"Hey, I finally got the map situation figured out, how are things going over there?" Alice broadcasted.

"Found woman. Thinks I'm someone else. Hard to talk with our psychic love connection and awkward hand gestures at the same time." Rain's reply was terse and distracted.

"Okay, my beloved. I'll start heading that way, I'll let you know if something comes up!" She mentally sent a kiss to Rain, then followed it up with a mental picture of her own nude self, giving Rain a saucy wink.

XXX

"Are… are you okay?" Claire asked Rain, who had suddenly lost her balance and fallen forward into the row of lockers. Rain sat up and gave her a thumbs up, trying to collect herself mentally before standing back up.

"Damnit, babe, warn me before you do shit like that!" Rain chided over the mental connection. She and Claire approached the exit to the locker room, ready to throw down with the zombies outside — Claire with her limited amount of bullets, Rain with her CQC skills — when their attack on the door suddenly let up. Claire and Rain exchanged curious looks as the sounds of violence came through the door, with the zombies' roars of aggression being cut out one by one. Within a few short moments their cries had all been silenced. Cautiously (more for Claire's sake than her own), Rain cracked open the door and peeked her head out.

The zombies lay dispatched in a pile surrounding the door. Scores of knife wounds covered their bodies. Rain looked first right, then left… and her head froze at the most peculiar sight she had ever witnessed. A giant white brick composed of some gelatinous material (given the way it quivered and bent as it moved of its own volition). It was about the size of an adult human, and wore a beret on its head. Upon hearing the door open it had turned around, and it… 'held'… a knife, though it would be more accurate to say it hovered close to its form at roughly waist level. Upon… seeing?… her, it raised its knife and waggled it in her direction, as if it was waving hello. It then turned and waddled down the hall, around a corner, and out of sight.

Claire looked over her shoulder and saw the pile of re-corpsed corpses. "What the hell happened?" Claire murmured.

Rain had no conceivable way to communicate to her that a motherfucking giant lump of tofu had appeared out of nowhere and stabbed the zombies to death, and she was at least 50% certain she'd hallucinated it. So she just shrugged and stepped out of the locker room, Claire following behind.

XXX

Alice smirked, half tempted to barrage her honey with more erotic content, but figured that could wait for a less life-and-death situation. (Wait, wasn't that their life now in general? Gonna have to change that saying). She turned the bike down one road, then another, then hit Raven's Place… and something stopped her. Her brain was tingling again, but it was… a lot more intense? She looked up the street and saw a large church, and laying eyes on the building only increased the tingling. The oddest thing was that there was something… familiar…

As she watched the church, she realized she could hear gunfire, and occasionally saw flashes of light coming from behind the stained glass windows. "Sorry, sweetie, I've got ass to kick and lives to save," she quickly sent out, before revving the motorcycle up and beelining for the building. She fully intended to pull to a stop outside and run in through the doors… then she saw yet another truck that had run off the road. It was one of those big rigs with a trailer meant to carry a bunch of cars… except the cars were all missing… and the ramp was down… and it led right up to one of the church's windows.

"EVEL KNIEVEL, EAT YOUR FUCKING HEART OUT!" Alice bellowed, pushing the bike as hard as she could, hitting the ramp, and smashing through the window. She made roadkill of one monster instantly upon hitting the ground within the church, but watched it skitter away behind a pew. She tossed her helmet to the side and saw two women gawking at her from the aisle between the pews. One of them had a camera! "Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille!" she said cheerily, waving at the camera with a smile. "Now watch this!" She had planned to just jump off the motorcycle and let it roar on up ahead, but then realized she'd put a bit more oomph into it than she'd intended and did an entire fucking backflip off of it oh God hopefully that woman with the camera caught it.

The motorcycle collided with… wait, was that a fucking licker? Oh shit. Well, the motorcycle impacted it, and both it and the licker flew straight up into the air. Alice brought two pistols to bear, fired once each… and then didn't have to shoot again because the bullets hit the gas tank on the motorcycle and it blew up what the shit even was this. Did her combat skills get souped up along with the weird monster detection superpowers? She did the Robocop gun-spinning trick as she reholstered her pistols, then looked behind her at another licker high up on the wall.

