Author's Note: And you thought I'd be abandoning this... Not in a million years! :P
Recommended BGM:
1. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) - Nicholai's Theme
2. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) & (Remake) - The City Without Hope
3. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) - (SPOILER) Watch for BOLD TEXT below
Bonus Track: Resident Evil Resistance - Descent Into Darkness
Chapter 8
Mikhail was surprisingly swift with vigorous stamina for someone who was bleeding like a pig for slaughter. For what could've possibly been about half an hour, Nikolai had followed the trail of dark droplets through multiple blockades, over gravel and asphalt, grass and fallen debris, and still hadn't seen a single shadow of the man he knew was indeed dying.
Perhaps dying is an overstatement, considering…
There was growing anger, too. How dare Mikhail run away from his punishment? Who did he think he was, wasting Nikolai's precious time? To make matters even more frustrating, the platoon leader had covered a vast distance, leading him straight back to town again. Another block or so, and he'd be returning to the RPD building.
For the fourth time already, he'd opened another door, scanned the room, and sighed. Mikhail had to know he was being followed - for good reason, too. However, there was no sign of Perseus anywhere in town other than several dead bodies he'd encountered as he stalked Mikhail. Some of them looked mauled to bits, while others seemed to have been shot by other survivors, possibly as a result of the UBCS or the luckier ones that managed to survive the outbreak since day one. There was no doubt in his mind that Mikhail would still take precautions regardless of the growing number of Perseus casualties.
Maybe he simply doesn't have the good sense to lay down like a good dog and die already.
Either way, it wouldn't change anything, even after chasing his trail for a while now.
Nikolai walked through a small, orderly office inside an oversized parking garage. The blood trail had become erratic and mainly discolored on the blue linoleum by the caged bare bulbs overhead, turning the red into a shining purple. Above all else, the splatters seemed to thin; either Mikhail was bleeding out - unlikely as it may seem - or he had found time to staunch his wound.
This boiled Nikolai's own blood inside, gritting his teeth like a madman, trying his best to reassure himself.
Even the strongest of men grow weaker with a wound like that. It'll slow him down eventually, perhaps forcing him to find a place to rest. I know what it can do to someone like him. No way he can go on for much longer.
Several steps further, and he was now inside a dark, cavernous garage, swallowing the feeble rays of moonlight that dared to enter its thick walls, the cold air thick with the scents of gasoline and grease - and something else. He halted, taking in a deep breath. Spent gunpowder lingered among the smells of fallen remnants of a busy garage; he was sure a weapon had been fired recently.
He moved quickly and silently across the cement, edging himself around a white van that covered one of the rows of cars, and saw what appeared to be a dog sprawled in a puddle of its own blood; its peculiar body curled in a fetal position.
He cautiously walked towards it, inspecting its strange appearance, feeling disgusted and thrilled at once.
They warned him about the infected canines - how quickly their bodies reacted to the t-Virus, and he knew that the Cerberus research spanned as far back as the eighties and their viability as bioweapons, tests that were conducted during an attempted prison break at the Umbrella underground facility in Angola.
…and thanks to the Mansion Incident, they were deemed too dangerous when not fed with a constant food supply, turning against their own handlers and killing anyone and anything in their way. Untrainable, and their rate of decay higher than other organic subjects.
True to their word, the half-skinned animal at his feet looked and smelled like rotten meat roasting under the scorching sun for a long time. Accustomed to being surrounded by death, Nikolai still felt his nostrils clench subconsciously, the stench almost making his eyes sweat in thin streams of tears, yet he continued to study the dead creature, certain that the emaciated dog had been the target of recent gunplay.
Evidently, two entry wounds below the flap of its left ear were visible… but it was not as a result of an M4 assault rifle nor from a sniper rifle. The holes were slightly bigger in comparison, which could've been from a nine-millimeter or…
Instinctively, Nikolai backed away, frowning. It was a possibility that Mikhail Viktor was responsible for the creature's demise, but if someone besides Mikhail could've come through the garage, he could more than likely not be alone.
A strange sound came from somewhere, a soft thump of some sort. His head snapped up, his attention fixed on his two o'clock, the exit door ahead. A smooth sliding sound, some infected human brushing against the door in a vain attempt to get inside - or perhaps, someone dying, a wounded man not having enough energy to press on.
A grin began to form as soon as he started to move closer to the door, feeling even more hopeful at the sound of Mikhail's strained and weak voice flowing past the aging metal.
"You insolent bastard!"
"Mikhail Viktor…" an unfamiliar voice spoke coldly and steadily. "You killed my friends. You should've died at the siege… Any last words?"
Nikolai stopped in his tracks, silently trying to listen in with one ear pressed against the door as he assessed the situation. It was apparent enough that the other voice must be another Perseus agent, another typical grunt whose only purpose is to kill and die in the city one way or another. Even if Kravchenko were here, he wouldn't care any less about them, so long as Lev's own goals were met with the results he expects to get out of any situation he could benefit from.
Do I play the hero and save my leader from being killed by the opposing side? Or do I enjoy the show?
The idea that Mikhail would be grateful to him for saving his life seemed extraordinarily… entertaining, for lack of a better term.
"You're all fucking monsters… bunch of murderers!" Mikhail rasped as he coughed heavily. "I have no regrets… for what I've done to any of them."
"Enough said," the Perseus agent muttered. "Your life is at its end. No survivors."
The choice was made.
He pushed forward, shoving the door with ease as he burst through, his own presence interrupting the tension that reached its breaking point. The uniformed agent whirled around, his aim still on an exhausted Mikhail, who was propped against the wall with no weapons to defend himself. The Perseus soldier's partially exposed expression became a mask of shock and fury but did not hesitate to lunge at Nikolai when he started to aim at his head, almost knowing his intentions even before getting through.
Nikolai fired his gun too late, managing to shoot him in the shoulder but nowhere near any fatal area. He hit the cement painfully on his back inside of the parking garage, his gun clattering to the ground as he found himself struggling against a serrated knife that the Perseus agent had taken out to use against him. Bleeding and injured, the Perseus soldier had enough strength to puncture his chest ever so slightly, before Nikolai became even more furious at the amount of strength the agent still had in him, the adrenaline giving Nikolai more power to overcome him, grunting in pain and rage all at once.
Using his knee as he struggled to shove the knife away from his chest, Nikolai hit him below the groin to lessen the force being applied to the knife on him. He immediately used all of his strength in his right hand to press on his wounded left shoulder, forcing him to scream in pain before finally throwing the knife away from them and punching his face hard enough to leave him sprawled on the ground in a crumpled heap. Blood seeped where he lay, like a helpless dog with no way of escaping his ordeal.
Without a second glance or thought, he grabbed his fallen weapon, turned around, and raised it quickly before his finger tightened on the trigger with unwavering resolve.
The gunshot echoed through the garage, almost too loud for any wandering monsters to hear within a fairly large distance from the garage, but Nikolai did not care in the slightest. There was no feeling of remorse or satisfaction once he saw the bullet impact his skull, blood splattering across the cement. For a moment, he tried to find some content for his actions but found himself almost worried about the consequences of taking part in the killing of a Perseus soldier…
Too bad he was just collateral damage for my own entertainment. Shouldn't have put his nose in other people's business anyway.
"Nikolai?" Mikhail called out to him, his voice heavy with concern and exhaustion. Nikolai turned, fixing his gaze on his platoon leader, seeing the silly man trying his best to limp and walk through the door of the parking garage before collapsing against the wall next to him, holding onto his now-acquired assault rifle. "Are you… are you alright?"
There was some pain over the small wound on Nikolai's chest, but he quickly ignored it when hurrying back to kneel next to Mikhail. He needed to play his part now.
