October 1st 00:45am
LOCATION: Spencer Memorial Hospital
Authors Note: There's Quite a bit of Russian Dialogue in this chapter- Translations will be at the end of the Chapter.
They follow the walk way into a large warehouse filled with shipping containers and lorries, the red and white Umbrella logo decorated almost every piece of equipment
"Going down?" Natasha asked as she came across a control console for the floor lift that would take them under the hospital, she wondered how far down it went.
Jill pulled the leaver and the section of the floor beneath them started descending into the earth.
The floor lift brought them down to and even larger warehouse underneath the hospital,
Jill wondered why they needed all this heavy shipping equipment?
"How is it nobody in the hospital noticed all this?" Jill asked Natasha, who she could tell was very interested in the heavy cargo shipping operation-
"Most people are too accustomed to not ask questions, I imagine those that did get too curious were taken care of"
Neither of them doubted that Umbrella wouldn't hesitate to silence anybody that got too inquisitive in their operations.
A scissor lift in the warehouse takes them up to a walkway which they follow for a while until they find another larger warehouse 'Likely the hub for the Shipping operation'.
Jill made a small gasping noise as she looked over to a set of observation windows and at the sinister figure watching them,
Jill jumped out of her skin as Natasha loudly discharged her gun several times towards Nikolai, unfortunately for her -and lucky for him the glass was bullet proof
"ублюдок" Natasha loudly hissed in Russian,
Nikolai laughed, but Jill couldn't speak Russian so she had no idea what was being said.
However, she really didn't like the way he was watching them, like he didn't have a care in the world.
They both leapt off of the walkway and made their way towards the lift that would take them up to where Nikolai was lurking,
Before Jill can press the button the entire power supply shorted out with a loud explosion of sparks and suddenly they were bathed in darkness.
"He shorted out the power to the lift" Natasha stated as she looked up with her flash light to see if there was a way she could grapple up, but thick steel shutters kept her out, she wished that she still had some of her powerful explosives
"I must admit, I respect both of your tenacity, but our games end here!" Nikolai spoke over the loud speakers.
Jill checked the burnt-out fuse box next to the lift, every single fuse had blown-
"Fuck you think this is over!?" Jill yelled whilst Natasha walked back into the view of the observation windows
"We're not the one's playing games Nikolai. Look- as much as I would love to get mixed up in your bullshit, I'm on a very tight deadline"
She intended to give him one chance, she knew it was futile, but she reminded herself that it's what Cap would do.
"We all have our Objectives Ms Romanoff and I'm afraid yours opposes mine"
Natasha nodded she'd been expecting such a response, she rolled her eyes as she switched to her native tongue
"Надеюсь, полковник Владимир сказал вам, что я неумолимая женщина "
Jill shook her head,
She wished Black Widow would stop doing that, she didn't speak Russian and she didn't like it when she didn't know what was being said
"Интересно, собака Дрейкова кусается так же сильно, как лает" Nikolai stated with a smirk and Natasha is able to duck away just in time as a Zombie dog lunged towards her,
Natasha flipped in to the air narrowly avoiding the jaws of the undead canine,
Jill fired with her shotgun unloading several rounds into the undead creature until it dropped.
Natasha glared up at Nikolai who was smirking down at her,
The very mention of her former Red Room master caused a fire to flare inside of her, but she really didn't have time to play games with him all night, they needed to find some replacement fuses-
"Natasha, let's go" Jill whispered,
She could feel the anger radiating off of the red head, although she didn't speak Russian she recognised a name 'Dreykov was it?' whoever they were the name got a visual reaction out of her.
Natasha straightened from her crouched position
"Right, there should be some extra fuses around" They ventured further into the dark warehouse, neither of them really wanted to play 'find the fuse' but at this point they had no other option.
From the looks of the containers and equipment around them it looked like they were trying to get this cargo moved out as quickly a possible-
"I wonder what all these containers are for?" Jill stated and then immediately realised as Black Widow gave her a blank stare
"They're for the B.O.W's" Jill corrected herself, but still where were they moving them to? She supposed a mystery for another day.
They find the first fuse in a panel on the nearest walkway,
They squeeze through what at first looked like a dead end, but the two women were able to squeeze through the small gap in the stacking of the containers.
All of a sudden, the locks on one of the containers hisses and the entire front section of the shipping unlocked revealing a group of Zombies inside.
Jill and Natasha make quick work of the horde, Black Widow pulls out the next fuse when suddenly another container coincidently unlocks revealing several 'Hunter Gamma's' inside
"Oh come on!" Jill hissed as she reloaded her grenade launcher as Natasha fired at the B.O.W's with her assault rifle,
For their sake she hoped that not every single container held more
"Damn" Jill mumbled as the Hunter Gamma loudly expired-
"I suppose the outbreak started before Umbrella could finish shipping the B.O.W's out"
It seemed like a huge inconvenience to transport 'living' Bio-weapons when surly at the first sight of trouble, it would have made more sense for Umbrella to destroy the B.O.W's then start all over again.
