Author's Note: Fair warning: this is a sequel to my previous fanfics, "Resident Evil Black Ops II: City of the Dead" and "Resident Evil Black Ops: Umbrella Conspiracy", so if you have yet to read them, please do so before continuing with this one. Otherwise, read on! :)

I'm back once again!

I'm gonna be honest, I couldn't wait to post the first chapter of this story any longer hahaha. I feel like it is exactly the way I wanted it to be as an introduction to the story based on RE3: Nemesis and RE3: Remake. I currently have only four chapters done after this one, but they still need heavy revising, except maybe the second chapter, which may or may not be uploaded a week from now. I'm still taking a break from writing and brainstorming anything big so expect a fixed upload schedule at some point around September/October, just to give me enough time to break down whatever I have in mind for this story. As I said before, I really want this to be good since RE3 is my most favorite in the original trilogy so I apologize for any further delays and inconvenience.

MAJOR spoiler alert for Resident Evil 3 (both original & remake), and Resident Evil: Nemesis by S.D. Perry. There may also be spoilers for Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. The title itself does not mean it'll follow Black Ops 3 events either, in case of any potential confusion.

This story will be rated M for its violence, gore, and use of strong language.

Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or Call of Duty franchises, including all of their characters. They all belong to their respective owners, Capcom (Resident Evil) and Activision (Call of Duty). Credit will also be given to S.D. Perry, the author of the official book of Resident Evil: Nemesis, which this fanfic will mainly borrow as a basis for its narrative structure. The only things I own are some of the ideas I have come up with for the fanfic in general. Any potential OCs will be pointed out at the end of the chapter in which they are first introduced. Otherwise, any unnamed characters in their respective lore may have made-up names in their place, hence why they won't be considered OCs.

Recommended BGM:

1. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) - Option Screen

2. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) - Her Determination

3. BIOHAZARD Orchestra Album - The 1st Stage


PROLOGUE

Initiating Log 3339048…

As Raccoon City slowly turned into a B.O.W. playground, many of its citizens soon realized that S.T.A.R.S. may not have been in the wrong all along. Desperately searching for any outside help, many still turned to Umbrella. In response, Umbrella, under the guise of helping the hapless citizens, sent in their private military, the U.B.C.S. security force. For the few that survived inside the hellish city, most of their stories would all be untold, buried deep within.

Unknown to the rest of the world however, Frank Woods had survived his fatal injuries from the T-002, thanks to Umbrella's one of many secret test trials. What would become of him soon after the outbreak began, no one knew. Not taking any chances, Umbrella's European No. 6 Lab decided to take advantage of the situation and deploy their latest ultimate B.O.W., with orders to take down any remaining S.T.A.R.S. members within the ruined city, once and for all.

End of Log 3339048…

August 7th, 1998

Diary Entry #1

Two weeks have passed since that day. My wounds have been healed, but I just can't bring myself to forget it. For most people, it's history now, but for me … whenever I close my eyes, it all comes back clearly: zombies eating people's flesh and the screams of my teammates dying. No, the wounds in my heart are not healed yet…

August 11th, 1998

Diary Entry #2

Just minutes after Chris, Alex, and I arrived at the hospital to visit Frank the previous day, he succumbed to his injuries. Doctors tried everything in their power to bring him back to life, but it was already too late… Seeing another teammate die because of Umbrella made my veins boil into madness as we grieved him, but seeing Alex so devastated made it all worse for me.

When I approached him to try and embrace him with a hug to calm him down, he immediately shoved me back and stomped away. I can only hope Chris or Barry can get through to him before he does anything crazy…

August 13th, 1998

Diary Entry #3

Chris has been causing a lot of trouble lately. What's with him? He rarely talks to the other officers and is constantly irritated. The other day, he punched Elran of the Boy's Crime department just for accidentally splashing his face with coffee. I immediately stopped him before he ended up sending him to the ER, but when he saw me in the eyes, he just winked at me and walked away.

Now that I think about it, after Alex had given us more information about Perseus earlier today, he seemed more paranoid than usual, as if someone was keeping tabs on him specifically…as if some third party was following him anywhere he went.

I wonder what happened the last time Chris visited his place…

August 15th, 1998

Diary Entry #4

At midnight, Chris, who was already on leave of absence for a "vacation", called me for something important. So I visited his apartment.

As soon as I walked into his room, he showed me a couple of pieces of paper. They were part of a virus research report entitled as simply as "G". He then informed me, "The nightmare still continues. It's not over yet." Ever since that day, he's been fighting all by himself without rest, without even telling me.

I suppose something about the visit with Alex has urged him to speed things up. I pray that Alex is doing okay after everything that's happened, especially after losing someone he's known for almost all his life…

August 24th, 1998

Diary Entry #5

Alex has completely disappeared off the radar for almost two weeks and none of us could tell where exactly he might've gone, which has been worrying me a lot for his own safety.

Chris left town today to go to Europe. Barry told me that Jason Hudson, Frank's former informant, had contacted him to give us a location that we could use to hide for the time being. He'll be sending his family to that said location in Canada before joining up with Chris in Europe. To this day, I can't tell if we could ever trust Jason, but seeing that he's been helping us since that fateful day, I don't see any reason to distrust him otherwise.

As for myself, I decided to remain in Raccoon City for a while because I know that the hidden research facility in this city will be very important to this entire case. In a month or so, I'll be joining them somewhere in Europe. That's when my real battle begins…

September 21st , 1998

Diary Entry #6

For the past weeks, I've been seeing strange activity across my apartment. Two guys from around the corner are constantly watching me from their window twenty-four seven. Could they be Irons' men? Umbrella's? Maybe Perseus'? Probably the same people that had been stalking Alex too? I really don't know and it's the not knowing that's keeping me on edge.

