon, in theory you will be dead. Your mind can rest at ease. Piers Nivans is officially dead."

His vision was starting to go from blurry to black. He could feel more tears wetting his cheek. He felt a sob in his throat and realized that he was crying after all. He managed to smile just a little bit, though he was now blind. As his heart beat began to drop his last thoughts were, Thank God I'm dying a human...

It was the last consultation too all his loss. It was his last thought period. He hoped that if there was life beyond death, only not involving a virus reanimation a dead body, he hoped he would find peace there. Something he had not had in a long time. Even if there wasn't, an endless realm of nothingness was still better than being a monster.

Thank God...I die a human...

Jake/Sherry

"So you're the prick that kept harassing me!" Muller growled. "What do you want from us? Why are we here?" Alex calmly said, "You are here awaiting the surprise I said I had for you. I just want to make sure you stay put until I do. As far as Sherry, she hasn't ceased to be useful. Whether she knows it or not. Let's just say I have a surprise for her too."

Jake snarled, "If you even touch her I swear..."

Alex assured him, "If I wanted to do that, I would have. I can promise you I have none of those tendencies. My brother, on the other hand, well, in the road to becoming a God, there lies imperfection. He became drunk with power. We agree on many of our ideals but that was one area we are not the same on."

Sherry scowled, "Just the basics, right? Making Bio weapon out of innocent people and animals, terrorism, and world domination?" Jake chuckled a bit ironically., "Just the little thing, huh?" He turned to Alex. "Why are we here? What happened to this place? It's supposed to be one of the biggest prisons in America. Or one of the most well known. Even before I ever went there, I'd heard of it. Where are the prisoners?"

Alex removed his sunglasses to reveal his cat colored eyes. "I'm afraid most of them are dearly departed. I needed a place where I could keep an eye on things. Their infirmary has made a good place for newer test subjects. I needed another facility available to me just in case our plans in New York City didn't work."

Jake said, "How can you get rid of this many prisoners? Did you infect this place too?" Alex told him, "As a matter of fact, I did. These inmates are lifers. Everybody on the outside has all but given up on them and even if they hadn't, as you can see, the law abiding citizens of New York City is not fairing so well against the infection either."

Sherry scoffed. "Because you unleashed it. What did you expect would happen?" Alex crossed his arms. "At the very least, we were expecting more people to show they had the means to survive. Sure, you could argue that none of these people are the same as say, your friends, Leon or Claire but in reality as you know, once upon a time all of this was new to them as well. Yet they still survived, did they not?"

Sherry was horrified. "This is all a game to you, isn't it? A sick game. These are peoples lives you're playing with. They may have broken the law but these are people too!" He told her, "I wanted to recreate the situation my brother more or less caused at Rockfort. All though that is where they sent some of the most rotten men in the world, it was not by any means as large as America's biggest prisons. This is one of the most infamous institutions."

He walked to the side of them but still continued to speak. "As the head of the Family, World Domination is not so much an aspiration. It is a reality. It always has been for anyone who ran the Family. The difference is, I am willing to do what is needed. However this is nothing more than a preemptive strike. We are in control of the Central Intelligence Agency and they can control what the public is told by the media. As long as we have the public believe it is left wing rogue armies like the ALF, or Islamic extremists, we can take over the world and make it the way we want it to be without most people being aware of it."

Jake was angered by what he was saying. The audacity of it. "You're just another terrorist piece of shit! You think this is good, what you're doing? You're right, we will rebel against it and as long as i'm still breathing I'll make sure people know the truth. About the CIA, the Family, Umbrella, Big Brother, all of it!"

Alex calmly responded, "I can assure you this hold against your will is only temporary. However when I show you what I have you waiting for the chances are you won't want to leave us. As for your friends in the BSAA, we can spin this however we want to. As far as the United States government is concerned, the BSAA is behind it all. Chris Redfield, all of these others like him. They faced frustration for years and were not taken seriously by their own fellow officers. Then they take on their crusade against bio weapons. It doesn't matter how much we twist the truth, Jacob."

He grabbed him by the face with his gloved hand. He wanted to fight back but he was unable to. "The truth is, Redfield did still kill your mother and your father. By killing your father, he killed your mother, as I told you before. Search your heart. You know it's the truth."

Alex's breath was on his face. "So no matter what I told you, whether true or not, I swear on my dead brother that is the truth."

Jake had tears in his eyes. "What if it is true?!" He shouted. "What good is that to me now?!" Alex had a somewhat sympathetic look to him. "I know it's beyond your ability to bring her back but all is not lost. If nothing else, Redfield is still alive and you can have your revenge. You say you did not know your father and I understand this. It's natural you would be angry about this but you must remember he never knew he had a son. If he had, it would have been another story."

He looked to the two J'avo guarding him and then said, "In some ways, I'm sure even you can understand just why Redfield had to kill your father, my brother. Me personally, I hate him for it but to him and to the BSAA it was a necessary evil. All my brother was, is the kind of agent of change this world needs. Even so, if you have no desire to avenge your father you should at least want to avenge your mother."