Natasha suspected that they were being prepared to be transported to a buyer,
Ironically the outbreak in Raccoon City could prove excellent PR for Umbrella if they played it right, and that worried Natasha a lot-
The whole world had seen the destructive power of the T-Virus and Black Widow knew better than most of the evil that existed in the world that would pay anything to get their hands on the deadly virus.
Suddenly a container dropped from above causing both of them to jump backwards, fortunately it was empty.
Jill sighed in annoyance, what was Nikolai's objective? Why was he so adamant to make sure that they didn't get any further?
"Natasha" Jill whispered as they climbed the stairs back up to the walkway to avoid any further falling shipping containers
"What's up?" she asked
"It's just- somethings been bugging me. When Nikolai left me and Mikhail to die on the train he told me 'that it wasn't after him' like he knew, that he'd been watching it" Natasha looked back at Jill, she could tell that the S.T.A.R.S officer was still pissed about what had happened in the subway,
"I saw him again after I was infected, he laughed and told me that I'd done him a favour"
Jill shook her head at the memory, she had been so content to die at that moment and yet here she stood, alive and well thanks to Carlos and Natasha,
"I'm sorry that must have been awful" Natasha stated as she thought about what she would have done in Jill's situation,
"Mikhail was going to confront Nikolai, then the creature attacked it killed all the civilians. Mikhail sacrificed himself so that I could get away"
Natasha sighed, perhaps she had been wrong to judge Mikhail so quickly, true he'd known about Umbrella engineering the B.O.W's, but at least he'd been trying to set things right-
"The only thing we can do now Jill is to respect that sacrifice with moving forward" Jill nodded, it still didn't feel right.
Natasha noticed the drop in Jill's expression, it was a look she knew all too well.
She placed her hand on Jill's shoulder "Listen to me- it's important. None of it is your fault, so don't even consider otherwise for a second, if it hadn't been the creature then I hardly doubt that the likes of Nikolai would have allowed the train to make it to its destination"
What Natasha was trying to say was that the subway train was fucked to begin with.
Natasha knew how it felt to feel like you had to bear the weight of the world, but she wasn't going to allow anyone to feel that guilt,
She was aware of how ironic it was that she was quick to relieve others of the burden, but would never accept that piece of advice for herself,
"Thanks, it still kind of sucks" Natasha smirked as she released her grip on Jill's shoulder
"Would it help to know that I'm going to kill Nikolai when I get the chance?"
Jill shrugged and smiled a little "Maybe a little".
They cut through one of the storage rooms that would act as a short cut, unfortunately it was also full of Zombies which wouldn't have been an issue, if one of the Zombies wasn't something they had encountered before.
It only now resembled a human in shape any other defining characteristics were long gone
"It's bullet proof" Jill stated as the deathly white figure edged towards them.
Natasha fired at it with her Widow's Bites keeping it pinned whilst Jill unloaded her shotgun until the 'White Zombie' dropped.
Jill wondered how Umbrella had gotten their hands on so many people to infect without the police paying too much attention, she suspected Brian Irons was mainly to blame for that,
How could so many people be persuaded to look the other way when they knew that these terrible things were happening?
Of course Jill knew the answer to that, money; and Umbrella seemed to have an endless supply of it-
"Last Fuse" Natasha whispered as she pulled the fuse out of the breaker causing the red emergency lights to flicker on,
"Lets go".
They unlock a door back in the storage room that takes them back to the way they came in.
The warehouse was entirely dark now, the growling and moaning in the darkness made Natasha's skin crawl, it also alerted her that they were definitely not alone.
Natasha looked back up to the observation windows, but it was so dark that she couldn't even see Nikolai up there anymore, they jumped down off of the walkway where the undead waited for them.
"You play electrician, I'll take care of them" she threw Jill the fuses and began firing at the Zombies with her Glocks.
Her bullets had little to no effect on the new 'White Zombie' variant, as it lunged towards her,
She pulled a grenade from her belt and forced it inside the Zombies open mouth, she pulled out the pin and shoved the Zombie across the room where its head exploded into pieces
"Come on Natasha lets go!" Jill yelled as she finished installing the fuses restoring power to the lift.
Black Widow began to walk backwards to the lift as she took out the remaining undead with her assault rifle, one of the Zombies had the parasite from the creature latched onto it,
Jill immediately shot at it with her new Magnum.
Jill was curious at what had happened to that creature, the thing that had been hunting her relentlessly.
Natasha hadn't said anything about encountering it anymore, but Jill doubted that she'd seen the last of it.
Natasha punched the button to the lift, as they started to ascend, she restocked the ammo in her Glocks in anticipation of a long overdue ass kicking.
Translations:
ублюдок [ubludoc] - Bastard
Надеюсь, полковник Владимир сказал вам, что я неумолимая женщина [nadeyus, polkovnik vladimir skazal vam, chto ya neumolima zhenshchina] - I hope Colonel Vladimir told you I'm an unforgiving woman
Интересно, собака Дрейкова кусается так же сильно, как лает [interest, sobaka dreikova kusayetsya thuck ze silno, kak layet] - I wonder if Dreykov's dog bite as much as it barks