There is one thing I know for sure: They want to wear me down, keep me silent, torment me into compliance… and it's working…

I'm barely eating, barely sleeping… feel like I'm going crazy… losing my sanity as if I were spiraling inside the mind of the walking dead. Is this really how Alex had been feeling all along? God help me…

But I won't let them win. After my investigation is done here, I will be getting out of the city and then go look for a way to make all of them accountable. They'll more than likely send someone to silence me once and for all, of course. I'll be leaving a blank envelope behind in case I ever get killed or after whatever they end up doing to people like me. It contains copies of everything I've recorded and as long as it isn't intercepted, it should be able to go into the right hands.

Just gotta stay low for now. Five more days. That's all I need.

September 28th, 1998

Diary Entry #7

It all began as an ordinary day in September. An ordinary day in Raccoon City: a city controlled by Umbrella.

No one dared to oppose them, and that lack of strength would ultimately lead to their destruction.

I suppose they had to suffer the consequences of their actions, but there would be no forgiveness. If only they had the courage to fight…

But it's true that once the wheels of justice began to turn, nothing can stop them. Nothing.

It was Raccoon City's last chance… and my last chance, my last escape…


ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings

Peter: —and we are here live, joined by Lavander Nelly, a witness of some of the horrors that apparently, have been plaguing Raccoon City since the end of May. Mrs. Nelly… what exactly is the story you would like to bring forth to us?

*Lavender starts to laugh nervously. She puts one leg over the other, trying her best to keep her A-line blue dress as tidy as possible before closing her hands and laying them over her lap.*

Lavender: First off - I'd like to say thank you for bringing me here. And um… well… I'd like to start by saying that whatever is happening in Raccoon City… it's not your typical everyday disease. A lot of people might say that the Special Tactics and Rescue Service squad was delusional and entirely immoral about the whole case ever since the incident that occurred two months back - but after those fires were put out and my insurance company told me it was safe to come back home, there was this… person that I saw. And uh…

*She looks down at the surface of the anchor news desk in front of her, hesitantly*

Peter: Was this person an intruder?

*Lavender sighs nervously before looking back at Peter, who sat a couple of meters across from the small, rounded anchor desk*

Lavender: He was just behind the fenced area leading to the Arklay Forest. I was walking down the street where my house was, minding my own business, right? At first, I thought, "Must be just another drunk hanging around places where they shouldn't be", you know - since it was almost late at night. So at the time, I didn't think much of it. And when I came back outside to check the mail, they were still there - still standing awkwardly as if they were confused or something. And then… they um… th-they began to moan in this uh… unnatural voice they had. Somehow, I had this weird feeling that the guy probably needed help or something so by the time I walked closer in his direction, I got a good look at him and his face was… he was like … half melted… as if his skin was… peeling away — decaying.

*She begins to shake slightly, moving her attention away from Peter once again as she looked down at her closed hands*

But the worst part was his eyes… he was dead-looking. Like a corpse's. A walking corpse… It's something you only see in a horror movie…

*She becomes teary as her voice turns one octave higher than normal*

It's just not possible! Before the fires, my boys, my Johnny and Ricky… they all went to go and investigate some kind of wild dogs that were spotted back from the early killings in May. I told them not to go out there, but…

*she begins to sob*

They just … didn't listen! And the person I saw back there was… my husband… who went missing after he decided to go look for those responsible… he…he was… he wasn't him anymore! Oh God…

*Peter looks at her sympathetically, his mouth slightly opened out of the shocking news he had just found out about*

Peter: Ma'am, we're very sorry to hear about the loss of your family… Whatever's happening in Raccoon City right now, I'm sure that—

Broadcast ends abruptly by loss of signal

Chapter 1

"Bomba madre!"

Carlos strode towards his small, portable TV after putting a small frozen pizza in the toaster, feeling frustrated about the lack of signal it was getting.

"Damn this thing!" he exclaimed yet again in English this time, twisting around the antennas above the TV, hoping he could get some sort of signal out of it, to no avail.

The phone began to ring, and almost instantaneously, he stumbled out into the living room, nearly tripping over some of the unopened boxes of books and CDs in his hustle to get to the ringing phone. He was slightly annoyed by the fact that he had forgotten to get an answering machine since moving to Texas. He knew it had to be none other than the new field office since they were the only ones who had his number.

He snatched up the receiver while still wearing an oven glove in his hand, and he tried not to sound too out of breath.

"Hello?"

"Carlos, it's Mitch Hirami."

Unconsciously, Carlos fixed up his posture, straightening his back slightly. "Yes, sir. What is it?"

Hirami was the leader of his squad in Delta Platoon. Carlos had only ever met him a couple of times in person, enough to know that the guy was at least competent enough, just like all the other guys in the squad.

Much like him, no one was keen on talking about their past - at least for the most part anyway. Some of the men from the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service had their records filled with illegal stuff like serving as black market weapon dealers or communist guerilla fighters that ended innocent lives in between. Carlos only knew about Hirami being involved in some gunrunning across South America a few years back before Umbrella decided to hire him after being detained by the Bolivian government. Almost everyone at the UBCS had a secret or two - most of them being involved in shady things that had them all either sentenced to life or death.

"Orders have been handed down from management just now. We ought to be ready ASAP. You've got one hour to report, and we leave in two. That's seventeen-hundred hours, comprende?"