Sherry urged, "Don't listen to him, Jake! He's just trying to get to you! Just ignore him!" Alex threw a punch to her abdomen and she cried out in pain. "Don't you touch her!" Jake roared. "If you don't mind, I'm having a heart to heart with my nephew. I will deal with you in a moment."

Alex then said, "You know what needs to be done. The world is changing, Jacob. You can either go with it or against it. So we understand each other I would have been perfectly willing to share with you, the opportunity to exact revenge on Chris for what he did to Albert. He is my brother after all and unlike you, I knew him but who am I to get in the way of a young son setting things right?"

He looked to the two J'avo and said something to them in the Serbian language. Even though most of these J'avo were American, since the J'avo mainly were made in China and Edonia, whenever they infected a new person even in the West, they would speak one of the two languages depending on where they got whichever strain of the virus from. Jake didn't quite understand just how that worked but he didn't care. He had to get out of there. Alex walked from the room and Sherry whimpered to Jake, "What did he just say?"

Jake told her, "He said to watch us. Sherry, we have to get out of here. This outbreak is still going on out in the city and Leon and the others need us. They may not be my friends exactly but they're yours and a friend of yours is a friend of mine. Besides, Leon and Helena helped us back in Lanshiang so we owe them that much."

Sherry got an idea he could see. "Just follow my lead. Tell them I have to pee."

Jake asked, "Why? Do you?" She blushed. "No! If I actually did I wouldn't tell you," She whispered in an annoyed tone. "Just follow my lead. If you do it they'll think you're up to something. I''m a woman. They'll underestimate me,"

Jake translated it to them. "Dama treba da koristi kupatilo,"

" To se neće dogoditi . Zaboravite," Snarled one of the two carriers, an African American, who in any other case except what was going on, was unlikely to know the language. He was about five foot eight but muscular. He wore a white robe indicating he was a doctor or possibly worked in the hospital's infirmary.

(That's not going to happen. Forget it.)

Jake wouldn't let up. "Hajde . Šta jeloše u tome? Ako ona će biti ovde satimanajmanje što možete da uradite je da ga više udoban,"

(Come on. What's the harm in it? If she's going to be here for hours the least you can do is make it more comfortable.)

The other J'avo, a Caucasian man dressed like a corrections officer growled lowly and said, "Dobro . Mi joj uzeti . Ona samo dobija pet minuta," He turned to the other J'avo carrier. "Pazi ga . Imajte na oku!"

(Fine. We take her. She only gets five minutes.You watch him. Keep an eye on him.)

Sherry was freed from her shackles and let free. She was led barefoot down a dark corridor. There was water on the floor indicating some kind of damage to the water pipes on the island. She shivered in the cold. She was shoved forward by the J'avo who carried an Assault Rifle. Sherry suddenly turned around and gave him a round house kick. This caught the carrier by surprise and it knocked him down.

She kicked him in the face as he went down and followed with a kick to the face. The man growled trying to get up with a bloody nose. She kicked him again and he tried to get up. She kicked him one more time and sent his nose back up into his brain with the heel of her foot. She collected the Assault Rifle. It was a Bushmaster M4 Type Carbine.

She burst into the room where Jake was being held. The other carrier growled and raised it's handgun but Sherry fired three rounds and hit it in the head.

She fired rounds at each of his shackles. "We've got to get out of here. I don't know how Alex got us out here but I think Claire and Leon are sitting ducks back in Manhattan!" Jake took the Handgun off the dead carrier. "Don't worry. I'm sure they're fine. We've seen that they can handle themselves."

Jake checked the ammo for the pistol he had taken, a Browning BDM. It had a full magazine already in there and the dead body had three 15 round spares. What the hell is a doctor doing packing? Then again, the states does give citizens that right...

Sherry looked at him and said, "Then at the very least we have to try and stop Alex. He may not have done as much as Wesker the one I know of but he has the potential to be just as bad if not worse. I mean he did cause two bio hazards just this year. The one in the Caribbean and the one here!"

Jake agreed but said, "I want to do that, Sherry but we don't have much for weapons. God knows what they did with our old ones and we were lucky that just worked. We need some help. Maybe you're right. Maybe we should try and find a way to get hold of Claire or Leon."

They headed through the prison. "We need to find our clothes. It's freezing in here!" Jake nodded. "Yeah, I know. The first thing I find that fits, I'm wearing."

They went through several doors, searching room after room. They came to a room with a lot of glass windows. There were a lot of dead bodies inside and they had clothes that looked like they might fit. Sherry tried the door. "Locked. We must need the key to get in there."

They searched the halls. Jake found a tool box nearby and he rummaged through it. "Jackpot," He had found a flashlight. He turned it on and began to check the hall and headed south of the visiting room they had just passed. He spotted a guard with a key just up ahead. It was a zombie. "Sorry pal..."

He aimed for the head but just then, he heard a screech and felt a sharp pain in his left arm. "Ahhh! Jesus...!" Jake cried out, his bare arm bleeding heavily. He shined the light on it. "Oh God! That's a Licker. I saw those thinsgs all over the police station back in Raccoon!"

