"Where does this tunnel lead, exactly?"
Leon and I had found ourselves in a giant tent covering a hole with a ladder in it. He had suggested hopping down because he thought it lead somewhere important.
"I told you, there's an opening by a building behind that fence."
I nodded and jumped down the ladder, landing in what looked like an underground mine shaft. I waited for him to jump down too before proceeding forward. I kept having the strange urge to grab his hand again but I knew I better not. Like he said, it was only so that thing wouldn't get me. Even so, my hand felt lonely after that. But so did my lips… I guess I just wanted him.
At the end of the tunnel, there was another ladder and the Merchant. This time, I handed him my Blacktail and asked for the last few upgrades. After we finished that, Leon climbed up the ladder first, then me, and we began walking towards the building and opened the doors.
It wasn't actually a building, simply leading to an area that lead to more buildings, except these were old and starting to crumble. It looked like another section to Salazar's castle.
We hopped down a ledge and began walking forward in front of giant broken columns, when Krauser emerged from on top of a building beside us.
"So… when are you going to introduce me to this little lady?" Krauser asked, looking directly at me.
"Where's Ashley?" Leon hollered, pushing me behind him.
"Protective much, are we?" He said with a smirk, and then his face turned serious. "She's beyond that gate." He nodded his head towards a 'gate' that wasn't visible from where we were standing. "But you'll need three insignia's to get in." We looked at him questioningly and he continued. "One's in the North, the other's in the East."
"And let me guess," Leon interrupted. "You got the last one."
He grunted. "Pretty much means you're on a tight leash."
"Sounds like you got this sorted out pretty well…"
Before Krauser could respond, Leon pulled out a grenade and threw it in Krauser's direction, but he dodged it just before it hit him.
Suddenly, he pulled out a TMP and began shooting at us. Quicker than lightning, Leon grabbed me and dove on top of me just before the bullets hit us. He carefully stood up as much as he could, which was just a crouching position, and helped me up too. Before I could think about it, we were up and running towards a small building to our left. There was a ladder in it and a barred, electrically locked door.
"You okay?" Leon asked me hastily.
Oh yeah, it's not like the man I'm madly in love with was just on top of me or anything. But of course, I didn't say that. I just nodded quickly and then we heard a loud BANG! from behind us. Krauser had burst open the door and was shooting lazily around the room. Leon practically threw me up the ladder, grabbing my sides and heaving me up before I could even acknowledge the fact that there was a psychotic man in the same room as us.
The ladder was just a dead end up to the roof, and when Leon followed me up I stared at him. He had a small gash on his left arm that was bleeding just enough to seep out of the wound.
"Why the hell is he trying to kill you?!" I demanded, a mixture of panic and anger in my voice.
"Saddler's orders." His reply came back breathlessly.
Before I could respond, we heard a loud beep from down stairs: the door was open. Leon jumped down first, and then motioned for me; Krauser was nowhere to be seen.
"Come on." He said and I jumped down from the ladder.
The door opened to a part of the building that seemed to have been blown away. There were chunks missing in various walls, creating a sort of path to the back wall. We began walking forward, when all of the sudden Krauser jumped out from behind one of the walls and grabbed Leon from behind, his knife at Leon's throat.
"Go!" Leon shouted, struggling to keep the maniac off him.
I hesitated. I mean, there had to be something I could do, right?
"GO!" He yelled, making me flinch before sprinting towards the stairs I saw out of the corner of my eye. I ran into a corner and sat there, with my knees pulled up to my chest. There was a wall beside me with three holes in it, but I wasn't paying attention to that. Leon could be dead, and I didn't do anything. Of course, he had told me to run but that didn't mean I should have. I swore to myself that if there was a next time Krauser popped out like that, I'd do something.
A few seconds later, Leon walked around the corner and I jumped up quickly.
"A-are you alright? Did he hurt you?" Now I was the one spamming him with questions.
"I'm fine. Now come on."
We walked back up the stairs and headed straight this time. There was a bridge with more broken columns on the side of it. I guessed this was where Krauser was standing before because I could see the bullet holes in a building down in front of us. We slowly crept along the stone until we reached a building. After scaling the sides, we continued past it and found more stairs. These stairs led to a room with half of it blocked by rubble almost as tall as me, and a winding staircase in front of us. As soon as we walked up the stairs, Leon stopped and picked up what looked like an insignia shaped like a panther. Then Krauser walked out, holding his knife.
"What do you intend to do restoring Umbrella?" Leon asked with caution, pushing me behind him yet again.
"Bring order and balance to this insane world of ours." They kept circling each other slowly, and I stayed as close to Leon as I could.
"A psycho like you can't bring order or balance."
My thoughts exactly, Leon.
"You don't seriously think your conservative mind can chart a new course for the world, do you?" He retorted, although I wasn't necessarily sure what that was supposed to mean.
Suddenly bars shot down in front of the stairs we came from so we couldn't escape, and Krauser did another anti-gravity backflip onto some stone serving as a roof over a few pillars.
"What are you fighting for?" He asked Leon.
But before he could answer, I spoke up. "Well what are you fighting for?!" I was tired of being shot at by a guy I didn't even know.
"This doesn't concern you!" He shouted.
Leon was warning me with his eyes again.
I ignored him and spoke quickly. "Are you serious?! You're shooting at us! I could die! How does this not concern me?!"
"I'm not shooting you; I'm shooting Pretty Boy over there." He pointed his gun towards Leon.
"Oh, you're just jealous 'cause he's better looking than you." I didn't say those words very loudly, but they seemed to echo and I immediately regret saying them. Krauser gave me a death glare and after Leon had collected himself from staring at me in horror, he was giving Krauser a glare of his own.
The man laughed horribly. "Oh you should not have said that, little girl."
He pulled his gun out again and aimed it right for me.