Part of her — the scary new part that let her do a ridiculous backflip off of a moving motorcycle and nail a motorcycle's gas tank with two shots as it sailed through the air — told her where the licker was going to jump to next, and drew her attention to the chains holding the big cross in place. She whipped out a pair of SMGs and let fly at the parts of the wall where the chains were moored to, and just as the licker leapt down onto the altar (or whatever the hell it was), the chains broke free and the large cross clobbered the licker, pinning it to the altar.

Alice looked behind her at the camerawoman and smirked. "Jesus saves," she said.

She heard movement behind her and saw the roadkill licker emerge to try its hand at murder. She casually kicked a pew into it, and when it leapt over it, she caught it in the face with a blast from her shotgun. She cocked it, walked over to the licker that had its own cross to bear, and ended its life.

The woman without a camera, clad in a blue tube top and… were those short shorts or a miniskirt? …walked over and introduced herself politely, thanking Alice for saving their lives.

Sike! "Who the fuck are you?" she snarled.

Alice stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "I'm sorry!" she said. "I know you're serious, but…" She was too wracked with laughter to continue talking.

A third person Alice hadn't immediately noticed approached her. "I'm sorry for my friend's attitude," he said. "We've all been through a lot the past day." He held out a hand. "Peyton Wells, Raccoon City STARS."

That stifled Alice's laughing fit. "What, you guys actors or something?"

The very rude woman shook her head. "Think like a SWAT team, only more specialized."

Alice frowned. "Isn't SWAT already supercops? So, what, you're… super duper cops?" At the stormy look on the woman's face growing stormier, Alice put up her hands in contrition. "Hey, honestly, no disrespect, I swear." She glanced down and saw that some of the licker's blood had been splattered onto her boots. "Oh shit, is that my bad?" She dug into one of her pockets, where she'd randomly stuffed some napkins. The angry woman's face morphed into a look of bemusement as Alice crouched down and cleaned them off as best she could. She looked up with a grin. "Us women and our shoes, right? We like to fight the stereotype as much as we can, but if someone fucks with our most ass-kicking pair of boots, it's war." She spat into a fresh napkin and used it to really buff the surface. "There, good as new." She stood up and offered her hand. "Oh, Alice Abernathy."

"Jill Valentine," Jill said, reluctantly shaking the hand.

"Terri Morales, Raccoon 7," said the camerawoman. "That was a daring rescue, can you tell us more about it?"

"Not much to tell," Alice admitted. "My psychic powers told me there were monsters in here, then I heard the guns and realized there were people in here who needed help too." She looked over at the dead lickers. "Wonder why they haven't evolved yet, though."

"Evolved? What do you mean by that?" Terri asked, her enthusiasm already waning since this woman appeared to be just a little nuts.

"I've ran into one of these things before," Alice explained. "Ate my husband."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," Terri said, sympathetic.

Alice shrugged. "No worries, he was a mass murdering dickhead, 100% deserved it. After it ate him, the fresh meat — well, the DNA, I guess, made it, uh, mutate. Bigger, stronger, faster." She nudged the dead licker with her own boot, curious. "We all would have been murdered. Oh well, questions for another time." She looked back up. "Alright, what's the fastest way to the cop shop from here?"

"The police station? No, we're trying to get out of the city," Peyton argued. "The police station's gonna be swarming with those things by now."

"Yeah, that's what my fiancee says," Alice confirmed. "She's there with another survivor now." She paused for a moment, getting a psychic update. "No, make that two survivors. They've got some cop tagging along with them now."

"Is this more of that psychic bullshit?" Jill snapped.

"No, this is the magic of true love allowing us to communicate using only our minds! …Which I guess is technically still psychic bullshit," Alice said, realizing. "Anyway, y'all can try to mosey on out of town, and maybe we can try to meet up after I grab my fiancee and her tagalongs too."

"Look, we should try to stick together," Peyton challenged. "Your fiancee… I'm sorry to tell you this, but if she's at the police station, she's probably already dead." Alice stared at him for a moment before her face broke and she snickered. He narrowed his eyes at her. "…I'm sorry, did I say something funny?"

"No! I promise!" Alice said. "It's just… just an in-joke between me and her, you know?"

"Right…" Peyton said, unconvinced.

"Look, fine, I'll tag along with you guys for now, and once I see you off at the city border or whatever, then we'll part ways and I'll head back for my honey. Deal?"