She fired her semi automatic Rifle seven times. It hit the thing in the back and it hissed. Its tongue darted out and scraped her left knee. "Ah!" She yelped. She fired three more into its head. It went down, rolled over on its back writhing before it died. Another one lunged for Sherry knocking her back. She fired multiple rounds into its chest as it came at her but it wrapped its tongue around her slender throat scratching her skin. "Jake...help...!" She begged.

He kicked the thing and fired six rounds into it and kicked it again. "Get off her! You ugly son of a bitch!"It writhed in agony but it was not quite dead. He pressed the hot barrel to its bulbous head and declared, "Bye!" He pulled the trigger three times and blew its brains out all over the floor, himself and Sherry. She groaned, "It's...still got me..."

He grabbed its massive talon and asked, "Do you trust me, Sherry?" She nodded, her eyes looking vulnerable and scared. "Just stay calm...hang on super girl...it's almost over with..." He carefully cut its tongue off of her using the sharp limb of the deceased B.O.W. to cut through the tissue.

Sherry coughed gasping for air and held her bleeding neck. "Thanks Jake...it hurts..." He hugged her and said, "I know it does. We'l get you some medical attention ASAP. We just need to find a medical kit. Just hang in a bit longer, okay?"

She stood up and said, "I may not need one. My condition, remember?" It was, slowly but surely healing. They headed back up the hall and followed the zombie. It was behind three other carriers of the same kind, but they were inmates.

Jake fired the last rounds from the magazine at one of them hitting it with a few to the abdomen and the rest in the head. Sherry took down one with the remaining rounds from her weapon and wounded the other one and she knew she had only two more magazines left.

They both reloaded and Jake aimed down his sights at the zombie prison guard. He fired five shots hitting him in the abdomen. The guard went down and Jake made his way to him. He fired a final shot between the eyes. He took the key off of him. "All right now we can get in there."

Sherry observed, "He must have used as many B.O.W.'s as he could to clear out this prison if I'm seeing Lickers here. I wonder if he attacked Rikers before or after the bio hazard in New York?"

Jake unlocked the door. "No way to know for sure. Maybe before or after. The guy's crazy. I've met thousands of people like him."

They checked the dead bodies. There was a woman who had been killed from a broken neck. Sherry checked the others ad then came back to the woman. "his is the only thing that fits me, "She sighed, "It's going to be cold,"

Jake picked the prison jumpsuit of one of the inmates. It was his size but a bit snug. "Really?" She asked looking at him. They got dressed and he shrugged. "Beggars can't be choosers,"

Sherry put on her outfit too which was a mini skirt and a school girl blouse. "I used to have something like this when I was younger..." She found some nylons on the dead girl and decided to put them on both for warmth and though not by much, to make her legs a little less exposed to a zombie bite. Her blouse only came about halfway down her stomach revealing her toned and sexy abdomen. Jake couldn't help but stare. "What?"

He grinned. "What yourself. It's not like we haven't seen each other naked. Can't knock a guy for looking," He snatched a black jacket up. "If you're feeling cold though, wear this."

She put it on and tried to zip it up. The zipper was broken. It did not cover her belly but a least covered up her back and arms. "It'll have to do for now."

Jake nodded and he raided a dead guard who was carrying a pistol of the same type as he had. He took the ammo from him and said, "That's funny...normally the guards don't carry. They must have tried to resist the outbreak as long as they could."

Sherry told him, "Most prisons do have an armory in them just in case of a riot. Maybe if we find some of what they have, if there's anything left, we'd be better equipped to take down Alex,"

Jake agreed and scratched his head with one hand and carried the pistol in the other. They headed through another dark corridor. "You know, they may have broken the laws in your country, but these guys were people too. Whatever they may have done, nobody deserves this kind of thing."

Sherry raise her eyebrows though it was not like the red haired man could see it. "Not even rapists? Murderers?" Jake checked the corner shining the ray around. "Rapists, sure. Murderers? I don't know. How do you define what a murderer is? I mean even I fall under that category."

She shook her head. "No it just means you killed an innocent person. All the people you've killed were bad, right?" Jake let out a distressed sigh. "I wish I could say that was true but it's not. When you're a mercenary you don't ask questions. I'm only saying. Aside from sex offenders, who should be castrated, a lot of these guys are probably no worse than your average US soldier."

She looked at him with disbelief, "You can't be serious. Those guys kill to protect this country. Murderers kill for selfish reasons," Jake went around another corner slowly, pausing before answering, "I've seen what the CIA has done around the world. You're a good woman, Super Girl but a bit naive. When you have over 900 bases around the globe, that's not defending freedom. That's an empire. Not democracy."

Sherry admitted, "Maybe because I wasn't born where you were, I don't understand everything about the world but my life wasn't easy either, Jake. There are people here that struggle too!" Jake chuckled. "Yeah, I can see that. You know, I read somewhere that most American prisoners were arrested for drug charges. Maybe they should have been locked up for a little bit but when a society with the largest prison population in the world has prisoners that are mostly in on drug charges, it really shows the lack of morality Uncle Sam has."

They found a side room and he spotted his Spas 12. All of their weapons were not there but his shotgun and her handgun was. They recovered them. "It's not what we had but it's a start," Sherry remarked. Jake spotted some infected inmates and guards outside of the door. They were coming at them faster than he would normally allow. He fired a head shot through the temple of the first one he saw, a Caucasian male with a swastika tattoo on his left arm.