Nikolai quickly nodded.
"Was he the one who did this to you?" Nikolai asked, forcefully trying to fill his voice with deep concern as he gazed down at Mikhail's bloody stomach. "Did you get bit?"
Mikhail shook his head, his eyes closing as though he had no energy to keep them open any longer. "Someone shot me. It wasn't him. Someone else did."
"Why would you say so?" Nikolai did his best to sound shocked.
"I don't know who or why. All I know is that they were surely following me - maybe trying to finish what they started, but… when I exited that door, I bumped into him. He had just finished killing another one of our fellow UBCS before he tried to kill me next…"
He wasn't so far from the truth; he had to give him that.
Nikolai had to suppress another grin; for his state, he had done quite an astonishing performance.
"Whoever these people are…" he whispered, his face grim. "They're not here to help or befriend others. We're heavily outnumbered - and if there were any innocent survivors to save, they're all either dead or undead by now…"
Nikolai restricted himself from grinning once more. Poor Viktor did not know who they really were.
And this could make things even more interesting. Almost too much fun in one night…
"I saw … a few of our men getting away … still out there somewhere," Mikhail muttered before briefly coughing up blood on the ground beside him. "If only we could get to the evac site, call in the transport…"
The Saint Michael Clock Tower was the alleged evacuation site where the UBCS were supposed to take the civilian survivors. Nikolai knew the hidden truth from both sides of this mess.
For Umbrella, it wasn't so much as to try and rescue civilians, but instead, get as many people inside one building as possible and see how a group of survivors could handle themselves against the rampant BOWs surrounding the clock tower area. No helicopter would show up unless either Umbrella gave the word or the tower's bell was rung by a complex mechanism inside the giant clock. Since the squad leaders were probably all dead, Nikolai had to wonder if any of the remaining soldiers even knew about the "evacuation." However, he supposed it wasn't nearly as important as to keep it in mind for his plans either way.
As for Perseus, they were simply another equation that Umbrella had never thought much about until recent underground events. The higher-ups had refused to speak of its events in case the US government caught wind that people like Kravchenko had successfully managed to infiltrate Raccoon without their knowledge. They were mostly limited to a few small groups. Only one of them was stationed around the clock tower area of the city, particularly inside both Raccoon Park and Raccoon General Hospital, but considering Kravchenko hadn't bothered to mention the status of his men from those particular places, it could only mean that they may all have seemingly perished; no shocker there. None of them were ever trained to deal with biohazard incidents at this massive scale. If the UBCS didn't have the means to combat such an outbreak fully, Perseus had no chance in comparison. Their corpses spread across the city showed this as clear evidence.
Nikolai found that he wasn't enjoying this particular game as much as he'd thought he would. For one, Mikhail was too pathetically trusting; it almost felt shameful to watch him surrender to his pain, about as challenging as trying to hunt down a friendly dog…
"You don't seem in good shape to travel anywhere, comrade," Nikolai stated coolly.
"I'm okay," said Mikhail tiredly. "Not as bad as it looks. Hurts like hell, but a bit of pain and blood loss is not gonna stop me from moving. Just gotta catch my breath, rest for a few minutes…"
"No, it looks bad. Very bad," Nikolai protested. "In fact, I think…"
Creeaak.
Nikolai shut his mouth as soon as the door next to them opened slowly, revealing what seemed to be a young woman in a blue V-neck sleeveless shirt, dressed too casually for her to be considered a fighter inside a battlefield like Raccoon City. Her weapon initially trained on Mikhail, before immediately turning her firearm to face Nikolai directly, her eyes filled with skepticism besides a flicker of determination that could be seen behind her stern expression.
Nikolai quickly stood up, dropping his side-arm as he raised his hands. He was now feeling annoyed beyond measure.
"Not a single move," she said sharply, her finger hovering dangerously close to the trigger. "Identify yourselves."
Nikolai met her gaze head-on, his own expression a mask of stoic indifference, but beneath the surface was a torrent of emotions churning within - a mixture of frustration, annoyance, and a hint of begrudging admiration for the young woman's tenacity. At least she didn't seem to be the Perseus type anyway.
She's got some nerve; I'll give her that.
"Just another fellow survivor," Nikolai replied calmly, though a hint of irritation seeped through his words. "Like you."
"Bullshit!" she hissed angrily. "You're with Perseus, aren't you? You and your friend here. Trying to cover your tracks."
For a fleeting moment, there was doubt gnawing inside Nikolai's mind.
She can't possibly know anything about my involvement with Perseus, can she? How could she when she's…
Right… She's STARS. Jill Valentine. Wonder if she's encountered Umbrella's little surprise yet…
He'd known about the STARS and their little charade of conspiracies surrounding them. He'd studied them about who to look out for in case the Nemesis Prototype was around. She probably wouldn't be standing before him if she had encountered it unless it was malfunctioning somehow. A Tyrant could break a full-grown man in half without exerting even a quarter of its strength. Someone like Jill Valentine didn't stand a chance against something even more advanced than its previous iterations.
Nikolai felt slightly pleased with the strange coincidence of meeting a STARS member. It made him feel like everything was according to plan, that connections in his mind were reflected in the world around him…
"No," Mikhail's strained voice cut through the tension around them as he opened his eyes once Jill snapped her head towards him, his tone firm and resolute. "We're not… whoever those people are - Perseus, or whatever their name is. We're part of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service. We're here to rescue civilians—"
He began to grunt in pain, holding onto his bleeding wound with as much force as he could, closing his eyes again.
Nikolai felt a bit of relief with Mikhail's timely intervention, although he still felt that he should've just let him die at the hands of the Perseus agent from earlier. Maybe things would've been a bit easier to deal with the STARS officer on his own terms.
However, Jill's skepticism remained, her weapon still trained on Nikolai as her gaze flickered between him and Mikhail with a mixture of disdain and distrust.
"Even if you are part of Umbrella, you're still responsible for what happened here!" she declared, her voice tinged with intense anger. "Hell, you're in a worse spot for allowing Perseus to add to the destruction you caused in the first place, starting with the Arklay Forest!"
Nikolai wanted nothing more than just to kill her right now. Unsurprisingly, however, she had reason to feel the way she was feeling. The inside line on the STARS was that they had uncovered information about Umbrella's actual research at the Arklay Lab and the secrets that laid the foundation of Perseus' involvement with the t-Virus project. Of course, they'd been heavily discredited later, but Umbrella had been trying to get rid of them ever since. Even some of Kravchenko's men seemed to be here only to ensure that the Nemesis Prototype kills all STARS members for their own purposes.
If all STARS are as suspicious as this one, it's no wonder neither Umbrella nor Perseus has succeeded.
"Listen," Nikolai began, his earnest tone tinged with a faux hint of urgency. "Whatever you think you heard, it's not true. Us mercenaries are tasked with one mission: to rescue civilians trapped in the chaos of Raccoon City. But as you can see with my wounded comrade over here, we weren't well equipped to handle an ambush from Perseus. We're heavily outgunned and outnumbered."
Mikhail nodded in agreement, his expression filled with a world of pain but somehow mirroring a determined look as he spoke up.
"The things I saw those people do… the monsters unleashed during the chaos… I am unwilling to see that happen again…" he added softly. "All we have left now is to work through this together and survive. If that isn't enough to convince you otherwise, I don't know what else will."
Nikolai briskly nodded, tired of playing this "good guy" game. It did not fit him, but if he wanted things to go as smoothly as possible, he'd have to swallow up his pride for now. Plus, getting Jill to be on their side and use her as a distraction for Perseus, at least until the Nemesis finally deals with her, would ease things up much more for him.