"Deal," Terri said. Peyton and Jill gave her a look, nonverbally asking why she'd want this maniac to accompany them. Terri was undeterred, though, and addressed them directly. "Look, there's safety in numbers, right? She might have some… nonstandard beliefs, but she seems capable in a fight, and that's what's most important right now."

"Thanks, Terri," Alice said, smiling. "Alright, let's go… this way." She turned and marched out a nearby door, leaving the others to scramble to follow her. As they walked, Alice offered up some spare ammo for Jill and Peyton, since the STARS members had run out fighting the lickers.

They found themselves in the graveyard adjacent to the church. After a few minutes, Jill spoke up: "We need to find somewhere to stop for a moment." Alice looked back and saw that Peyton was resting a lot of his weight on the smaller woman.

"Hey, I can carry him for a while," she offered. She nudged Terri. "Or maybe you'd like to?" she said, waggling her eyebrows like a Marx brother.

Terri blushed. "Uh, n-no thanks, I have to hold the camera." She pulled a bottle of pills from her pocket, dry swallowed one, then replaced the bottle.

Alice had a disapproving look on her face. "That's no way to catch a man, Terri. Or a gal? No judgement here, my fiancee is also a lady."

"L-look, we can't rest," Terri stammered out, trying to change the subject. "What if there are more of those… things… out there?"

"If there were more, we would have seen them by now," Alice pointed out. "All the gunfire and explosions and shit would have been like ringing a big ol' dinner bell."

"So you know what these things are," Terri said. She held up her camera and started recording. "Can you elaborate?"

"They're crimes against nature," Alice said. "They were human beings once upon a time, but then Umbrella decided to perform medical experiments that would have made ol' Joe Mengele himself sick to his stomach. They utilized the same virus that's turning Raccoon City into the backdrop of a George Romero movie. All of this went down in the secret labs they have built beneath the city."

"How come you know so much about Umbrella?" Terri asked.

"Oh, I'm still technically under their employment," Alice said. "I mean, I've probably got a few workman's comp claims I can file — they fucking nerve gassed me, beat the shit out of me in my own house, drugged me, and I'm pretty sure I've been horrifically experimented upon as well. My plan is to file the claims, watch as they inevitably fire me, then sue their asses for wrongful termination." She glanced around at the dying city they were in. "Oh, and for a shitload of murder, of course. Though that'd be a criminal matter, not civil…"

Peyton suddenly grunted and leaned against a nearby tree. "Damn it!" he groaned. Alice glanced down at his leg, felt her brain started tingling like crazy, and pulled her pistols out in a panic. Was this guy about to turn, or what?

"Hold it!" Jill drew her own pistol and aimed it right at Alice. "What do you think you're doing?"

"What am I doing?" Alice countered. "You're the one who wants to shoot me with my own ammo! And your friend has a little love bite on him, if I'm not mistaken. …Am I mistaken?"

"I'm fine," Peyton said as he panted heavily.

"I didn't hear a 'no' in there," Alice pointed out. "I mean, I love you like a brother, Peyton, even though we just met five minutes ago, but that bite means that the most optimistic thing you could do right now is start watching Titanic and expect to watch the old lady dunk the necklace in the ocean at the end."

"…Is that how that movie ends?" Terri asked, crestfallen.

"Oops! Sorry!" Alice apologized.

Alice turned back to the standoff just as Jill walked forward and put her neck right into Alice's gun, turning her gun skyward. "Don't worry about Peyton," she said. "If it comes down to it, I'll take care of it myself."

Alice looked at Jill's neck pressed against the barrel of her gun. "Uh… okay…" She holstered her pistols and turned away, licking her lips. Was Jill flirting with her? Shoving her neck all seductively into her pistol? How dare she! Alice was in a committed monogamous relationship with a sentient zombie!

XXX

"Hey, babe?" Alice's psychic message said as it beamed directly into Rain's soul.

"What's up?" Rain asked back. She was advancing through the police station, helping clear the way up ahead for Redfield and Kennedy, hoping they didn't pick up on the fact that the zombies weren't attacking her at all and start asking some extremely uncomfortable questions.

"Tell me what you think of this." Alice suddenly sent a mental image of the two of them in bed together, red silk sheets draping their bodies, intense arousal filling both of their faces… and each of them holding a gun to the other's neck.

