Disclaimer – This is strictly fanfic. I have no legal rights to any of these characters or trademarks.
evolution-500 – I wish I had enough artistic talent to draw art based on the illustrations from Ashley's children's books myself. If you or anyone artistically inclined wants to take a crack at it, feel free! :) I was trying to think about what a former First Daughter would do with her day-to-day life. Chelsea Clinton and Jenna Bush having their names on children's books almost immediately came to mind. When I followed that line of thinking, I loved Ashley turning the RE4 enemies into cute, cuddly, highly marketable characters as a way to both cope with and profit off of her own trauma as an approach to the woman she could have become. Plus, it let me give her a ghost writer as a confidant.
Xaori – Thank you for reviewing again! I'm replaying RE4 right now, and I'm convinced Ashley being armed in that game is one of those things people only think they want. Like the bosses not to be bullet-sponges that keep changing forms. It's frustrating on purpose, because otherwise mowing down hordes of Ganados and then seeing that Ashley doesn't have so much as a scratch on her wouldn't be quite as satisfying. That being said, I'm determined to give Ashley her own adventure where she proves she can take care of herself, so she is locked and loaded!
"Did you hear that?" Carlos asked.
"Well, I'm not deaf," Jill answered.
They'd just entered the hotel through the rear entrance when they heard the crash.
They sprinted towards the sound, racing through the lobby as the pale figures of a bellboy and a front desk receptionist rose from beneath shards of a broken vase.
Carlos aimed his CQBR at the bellboy at the same time as Jill targeted the front desk girl. The bursts blasted the zombies' torsos in and they fell back to the floor.
In almost perfect synchronization, Jill and Carlos threw off the long gray overcoats that had been concealing their weaponry, abandoning them on the lobby floor.
They passed under an archway into the vestibule, greeted by the sight of the beaten-up fuselage of a downed airplane. Surrounded by zombies.
"I wasn't expecting to encounter so many B.O.W.s so early," Jill said, opening fire on the horde with her assault rifle.
Carlos swore.
"This place has been operating as a successful front for years," he said. "And it all goes to hell now? They must have known we were coming!"
"Of course it's a trap!" Jill said. "It's always a trap. That's why we came prepared."
Her gaze swept the room, making sure all threats were down. Then she began to walk towards the plane crash, bits of falling ceiling pelting her as she walked.
She noticed a bespectacled male, probably thirty-something, slip through the breech in the side of the fuselage and begin crawling away from it.
"Hey!" she called. "Do you need help?"
She tried to take a step forward, but then she felt Carlos' hand on her shoulder, holding her back as a huge chunk of ceiling collapsed right in front of her. One more step, and she would have been squashed like an ant.
"You were almost a . . ."
"Don't finish that sentence!" Jill interrupted.
"What?" Carlos said. "I was going to say 'pancake.'"
Jill tried to spot the survivor through the dust and rubble. She thought she saw him on his feet, sprinting past a half-fallen pillar.
"Jill, c'mon," Carlos said, tugging on her shoulder. "We've got to go."
She stepped back, just as a florescent light fixture came swinging down, narrowly missing her. There was a stairway on either side of the passageway to the lobby. Carlos was running up the nearest.
"Hurry!"
A chandelier dropped, shattering and sending tiny shards of glass flying. A few stray pieces sprayed Jill as she ran up the staircase. From the top of the stairs, she spotted the plane crash survivor again, running in fear as the room continued to crash down behind him, until he disappeared from her sight under the archway.
A column collapsed, smashing into the steps Jill had just climbed and totally obliterating them.
One thing was certain: no one was walking back out the front entrance any time soon. If ever again.
She followed Carlos around the partial section of wall between the two staircases. Apart from some large cracks that had noticeably spread across the other side of the wall, the architecture's structure seemed to be fully intact past this point.
Carlos strode past the small desk, an antique typewriter on top of it, and some toppled-over luggage carts to the elevator, tapping the button frantically.
"Did you actually think that was going to work?" Jill asked, as Carlos stepped back from the powerless elevator.
"I figured it was at least worth a shot."
Jill took a moment to catch her breath. She looked around the wide, open room, dim lights flickering from what had once been ornate fixtures dotted all over the ceiling. Chamber music played faintly from a dying stereo somewhere in the walls.
"Do you think there are any other survivors?" she asked.
"From the plane crash?" Carlos asked. "Or the hotel?"
"Either," Jill replied. "Both."
"Let's take a moment to get our bearings. Then we'll find out."
He pulled a set of blueprints from one of his vest pockets, unfolding it and pressing it up against the wall by the elevator. Jill walked over to look. There were a few scribbled notes over it, but for the most part it looked just like a standard hotel, with plenty of extra amenities.
"Your inside man couldn't even get you a version that indicated where all the secret passages and hidden areas are?"
"I was hoping I'd be able to find him here and shake him down for more Intel, but they've definitely gotten to him by now."
"What did he give you to go on?"
Carlos shook his head, his shaggy hair dancing in the air.
"Intel was sketchy at best," he said. "He indicated a few rooms top guys use as their satellite homes here." He indicated the handwritten notes. "It's a start, at least."
"We'll want to make a sweep of the whole hotel, anyway. See how many innocent civilians were present, and if any are still okay."
Carlos indicated the emergency staircase at the end of the room with the barrel of his gun.
"I say we head back down to the lobby. Start there."
As the plane crashed, the pilot opened the cockpit hatch, jumping out before it completely stopped, eager to put distance between himself and the other passengers.
There was a statue of a cherub built into the vestibule wall. He held up his wristband in front of the cherub's pursed lips, as instructed, and a panel slid open in the wall, allowing him into the private elevator.
He could see the blonde brat slithering out a hole in the side of his plane as the elevator door closed.
The door opened into the NEST reception area, where the pilot was greeted by a smiling man. A man with long blonde hair, wearing dark sunglasses and a jaunty beret. The pilot immediately found him unsettling.
"Bonjour, mon ami."
Daniel stepped forward with his arms outstretched, as though ready to embrace the other man.
The pilot simply crossed his arms and leaned back.
"I delivered on my end of the bargain," he said. "The girl's here. Just like you asked."
"Merci. The American princess has become quite the nuisance to us lately."
"So where's my money?"
Daniel laughed.
"I am afraid you were foolish not to read the fine print of your contract."
"Contract? There was no contract!"
Then the pilot felt the sharp prick of a needle, followed by the icy burn of an injection.
"Then you are even more foolish still."
The pilot fell to his knees, racked with pain.
"Oh, my friend," Daniel Fabron said. "Our gift to you is far greater than money. Unfortunately for you, you will soon lack the brain capacity to appreciate it."