Chapter Ten: Liar


From the moment she had arrived in Raccoon City, Claire Redfield had found herself afflicted with one tragedy after another. The city's population infected with a man-made virus that turned them into undead, flesh-eating abominations straight out of a late-night horror movie, with monsters spawned from her worst nightmares lurking in the shadows. Her one ally's refusal to be saved due to a single, damning bite inflicted upon him, along with an innocent child being stalked by a grotesque monstrosity. A surviving human being somehow worse than all the other evils lurking in the city combined, and, most recently, the death of someone close to her heart...

...Or so it had seemed.

Less than an hour ago, the young college student had awoken after an attack from the monster stalking Sherry, which had evolved into a new, hideously stronger form. The little girl was nowhere to be found... and her boyfriend, Anthony "Tony" Redgrave, who had followed her to Raccoon City after an argument they'd had spurred her to head for the lost city of the dead to find her missing brother, lay dead only a few feet away, impaled by the broken remnants of the destroyed elevator that the creature had caused to crash. Broken rebar and various bits of metal had run him through, leaving him drenched in his own blood, his flesh pale and cold...

...And yet somehow, standing waist-high in the river of sewage water and waste across from where Claire lay huddled as far back as possible, her back firmly against the brick wall of the small raised ledge above the sewer tunnel she had discovered in her search for Sherry, stood Anthony "Tony" Redgrave, with not a single scratch on him.

He was covered in splashes of dark red blood, some his own but mostly dry now. Most of the rest was a fading dull orange, gouts of the stuff having splashed onto him as he killed the strange monster that had emerged from a nearby sluice and had attacked her. Aside from those stains, and an otherwise bedraggled appearance compared to his previous more neater one, he looked no worse for wear. He had saved her life, not for the first time that night, and yet any joy and relief she should have been feeling was overwhelmed by disbelief and confusion over one simple fact:

Less than an hour ago, he had been dead.

And now he was alive.

"How... H-how is this possible?..." she whispered more to herself than her beau, who was sheepishly rubbing the back of his head with his left hand, the right still holding that gothic greatsword he had used to tear that monster to shreds.

"...Look, I know you're probably a little freaked out-" he started to say, his tone completely casual in clear defiance of the insanity of the continuing situation that was Raccoon City's current nightmare.

"You... Y-you were dead..." she murmured, her eyes slowly growing wide, filled with too many mixed emotions.

Tony raised his left hand out, cocking his head left and right while saying, "Teeeeeeechnically, I was unconscious."

"Y-y-you were dead! I saw you! You were impaled by-b-b-by dozens of pieces of shrapnel, and-and you were covered in blood!" the girl practically screeched at that point, a tremor in her throat making her stutter, the quake threatening to turn into a sob as she pointed accusingly to the spot on his bare chest, which had been pierced by both metal and bone just an hour before.

There was a part of her overjoyed to see him alive and well, but her rational mind refused to let go of the fact he had been dead, his skin cold to the touch.

"Hey, not all of this is mine!" the young man shot back, his left hand pulled back, index finger indicating a splotch of blood before quickly moving to another. "Most of this gunk's from that monster I just-"

"ENOUGH, ANTHONY!" she interrupted sharply, her voice rising over his own, her tone sharp and serious to harshly contrast his casual and almost jovial own.

At the sound of his full name - a clear and familiar sign that he was pushing things too far - Tony went silent, letting his hand fall away from the splotch of monster ichor he had been pointing at on his coat, his arm hanging by his side while the other hand gripped his great sword, balancing it across his shoulder.

Claire was glaring back at him with a torn expression, mixed emotions flashing through her grey blue eyes: relief, confusion, anger, and intense yearning, which threw the swordsman off for a moment before he understood why her eyes had such turmoil.

She just wanted to understand.

A sudden weight settled over Redgrave's shoulders, his chest tightening up as he stood silent for several tense moments.