Rain was 99% sure that her body's biological functions were closed for business, for the most part. So that meant the warmth blossoming below had to be purely psychosomatic, right? Emphasis on the psycho part, because she was getting this sensation from a scenario involving gunplay in the fucking bedroom.

"Babe, what did I say? WARN me!" Rain chided.

"I did, I said 'Tell me what you think of this,'" Alice countered.

"That's not a warning!" Rain counter-countered. "A warning is 'Hey babe, I'm about to send you some erotic imagery you're definitely going to have extremely conflicted feelings about'!"

"…So, you liked it," Alice sent, a saucy lilt to the thought.

"Shut right the fuck up!" Rain snarled, without any heat to it.

Behind her, Kennedy spoke. "Chief Irons?"

Rain looked ahead of her. Distracted by her mental conversation with Alice, she hadn't seen the man looming at the top of the staircase ahead. He was Standard Issue Stocky White Guy With Receding Hairline, except his moustache was more suited to a fire chief than a police chief. He was wearing a suit minus the jacket, and — this is the important part — he had a big friggin' pistol, and a look on his face like someone who'd been woken up one too many times to someone screaming "WAZZZZZAAAAAAP?!" (i.e. he was bugshit crazy).

"Ah, if it isn't our newest recruit, Leon Kennedy," he said congenially. "A shame your first day will also be your last… on Earth." He turned his head, beady little eyes focusing in on Claire like a cat noticing a laser pointer dot. "And if the pictures on his desk are anything to go by, you're Chris fucking Redfield's little sister, aren't you? Surprised he didn't tell you to stay out of Raccoon," he said, clucking his tongue disapprovingly. "Maybe what you need is a… strong fatherly figure in your life." He leaned forward, reading the name on the armor Rain wore. "And… Jill Valentine. I heard you stopped by earlier, summarily executed five innocent souls for no good reason, and took off with Wells. I was almost sad I missed the chance for one last… disciplinary meeting." The way his gun hand trembled when he said that made Rain's stomach curdle… and then she saw the tent growing in his pants and wished she was still capable of throwing up. "I can't tell you how pleased I am that you've come back to pick up your final paycheck." Before she could do anything, Irons raised the gun and fired.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tofu is from a bonus mode in RE2 and its remake. And just to be absolutely clear, Rain was not hallucinating. There is officially a giant block of sentient bean curd running around out there now, with no explanation. Will I ever bring it up again? Yes? No? It's a surprise! (Also, I want you all to appreciate that utterly fantastic pun I put into that scene).

Alice first meets Jill and co. via an utterly ridiculous motorcycle-through-stained-glass-window stunt. Even assuming there was a conveniently placed ramp of some sort right outside the church for her to utilize, it's pretty amazing she managed to hit one of the lickers dead-on instead of, oh, I don't know, Terri or something. (Unless she used her psychic powers). (Spoilers: she probably did). (Well, no, the movie is ridiculous stunt after ridiculous stunt, that was probably all the justification they needed. BUT I NEED MORE, DAMNIT!)

Jill is hilariously rude to Alice for no reason, especially after SAVING HER LIFE. It's great, honestly. Maybe it really was the blood on the boots.

It's odd that the lickers in the church hadn't evolved. The one in the Hive munched on Spence, and it hulked out in just a few minutes. Those bad boys were free for 12ish hours, and you're telling me they didn't find one live human in all that time? I'm pretty sure one of them tackled one of the hazmat dudes that opened the Hive! (As I progress farther and farther into the series, I'll end up devoting more and more time trying to rationalize all these stupid unanswered questions, inconsistencies, etc, hahahaha.)

In the movie, Jill mentions being out of ammo in the middle of the church fight, so she's either pointing an empty gun at Alice, or Alice thoughtfully gave her some extra ammo with which her life was very rudely threatened with a few minutes later.

One of my friends tried convincing me that there was some subtle romantic tension between Alice and Jill (in both this movie and number 5), and I didn't personally buy it until my most recent research-related rewatch and watched Jill press her neck against Alice's gun. That is 100% Freak Flirting, you cannot convince me otherwise. (If you're wondering, no, there will not be any poly pairings in this series. Sorry!)

Also, Terri, Titanic's been out for, like, five-ish years at this point, you had plenty of time to watch it!

Enter Leon Kennedy, and Chief Brian Irons. He never showed up in the movies, and I imagine if he did his absolute creepiness would have been significantly watered down, haha.