Clearly, the man was a member of the white supremacist prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood. "Sayanara, Adolf!" Jake mocked. He fired, backing up, emptying round after round from the fresh magazine. "Jake! Be careful with your shots! We're on limited ammo!"

He had discharged about seven shots. He fired two into the head of a younger kid, an African American male who looked way too young to have been in an adult prison. The man went down, his brains blown over one of his fellow undead compatriots. He aimed at another. This one was a female guard with blonde hair mostly stuck to her scalp and her skin was mostly gone. She grabbed him and tried to bite but he kicked her back and let off the remaining mag into her stomach. She fell down wounded but was not dead. "Jake, didn't you just hear me?"

He backed off reloading. "Yeah! I'm not deaf but these freaks are too close for my comfort!" He pistol whipped one of them, a large male with most of his face gone. He fired a head shot into the man dropping dead. He brought his foot down on the head of the female zombie. Another carrier, a hospital nurse tried to bite Sherry. She screamed as its teeth sank into her arm on the upper part near the shoulder. "Ahhh!"

She forced it back and fired her pistol letting off a burst of rounds into her chest, tearing her right breast with round after round.

Jake looked at her with concern even as he fired two shots from the Spas 12 sending back two carriers, blowing their heads off. He had killed the last of them. She assured him, "Remember, Jake? We're immune. A small amount of people are immune to the virus. Me, Claire, Leon. They were bitten a few times in Raccoon."

He relaxed a bit. "I remember. I just know those things can kill you still. And it's not like anyone you know has died from B.O.W's so it's not like we'd know if you'd come back after you died," As soon as he said it he regretted it. "I didn't mean it that way...," He blurted. He knew she had lost her parents to exactly that.

She told him in an assuring voice, "I know what you meant,"

They walked out of there and Sherry nervously said, "I've never been here before. I don't know way around this place. We need to find Alex, that's true but we also have to find a way to get back to Claire and Leon. Even that sort of shady lady, Ada. You know at first I didn't recognize her in China but I remembered when Leon and Claire rescued me I knew I had seen her before. They can handle themselves, I'm sure but it's better if we're there for them in case something else happens. They stand a better chance if we stick together."

Jake promised, "We'll at least try and get our hands on some form of communication. Get a hold of them and let them know where we are. Maybe they can at least send a team of BSAA agents out here to clean house."

Jill

It had been a little over a day since they had gotten out of Oceana Aldea. Though it was not their job to take sides, they had worked with the military to get as many civilians as they could out of there. Though Jill had only a little of the virus in her body her wounds had healed a lot faster than the rest of her BSAA comrades. They were still at the hospital. The doctors were over worked and under staffed but they were trying hard. The virus had spread to the city so there was more attacks on people.

Chris had surgery that luckily was not too serious so she was waiting on him to recover. Still, they needed to get the bullets out of him. She spotted Barry coming out of one of the rooms, a stressed look on his face. She walked up to him and asked, "How are you holding up?"

He sighed. "One of my guys that was with us in the fight against Piers got hurt pretty bad. He was cut pretty bad from the guy's arm. He also went into shock because of the electricity. They said there's some internal bleeding. There's nothing they can do but wait and see."

He looked at her and then asked, "You hear from Chris yet?" Jill coldly asked, "What do you care? You hate him now, remember?" Barry sighed, "I don't...I just lot my team mates. I trained these men. Women too. They're supposed to bury me not the other way around. They were just learning the ropes. They could have lived and maybe they would have been where Chris, you and I are some day. They could have been the teachers."

Jill sighed. "Barry, it's never easy losing people. It didn't hit me at first when it happened because I was too caught in the moment but I cried for days like a baby after we got away over Brad. The way he died was so horrible. I actually thought he would have made it if it wasn't for Nemesis. He'd held his own against the zombies and he got us all out of the mansion."

Barry remembered. "Good old Chicken Heart. I miss him too. He wasn't much for a fight but he was funny. I miss him and most of the guys we worked with in the office all those years ago. It feels like a lifetime ago. My daughters were still little girls back then. Now they're fully grown and the good days we had before that God awful mess is just a memory."

He grinned just slightly sand said, "You and Redfield were just kids back then. Now you're on your way to getting as old as me,"

Jill chuckled. "Who are you calling old? You're the one who's a grandpa, remember? I don't even have a kid yet!"

Barry warmly wrapped an arm around her. "Yeah, I know. That's kind of a tragedy you and Redfield never did get together to be perfectly honest. You would have made a cute couple and probably equally cute babies."

Jill agreed with him. "Believe me, I wanted to but the timing was just never right. It never happened. I want to even now but I think because of our careers we missed out on a lot of the best things in life," Barry lectured her saying, "Jillian, there's never going to be a right time if you wait for it to come to you. When me and my wife first had a kid, we were both hardly making ends meet but we wanted a family. You have to make time. Even when I was with S.T.A.R.S and the Air Force before that, I always tried to be with them as much as I could."