"Si-uh… yes sir!" Carlos was still getting used to speaking English full-time, but he was at least fluent in the language for several years now. "Does this situation have anything to do with whatever's happening in Raccoon City?"

"Something like that," said his superior, although his tone hinted at the fact that he was not quite done with what he had to say, so Carlos waited in a cold chill as he continued to hear the faint static of the TV in front of him.

"Rumor has it; it's a massive spill…" continued Hirami with his voice somewhat strained from a growing feeling of unease inside him. "Something that… changes people… makes'em act differently."

Carlos frowned, still staring at his small portable TV with static greeting back at him relentlessly. "Like… drunks?"

Hirami sighed. "They don't pay us to ask questions, Oliveira. You know that. Just get here on the double."

"Y-yes, sir. On my way!" Carlos replied enthusiastically, but his squad leader already hung up before he could finish his last words.

Carlos put back the receiver into its cradle, apparently not sure whether or not he should be feeling excited or nervous about his very first UBCS operation. When he was first recruited into the service, his recruiter in Brazil had mentioned that they'd be called upon to "deal" with situations that Umbrella needed to handle quickly, aggressively, and efficiently. Word had it that everything would be going through the "legal" route.

For over half his life, he had spent fighting many small revolutionary wars, with the only thought process of being able to help the poor and vulnerable. Carlos was the third youngest of seven brothers, two of his older siblings having already been killed in street violence in Honduras by the time he was born before his family moved to Brazil. It was only when he was five years old that he witnessed his older brother's murder, Tonio, which caused him to reimagine the world to be different and crueler. He never developed a grudge against his oldest brother, Pedro, who was mainly responsible for causing a Brazilian gang to avenge their fallen friend, leading to their brother's death.

But that was a long time ago. He figured that after everything he had done in his life, he had been merely following in his oldest brother's footsteps, only at a grander scale. Instead of fighting gang members in the streets, he was fighting government-backed militias, who managed to capture and sentence him to public execution. This was when the Umbrella Corporation took notice of him, mostly his reputation as a competent, skilled, and loyal soldier, purchasing his freedom from the Brazilian government in exchange for his talents.

Not like I had a choice then…

Carlos shook his head. He wasn't going to keep lamenting his lack of choices following his bought freedom by the cooperation. Deciding not to continue listening to the TV's static screen any longer, he turned it off and proceeded to turn off the toaster, leaving his uncooked meal behind. He had to get ready and prepare himself to deal with whatever was waiting for him in Raccoon City. Thinking about it now, it couldn't possibly be any worse than shooting his way through with a bunch of brain-dead idiots in a government-owned jungle territory, wondering if he'd hear the bullet that finally took him out.

He had an hour, and it was only a twenty-minute walk from his apartment to the office. Already, he was starting to feel determined to arrive early, the nervousness and ease warming up inside his gut, a feeling he was all too familiar with. It was a mixture of past experience, part anticipation, part thrill, and a healthy fraction of fear of the unknown…

Carlos grinned at the thought as he grabbed his military fatigues and began changing into them, amused at himself for not having seen it before. He'd spent too much time in the jungles of the Amazon rainforest, he'd almost forgotten that the United States had little to none of that. Working for a rich pharmaceutical company with its own private paramilitary force, what was there to be afraid of?

"Absolutamente nada (Absolutely nothing)," he told himself out loud in Spanish, as it was his family's native language, his only real connection to them now.

Still smiling, he finished up wearing his fatigues and proceeded to collect all of his necessary equipment.

Outside, it was a sunny day in late September, the summer still struggling to say its goodbyes to the rest of the year, but Carlos was still able to feel the cool whisper of autumn as he jogged his way toward the field office. There was a kind of thinning of the air, branches beginning to strip themselves off their orange and yellowing leaves overhead. Not that there were many trees around for sightseeing. His apartment was located at the edge of a sprawling industrial area. Many buildings around were fenced with dense, overgrown weeds, whole gardens largely unkept, and acres of rundown facilities essentially littered the area. The UBCS office was actually located within that part of the big city, a renovated warehouse inside an Umbrella-owned lot, complete with loading docks and a helipad - a nice setup within modern-day shipping standards. Carlos still kept wondering why they'd decided to build in such a poor, low-graded area. Surely they were able to afford much better, considering their large business and huge reputation.

Carlos kept his watch under his sight every fifteen seconds, picking up the pace every time he caught a glimpse of the time. He wasn't going to be late, in fact, he'd be arriving half an hour earlier at his destination. He wanted to be there before the briefing could begin, to know more information about what's been happening inside Raccoon, see what the other guys had to say if they knew anything about the unusual things happening across town. Hirami said they were going to be calling everyone in - four platoons, three squads of ten in each platoon, hundred-twenty people in total. Carlos was a corporal in Squad A of Delta Platoon. To him, it was pretty ridiculous how the whole thing was set up, but he supposed it was necessary to keep track of everyone.

Taking a right through an intersection to seventy-fourth, his thoughts wandered heavily, still thinking about the abrupt interruption of the ABC News broadcast, whether it was due to his own TV malfunctioning or the channel itself being cut off live. He had recently bought the TV at a good price from a local pawnshop and it had worked for the past few days too.

Could it have really been the TV? Maybe it was simply nearing its end days and they never told me…

He wasn't new to being scammed out of his money. It happened quite a lot back when he was still living in Brazil, but he still couldn't exactly believe it would be his TV, or else it probably would've most likely not shown anything static after that. Plus, the guy at the pawnshop did not show the typical signs of a person lying to him either. Carlos would've known on the spot if he did.