Jill took another shared glance between the two before looking further back behind Nikolai, apparently inspecting the dead Perseus agent sprawled on the ground with his upper body lying in a small pool of blood. After a long moment of tense silence, the STARS member finally relented. There was a reluctant acceptance dawning in her eyes as she lowered her firearm slowly.
"Fine," she conceded in resignation. "But this doesn't mean I trust you. The moment you step out of line…"
Her words trailed off, marking her silence as an unspoken threat, and Nikolai nodded in understanding, keeping up an unreadable expression as he met her gaze with a sharp resolve of his own.
"Oh, forgive my manners," he managed to speak out, trying not to disgust himself with the useless formalities he never cared much about, reaching out a handshake to her. "Name's Nikolai Zinoviev - at your service."
There was a moment of hesitation in her eyes, and Nikolai wished she would be unwilling to accept his handshake - until she gave in, which left him stern with profound resentment, still knowing this was necessary if he wanted to try and gain her trust for now.
"Jill Valentine. STARS Alpha team," she spoke dryly, although with a much calmer demeanor. "Bet your corporate overlords already told you about me anyway."
Soon, Miss Valentine. Soon… you will be dead meat.
Nikolai shook his head. "They don't say anything to their grunts for hire. We're essentially operating blind here as of now."
"UBCS Delta Platoon leader Mikhail Viktor," Mikhail followed up, still grunting in pain, who was still sitting upright against the wall of the parking garage. "Pleasure to meet someone from the RPD's Special Tactics and Rescue Service."
Jill immediately crouched beside him, checking Mikhail's wounds and asking dumb questions. He was almost one hundred percent sure he could kill them both before they realized what was happening. Still, even the slightest chance was too much of a risk, considering how paranoid the STARS cop already was and Mikhail's realization that he was also being hunted down - wanted by Perseus from within the shadows. Jill had also ensured she could face him if he tried to pull a fast one. Smart cookie, but she was lucky enough that all would have to wait until Kravchenko contacted him for their next move.
And if not, well…
People always turn their backs on their friends, don't they?
A contingency plan was not a bad idea, and as he looked back at the dead Perseus agent behind him, he began to grin widely.
What was the saying, about how an obstacle was only a disguised opportunity? Things were going to be fine.
No matter where he ran, everything was dark and empty. Not even the echoes of Woods' footsteps could be heard, and a ringing in his ears began to overtake him slowly, hurting him with excruciating pain he could no longer bear. The seething intensity made his body tremble uncontrollably, his legs giving in to the heavy pull of gravity. He covered his ears, shutting his eyes tightly, screaming in a tumultuous plea of agony and rage. Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to eternity. Nothing could stop the noise. Any moment longer, and he knew it'd be the end for him, but he could not allow it. Not when he needed to make Perseus pay for their actions, pay for the murder of an innocent girl - pay for the destruction of an entire American city. Bringing Umbrella to justice was another reason, among many others.
As time dragged on, the high-pitched ring slowly took the form of a voice, someone's familiar voice…
"Frank… Frank…"
He slowly opened his eyes…
…and saw that he was now surrounded by buildings inside a nondescript alleyway, the flickering glow of distant streetlights casting eerie shadows upon the worn pavement. He was still lying in a murky puddle of dark water, primarily unbothered by the stench of death that permeated the night air around him.
"You're safe now."
Before him stood a dark figure, slowly approaching the flickering light between them. Their youthful features were suddenly bathed in an ethereal glow that seemed to emanate from within, their presence becoming a balm to Woods' troubled being.
"G-Gwen…?" he spoke out weakly, feeling a sudden abdominal pain that began to spread across his body, his veins and muscles going through a fierce overflow of tingling sensations he could not explain. "But… you're…"
"Hey, brother."
Woods snapped his head towards his back and saw another dark figure, their features slowly emanating a light that revealed their true identity as he took in the sight, feeling shocked, confused, and frightened.
"Bowman…?" said Woods, shaking his head in disbelief as he suddenly backed to a corner, refusing to believe that everything happening right now was real. Joseph Bowman and Gwen Rosso were…
No. No. This… this isn't real. It's all in your head, Frank. It's all happening inside your mind. It's not real!
"You're not real!" Woods declared loudly, shaking his head continuously as he brushed his hair with both hands as roughly as possible. "This is all in my head… You shouldn't be here!"
"Of course it's all in your head, brother," said Bowman matter-of-factly. "Why should it mean that it's not real?"
Woods continued staring at the ground before him, still refusing to look at either of them in the eyes. Whoever or whatever they were, they were neither Bowman nor Gwen. Not even close.
"We are a part of you, Frank," said the motherly voice on Woods' left ear, a type of angelic voice he had never heard from Gwen before, so soothing, he could feel tears trying to escape from his eyes but heavily resisted as much as he could help it.
"There's nothing to fear with us on your side, Sarge."
Another voice - the familiar voice of the dead, of someone he once knew before, someone he had also failed to protect.
Serrano…
Woods tried to swallow his fears as much as he could, looking straight before him…
…only to become aware that several others were accompanying Adrian Serrano, all looking down at him with blank expressions, all of whom had been killed in action between several points in time. Alex's wife was among the fallen, as well as half of the STARS that died at the hands of Perseus and Umbrella, people he had once grown close to and failed to protect and save. Memories of past battles were brought back to him, how each of them had died, the feelings of true helplessness consuming him as these harrowing memories went on, a deadly combination of tribulation and regret.
All he could do was stare in terror, trembling for the worst. The dead would surely come back alive to punish him - maybe even feast on his corpse once they were done with whatever they were going to do to him, and all there was left to do was to wait for the inevitable…
…then, something began to happen, like a specter emerging from the shadows among the living dead.
The light around them dimmed, wasting away into the darkness as the crowd of the dead faded out of existence. Alex was the only one who stood out through the surrounding shadows. He crouched next to him, his expression hardened, his gaze piercing through the darkness around them with an intensity that sent a chill down Woods' spine.
Alex spoke in a voice tinged with immense urgency, his words becoming a stark warning that cut through the silence like a sharp blade.
"Wake up, brother," he intoned, his voice resonating with a sense of foreboding. "You have to wake up."
Now!
The liminal space between illusion and reality suddenly shattered, his subconsciousness breaking from the ethereal realm and back into the real world where Woods now found himself, the echo of Mason's words still lingering in the depths of his mind.
Ugh… what the fuck…?
Getting a grip on his newfound consciousness was more challenging than he would've liked to admit, but he could not shake off the feeling that something was very amiss. The environment around him swam into focus through a haze of disorientation as he rapidly blinked his eyes to look at his surroundings.
Once his eyes met the grimy walls, he felt a dark puddle of murky water underneath him, realizing that he had landed deep inside the sewers on his stomach side. With a groan, Woods pushed himself up from the cold, damp ground, his muscles protesting the sudden movement with sharp pain across his whole body.
His senses suddenly sharpened with quick awareness, his eyes scanning the murky environment with wary vigilance. The acrid scent of sewage water hung heavy in the air, with each breath becoming a taste of putrid decay, mingling with the stale dampness permeating the narrow tunnels. However, his gut was telling him something very wrong was about to happen.
A dull ache throbbed at the base of his skull as he slowly panned his attention to the Remington he had acquired earlier that evening, which felt like ages now. Thankfully, it seemed intact after the fall, most likely due to him cushioning it using his whole body. Unfortunately for him, Gwen's gun was nowhere to be found as he took one last look at his surroundings, wondering where it had most likely fallen.