He pulled out a picture of his two daughters. Moira and Polly were both beautiful young women. "Moira's gonna have a kid soon...and Polly's in college...I'm so damned proud of them. I'm glad they didn't become fighters like me. Don't get me wrong. Me and Robert did teach them how to use a gun at a young age when he was still alive but I just know how much this way of life wears on you. There are other ways to fight battles."

Jill decided to say, "Thanks for the advice. But Barry, you should also make up with Chris yourself. He's your best friend. He made a mistake. The best of all leaders do."

Barry sighed. "I know, Jill. You're right. I have to make that up to him somehow. In a way it just feels like this is the second team I've lost. I mean Joseph was the first to go all those years ago. Poor Rebecca, she lost her entire team too. I want to put an end to this, Jill. All this loss, all this death, taking out the bastards responsible won't bring them back but maybe it will give some perspective to all that's happened."

Jill turned to him and said, "I hope so, Captain. Anyway, we're going to be heading out soon. The military is going to try and handle the rest of the situation in Oceana Aldea if there's anything left. It may be bad that so many were infected there but at least Puerto Rico is an island. If the outbreak in New York gets anymore out of control it could spread all over the country. Maybe you should get some rest if you can because we're not going to for a long time after this. It's a hard mission from here on and out and we may not survive it."

Steve

It was only going to get worse. He turned to the brunette and asked her, "Do you trust me, Claire?" She looked into his eyes with uncertainty but she looked at him like he was refuge itself. "Yes..."

He grabbed her hand. "Okay...I need you to hold on tight..." In a blur of speed he ran carrying her with him out of the station to a building. He had spotted a man he knew to be responsible for this. Agent Wong had too. She staggered a bit, dizzy. "That was..."

She didn't finish her sentence but he held her steady. "I'm going after the man I know is responsible for this. All of it. If Albert was Hitler this guy would be Mussolini.I know you would have never agreed if I said I was going alone and trust me less if I just ran off again. I don't want you to think I'm going to do that to you as often as Ada does to Leon. I want you to be safe and out of harm's way but there is nowhere in town that is so you're better off sticking with me where I can keep an eye on you. Plus the way we took down Alexander Ashford all those years ago, you saved my life. Poison gas and all you held your own."

Claire smiled. "I wouldn't have it any other way. I may not have the virus in me but I'm used to dealing with things and people who do."

He sighed a little in shame before kicking in the glass door which normally would require visitors to be buzzed in. "I just wish I had stood up to Wesker, you know? There was some time when he'd let me have teh p30 device off of me to see how I acted under free will. I tried to resist him and the one time I did try and fight him I was no match. I was like a kid who'd just learned to ride a bike without training years against somebody who'd done it for years. Its funny, I remember when I met you down to every last detail but I forget what year it was when i woke up. I think it was a couple years later."

He looked her in her blue eyes. "Remember that promise I made to you back on the Island? The one I was sorry I couldn't keep? Well times have changed. We're both in trouble again and God or the universe or fate whatever it is has given me another chance and I won't let you down."

He touched her face gentle with his finger tips. "I won't let you down again, Claire," She kissed him, her sweet lips pressed to his. They tasted like heaven. Wet, warm, welcoming. She broke the kiss but kept her forehead against his, her cute little nose rubbing his as if they were both Eskimo. "I don't want to lose you again..." She admitted in a soft and vulnerable tone.

He lifted her chin up to look into his eyes. "I'm not going to leave you again, Claire. I swear on everything I stand for that I'll always be here for you. Even on a bad day, killing people for that bastard...the best part of them would be when I had to sleep. My dreams of you were the last thing in me that wasn't conquered by his p30."

She touched his arm, her eyes narrowing to blue slits. She went to kiss him again but suddenly the sound of clapping stopped them. It was dramatic clapping like some stereotypical movie villain. It only would have been more cliche if he had done so while turning around in a desk chair. Instead, the black leather clad man was walking toward them. "That was beautiful. Bloody Shakespearean."

The man was a tall black man with just the slightest accent. He had a scar running on his left cheek all the way near his ear. Even without the virus, he had extraordinary eye color, the color of honey. This was his eye color even when he was human. The cat like golden color now only accentuated it. "Well, Junior, I guess you're deviating from the plan? A pity. The bible may be a book I regard as creationist claptrap but even the great warrior Samson lost sight of his intended mission over the love of a woman and look where that got him?"

Claire scowled at the man. "He is not you. He's nothing like Albert either. He's human. More human than you'll ever be!" Steve chimed in, "Yeah! And my name aint Junior. Albert Wesker Junior s not my name and it never was. He was just a liar who tried to make me something i'm not. You're carrying on the lies of a dead man. My name is Steve Burnside and i'm a human first and a B.O.W second. How does it feel always living in another man's shadows, Alex?!"

Alex stepped forward and said, "If anybody is living a lie, it's you. You still think you're a human. Even when all evidence says otherwise. You were meant to be something greater than this. Humans hardly accomplish anything in their short life times. Only a handful of them ever do anything that is worth remembering. Imagine if more of us could live longer? If science made it so that were not bound by time? After all, time is a human concept."