Just as he took a step forward past an open alleyway, a man stepped out of the shadows just a few meters in front of him. For someone from this side of the city, they looked well-dressed, wearing a wide smile underneath their thick-bearded face. He stood there, hands hidden inside the pockets of a rather expensive trench coat, apparently waiting for Carlos to reach him.

Carlos kept his expression as neutral as possible, head straight as he fixed his gaze directly into the open path beside the stranger. In the corner of his eye, he studied the man slightly. Tall, reasonably muscular in structure, gray hair cut short, somewhat rugged in appearance as though he had faced many violent battles in the past - an appearance he was all too familiar with. However, as imposing as the stranger looked, he didn't seem to be a threat to him - just another face in the streets that probably wanted to tell him some funny joke about a conspiracy theory of some sort.

Carlos prepared himself mentally as he began to walk closer to him, making sure to walk past him without giving him a reason to stop and chat for a single moment, reminding himself of some of the crazies that lived in any decent-sized city, urban or not.

Yeah… probably to talk about alien abductions or babble about the end of the world by the end of the century or something…

"Carlos Oliveira?" the man asked in a heavy accent, though it seemed more like a statement rather than a question.

Carlos froze, stopping in his tracks as his whole body felt a powerful jolt of shock and surprise, instinctively dropping his right hand to where he had his firearm, except he hadn't been carrying one, not ever since crossing the border…

Justo cuando más lo necesitas…. (just when you need it the most…) maldita sea… (damn it…)

The stranger took a step back, knowing he had caught Carlos off-guard, and held his hands up in the air. He seemed rather amused, though still not at all threatening.

"And who the hell are you?" Carlos snapped at him. "Better question, how do you know my name?"

"I go by a lot of names, but please, call me Trent, Mr. Oliveira," he said calmly, and if Carlos wasn't mistaken, his accent sounded a lot like Russian. His dark gaze sparkled with barely contained merriment. "And I happen to have some… information for you."


The morning air blew over their exhausted faces, watching over the skies as Jill and the other survivors - Frank, Chris, Barry, Rebecca, and Alex - waited anxiously for rescue at the Arklay Lab's hidden heliport, all of them wounded and aware of the fact that the entire buildings around and under them were going to be blown into ashes sooner or later. The trees around were whistling their leaves against the gentle breeze, which broke only by the slapping wind of the rescue chopper coming closer to them. Half of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service squad was dead, lost to the infected creatures that roamed the grounds of the Spencer Mansion, and if Brad didn't set the chopper down any sooner, there would be no survivors left. The lab was a ticking bomb, ready to destroy any evidence and proof of Umbrella and Perseus' involvement with the t-Virus spill, ready to kill them all.

Chris, Barry, and Frank waved their arms, while Rebecca kept looking up with a growing smile on her face, still keeping Alex steady with one arm wrapped around his back, who had a relieved, but pained face etched on his weary countenance. Jill switched gazes between the chopper and her watch, her mind still unable to grasp what had really happened in the past hour. Lev Kravchenko, an individual who Frank and Alex had known for a long time, was the leader of a group called Perseus, according to what she and Chris were informed about by Frank. They were a Soviet-based group, a renegade mob of agents looking to destabilize certain regions of the West through the use of Umbrella Pharmaceutical, through the list of BOWs that Jill and Frank had found inside a slide projector.

That didn't matter now. All that was left to focus on was getting the hell out of there…

and we don't have long before everything goes —

CRASH!

Jill turned around hastily, seeing chunks of concrete and asphalt fly into the air and rain down over the northwest corner of the heliport, closer to Rebecca and Alex. A vast, humanoid beast came leaping from inside the hole, the one Chris and Barry had tried killing in the lab before, the T-002 Tyrant, Adrian Brian Serrano, Frank's former teammate from twelve years ago. The thing rose smoothly from its agile crouch … and started after the duo closest to it.

As much as she pitied the man that had been turned into a bio-organic weapon, into an eight-foot abomination, she could not stop herself from feeling entirely disgusted at its overall existence. Its left hand was a massive chitinous grasp of claws, its crimson skin burnt from the flammable tank blast it endured before, its face terribly altered into a lipless grin. The tyrant's naked body was sexless, the thick, pulsating tumor beating and shuddering wetly outside of its chest.

"Rebecca! Mason! GET BACK!" Frank screamed at them, aiming his gun as he fired several shots at the tyrant's gigantic body.

Jill and the others aimed their weapons in the creature's direction, but as soon as they started firing, it slammed Rebecca and Alex out of its way as though they were mere ragdolls, tumbling violently over the concrete ground.

Chris and Frank shouted in unison, all of them now panicking, and Barry began to yell at everyone to split up. Jill ran to the farthest corner, away from the towering monster. Chris stood his ground while Barry and Frank dashed closer to the fallen duo, all of their weapons thundering, screaming at the hulking monster. The massive, combined shots from the custom Benelli M3 shotgun and .44 magnum weren't even enough to slow it down in the slightest, let alone the shots from the Samurai Edges.

Overhead, the chopper was still hovering, and Jill could sense the seconds ticking away, almost believing that she could feel the rumbling of the incoming explosion growing more powerfully beneath their feet.

Jill was barely able to catch her breath after witnessing Chris almost becoming impaled, just as Wesker has previously.

After so many shots were pumped into the unfaltering creature, she helplessly watched Frank get tossed halfway across the entire heliport, and there was blood, too much blood coming out of his chest as he screamed in agony, the sounds of his agonizing pain fueling Jill's determination to rid of the monster from the same horrible reality they were still stuck in.