He cursed silently, glancing at the ceiling above him. It was so high up that he could barely make out where the earth had cracked open, the dark sky scarcely noticeable within the darkness of the sewers that hardly had any light to illuminate his immediate surroundings. With a steadying breath, Woods continued pushing himself to his feet, now trying to figure out where to go.
The long tunnel stretched over a hundred meters, its connected tunnels forming an unknown labyrinth of interconnected pathways that seemed to go on across the city's underground. There weren't any dead bodies to be found, at least not human corpses. Small carcasses of what seemed to be enlarged dead worms lay sprawled across the ground just several feet away from his current position. From the look of things, the t-Virus had also managed to infect the underground populace of arthropods, among other things he may not be aware of yet.
This triggered his senses to move his ass as quickly as possible as he did not want to wait and find out if a school of those large green worms was still around, waiting for their meal to come to them. Hunger was always a very deadly and dangerous driving force for any living thing, which also included the undead. There was no obvious ladder to climb back up to the surface, so he'd have to improvise, look for another way up, and pray to God that Jill would be fine on her own, especially with Perseus and Nemesis being right behind her heels…
…and then, there was the foreboding feeling again. This time, it became almost impossible to ignore—a subtle shift in the air, accompanied by a faint tremor beneath his feet. It quickly turned into a deep rumble, and the ground started to shake as it once did before. The dim lights of the sewers began to shimmer, and Woods struggled to keep himself balanced, worried that the earth would open itself up again.
As disorienting as trying to stay upright, he had a strange feeling that it wasn't just an ordinary earthquake. Only the lights around him reacted to its response as dust rained down over him, but nowhere else that was more than fifty meters away. The quake seemed to grow in magnitude, the walls around him moving through the violent shockwaves rippling across the stone ground with an unsettling intensity.
Oh shit…
Woods' instincts kicked into overdrive, his trained and enhanced senses honing in on the source of the disturbance with uncanny precision.
CRASH!
In a split-second decision born of survival instinct and the t-Virus' unique capabilities within his system, Woods veered to the side, narrowly avoiding the gaping maw of a massive creature that burst forth from the dead-end of an interconnected sewer tunnel. A new foul stench washed over him, a warm, humid scent of dirt and wet meat coming from the mouth of the carnivorous worm. (BGM #3 - The Grave Digger)
"Jesus! It never ends with these big-ass monsters!"
The rumbling ground continued to destabilize his balance as he tried his best to turn around the corner and watch the titan hybrid of maggot and lamprey eel, of waxworm and snake, retreating to a dark tunnel it had made itself through the thick concrete walls at the end of the alcove.
Fuck's sake! First, had to deal with a giant snake on the highest floor of a mansion. Now, a giant worm inside the sewers? Me and my fucking luck…
Further ahead, the long tunnel seemed clear, and he quickly decided to run for it and lure the large creature somewhere else where he could try to fight it in a bigger open space. Not that it seemed like he had better options for his environment, but if he were to stay where he was, he'd be easy prey, something he learned when battling the giant snake from the mansion's attic before. At least now, it would be much easier to deal with when carrying superhuman abilities he never had previously.
His body still ached from the heavy fall, a fall that someone his age would've typically proven fatal. Trying to put these thoughts aside, he kept his pace, adrenaline pumping fiercely within his veins as the intensifying rumbling structure was suddenly pushed into a fearsome roar. Ahead was a massive fountain of muddy white spewed from a body of flowing sewage water, blocking his path. A horrible bellowing followed after, a hissing bass note, and the enormous organism twisted five meters into the air, curving down suddenly in front of him, exposing its large mandibles that clicked and cried hunger.
"'Bout time you show your ugly self!" Woods shouted with a sudden determination to remove his mutant problem as he aimed the Remington at it. "Eat shit!"
One loud bang was enough to cut through its thick mandibles, piercing through the thick hide in a satisfying blast before he pumped another shell and fired at it again. The second wave of pellets forced the worm to vomit water and soil from its toothed maw as it swept its head toward him, screaming and hissing like the roar of an attacking crocodile.
Dammit! Forgot to reload this thing!
Woods spun and sprinted to the closest interconnected tunnel to his right, heart pounding as the worm thrashed forward for a quick gulp with its lashing appendages, missing him by inches. Managing to devise a quick plan through his lightning reflexes, he switched over to his M1911, executing his swift improvisations. He fired every remaining shot in his magazine, all with deadly precision, toward its moving body, right beside its bloated underbelly. Injuries like that could cause it to slow down, or at least that's what he was hoping for once he saw it bleeding some green-like substance, most likely the color of its blood.
The creature immediately carved another tunnel near its vicinity. It retreated inside the sewer walls once more, the tremors growing distant but immediately shaking with more intensity as the entire structure of the dimly lit sewers began to dance in a cacophony of dread and danger.
Woods barely had the time to move out of the confined space and reload his handgun before the wall in front of him burst open with immense ferocity that the impact was enough to throw him off-balance. Pieces of debris, which contained chunks of broken brick and concrete, scratched and bruised his limbs and parts of his face, but did not allow this to impede him from aiming the nine-millimeter through the raging pain and fire at the creature where he knew it'd hurt it most as he rolled back up on his feet again.
The first shots weren't enough to keep it at bay, even when its grotesque, tooth-layered mouth sprayed green blood. The fourth and fifth shots only managed to fuel its primal rage. Its razor-sharp mandibles began snapping dangerously close to Woods' flesh that somehow, out of pure survival instinct, he found himself parkouring using the narrow walls around him as leverage to jump higher than the width of the monster's body size, landing right on top of its fleshy mass, trying to hold a tight grip on its slimy body. The giant creature thrashed its head upward, forcing Woods to loosen his grip from its thick, grimy skin, but Woods refused to relent.
Let's see how tasty a C4 explosive is, shall we?
Having just remembered he had an explosive device with him, he was surprised to find that it hadn't taken any damage from the fall he had earlier, let alone having gone off as soon as he hit the sewer ground.
Still holding onto the thrashing and hissing animal, he did his best to reach its mouth and throw the C4 inside it, forgetting to ensure it had already been armed. He could shoot and kill it for good, even if it weren't.
Three seconds off the clock. Gotta jump!
His mind raced like clockwork, preparing for the inevitable as he let go and propelled himself backward, landing in a crouch just behind the enormous creature's end, close to the dark, musty tunnel it had made for itself. The worm hissed and screamed in a primal rage and frustration, immediately carving another hole in the ground, piercing through the tough concrete floor.
The ground shook violently, forcing Woods to find his footing as he anticipated a muffled explosion…
…but as the seconds passed, the C4 device did not do its work. Woods groaned heavily, gritting his teeth.
It's one thing after another. Fuck!
His superhuman senses tingled with his trained instincts, and in a swift dive forward, he barely managed to dodge the giant worm's maw from beneath the hard ground. As the mutated organism bellowed a loud hiss of madness before twisting its body to have its head facing Woods again, he saw the device still attached to one of its snapping mandibles; the timer completely malfunctioned.
"Alright, you filthy ass bastard," he said under the intense noise of the creature's rough screams, trying to aim at the thing's mouth. "Time for you to switch your diet to something a bit more spicy than me."
He missed the first shot, but the last bullet that remained in the chamber would be the last crusade of his struggles against the monster. The results were spectacular once the round pierced the explosive attached to its upper-left mandible. The explosive charge ignited with a deafening roar; the blast's wind of heat and sound rippled through the sewer tunnels with devastating force, sending Woods flying against the thick wall behind him with crippling pain. The giant creature's maw was engulfed in a fiery explosion, the concussive force tearing through its flesh, rending it asunder in a shower of debris and gore.
As the smoke cleared and the echoes of the explosion faded into the background silence of the sewers, Woods got back on his feet again, his back cracking painfully as he wiped the roasted, gelatinous mess on his face and clothing.