Then, with a sigh, he took a few sloshing steps towards the ledge she was crouched on, slinging his sword behind his back before extending his right hand out towards her. The pang of dread gripping at his heart squeezed even tighter when she flinched at his approach, the young woman pulling her head and chest back to press her back flat against the wall behind her, the emotions roiling in her eyes briefly becoming overwritten by an all too familiar flash of fear.

He had seen it before in the eyes of most of the poor bastards standing between him and finishing a job. But seeing such an emotion in Claire's eyes - the eyes of someone he sincerely had feelings for - was more than enough to make him feel a sickening lurch in the pit of his gut...

Inhaling slowly but deeply under his breath, the red-garbed gunman extended his hand further out towards the cowering college girl before speaking again. "Lemme see your knife."

The sudden request caught the girl off guard, making her blink, her sudden fear of her resurrected boyfriend's movements towards her once more overcome by the ever-growing confusion of the situation.

"My knife?" she echoed back to him.

Tony nodded, inclining his head backwards slightly towards the skull-faced hilt guard of the greatsword hanging over his shoulder.

"I'd use Woozy, but, uh... Well, it's kinda covered in monster guts at the moment."

Despite the continuing growing mixture of frustration and fear currently rolling around in her stomach, Claire had to fight down a smile at the young man's quip. Then the bewilderment came back as she pondered over what Tony would need her knife for. He seemed to easily sense her confusion, sighing lowly and looking away before speaking again.

"It's... easier to show than tell."

His words, just as confusing as his request, did little to dispel her trepidation. But the notion that he would at least somehow show her an answer - possibly the answer to all of her questions - was enough to help her ease up on her hesitations.

Slowly, Claire reached for the revolver she had dropped upon seeing him again, slipping it back on her hip holster while reaching for the sheathed knife on her belt. Unhooking the blade, sheathe and all, the woman extended her right hand out, gripping the weapon by the sheathe over the blade, offering the hilt to Tony.

The pale-haired man's own extended hand gripped the knife by its hilt, easily sliding it out. Stepping back, the swordsman began twisting and spinning the sharp blade over his fingers, easily, even tossing it in the air, where it spun several times before Tony's hand shot out, catching the weapon by its hilt without ever once raising his gaze to follow its motions. Despite herself, Claire had to admit the man's dexterity was nothing short of impressive, much like his skills with firearms, and the way he wielded that sword with a single hand.

Flipping the knife once again, and catching the tip of his blade with the edge of his index finger, Redgrave easily balanced the sharp object while moving his right hand towards his left, using his three free fingers and thumb to yank off the glove covering his left hand, the balanced knife on his index finger never wavering once as he did so. With a simple flick of his pointer finger, Tony sent the knife spinning back into the air, quickly stuffing his left hand's glove into a pocket of his coat before catching the blade by its hilt. With a heavy sigh, he raised the sharp tip of the blade towards his exposed open palm.

For a moment, the young woman really didn't believe he was about to do what it seemed like he was going to do. Then he spoke up again, prompting Claire to look back at the unusually compliant man's face, his expression a grimace.

Then she realized that he actually was going to go through with it after uttering the following words: "For the record... this is gonna hurt."

With that said, he sunk the sharp tip of the knife into his palm, easily splitting the flesh, prompting large droplets of blood to spill out. Then, to Claire's horror, he proceeded to drag the blade across his palm, leaving a trail of cut flesh and flowing blood. Tony's face twitched, his grimace morphing into an annoyed scowl instead of breaking down into a more agonized expression.

Unable to help herself, the horrified woman lunged across the ledge in a feeble attempt to stop him from hurting himself any further.

"What the FUCK are you doing, you idiot?!" she screeched, her hands lashing out to try and smack the knife out of the boy's hand before he hurt himself any further.

Frustratingly, the crimson-coated gunman easily stepped back, just out of her reach, ripping the knife tip out of his palm in the same motion, a small gout of blood splashing into the sewage water under the man's hand. The corner of his grimacing lips twitched slightly, his icy blue eyes narrowed as he stared at the self-inflicted wound for a moment more before flexing his fingers out and clenching them into a tight fist, causing another gush of blood to flow out and splash softly into the sewer water.