Barry ran closer to the creature, hitting it in its ghastly flesh with more magnum rounds, and it was at this moment, that the creature turned and dashed toward him at inhuman speeds, racing to kill him just as it had previously attempted to do with Frank.

And then, there was another scream, another pleading shout from Alex, who seemed to have been suffering from a severe delusion, a horrible side effect as a result of his brainwashing program, thanks to Wesker's meddling. Jill tried her best to distract the monster as much as she could, even though they all had run out of ammo at this point in time, and there was nothing they could do, but warn Alex about the tyrant's next move.

From above, there was a shout, and something was thrown out of the 'copter. Alex tossed his gun to Jill, ordering her to cover him as he staggered in desperation to get to the thrown object. Jill saw nothing more but the tyrant in front of her, now turning its attention at her as she fired the last remaining shots in Alex's gun, the monster completely indifferent to the nine-millimeter shots being pumped into it. In the corner of her eye, she saw Rebecca do the same almost right next to her, carrying both hers and Frank's guns in both hands, shooting at the abomination with a dreadful look on her expression.

Alex gave a shout at both of the women, and Jill knew, seeing the girl do the same, and the two of them ran as soon as they saw the monster's gaze once again, slowly striding after them.

Jill ran and ran…

…and suddenly, there was no heliport, no mansion, or visible buildings, only a sea of trees and the sounds of her own ragged breathing, the crunching of twigs and dry leaves underneath her boots, the pulsing blood ringing in her ears. The monster kept coming, silent and menacing as a poisonous cloud driven by a fierce wind, a terrible force of an unavoidable death…

Her STARS teammates were dead - Alex Mason, Chris Redfield, Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers, Frank Woods, even Brad Vickers - all of them gone. She knew it, everyone but her - and as she continued to run, a creeping fog flew around her, a red fog that mimicked the color of blood, the strong scent becoming too much to bear…

…and a shadow stretched out in front of her, overwhelming her own, and the same hiss she heard from Wesker's impalement was made from somewhere … from her own body being sliced by monstrous talons, melting through her abdomen, killing her…

No…

"NO!"

Jill opened her eyes, gasping for air as the word was still coming out of her lips, the only sound in the silence of her room. It was not the scream that she could imagine, but the weak, drowned cry of a woman caught in a nightmare from which there was no escape.

Which is the unfortunate truth as well…

ugh, gets worse every night…

She tilted her head upward, resting her chin on top of her opened diary for a moment, looking back at the time, apparently glad that she still had power after many other places in the city had gone off the grid for a while now. As she held her gun on top of the desk, she'd now realized it had become a common reflex for her, something she even noticed Frank used to do as well, and she was not sorry to have developed it herself.

"Useless against nightmares though," she muttered softly as she sat up, feeling the same sleepless headache that had been lingering for days, even weeks. She'd been talking to herself for quite a while now. It was something that's been helping keep her sanity after having cut off communication with other remaining STARS members and the rest of the overall public.

She took another clear glimpse at her digital clock and much to her surprise, it was five past eight at night. Outside, it was as dark as it could get, and not many lights could be seen anywhere down below the street either. She'd slept almost eight hours, the most she'd managed to get in a long time. Considering recent circumstances, she couldn't help but feel a wave of guilt hit her like a tidal wave. As far as she knew, she was the only STARS member left in the city. She should be doing more to save those who could still be saved…

Knock it off! You know better. The city's done for, and you won't be able to help anyone else if you collapse yourself. Just think about what happened to the people you helped…

No. She couldn't think of that, not yet at least. When she'd finally made it to the suburbs earlier in the afternoon, after almost forty-eight hours of "helping", she'd been on the verge of a breakdown, suddenly forced to face the reality of what happened to Raccoon City. The city had become irreparably damaged by the t-Virus, or what seemed to be some variant of it.

Like the guards and researchers at the Spencer Mansion… like Frank and his fallen teammate - the tyrant…

Jill shuddered as she closed her eyes, thinking about the recurring nightmare, about what it meant. Everything matched the real chain of events perfectly, except one thing - Brad Vickers had thrown a grenade launcher instead, and Alex rushed to get rid of the tyrant once and for all, blowing it to bits just as he had with the rocket launcher, saving her and Rebecca from certain doom, but it would always stem back down to the same tyrant - of her becoming killed in the end no matter what she'd do.

They all had gotten away, all of them except Frank, who died of his injuries almost three weeks later. For all the good they were able to accomplish since then, they might as well have died along with him…

C'mon… it wasn't our fault!

Jill slammed her fist against the desk in front of her, enraged at herself for even thinking about being better off dead than alive.

No one would listen - not the Chief, not the press, not even the public eye. If they listened, if they believed… even for a second…

All of it happened eight weeks ago and it felt like years. City officials and local papers alike had enjoyed a field day with the STARS' reputation - six dead, soon-to-be seven, the rest babbling stories about a hidden laboratory, about zombies and monsters, about an Umbrella conspiracy, and even a presumed group of Soviet sympathizers. They had been suspended and ridiculed, but the worst part of it all, nothing has been done to prevent the spread of the virus, even after more sightings were reported every week after that. The only hope she and the others could cling to was that the destruction of the mansion had caused an end to the immediate danger.

In the weeks that followed, so much had happened.

They'd uncovered more truth behind Umbrella - that they had been continuously bribing or blackmailing critical key members of the government in order to continue their research unimpeded. Before Alex Mason went AWOL, he managed to help them know more about Perseus and learn more information regarding certain classified missions both he and Frank had gone through in order to help put a stop to their illegal activities back in Europe and Cuba. Perseus successfully managed to infiltrate many countries throughout Europe and now they had been trying to finish up destroying the West from the inside out. Lev Kravchenko had been one of those responsible for Alex's brainwashing decades before, and Jill had come to suspect that Alex might've left to deal with Perseus alone or try to stay away from anyone as much as possible. Perhaps the most difficult part in all of this was that their team had been forced to split up, to make hard choices about what needed to be done, about their own responsibilities to the truth.