"Chew on that… You overgrown sonuva—agh!"
He looked down on himself, holding his hands at eye level, and saw them trembling uncontrollably. His veins on his hands were tingling with an increasing sensation of searing pain, causing him to fall on his knees as he tried to suppress it in vain…
…and flashing memories disturbed his vision.
"Doctor, we cannot develop a proper vaccine in time," a man said in the darkness of his memories at the hospital. "There's only so much we can do with him. If Umbrella or Perseus finds out we're—"
"I gave you the base ingredients for the synthesis, didn't I?" Another man said. "I don't pay you to be dicking around for your little seventh-grade science project you've got going on. Either you make me that damn vaccine now within the week or get the hell out of my goddamn hospital!"
"Yes, sir…"
Woods' pain slowly began to subside as soon as the flashing memories went away, but it was far from a comforting thought.
Before he could even assess the context of their brief conversation, he caught his reflection in a puddle of murky blood and water. Besides the mess he had across his face, he saw something odd about the color of his left eye's iris.
Huh…?
There was a barely noticeable thin shade of white and blue. Caressing his upper cheek before pulling it slightly downward, he tried to check and see if there was anything more worrisome. As far as he could tell from his distorted reflection, there wasn't much of anything else besides the color of his eye changing. Is it a sign that he is running out of time? Is the t-Virus already destroying him within? Could he already be turning into a monster?
It was also possible that the more his body healed, the more it slowly gave in to the terrible power of the t-Virus. If this were true, he'd have to be more careful when traversing the dangerous town of Raccoon.
On the other hand, it finally forced him to look in front of him. Seeing the monstrous creature lying lifelessly before him filled him with further motivation to find a way out and kill Gwen's murders. The giant worm had been reduced to little more than a smoldering heap of twisted flesh and shattered teeth.
I'll make sure to do the same to Perseus and Umbrella. Those fuckers will pay with their lives, even if it's the last thing I do before I succumb to the virus…
With a sense of grim satisfaction, he grew a vengeful smile as he stood up, reloading his M1911 with the last mag he had in his pack. One fierce pull on the gun's slide was all it took for him to forget about the physical and mental pain he had harbored previously, walking over the gory mess left behind by the worm itself, ignoring the horrible, acrid stench of roasted meat as he went on to find his way out of the city's sewer system.
The city was littered with corpses from the UBCS, RPD, and even their own. Very few civilians were found barely alive, but for those who had pled for help, they put them out of their misery.
While he still thought about his previous action against the young girl who didn't necessarily deserve to get shot, Obolensky held his firm demeanor, knowing that their job didn't allow any room for feelings of sorrow and regret. Gray probably knew he was still thinking about their brief skirmish from earlier but never decided to bring it up to him, which made Obolensky a lot happier that he'd chosen not to.
They stumbled upon the Ennerdale Parking Garage's facade after navigating through an alleyway and into Warren St. A car and woodwork barricade completely blocked off the whole street ahead, so they had no choice but to go through the parking garage and hope no more barricades were blocking the surrounding streets. The Nemesis Prototype was on the move, and they had no time to waste. Failure to observe its combat against the STARS was something even Gray did not want to find out, should Kravchenko decide to punish both of them for their lack of competence—predictable man, but no less trouble either.
"After you, mate," Gray muttered, gesturing at the door to the garage in front of them.
"How chivalrous," Obolensky stated blankly, already turning the handle.
Bam! Bam!
The sudden echo of gunfire immediately jolted the pair of Perseus agents from their reverie of sarcasm. Two gunshots were heard inside, followed by a dog briefly whimpering. Obolensky's senses felt sharpened in an instant, his eyes narrowing with Gray's as they exchanged a wordless glance of concern.
Gray broke eye contact with him, and just less than a second later, he pointed at the barricade next to the RPD building across the street, over the top of a crashed shuttle bus.
"Go-go!" he whispered loud enough for Obolensky to hear, nodding in understanding.
Without hesitating, the pair quickly scrambled to conceal themselves as silently as they could, clambering on top of the crashed bus, which made its own street barricade. Obolensky's heart pounded with each step and grip, being able to hear someone cursing inside the garage as they neared the exit.
Once the pair reached the top of the barricade, they crouched low; their breath now held in anticipation as they waited for whoever was inside the desolate building. Their vantage point was the perfect place for them as it offered a commanding view of the desolate cityscape below the street in front of them without anyone being able to see them just as easily.
As minutes began to stretch into eternity and lay in wait, Obolsenky turned his head to the left for a quick view of the city's low skyline. There was this foreboding feeling he could not explain. The buildings in the distance gave him the creeps. Something about them did not seem right, and although he never called this place his "home," it was depressing to see a city like this turn into barren ruins, a town that was just like any ordinary one, even back from his home country when the USSR had still been active.
He immediately shook his head, trying his best not to feel anything—to kill his remaining emotion for an American city. The Americans deserved it - Umbrella deserved it; everyone here did.
But not the girl…
And just as he was about to punch himself in the face, a figure finally emerged from the parking garage—a lone UBCS member, his features vaguely visible through the dim overhead lights around him. He didn't seem bitten, let alone injured, but he was panting as though he had just run a marathon - or possibly as a result of being almost scared to death.
Obolensky and Gray exchanged a wary glance, silently urging one another to practice extreme caution as they observed their newcomer's movements. With silent determination, the pair stayed hidden atop the barricade. Obolensky's senses remained on high alert as they waited to assess the situation before making their next move to see if the UBCS mercenary was of any real threat.
"They're coming… they're coming…" the soldier gasped nervously as he turned to face the door before quickly repeating something that intrigued Obolensky. "Watchdogs… Watchdogs and Perseus… Perseus… They're coming… They know… They know I—"
BAM!
The mercenary screamed in agony as a shot from a nine-millimeter had torn through his lower right leg, incapacitating the UBCS grunt. Blood was seeping through his clothing in large quantities as the soldier tried his best to shoot at his unknown assailant before another precise shot on the gun itself quickly disarmed him completely. The weapon clattered against the wide barricade blocking the street before another figure to their right appeared. It was another of their fellow Perseus members, though they couldn't tell exactly who they were as his uniform covered most of his features, including most of his face.
"You have something that doesn't belong to you…" he said lowly, his voice not sounding familiar to the hidden duo. His pistol was aimed directly at his chest. "Your dead buddy wouldn't want you to be putting your nose in other people's business, would he?"
The mercenary simply grunted as he shook his head in disdain, gritting his teeth.
"Y-y-you killed them all…" he growled. "Perseus… Hennings… and Nikolai… All of you are responsible for that entire initial massacre! You and the Umbrella higher-ups are all—"
"NOT ANOTHER FUCKING WORD!" their fellow agent barked at him, now holding his firearm with both hands, firmly putting the barrel of the gun on his forehead. "Give me that journal now, or—"
"Or else, what?!" the mercenary cut him off furiously, smiling and swallowing defiantly. "Kill me? Just like how you killed everyone else back there? I know your kind - enough to know that you'll still do it even if I try to hand it over."
There was a moment of tense silence, and their Perseus teammate slowly put down his aim as he craned his head to the side, apparently thinking to himself.
"You're right…"
A split-second later, he immediately shot the lone UBCS mercenary in the head, his brains splattering against the barricade and the asphalt, killing him instantly. Another pair of bullets were also sunk inside the guy's chest in a potential act of vengeful anger rather than making sure that he was completely dead.