Claire had found some flame rounds for her M79. "You're the last Wesker, right?" He smirked. "In a manner of speaking. Steve was one of us by adoption not so long ago. I saw your fight with him at Grand Central. Albert kept a leash on him because he knew even though there was a killer rage inside of him, his feelings for you would have confused him."

Claire said in a determined voice, "If you're the one who caused the outbreak here and the head of the family while also being the last surviving Wesker child, we can end this right here!" She fired a round at him but he saw it coming and in a flash was gone. He appeared in front of her, his eyes glowing red. She backed up in fear but kept it aimed at him hoping to back up enough as she loaded again to get another shot. He took her weapon from her tossing it behind him. He grabbed her by the hair and she cried out in pain.

She drop kicked him in the stomach. He didn't even blink. He jabbed her in the stomach and she cried out, her mouth dropping open as he knocked the wind out of her. Some of her saliva unwillingly escaped her as she collapsed. She held her stomach and Steve growled, "Don't you touch her!" He swung a punch at Alex and hit the man in the chest. Alex staggered back a bit. "Don't toy with me, Little Albert. You are as a nephew to me just as my brother was your father but I will not be as soft on you when it comes to discipline."

Steve swung at him again and Alex caught his fist and threw him with ease into a wall. Steve crashed through the wall leaving a huge hole in it. Alex grabbed him by the back of his already torn hooded sweater and punched the young man in the face. He hit him with five blows in the side of the head but they were so fast to Claire, it looked like just one. She weakly got up, grabbing her M79. Steve's lip was bleeding. Alex had the advantage but Steve could see what Claire was trying to do so he tackled Alex around the waist.

"Fuck you!" He screamed hitting the man in the gut. Alex drove his knee into Steve's chest and brought his elbow down on the top of his skull. Claire was about to fire when Alex locked eyes with her but Steve tackled him again and slammed him through the wall leading them into another apartment. They grappled and exchanged blows among the rubble. Steve spotted a computer monitor on a desk. He grabbed it and snarled, "DIE!" He smashed it over Alex's head and the electricity surged though the Wesker child's body. He screamed in roaring agony but he grabbed Steve around the waist so that he too, would be electrocuted.

Claire followed them with her weapon trained on the two but would not fire for fear of hitting Steve. She knew he could take it but if she did accidentally injure him even a little that might give Alex all the edge he needed over the younger man and with his own hands would be able to kill him. No matter how much of the virus Steve had or how powerful he was, if Alex was to rip his heart or any of his vital organs out as her brother had described Albert doing, it would still kill him.

Steve and Alex were hanging onto each other exchanging blows even as the shock was starting to wear down but Alex shoved Steve past the bathroom door and flung him into the shower. The speed in which he hit him as well as the force, caused him to bust through that too and broke several water pipes sending it everywhere. Alex spotted Steve's dropped PDA on the ground. He picked it up and tossed it in the shower with him and an electrical discharge sounded off, electrocuting the young boy even more.

Steve cried out in pain obviously crying out for help with no way to form words. "No!" Claire cried without realizing it. She fired and hit Alex with a round. He roared in both agony and fury, but with more of the latter. He sped up to her knocked the weapon from her hands again. He punched her in the face and sent her flying back about fifteen feet.

She got a cut on her cheek as she hit some of the rubble. He forced her up pulling her by the pony tail. He hit her in the abdomen and she let out a low grunt and doubled over. He pushed her fully to the floor. Claire gasped trying to get air back but she noticed he had a gash on his head and blood was running down the side of it. Way to go Steve! Hang in there...

He snarled, "I could kill you just like that!" He said, emphasizing with a snap of his fingers. "I could rip your heart out, young lungs, I could break your back or I could rip your had from your body if I wanted to but I would much rather keep you alive. I want you to die slowly and painfully so that Steve and your brother can see it and have the same feeling of helplessness I had when my brother died! So I'm going to take my time with you..."

Claire remembered the two handguns. As he went to punch her again in the belly she rolled out of the way and rolled to her back aiming the two pistols at him. "Ditto!" She fired seven rounds from each gun, lining his chest, stomach an even his head with rounds. She managed to get to her feet and he disarmed her left hand taking the gun from her and unloading it quickly. She fired the other at his face hitting him in the jaw and the round fragmented in his jaw and part of it went into his cheek. He spat it out.

She aimed and fired again but he moved his head at lightning speed and grabbed her arm and threw her twenty feed down the hall. The landing was hard and she got rug burn on her bare skin as she landed face down. He was at her side in an instant and she kicked behind herself and got him in the groin. He let out a groan of surprise. She came up swinging as hard as she could, beaming him in the face with a left hook. She followed up with a right blow and she moved to his side getting another right hook to his temple.

She threw two more blows and they hit him, and one contacted his head wound making it bleed more which gave her an inner thrill but he grabbed both arms and said, "I can see Chris's fire in you. I can't wait to encounter him face to face. I'm going to kill you slowly and painfully. Then it will be so that he killed my brother and I killed his sister."

He punched her in the jaw sending her to the ground, and she bit her own tongue and was bleeding. She groaned even as she was down, "Pretty pathetic...taking revenge out on the sister of the person who killed him...maybe you are less of a man than Wesker was..."