Disgusted, Claire's hands flew over her mouth as she watched the macabre display, both at the sight of the spilling blood and Tony's almost nonchalant way of self-inflicting the wound upon himself.

Unclenching his fist, letting the fingers flex open slowly, the man in red then took a glance at his bloody palm for a moment more before reaching out with his cut hand, showing her his bloodstained palm. The college girl flinched back, eyes widening as a combination of disgust and fury flared through her, her mouth falling open as she prepared to lash out again... only to fall silent as her grey-blue eyes focused on the deep open cut on his palm...

Or rather... the shrinking cut on his palm.

Before Claire's stunned eyes, she watched the pierced flesh knit itself back together in short order, the torn sinew and tissue sewing itself shut before her very eyes. In moments, what had been a ragged, raw wound was bright pink flesh as smooth as a newborn's, without any remote hint of scarred tissue left behind. The whole process had taken less than ten seconds. Drawing his healed palm back slightly while still holding the younger Redfield's own knife in his right hand, Tony spread the fingers of his left hand out, wiggling them.

Giving the stunned biker a half-hearted grin, he weakly proclaimed, "Ta-daaa..."

Unable to really say anything in response, Claire continued to stare at her boyfriend's hand in a stupor, blinking once, then twice as she continued to gaze upon the bloodied limb. Yet no matter how long she studied the hand, the cut remained gone, the only evidence it had even existed being the drying splotches of gore on Redgrave's hand.

Unable to help herself, the college girl reached out with her own hand, her fingers touching the swordsman's calloused palm, the tips of her index and middle fingers tracing the line of smoother skin where the gash had been. Then, as she traced the line a second time, Claire realized the smoothness was roughing out, the pink fading into the same paler pallor like the rest of the youth's skin. Just like that, any remaining physical traces of the injury were simply gone, and the auburn-haired woman pulled her hand back, turning her gaze back up to meet his, the white-haired male watching her with a nervous grin and hesitant icy blue eyes.

To see such an expression on his face was almost as strange as watching the cut on his hand heal before her eyes.

At a complete loss, all Claire could do was quietly utter, "It... healed...?"

The gunslinger nodded, tossing the knife into the air once again before quickly rubbing the remaining wet patches of blood off of his palm against his pants, while his other hand quickly yanked his spare glove from his pocket, slipping the article of leather back on before catching the knife as it began to descend back down, speaking again in the same instance.

"You can cut me to ribbons, fill me full of holes, and break as many of my bones as you like... but my body just puts me back together again every time."

Still trying to process exactly what she had just seen, Claire's gaze fell away from Tony, her eyes lowering down to stare at the murky water filling the sewer he was standing in, but they were unfocused and drifting as she murmured to herself, "But... B-but how can this be...? Th-this can't be possible..."

She wasn't sure if the other youth had heard her or not, his voice rising over hers as he continued to explain.

"I don't just heal fast, either. I'm not some one-trick pony, babe. I'm a helluva lot tougher and stronger than most people think. Heck, the biggest bodybuilder around's got nothin' on me."

The redhead was not even surprised with herself at how easily she accepted that somewhat arrogant boast from the young man. She remembered her very first encounter with Tony at the Bullseye Bar, where he had easily floored a much larger man with a single blow, and scared off the other two with a glare. At the time, she had been too stunned to really question how a man much smaller in comparison to the bull of a biker he had knocked down had even been able to do such a thing...

But then her mind drifted back to more recent events, like Tony's arrival to the station, and how the door in the courtyard that led to the East Wing had been bound with a chain; something she had happened to notice as she raced down to greet him from the railing above. She had seen the chain wrapped around the door handle to a nearby pipe, securely locking it...

...He crushed the lock, the pink-vested biker realized.

A solid metal lock or segment in the chain... And he had crushed it or broken it off while she had been distracted by the burning undead in the hallway above. It seemed utterly impossible...

But then the college student recalled all of the times he had handled the zombies roaming the station with his bare hands, crushing one's head to a pulp against a wooden desk, breaking its surface as he did, or fending off another lunging for his neck. Or how he had kicked a chained door off of its hinges with a single strike. It was even more obvious to her now, explaining how Tony was able to hold a shotgun or his sword with a single hand so easily.