Obolensky was used to this type of violence - he had even done it himself, after all. However, seeing someone else commit that same level of violence hit him differently, especially against the living in times like this, and for a moment, he lost himself in thought about the atrocities he had helped do in all of his life, thinking of his actions against a young girl that had a high resemblance to that of his own sister…
…until his attention was quickly wavered by the garage door suddenly shoved violently, and a new encore was at play.
What we have here…
Captain Mikhail Viktor, leader of UBCS Delta Platoon, showed up. He had heard about Viktor using his military expertise to join a Russian rebel group that Perseus had seen initially as rivals but never worked out for them. Most of the rebels were persecuted, save for a minority, who were saved through an amnesty deal by a then-unknown organization at the time, the Umbrella Corporation. Seeing him within their ranks was no surprise, but he thought they would've kept him as part of their security service instead of their biohazard countermeasure service.
He didn't seem to be in good shape, though. His abdomen was covered in crimson red, blood seeping and dripping on the ground as he tried holding himself together once he now found himself face to face with the other Perseus agent, looking somewhat surprised.
Viktor pulled his aim forward with the M4 carbine but was immediately stopped by the other agent with a swift kick to the chest. Viktor grunted in pain as his back hit the back door with a fierce slam, unable to defend himself with what must be an agonizing moment for him.
As he vainly crawled over to try and pick up his fallen rifle, the other agent quickly snatched it away from him, to which Viktor cursed at him as he now lay upright beside the back door of the parking garage. He searched for his sidearm for a fleeting moment, only to realize he did not have it with him once he noticed that the Perseus agent had it on him.
"Mikhail Viktor…" the agent spoke coldly and steadily, cocking his own sidearm against him. "You killed my friends. You should've died at the siege… Any last words?"
The Delta Platoon leader spit on him in defiance. There was some sense of admiration that Obolensky began to feel about him. Gravely injured with no way of escape, and yet he still held himself firm, refusing to bow down like a good pup.
"You're all fucking monsters… bunch of murderers!" Viktor rasped as he coughed up blood. "I have no regrets… for what I've done to any of them."
"Enough said," the Perseus agent muttered. "Your life is at its end. No survivors."
For a quick moment, Obolensky thought of intervening to stop their fellow agent and at least be able to use Viktor as a bargaining chip for their commander…
…but the thought was immediately erased the moment Nikolai decided to show up at the best and worst timing yet, and the two of them quickly engaged in a fight to the death, sending themselves back inside the parking garage, where the hidden duo could barely see what was going on.
"The fuck does that eejit thinks he's doin'?" Gray whispered angrily and was about to intervene himself before Obolesky immediately shut him down, pulling him over.
"Our orders are to observe and not interfere, remember?" Obolensky said condescendingly, almost bringing up a smile for finally using Gray's own words against him.
There was a soft smack on his lips, staring at Obelensky with bloodlusted madness - something that he was sure he had also seen in himself. A few seconds later, he slowly panned his head forward, now crouched down again as he continued to observe the ongoing situation in front of them.
Yeah, good boy, Gray. Not so easy following orders when you know something's amiss, right?
After about a whole minute, the struggle finally stopped.
Gray and Obolensky couldn't see much inside the parking garage, but considering Viktor's reaction once he asked if Nikolai was all right, Gray shook his head silently.
"So much for trustin' a grunt like him," Gray muttered in a low groan. "The commander is not gonna like this…"
"Does he ever?" replied Obolensky. "Unless you're some miss goody-two-shoes, nothing much satisfies him. And even then…"
"Sh!" Gray hushed him quickly, nudging his head to their right. "Someone's comin'."
From within the darkness, a slim figure moved swiftly and cautiously, their calculated movements describing them as someone who knew how to watch their backs properly. The due moved into prone positions, laying motionless as the figure stopped for several seconds, seemingly scanning around the destroyed environment.
Their light footsteps suddenly crunched the broken debris near the crashed bus, now in front of the closed parking garage door. Obolensky took a quick peek at who it was and saw the familiar face he'd seen earlier that hour, looking at her firearm before closing her eyes and sighing, nodding to herself in the process.
Miss Valentine…
Didn't she go back with Woods and that other girl? Where are they?
Without a sound, Obolensky moved slightly closer and began to watch Jill slowly entering the garage before immediately telling Nikolai and Mikhail to identify themselves. After their little brief altercation, it seemed as though Nikolai was willing to work with the STARS cop, most likely to deceive her and hide his true colors, but the fact that he had indeed killed one of their own made things a little… complicated—and more to Obolensky's favor as well.
Regardless of the reasons why, he could be my key to…
It was a tempting thought, but he couldn't dance around the idea of betraying Kravchenko as that would mean he'd be turning against Perseus itself, a place he felt he had more respect than almost any other. However, that quickly ended the moment Adler killed their previous commander, and it wasn't just Adler that he blamed for Perseus' eventual decline from its former glory.
It was Kravchenko and himself…
He was supposed to be their next commander, but Kravchenko ruined that chance for him. Over time, he thought about taking his place on the throne but never decided to step up to that position. He feared that he'd expose his mental struggles toward everyone under his command. He'd been ashamed of his fragmented mind, struggling to live with it for seventeen years, from Adler's tight grip of control, even after those three months of mindlessly doing what he'd told him to do.
But now…
He could use Nikolai's thirst to kill to his advantage, maybe even try to play with him and pretend that Kravchenko had given him orders to tell Nikolai what to do in certain situations where he could benefit the most. He knew their commander wouldn't tell him much directly through the radio, so even if Nikolai was skeptical, he could still try to tell a very convincing story. Either that or…
"Okay, that should stop the bleeding for now," Jill's voice flew out from inside the garage after a few minutes of asking questions and tending to Mikhail's wounds. "I have to go look for my partner in the meantime."
"Who is it, exactly?" Nikolai was heard inquiring. "That's if you don't mind me asking - of course."
"Someone else from STARS," she said simply, clearly hiding the fact that it was Woods who had been alive after all this time, though she gave no hint of the girl either, possibly indicating that she had died of her mortal wound, making Obolensky slightly shake in guilt. "Try not to make him move much, and I'll be back for more help as soon as I can, all right? If I don't make it, well…"
"Go on ahead. The captain will be in very good hands," Nikolai reassured her, though it was most likely a facade rather than genuine reassurance.
Jill never bothered to head back but instead moved further inside the building, and with Mikhail and Nikolai staying behind, they were essentially obstacles in their path. At this rate, they wouldn't reach Jill or the Nemesis in time for them to observe them in another fight.
"Should we—?"
"No," Obolensky cut his comrade off. He was trying his best to resist the urge to go back and look for Woods himself but quickly realized that he should be playing his cards right from now on, saving his vengeance for later. "It'll be slower, but we could still move through the barricade without being seen. Come on."
As the two moved over to the extended barricade on top of the crashed bus, Obolensky couldn't help but smile.
Maybe his time in Raccoon City wasn't as random as he thought it would've been…
…and it would be a miracle come true if he could use this whole mess to bring himself to his righteous spot within Perseus and change everything for the better.
Everything was according to plan, much like everything else within the past week after the initial outbreak. Kravchenko was still wondering how anybody could have communicated with anyone outside the city once his comms tracker detected an active signal coming from Burger Town. Not that it mattered, anyway. Even if they had given critical information to anyone in the outside world, none of them would come out of this alive in the end.