He kicked her in the side and she yelped in pain. He kicked her in the face. She tried to dodge it and she almost did but the heel of his boot caught her. Her lip was bleeding too. He grabbed her face and pulled her up with one hand. He felt her bare skin, trailing her belly and up to her breasts as he pulled her into a headlock. "If I wanted to...I could really humiliate you. I could do to you what Albert did to Jill. We could both have a perfect victory over him on the psychological front."

His gloved hands were cold against her skin. She shivered. "Don't even think about it you pig...!" She elbowed him in the face and he slammed her down face down and got behind her. His breathe was at her neck. "Luckily for you, I have more qualms against that such behavior. Luckily for you I grew up around men like that and i despise them. I just wanted you to know I have teh power to if I so chose to."

She mocked him even as he had her pinned. "You think that makes you some kind of a big man? You're a coward...! Without that virus you're nothing at all..."

Alex gritted his teeth and punched her in the back. She whimpered. "That being said, Miss Redfield...I wanted to kill you so that Chris would know how I feel. We would be equal in our loss. Then and only then could he understand and when he does, we can see who is the better man. Who will be the one to get his revenge...I'm a man who likes a good gamble."

He forced her to her feet and said, "I may just torture you and then kill you in front of Steve...and send a recording of it to Chris. It would have the same effect...only he'd feel even more helpless because no matter where he was when he got it, he wouldn't know where it was or if he was too late until the end...as much as I would have hated to see my brother die the way he did, it didn't feel real to me because I had not seen it. It was only when the drones took a picture of what remained of him before I knew it was true."

Steve appeared behind him and grabbed Alex's hair and flung him into the wall. He kicked the man in the back and body slammed him from behind with his left knee. Claire weakly collected her guns again as Alex forced Steve off of him. The younger man had a cut on his right cheek, a gash near his left eyebrow and a bloody nose and busted lip. Though he'd done some damage to Alex, he was clearly not the superior fighter. I've still got to try...He thought.

He charged at the man again but Alex side stepped him and heaved him into a wall. Steve groaned as he writhed in pain, his nose bleeding more. A family of people, a woman of middle eastern descent and her two children backed up in fear. Steve wondered to himself why the hell they'd stuck around even with all the chaos in the city the ruckus in the hall and the fired shots. It occurred to him that they didn't have weapons or anyplace to go.

Claire called to them to get behind her. "Why are you still in the city?!" The lady spoke with a thick accent. "I was visiting my sister...those things kill her!" Claire fired her pistols at Alex who contemplated attacking them. "Go! Run for Central Park! There should be a military check point there. They'll keep you safe!"

Steve thought to himself as he was blinded by blow after blow from Alex, Yeah...or at least part of a platoon anyway...it's a mess there but I hope Claire's right...

Steve was pulled to his feet as Alex opened his wounds deeper blow after blow. Steve was dazed. His completely torn shirt fell away. He shivered from the cold. Claire fired the rest of the magazines into Alex's back. The man took five rounds but ran up the side of a wall and landed behind her. He rammed his shoulder into her sending her flying forward. She landed hard on her side.

He pinned her to the ground with a boot on her back. She cried out as he did so. "You're just postponing is going to happen regardless of how you feel. Claire, you represent what this world could be if it had the compassion you do. Part of humanity's problem is the lack of compassion. It creates wars."

She groaned but defiantly said, "Like you...? You and your brother...are insane!" He put more weight on her causing her to wail from the pain. "I am a man of compassion. I see the misery our fellow human beings have inflicted upon each other. I am offering a way above that. You possess compassion but you do not have the heart of a warrior. If only you and your brother were one person. The best of both of you combined into one."

Claire tried to lift herself up but was helpless. "I can fight...it doesn't mean I enjoy it...the fact that you do makes you a sadistic freak! You're not changing anything. You're just making the world worse."

She managed to get one of her pistols up and fired at him and he dodged and it was just enough time to roll over her sore battered body away from where he'd pinned her. She put her back against a wall and fired at him again. She emptied her magazine at him. He vanished again. He grabbed her by the throat and said, "I'm not going to kill you but I am going to silence you. I know how to apply just the right amount of pressure on your vocal cords so that you can not speak but will still survive..."

She groaned as he lifted her up and tried to pry at his fingers as he had an iron grip but failed. She kicked him in the face using his chest to bring her feet up and he turned to the side from it and then looked at her again with a grin. He dangled her and her feet kicked helplessly and he used his hand as a noose in a way. Just then Steve charged at Alex and he dropped her. Claire gasped as she hit the floor.

They rolled on the ground and Steve punched him. Steve began to transform into his tyrant form except he did not grow big in size. He was the same height and only his mass grew. His muscles were the size of Claire's head. Literally. Not in the sense of when Rebecca would say John Andrew had muscles that big. To a short person like Rebecca anything looked big especially with John being six foot six.

Steve literally did. Claire had never seen his tyrant form this way. Something is different...she thought. Steve grabbed Alex and upper cutted him sending him flying down the hall sliding. Steve had about 75% of the strength he would if he was in his bigger size like he'd been in Antarctica but he was able to move a lot faster too. Not as fast as he was in human form but still fast. The best thing Claire could compare it to, was the Hulk. With his green skin he honestly did look like him.