Jill smiled faintly at this. If there was one reason she could feel good in all of this mess was that at least all of her friends had made it out of the city by now. Rebecca Chambers, according to Alex, had gone off to finish her degree in biochemistry out of state, with the goal to help them more in the field of virology and the many ways to combat man-made bioweapons. Brad Vickers, true to his cowardly nature, had skipped town in order to escape Umbrella's spotlight on the disbanded team. Chris Redfield was already in Europe by now, most likely scouting up Umbrella's headquarters and any potential information regarding Perseus and their influence over the pharmaceutical giant, still probably waiting for Barry Burton to join him whenever he could… and even for Jill, who should've been finished in wrapping up her investigation of Umbrella's local offices by now.

Except five days ago, something terrible unfolded inside Raccoon. It was still happening, spreading like wildfire without anyone being able to control it. During the last football game, the Raccoon Sharks and Old Court Thunders were playing against each other, everyone having a good time, until one of the players and a few of the audience turned into the same flesh-eating monsters she's seen at the Spencer Mansion. How it all managed to happen, no one knew, but at least several people were sent to Raccoon General Hospital in critical condition, and fifty police officers were called in. In the end, all there was left was a huge bloodbath, and one thing was for certain…

Perseus and Umbrella…

Jill didn't know how they were managing to keep people in and out of the city, but they were as soon as the whole incident at the stadium happened - nothing shipped in, no mail service, and phone lines were entirely cut. Those that tried to leave town were told to stay put, with no reason why. The only thing anyone in the city could do was to wait for outside help, for anyone in the state or country to take notice of the horrible disasters that's been happening for days.

It all seemed as though her nightmares and reality itself had formed a blurred line between their overall differences. Within the first couple of hours after finding out about the attacks and blockades, Jill headed straight to the RPD building to meet up with Chief Irons, but ever since their suspension, he had refused to talk to her and her other teammates, preferring to turn a blind eye to anything suspicious. She had known that some of the cops were competent enough to listen, that not everyone was as corrupt or narrow-minded as Irons - but even after some of them had witnessed the worst of the bizarre assaults and riots across the city, no one was prepared to accept any kind of truth she'd be willing to tell them.

Who would be?

"Listen up, officers - Umbrella, the same pharmaceutical company responsible for funding and helping build our small town into a functional city, has been conspiring with an underground network of rogue Soviet sympathizers, Perseus. Their leader was the one responsible for Nova Six gas attacks overseas, and that same group had funded Umbrella to design a virus in our backyard that can metamorphose people into zombies, for lack of a better term.

Flesh-eating, mindless, decaying, and rotting to the core zombies, creatures that feel no pain and would do anything to try and eat other people. Not exactly dead, but alive enough to overpower anyone regardless of the level of decomposition. So let's start mowing down anyone you see; whether they be unarmed citizens, your friends, families, or neighbors, because if not, you could be next…"

Jill sighed, still sitting at the edge of her seat. Of course, she could've been a bit more diplomatic about it, but no matter how well-pictured she could put it, it was still quite an insane story to tell, even a child wouldn't believe it'd have any weight of truth behind it either. From an outsider's point of view, one would think she'd watched too many espionage movies for her own good. Not one ordinary citizen in America would ever be willing to take in the fact that an underground network of ex-Soviet spies would be right next door, especially the thought of an American-based pharmaceutical giant to be rolling out the red carpet for them as well.

Today was the twenty-eighth of September, and there hasn't been a sign of any officers on duty being left alive anymore. The last of the gunshots had been… what - yesterday? Last night? There was a possibility that it could've been the last of the rioters, but there was no point in bothering to wonder anymore. The city was in total ruins, destroyed by Umbrella and Perseus' experiments with their biological weapons. The only ones that were now left alive were the zombies roaming around the streets, all of them looking for any living human being to feast on. She'd been surprised that none of them had tried breaking into her apartment on the top floor, but that would probably require a lot of physical movement just even to gain access to the floor her room was located on. As far as she could tell, there had been absolutely no one left inside or outside of her apartment. But when she decided to return to the local high school this morning…

It was too painful to think about, but a part of herself kept forcing her to relieve those moments, to never forget that experience as it could be the key to her own survival. When she walked closer to the premises of the high school, the barricades were all entirely destroyed. Whether they were broken by zombies or by people who thought they saw a familiar face amongst the crowd of the undead, it made no difference. She had tried to save some of those people and helped them barricade themselves inside the school, but the zombies always knew no mercy against them.

When she opened the doors leading to the gym, it was an entire bloodbath, a slaughterhouse that spoke of evil and violence across the blood-smeared walls and ground. The air itself was thick, the stench of vomit and rot filling up inside her nostrils. She had nearly given up at that point, suddenly feeling more tired than before, and her focus instantly shifted to the bodies that seemed to have been of those who were lucky enough to die before the virus had the chance to flourish inside their systems.

As she walked the halls of the building, she stumbled upon some of them still shambling aimlessly with arms stretched in front of them, bringing them mercy to their former bodies, the bodies of people she tried to save, the same people that have cried with relief to see someone else left alive in the doomed city just hours before…

If there was any hope for her to attach to, it was completely gone, robbed by the realization that no matter what good she tried to make, it would all end in complete disaster. Studying everything about Perseus and the hidden truth behind Umbrella did not help anyone survive the outbreak that has been happening within the city for days now, and the civilians she tried to save - over seventy men, women, and children, were gone … forever.