Russell Adler and his blind-driven protege, Lawrence Sims, were now under Kravchenko's mercy, something they have had coming for a very long time. Years of evasion could only get them so far, and Perseus had always mastered the art of capturing their enemies, no matter how long they tried to run or hide from them. Umbrella never had this exuberant luxury, which was why they needed someone like Perseus, someone like him. Yet, even now, they never knew who they'd been dealing with, who Lev Kravchenko really was as a soldier, as a man who knew the goods better than they did themselves. Not even Adler or Sims themselves had any idea of his true self…
Kravchenko was now standing over the CIA duo, the operatives that had given him more trouble than they were really worth. He had his men tie them up with thick ropes that they'd found lying near the construction site nearby, and both of the agents were sitting upright next to the restroom doors of the far corner of the American restaurant. They were mostly silent, like a good pair of obedient dogs, only leering back at him with immense distaste he knew they must've been feeling for how dumb and cocky they'd been acting previously. If he wanted to, he could give his men the order to kill them or point his gun and shoot at them both himself, but first, he wanted some answers before any BOWs outside managed to ruin their little family reunion. Time was of the essence.
He turned his head sideways to face the restrained Hispanic-looking kid, with the remains of his last remaining unit still holding him hostage. As he observed the young UBCS mercenary with a keen eye of curiosity, something began to flicker in the back of his mind. There was something vaguely familiar about his face as Kravchenko began to step closer to him, noticing a hint of connection within the edges of his memory. He studied the younger soldier calculatingly, quietly trying to place the puzzle pieces together of the familiarity behind his confused and defiant gaze…
Ah!
It was like an instant bolt of lightning, his jarring memory finally giving him the revelation he sought to remember and comprehend.
"You…" Kravchenko's voice rumbled in a faded echo of cold acknowledgment, his gaze piercing through the layers of time within the man's eyes. "Operation: Mad Jackal… Sound anything familiar? — No?" The younger man merely looked at him nonplussed, and for a brief moment, Kravchenko saw a glint of both surprise and acknowledgment within the kid's deep gaze before slowly shaking his head, a noticeable hint of someone lying to him. However, Kravchenko grew a broad smile, deciding to go along with his charade of bewilderment. "Amparo, Brazil, if I'm not mistaken. The States caught wind of Javier Hidalgo's activities within the region. They tried to have someone else do their dirty work under the guise of crippling the Sacred Snakes, but instead…" Kravchenko leaned closer to the younger man's face as the mercenary tried swaying his head away from his deadly gaze. "They somehow knew that the high-ranking member within the cartel just so happens to have been one of my own inside their inner circle, and that was the day when Umbrella found out who you really were… Carlos Oliveira."
"W-what?" Carlos gasped in shock, and Kravchenko's smile widened with tremendous satisfaction as he stepped back and slowly turned his back to face the other duo.
"No need to worry. I had planned on getting rid of that bitch for a very long time. Thanks to you, however…" Kravchenko responded coldheartedly, his head now half turned to face him with his only eye. "She is no longer part of the equation."
Carlos glowered at him silently as Kravchenko pivoted his gaze toward the other captives before him, his lips curled in a vicious smirk. From behind, he heard the younger man muttering softly in Spanish, not necessarily caring what he had to say in his native language anyway.
The operation that took place in Amparo was never known to anyone until he had Kitsune hack into one of Umbrella's labs closest to the region, revealing the details they had acquired behind the United States' back. Umbrella had tried backstabbing Kravchenko and his organization in the back, letting the entire operation play out without interference. Even though Wraith had been a thorn in his side for quite some time, this final action had officially become the tipping point to his superficial relationship with Umbrella, leading him to plan a way to destroy them however he could, starting with Dr. Birkin's assassination.
It was a poetic vengeance against Umbrella. Birkin had planned to turn against them by delivering virus samples to the US government. Still, getting rid of him completely sealed any chances for Umbrella to salvage what they could before forcefully escorting him to their headquarters alive.
Smiling at the thoughts lingering inside his mind, Kravchenko wasted no time taunting the pair before him, who kept their expressions with unwavering defiance.
"As for you two," he started. "Attempting to dance on the edge of my empire without consequence is something I cannot allow to withstand. But first, tell me… What brought you here to willingly risk your miserable lives within a corporation that cares little about jarheads like you?"
Adler lowered his head, and a moment later, he began to chuckle, shaking his head before facing him as though this whole thing was just a game to him.
"You're one to talk," he laughed, his steely gaze boring directly into Kravchenko. "You said it yourself - you couldn't care less about your own that got themselves killed by him," - he nudged his head past him, looking back in Carlos' direction for a moment - "So much for a 'Greater Russia' when you can't even keep your own men under control."
These words struck a nerve inside him, and his insides felt contorted with a flash of seething rage. Within the silence now lingering inside the room, he signaled one of his men to proceed to give him what he deserved. Several steps later, a resounding crack was heard as his henchman struck Adler across his hideous, scarred face. The air of the ruined restaurant trembled with impact, and a bead of blood trickled down Adler's split lip.
Kravchenko stepped closer to him, crouching down in a mixture of anger and satisfaction as he sensed Sims' restrained fury, straining against his restraints in a foolish attempt to intervene. Carlos behind him had also tried doing the same, but his men were still holding him in place as he was forced on his knees before getting a direct hit in the gut by one of them, grunting softly.
With his rage still unabated, Kravchenko glared back at Adler. "I know you Americans love to play the tough guy, but I've got no time to play games with anybody." He began to point a finger at him, waving it in rhythm for a moment as he continued to talk. "You are here - because you were sent to clean up the mess you left behind when you and your team spared Bell's life… Was it out of pity? Remorse? Sympathy?" He slowly shook his head in disdain as he stood up, almost feeling repulsed just by saying the words out loud. "How weak…"
"At least he has a beating heart," Sims uttered defiantly with cynical calmness, his half-hidden gaze adding another layer of defiance against him. "But you… you're nothing more than a hollowed human shell, just like the rest of those mindless freaks out there."
Kravchenko stood still, glaring down at him, thinking what to do with him and the rest of them. They were too soft to understand how to control the emotions of the weak - too arrogant to overcome their own bubble of safety and insecurities. Much like the STARS, they were merely living examples of the West's spawns of corruption. Its insidious influence had rendered these once formidable foes even more malleable, at best. The erosion of their true strength had never been as evident as now.
Carlos was no different. He, too, seemed to carry the weight of a weakened spirit after he'd been able to study him further, a man whose resolve had been stripped down to dust once he'd found the truth of the very forces he thought he served for the greater good.
All of their feeble gestures were futile against the inexorable reach of Perseus itself, curling his lips into a deep smile, giving him one final thought on dealing with all of them before continuing his trip to his previous destination.
Could grab Sims and execute him in front of his other buddies before doing the same with Oliveira - to teach Adler some suitable life lessons for the consequences of his actions…
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The distant staccato of gunfire pierced the stagnant air, interrupting Kravchenko's train of thought.
In response, he instinctively turned his gaze towards the source of the disturbance through the broken windows on his far left, making the Perseus leader somewhat unsettled from an unforeseen variable within his own expectations. At the same time, however, it could've also been Bell and Knight trying to shoot off any stragglers within the area. This also meant that other survivors wouldn't be far from their location if they were nearby, let alone the Nemesis Prototype they were assigned to observe. It was a myriad of concerning possibilities, but he still held a firm demeanor despite the odds.
Can't afford any risks.
Without uttering a word, Kravchenko motioned two of his men as they prepared to investigate the commotion outside, their loyalty resolute. In the ominous silence that followed, the clatter of boots against the debris within the dilapidated restaurant resonated like hollow drumbeats as they approached the main doors at the front entrance.
As his operatives ventured out into the abandoned streets of Raccoon, Kravchenko's gaze shifted back to the only operative he had left within the building, motioning him to move Carlos next to the other duo that had been kneeled, bound by ropes around their hands and ankles tied close together. The younger mercenary wasn't tied around his ankles, so Kravchenko had his only other minion to stay put with him as he held Carlos in place.