In a way they were similar in nature too. Perceived as monsters but men at heart as well as heroes. Alex got to his feet in a flash and delivered a series of martial arts punches and kicks to Steve's head and stomach. He circled around the younger man hitting him with blow after blow. Steve grabbed his arm and then tackled him. he slammed him through one wall after another until they reached a living room of an apartment.

Steve tackled him and tried to force him out of the window. They both fell and rolled down the fire escape but due to his speed, Alex managed to side step him a bit before falling under him and Steve fell out of the apartment window to the street below which was about seven floors down. Alex fell from the fire escape almost falling down too but managed to catch it at the last minute on the fire escape down on the second floor. He hoisted himself up and looked down at Steve who began to turn back to human form and was face down on the ground.

Claire cried from the window, "Steve!" She fired her grenade launcher at Alex in anger. The Wesker child caught on fire but he jumped down from where he was and was able to land without taking damage from it. He spotted a fire hydrant across the street. He kicked it and it sprayed water stepped into it and it put the fire out. He walked over to where Steve was and looked at the fallen man. Claire readied for another shot but Alex saw it coming and dodged it. He now stood on top of a parked maroon Dodge. He stood on the hood of it which set the alarm off , and examined a wound he had sustained from Steve.

A compound fracture in his arm. Alex gritted his teeth and pushed the bone back in. He winced only slightly at the feeling of it. He looked up at her and warned, "One of you has to be dead. Much like you thought he was for years. You two can never be together. What you saw her is just the start. Steve can never reach his full potential with you alive. You make the boy weak."

Claire ran down the stairs to get to Steve, panting as she did, trying to ignore her pain. She saw Alex still there. "You bastard. I'm not letting you get away!" She fired again at him and he dodged her last round which she predicted he would and she anticipated he would appear just to her right and he did. She was ready. Claire had her two freshly loaded handguns ready and she fired every round from both gun into his abdomen.

He stepped back a bit deterred only slightly but then punched her in the face causing her to fall. She tried to hold onto the guns and reload but he kicked her in the side. Claire cried out, "Ah!"

She felt something crack. She coughed blood as she gasped for air and tried to wait or the pain to subside. She looked at him fully aware he could kill her with a single strike. Alex just put his sunglasses on and his eyes flashed red much like Wesker's had at her all those years ago. Alex then sped off without another word.

She got to her feet slowly and weakly, limping toward Steve. She touched him. He had a pulse and his skin was warm. She breathed a sigh of relief. Just then, she could hear a pack of zombies coming toward them, attracted by the car alarm Alex had set off. "Come on Steve...you have to wake up!"

Meanwhile..

Alexia stood over him. They had landed now. The former BSAA agent opened his eyes. "Where am I...?" He demanded in a groggy voice. "You're safe and sound. Right where you are supposed to be."

He grabbed the woman by her dress. Yes, already the change is taking effect even if he is not aware of it... She thought with a smile. "What day is it? What year?" Even his voice had changed. It had been years since she heard it but se knew it was different from what Piers sounded like. "2013."

The man looked at her with confusion. He sat up. "Are you informing me that it is four years after I remember being awake? How are you even here? You're supposed to be dead."

She smiled wider,. "You have been incapacitated for some time, Albert. I'm not Excella Gione. I am somebody much more important. You and I have met before. We shall get to that later. One step at a time."

He stood up and looked in his reflection in a window. "Well well well...it appears the data Alex stole from Spencer was not entirely self serving after all."

---

Oooh there's a twist, huh? Pier's body used to store Wesker, the real Wesker's mind and DNA and therefore resurrecting him! I had to do it he's the best villain and I don't see anyone being better at it than him. If they were going to kill him off, they should have had that be the last game. I got the concept of the mind transplant a bit from Ghost In The Shell and I had another thing I got it from but am too tired to think.

Also Chris and Barry are not getting along, and Claire and Steve are pretty wounded from their fight with Alex. Do you wonder just how Alex got from Rikers Island back to the city so fast?

Chris has survivors guilt. The stuff with Angel is because I'm contemplating writing a fanfic on the stuff that went on before Rockfort Island and during and what happened to a lot of the inmates and prison staff there. In which Angel would have been an inmate who obviously survived. See in Code Veronica X you see three planes when Steve and Claire are looking to escape they see them in the air. Each of those planes could carry two people.

Also yes, the male inner pervert in me, hell in all of us, likes the skimpy outfits that the RER characters have but see at least it's a little less sexist than Catwoman who is just defined by her sexuality. At least Ada, Claire, Jill Sherry, etc have personalities and default outfits suited for the zombie apocalypse. Alternate costumes that's the way to do it. Then again, if you were in Sherry's position you wouldn't get to be too picky same with Jake.

In any case hope you enjoyed I'm sorry my RE updates always take so long it's cause I have to write POV's for as many characters in one as I can. My Grand Theft Auto fanfics are a bit easier.

Please Read & Review. Accept constructive criticism but no flames.