She wasn't able to remember how she made it back home. Her mind was totally distraught, making her unable to think clearly or see anything around her, barely being able to see her own feet working automatically to send her straight to her apartment. Her eyes had been entirely swollen, her vision fogged by tears of misery and despair. Thousands have already died. The whole weekend had been a tragedy so vast, it was impossible to comprehend. She'd cried herself to sleep as she finished writing the last entry of her diary, the last she would write inside Raccoon City, or ever…

Everything could've been prevented. And it's Umbrella's fault for having played around with fire, and managed to burn a whole city along with them…

Maybe it was Perseus' goal all along; to have an entire American city suffer a biological attack, an initial process to start crumbling the nation apart, and Umbrella merely being a puppet.

No…even they had puppets of their own. People like Wesker and Irons… both of them having complete control over the RPD as a whole - both of them doing Umbrella's bidding…

Jill shook her head quickly as she pulled her Samurai Edge off of her desk, allowing herself for the first time to take in the clear understanding of the immensity that both parties have caused. For the past few days, she'd kept her emotions in check as there had been people around for her to lead and help - a position that did not allow her to cram in any personal feelings of any sort.

But now…

She was ready to make her way out of Raccoon, to make those bastards pay for what they have done to her city, to let them know how she truly felt. They have stolen everything from her: her life, her home, her hope - but they could not stop her from surviving.

Jill chambered in a round as roughly as she could, her jaw tightened, the swirling of true hatred inside her gut driving her focus toward her only goal of survival. It was time to make her escape, her last escape out of this nightmare…


After a hefty drive through the ruined streets of Raccoon City, using a hot-wired RPD patrol car, driving through many fallen barricades and wandering groups of the undead wasn't as easy as he'd liked. Beyond the obvious, everything looked different. His eyesight was no longer as frail as before. Each tiny detail was sharper than before, colors were more vibrant, different shapes were more distinct, and he could see farther than before as well.

Shouldn't have been possible. A guy his age, he'd be already beaten and wasted away by his aging body, especially after what happened at the Spencer Mansion.

Fuckers did something to me…

Knowing Umbrella, it couldn't have been anything good at all.

As he drove deeper into the city, he saw very few people, some of them alive — those were easy to differentiate from the undead. Most of them had been screaming their minds out, panicking, and as much as he wanted to help them, he simply kept his mind focused on one thing only: find out what happened to the rest of STARS. The more time he wasted, the more trouble all of them could be in, though he had managed to shoot some of the zombies with the window opened, aiming the Remington with one hand, and shooting at the ones that kept grappling the living. Much to his surprise, he had enough strength to handle a full-sized shotgun with one hand, something he wasn't able to do for a long time beforehand, almost as though his confinement inside the hospital after two whole months had made him more like his thirty-year-old self again.

He was now walking in the abandoned streets of the destroyed suburbs after pulling over in front of a barricade made entirely out of parked cars and thick planks of wood. In order to go through, he'd have to climb over the broken fence on the left side, risking more injuries to his already injured bare feet after stepping over large fields of broken glass and debris from before. However, this was the least of his worries, and decided to finally jump over the fence regardless, feeling tiny sharp splinters puncturing the skin of his bare feet, and the pain he felt did not bother him one bit.

As he continued his way to his destination, seeing the destruction around him wasn't anything new he hadn't seen before. The only difference was that this was an American city, not Russian, African, or European. The enemy all along had been inside the very same country he served in the past, and this very thought made him feel even more disgusted by the concept of greed itself.

Greed created this nightmare, the very same nightmare he, his best friend, and everyone else in STARS desperately fought to help prevent it from ever happening. Greed was the driving goal of Umbrella and Perseus, of the US government itself for helping spread cover-ups all across the world, cover-ups like using their own brainwashing techniques on rogue soldiers, the Umbrella Lab in Angola, and Operation: Greenlight. If it wasn't for people like himself, the whole world would've ended multiple times before, and now it seemed like everything was going out of control as a result of playing with fire for far too long…

…and now the entire population who used to work inside the mansion grounds were dead, half of the STARS along with them. The other half was now missing, and Raccoon seemed to have followed suit, with more deaths to come. Kravchenko had been pulling the strings for a long time. He knew Kravchenko, knew him enough to see his fingerprints all over. That bastard somehow knew this day would come, the day in which the United States would suffer a bioterror attack, a viral outbreak that would mount to more casualties than a simple Nova Six leakage. The t-Virus doesn't just kill people; it mutates them into zombies, creating monstrosities like cerberuses, hunters, chimeras - and the tyrant…

He clenched his left fist tightly, blood dripping as a result of the abrasions caused by the broken fence, gripping the shotgun tighter with his other hand as he strode across the broken pavement, littered with paper and debris that had been covered in smears of thick blood. His whole life had been about fighting for the greater good, for a better future… but all of that now seemed like a child's wild fantasy. For every good thing he had made in his whole entire military career, more bad things tended to multiply by the hundreds, everything heading for the worst, and he began to wonder why did he even bother anymore…

Wake the hell up! You're still alive for fuck's sake! You either die trying or you live the rest of your miserable life, knowing you could've done something for even the smallest possible change…

The last thing he was able to remember was the voice of Kravchenko himself, telling the rest of the Umbrella staff to keep him under surveillance… and then another voice… a doctor saying something about… an accident happening underneath the city.