"Stop right there, you son of a—!"
One of his men had shouted before immediately being cut off by gunfire, the shots almost too close to their location to ignore it as something like a diminutive threat. Kravchenko's eyes narrowed across the origin of the ongoing firefight, his instincts sharpening as he registered the intensity of the battle that was going on outside of the dining room itself. There wasn't much to see as the broken windows barely had much to offer from the hidden view of the street itself.
The chaotic exchange of gunfire continued to echo within the walls of the derelict dining room, punctuated by hurried footsteps and the muffled sounds of a struggle between them and what seemed to be like one other survivor…
…and as abruptly as it had begun, the battle subsided, leaving behind an unusual silence.
In the back of his mind, Kravchenko knew that his idiotic men did not seem to have dealt with the immediate threat completely, as none of them appeared to come back, forcing him to do the rest of the work himself.
With his gun poised and senses highly alerted, Kravchenko surveyed the room with a predatory intensity. Unfazed by the recent upheaval, the Perseus leader commanded with a terse authority toward his remaining henchman inside.
"Guard them," he growled, his gaze fixed on the main doors and the broken windows.
It only took several calculated steps before the doors creaked open. A sense of urgency stirred within Kravchenko, and without hesitation, he unleashed a barrage of gunfire, aiming to eliminate the unseen threat that dared to encroach upon his domain. The burst of gunfire echoed within the restaurant; the muzzle flashes illuminating the darkness around them…
…and the doors were now suddenly motionless, filled with bullet holes of his own weapon. Years of experience on the battlefields of death had told him to keep his guard up. The shots may not have killed or injured whoever was on the other side. If it were any other of the UBCS or anyone else from STARS, they'd know better than to deal with him outright.
Unless they're just as stupid as…
A sudden figure leaped through one of the broken windows, agile and elusive. In the dim light, Kravchenko immediately caught a glimpse of the assailant, a silhouette veiled in shadows, wielding a weapon with deadly intent.
Bullets whizzed through the air once again, narrowly missing Kravchenko as he instinctively sought cover, the shots tearing through the remains of the destroyed restaurant's interior. The immediate exchange of gunfire between his last remaining agent and the assailant polluted the room with heated intensity, letting his henchman pull off the work to get rid of the nuisance that had come to interrupt his interrogation of the miserable good-for-nothing soldiers…
…but the damn idiot from the last surviving unit downtown suffered the same shameful defeat against the lone survivor. A precise shot found its mark between his exposed eyes, silencing the henchman brutally, something that was robbed from Kravchenko for the punishment he had in mind for his failure to do what needed to be done.
Finding himself alone yet undeterred, Kravchenko assessed the situation with a calculated gaze, trying to study the shadow of the person he quickly knew the moment he'd seen the young woman's face.
"Miss Valentine…" he uttered, followed by a quick chuckle of amusement and annoyance. "Very commendable to be showing up alive when such creature is out there begging to see you."
"Says you," Jill responded condescendingly. "And killing an innocent teenager? You and your pitiful soldiers are the real monsters!"
Kravchenko smiled widely as he took himself out of cover and fired back in her direction, forcing the young woman to hide on the other side of a thick barrier that separated them both near the destroyed booths.
"There is no such thing as innocence," he retorted coldly. "It's a mere delusion of the weak to allow themselves to dance around the idea of safety and security. My men have orders to cleanse the city from said delusion. Truly, no one is spared - not even you, Miss Valentine."
There was a brief silence. None of them spoke for quite some time until he heard one of the tied-up group of bastards that he'd almost forgotten they were there with him.
"Christ… You are one heartless sonuvabitch," Sims uttered beneath his breath.
When Kravchenko turned to look back at him, he quickly noticed only two of them were there before immediately realizing the turn of events when it was too late.
Kravchenko found himself disarmed with a powerful, swift kick from behind on his right side, followed by his only eye widening fractionally just as solid arms closed around him in a chokehold from behind, forcing him to stand. Shock and indignance cut through his calculated demeanor, disrupting the veneer of control that defined him as the fearless Perseus leader that he was. As the realization dawned on him, his eye narrowed, a surge of anger coursing through his veins as he felt the unrelenting strength of the young Hispanic. His initial surprise gave away to a twinge of annoyance, the cruel sensation of being momentarily trapped by an opponent he had mistakenly underestimated.
"GO! RUN!" the young soldier yelled at the STARS cop in front of them, allowing her to escape his grasp again.
No!
Jill seemed to hesitate briefly before nodding and dashing away to the back of the restaurant, quickly disappearing on the other side.
Rage and immense turmoil consumed Kravchenko, feeling the powerful tendrils of hate and disdain…
…until the door at the back collapsed and disintegrated from the power of a creature that began to transform his fury into a bliss of amusement.
"SSTAARRSS!"
"Que carajos…?" Carlos expressed in Spanish.
"The hell…?" Adler said in an almost inaudible mutter, followed by Jill's sudden scream of shock and terror.
"You again?!"
The timing couldn't have been any more perfect. The Nemesis Prototype was finally here to deal with the nuisance his men couldn't handle earlier. He couldn't help but laugh once he heard the cop scream, making him feel a powerful dose of elation over the misery of his enemies.
Kravchenko used the opportunity to capitalize on the distraction that the Nemesis was causing, utilizing a combination of leverage and a quick twist on Carlos' loosened grip, executing a deft maneuver that left the UBCS soldier off-balance. The instinctive finesse honed through years of covert operations allowed him to slip from his grasp, grabbing his fallen gun as he made his quick escape out of the restaurant, which was now going to be the final resting place for the rest of them inside.
None have the skills required to kill an obedient terminator machine like the Nemesis. None will survive against it.
Ever the strategist, he grew hopeful that the Nemesis would mete its own brand of justice with the obstacles in its wake. As he navigated the street littered with bodies of his shameful unit wiped out by someone as young as Miss Valentine, he began to make his plans to meet up with Knight and Marauder, both of whom were the only ones left alive within this part of the city as far as he knew. It was likely that they could quickly turn on him, especially Obolensky, but even if he's already plotted something against him, he'll have another thing coming for him.
With an unwavering smirk, he continued through an alleyway to the right, almost wishing they'd be dumb enough to dare to cross him.
Author's Note: This chapter was a bit of a pain to do. Not only due to writer's block and all, but the damn human verification thing is so broken, it unsaves my revision progress every time I click "save" the first three times. I should just stick to Google Docs from now on, but sometimes, it makes me miscalculate the formatting between there and this site's.
Forgive me for the lack of upload last month. I fell into a semi-state of laziness throughout January, but I have been actively working on this chapter and the next throughout this month, even with the bit of time I have left to spare throughout the weekdays. I tried to get the next chapter ready to be uploaded following this one, but it still needs some work. Hopefully, the next upload later in March will be two chapters instead of just one, at least to make up for missing a chapter upload last month. Again, sorry about that!
Review Responses:
Guest - I'm glad you like Bell's iteration in this one. It is pretty much how I also imagined him being, so I'm happy to see someone else think the same way I do about him. And thanks, man. Greatly appreciate the concern.
am6231291 - I'll always remember my cat, Hershey, but I try my best to move on. Playing with my friends and writing this crossover are some things I find very helpful in dealing with that loss as well. After all, I technically had another hiatus last month, so there's that, hahaha, but I am definitely back on track now. I greatly appreciate the concern.
Krieger Techpreist - Yep! Glad you caught that! :3
Thank you all so much for your patience! And I hope I get to see you all next month, and if not, well... I can promise you one thing...
I will NEVER think of abandoning this fic for good, even if it takes me multiple years to finish it.
Have a good rest of your day!