CAPCOM owns Ada Wong, BoWs, Leon Kennedy, Carlos Oliviera, Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield

Naughty Dog owns Ellie and Joel

"I'm gonna face this head-on." Ellie said down to Joel from her bunk bed.

"You really think you can solve it all on your own?" Joel toyed with his broken watch.

"Yea." She poked her head onto the side of the bed and looked down at Joel cockily. He handed his watch to her. She wrapped it around her wrist.

"Well you let me know how..when you do figure it out."

She hopped down onto the floor. "You betcha." Her brain exploded in pain. Her side was broiling hot with needles and as she looked down, fresh blood was streaming out.

"Why did he do this to me?"

"It was an accident." Joel lied.

Ellie crawled along the airport seating as Ada wheezed her way through the airport building alone. The air was still chilled, as the weak rays of the sun started to hit. Ada noticed now that there were white tents in some of terminals. Hildurg caught up with Ada. Her voice was a practiced feminine tone.

"Specialist, 30 minutes prior to formation, I expect you to be at Terminal 15 with the rest of the Dookie platoon members-are you ok?" Hildurgs hard eyes softened slightly as she leaned sideways in front of Ada to check on her. Ada's white hair was a bit mussed up from her situps earlier. She quickly glanced up at Hildurg with her hazel eyes.

"Yea, yea, I'm fine." Ada said. "I'll be there."

Hildurg kept her unblinking eyes on Ada's face.

"I'll talk to Oliviera about how he treated you this morning. However awful you performed, you are a soldier competing and he was out of line."

"Thank you ser'nt, I don't wanna be an officer though."

"It's not my call. This is all the way from up top-sorry." The blonde-haired square-jawed woman did indeed look a bit relieved. Hildurg ran back outside, and Ellie popped up in front of Ada. Ada's face jerked back a bit as her eyes widened in surprise. Ada held her hand out, and Ellie grasped it. Ellie embraced the small woman and walked with her over to the USO.

"It's very hard to be a female in the Special forces, Ellie." Ada struggled with herself not to cry. Scenes of being dragged and drowned were colorfully playing inside her closed eyes.

"They love to kick you when you're down-you can't show them any weakness. They have no respect for-" finally, Ada started to cry, as the USO door shut behind her. Ellie hugged Ada hard to her own chest, and put her head on top of Ada's. "-for anything you want." She looked up at Ellie. "I don't want to be an officer, but they will punish me if they see me fail too easily, so I have to compete."

Joel sat up, groaning. "you can't opt out? You have medical issues, same as us."

"I would have to shoot myself in the foot, in order to leave the competition." Ada said, sobbing messily.

"Just lose." Joel said simply.

Ada was now grabbing toiletries frantically-realizing that she had about a half hour to get ready and be back at the airport terminal.

"They are pushing me towards such huge responsibilities and I can't stand it!" She stopped and looked at Joel, sitting with his legs crossed loosely. "These people are so fucking retarded Joel, you don't understand!"

"I guess." He shrugged. He was shielding his eyes from the light, with his fingers pressed hard into his temple.

Ellie told Joel, "She's not kidding. They really are that dumb. They needed her to count for them-and then Troy hit her so hard in the stomach! He fucking like, like a battering ram right to her gut-hey client wait!" Joel got up as well, grabbing his gun and a towel, walking slowly after the two girls.

"Troy is a bioweapon, Ellie. You don't go near him again. Is that understood?"

"Duh." Ellie shouted back.

The airport was still rather dark, as the winter mornings made the sun rise later. Ada ran towards a white tent set up a few terminals down. There was no sign on it, just symbols of water droplets on the sides. The doors were very thin plastic.

"Ellie you have to-" Ada huffed and stopped to breathe a bit, "meet me by the vehicles on the other end of the airstrip. Ok? You just, stroll casually along by yourself after you watch me march over there. You're gonna hide behind a truck-just sit and rest. You're gonna be me for a few hours while I run an errand. I'll be back and tonight…"

Joel interrupted, although they all heard rustling in the tent now, "Hold on now-Ellie isn't joining the fucking military-WE. She and I…are staying in our assigned space and resting. We got you here-right-you survived…and now we can go pick up a new client, Ellie."

"But Jooooeeel!" Ellie pouted and let herself fall in pace beside Joel.

"What if I could get you better guns-" Ada was cut off.

The door of the tent flew into Ada, who was still crouched. The tent was filled with low intensity blue light, as if there was a pool of water reflecting its waves onto the walls. A heavyset being with brown and orange spines protruding from its body stepped out. The voice screamed, "ADALAIDE I'M GONNA KILL THEM!" and it rushed towards Ada, who could only grab the door as the figure toppled onto her. It scratched at the door, and Ada could feel the spines scraping against her bare lower legs. Gunshots rang out. This made the figure scramble back into the wide windows in accidental defenestration. But they had all seen the face, and even in the dim light they all knew that it was Kathleen.

"I quit." Ada said softly, just laying shakily on the ground now. She had her hands atop her head in a defensive position. Ellie was checking her for scratches, but in a very detached manner. "No." Ellie said just as slowly. The icy wind blew through now. Joel went over to them both, and checked Ada again for breaks in the skin. All she had were angry scratches along her legs. "You're ok." He assured her. He sat awkwardly. "We are all ok."

"I was too loud," Ada said shakily, "I'm so sorry. Did you kill it?"

"It's gone." Joel said.

"I have to shower!" Ada grabbed at her stuff and went into the nearby public womens room.

Ellie mouthed over to Joel, 'she knows she was attacked?' Ellie scratched her head, because Ada had recovered incredibly fast.

Joel nodded slightly, 'she can't process now.'

"Huh." Ellie let out, watching Ada disappear.

Joel said as much to himself as anyone, "hopefully she won't."

Ellie went in behind Ada and screamed in surprise. But it was accompanied by Ada's devious laugh.

"Gotcha Ms. Ellie!"