He shook his head entirely, trying not to dwell on his frail memories any further as he wasn't looking forward to having more migraines and episodes as he had back at the mansion.

He walked up towards the facade of a two-story house, the same one he and his best friend had lived in previously. The whole place seemed relatively untouched, but the doorframe seemed like it had been hacked by a large axe. Someone must've tried breaking inside, and most likely succeeded.

With a swift kick, the door cracked open and swung to the right, revealing a rather large mess inside.

"Mason! Are you in here?!" he called out to his best friend as he stepped foot inside the littered place. "It's Woods! I'm alive after all!"

There was no answer, and probably no one to answer him but himself.

The fuck happened here..?

All of the furniture had been overturned. Through the dim lighting of the moonlight outside, he could see sofas were laid on their backs, window curtains ripped to shreds, glassware was entirely broken, flooring had cuts and scratches all over, and the counter inside the kitchen had been littered with empty cans of food, along with used silverware, dried blood smeared across many surfaces inside the house. The only good sign he could see through the mess was that there was no corpse to be found, which could mean that Mason may have likely gotten out long ago after dealing with whatever he needed to deal with inside.

Hope you're safe… wherever you are…

"Mason! You in here?!" Woods called out one more time, just to make sure as he took one more look at his surroundings before…

…a subtle sound was heard from somewhere upstairs. He could've sworn that he heard it, there was no mistaking the smallest soundwaves he could now sense, unlike before. If it had been Mason, he would've come down to either point a gun at him cautiously, or embrace him tightly like back when he first met up with him after everyone thought he was dead for four years straight.

Which means… someone else is holed up in here…

He laid the shotgun carefully on the counter as he made his way toward the opened fridge, which had mustard, ketchup, and beer spilled all over inside. As he slipped one arm between the fridge and the wall next to it, he managed to grab a hanging spare gun he had hidden there before everything went to shit and readied it as he slowly paced to the stairs. At the very least, whoever decided to loot the place surely forgot to search thoroughly, or probably didn't have the time to do so.

Before he could even put one bloodied foot over the stairs, a violent spasm of pain swept through his entire body.

His arms felt strange, and his legs began to tremble. Looking at his limbs, he saw his veins were beginning to swell slightly. With horror, he began to remember similar effects happening to Adrian Serrano's arms and legs, back when they had forced him to watch his teammate writhe and scream in agony…

…and he noticed something else too.

Since leaving the hospital barefoot, he could've sworn he cut himself on broken glass and shattered pavement on multiple occasions, yet there was nothing to imply he had any injuries on his soles. The cuts he received on his hands as a result of climbing over the broken fence had somehow healed completely as well.

But with this revelation came another great deal of pain slamming him as an intense jolt of paralyzation began to take over his whole body, and he wasn't able to take the pain for much longer, screaming in the most excruciating pain he's ever felt, worse than what he'd felt back at the hospital.

Oh God! What the fuck's happening to me?! AGH!

The pain was not stopping and it was only when he saw a shadowy figure inside his blurring vision that he realized it must've been the intruder that had been residing inside. He stretched out a hand, desperate to reach them, to question who they were and why were they here, to have them help him stop the pain he was feeling, to make it all stop somehow…

…but as he slowly began to lose consciousness, all of his strength drained away and he was once again inside the dark world he found himself trapped in for two whole months, now under the mercy of the strange figure that merely stared back at him from above.


Author's Note: Before you yell at your screen, no, Woods is NOT going to share all of Alice's powers in the movies or become an OP character, to the point of being virtually impossible to kill. He may be able to regenerate wounds, have unnatural brute strength, and have sharper senses, but all of this will eventually come at a cost, as previously shown in the end as well. You'll see once the story progresses and he could potentially become even more vulnerable than you could imagine him being right now...

As promised, more Call of Duty characters will make appearances later in the story, potentially one or two Modern Warfare characters included. And yes, I have finally completed MW2019 and MWII (Reboot) campaigns!

SPOILER ALERT FOR MWII REBOOT! (START)

If you want my opinion on both, they were pretty great! I think my favorite characters in both games by far are Alex Keller, Soap, and Graves. I'd say Ghost and Price as well, but I felt more excited every time I saw or played as the other characters on screen. Hell, I can safely say Graves probably had the better role than Javier Salazar did in BO2. Even though I knew more or less what was about to happen beforehand, it really kinda caught me off-guard when he pulled what he did since he was a pretty convincing person right off the bat. I will never forget Graves' iconic line, "Soldier, I don't make threats. I make guarantees." Definitely sent chills down my spine for sure.

SPOILER ALERT FOR MWII REBOOT! (END)

Now that I have a much better understanding of most of the MW characters, I will think about trying to include one of them earlier on in my crossover, assuming most of them will probably be in their late teens or early twenties by 1998 lol. I may start playing the original MW games as well, which means I have to basically find my PS3 & 360 MW copies from somewhere in my storage. It's been such a long time since I've played CoD4 and MW2...

To answer Adam Luck's questions from his previous review of the last story, yes, I realized that person didn't bother reading any of it at all, let alone REBO Umbrella Conspiracy either. I tried sending them a DM, explaining everything about it, but it seemed like they simply moved on anyway, which hey, it's not for everyone to read so I can't necessarily blame them.
And yes! I think your new suggestion about Alex being imprisoned earlier on is actually a lot better. I already had it planned out in which Alex was going to go with Chris in helping each other out in saving David and Claire but having read your new suggestion, I might end up doing that instead. We'll see how it goes from there when the time comes. Thanks again for all your support!

I'll see you all again soon enough! Any reviews and feedback are appreciated!