The elevator came to a slow stop somewhere underground, and we stepped off into a well-lit room. The walls were carved from dirt, and there were lights every few feet. We walked down a few steps, took a right and began walking down a hallway when we spotted the Merchant. I was too distracted by everything that happened earlier to do my usual intro.

I walked up to him casually and Leon looked at me questioningly. "What, no accent, jumping up and down in place or anything?"

I snapped my head up at him. "What?"

The confusion in his eyes grew deeper. "You're usually all excited around this guy."

"Oh… n-no, I'm just…. Thinking."

"About what?"

I rolled my eyes. "Do you really have to ask?"

I had once again managed to redden the agent's cheeks. It was true, though. Just the mere thought of it made my lips tingle, begging for his presence again, and that didn't really help the fact that I already had to fight the urge every second to throw myself on him, back him up against the nearest wall and have my way with him. Not that he wouldn't be able to stop me if I tried— do I need to bring up his muscles again?— I just wanted him so badly, I'm not going to lie, that's probably what would happen if I had the chance.

Apparently, the merchant had heard our conversation, and picked up on the fact that I was staring off into space while biting my lip, because he was giving Leon and I the biggest sly grin I'd ever seen in my life. It made it even creepier, though, because you couldn't see his mouth; he was wearing a bandana on his face. You could just see it in his eyes, and once I noticed I immediately snapped out of it, hoping Leon hadn't seen.

After the agent had finished negotiating with the man, he turned to me.

"Anything you want?"

I felt like I was five years old and in a candy store with a handful of twenties. "Well… my own Blacktail would be nice, since I've had to use yours for a while…"

"It's your lucky day… I just so happen to have one last Blacktail in stock."

Leon handed the man just enough money and stuck the gun in his holster.

"You keep that one," he said. "It's got more upgrades than this one."

A smile worked its way across my lips. "Thanks."

He stared back at me, smiling, for a second before his eyes flashed to my lips for a split second before he turned and began walking away. I couldn't help but smile to myself as I followed him.

We walked through two giant double doors and began walking down another dirt carved hallway. Once again, everything seemed to be built over a giant trench, except this one was ten times bigger than the one in the village. There was bridge over a seven foot gap, leading to another hallway, but it was only about three feet wide, and there were no rails. Leon carefully walked over, but I followed him with extreme hesitation. One look over the side told me that if I fell, that'd be it.

"One step in front of the other, Em."

I nodded and slowly stepped off the bridge.

"You ready?" He asked, taking in consideration how tentative I was.

"It's not that I'm afraid of heights or anything…" I explained. "That's just a long drop…"

"Yeah."

We continued walking through the other hallway and started at what it led to: another huge trench, but this time there were three large container rigs hanging over it, connected to chains dangling from the ceiling.

I turned to Leon, fear visible in my eyes. "Leon, please tell me we won't have to go through that."

He shook his head. "No, it looks like there's a lift over there."

I sighed in relief and we began walking towards it.

But just as we were about to reach it, Leon stopped and looked at something beeping in a puddle of water. It was flashing red, and was about the size of a dime.

"Ashley…" He whispered.

"What is that thing?" I asked, looking in confusion at the device.

"It's a tracker. I threw it on Ashley before Saddler took her away. I guess he saw it though and took it off…"

"Well, it is beeping pretty loud…" I said honestly. "That must've gotten annoying after a while."

Before he could respond, the walls behind us shook and we turned around in shock as the shakes worsened. Leon quickly grabbed my hand, and, before I could freak out about it, began sprinting for one of the container rigs.

"What about the lift?!" I shouted, barely being able to keep up with him.

"It's on the other side; we can't get to it from here!"

We jumped onto the first rig (well, more like he jumped and pulled me along with him) just as a giant, mutant creature burst out of the wall and onto the rig after us.

While it has the upper part of a human torso and a human head, its appearance was horrifying and marked by strange scars all over its head, a clawed arm, and a tentacle in place of the other one. Below that, the rest of his body turned into a centaur-like deformed body that has two front legs and two hind ones bonded by a centipede-like fleshy piece of muscle. He had a long, serpent like tongue that kept swishing around everywhere and dirty, brown-ish stained teeth. When he landed, he took two steps forward and roared. My eyes were wide and Leon quickly took out his Striker and began shot gunning the giant thing in the head. This made it mad, or just irritated, and it jumped up and out of sight, but not for long.

"Here, take this." He tossed me his TMP and three hundred bullets to go with it.

"What, wha—"I didn't have time to finish my question because he had grabbed my hand again, turned around, and began walking around the rig. "I'm going to go back behind this shutter and press one of the emergency buttons, you're going to hop this fence and press that one. It will save us time and ammunition."

"Okay, two questions. One: How do you expect me to get over that gate when it's taller than you, and two: how on earth do you know what to do?"

"I saw everything before we jumped on. There are doors that you get through, and my guess is that once you press both buttons, they open. Now come on, I'll give you a boost."

He lifted me up and helped me over the fence that had a button and a giant red door.

"Okay, you press that and I'll press the other one and run back as quick as I can. If that thing shows up, shoot it with what I gave you; it's fully upgraded."

I nodded weakly, and when he turned around I called out, "Leon, wait. What if you get killed or something?"

He thought about it for a second, and with a smile he said, "I'll try my best not to." He then turned around and was gone.

That's all for this update, folks! As I said, I'm in the process of working up another multi-chapter fic. Not gonna say what it is yet though. You'll just have to wait and see. Thanks for reading. See you next time!