But Claire found herself also recalling their fight - if you could really call running for your life a 'fight' - against the coated giant they had encountered in the upper floors of the police station. The monster had pummeled and tossed Tony around like a ragdoll, and the young woman remembered that, at one point, the snowy-haired boy could barely stand on his own two legs...

So how, then, had he been able to run alongside her? How did he find the strength to shove open a dropped steel shutter, and throw a large bookcase between a door and the coated behemoth chasing them? In less than a minute since previously having his ribs crushed in his chest, no less?

In the back of her thoughts, Claire could see in her mind's eye, shortly after reaching the parking garage's lowered gate, that she hadn't been able to find a single bruise anywhere on Tony's exposed skin. Perhaps then the young woman had fooled to herself into chalking it up to the poor lighting, but now the truth had been revealed.

Tony had been hurt... But his body had simply healed itself in the short amount of time it had taken them to get back to the station's lower garage. Just like it had healed itself from the wounds inflicted upon him by that horrible monster.

Injuries that were otherwise fatal to others weren't fatal for him.

The superhuman youth idly glanced to the side before returning his gaze to her, shrugging to himself before speaking again. "Sooo... Whaddya think? Pretty cool, right?"

Claire did not reply, her gaze unfocused, lips open slightly, but not a single word slipped out.

The man, meanwhile, merely stood in place, his eyes briefly wandering towards the knife still clutched in his hand. He raised it slightly, looking the sharp object over before he blinked, his entire face lighting up as he spoke up.

"Hey, y'know what I just realized? This is just like that one scene in Highlander where the main guy stabs himself to prove he's-"

"Just what the hell ARE you?!" she suddenly snapped, her face rising up so her anger-filled eyes met his stunned own. Before he could form any kind of response, the suddenly irate redhead raged on, her words sharp, heated, and accusing. "Are you one of Umbrella's experiments?! Sent to spy on me to get information on my brother?!"

The accusation would have made him burst out laughing under normal circumstances, but the enraged glare Claire was shooting him with, along with the way she was tightening her grip on her holstered revolver, made the young man decide that it wouldn't be the smartest thing to do.

Holding his hands up, Tony gave the woman a bemused but reassuring smile before responding. "Whoa, whoa, now, hold your horses, babe! Let's not start throwin' around paranoid conspiracy theories just yet, okay? I'd never even heard of Umbrella before coming to this lovely necropolis, remember?"

His words did nothing to alleviate the girl's distrustful glare, the biker still scowling angrily at him. Taking a chance, Redgrave stepped forward, tossing the knife in the air again, this time catching it by the blade, and presenting the hilt back to her.

Reaching the edge of the ledge she was situated on, the pale-haired boy spoke on. "Look, this ain't exactly something you bring up on the first date..."

Claire warily continued to glare at Tony, ignoring the offered knife entirely for the moment. She remained silent for several moments, then her suspicious glare shifted to a more neutral, controlled expression.

After another pause, she spoke at last. "...So that's your big secret? That you're not... completely human?"

Tony nodded, favoring her with a relaxed grin as he replied, "Like I said, you don't just drop a bomb like that in a casual conversation."

The girl went silent again, seeming to mull over his words, before asking a final question. "And that's it?... That's all you were hiding from me?"

The weight that had settled on his shoulders, as well as the vice gripping his heart, finally seemed to melt away.

The red-coated gunslinger allowed his easy grin to return before replying with absolute assurance, "That's it, baby."

To his surprise, Claire's face remained somewhat stony and unreadable. She reached out, grasping her knife by the handle, and pulling it free from the man's hand, his smile somewhat faltering as he watched her silently sheathe the blade back on her belt-

-before she rapidly drew her revolver out, the hammer of the pistol drawn back in a soft *click* that seemed to echo throughout the sewers.

Before Tony could so much as blink or even attempt to react, the woman issued a sudden question. "Is Tony Redgrave really your name?"

The white-haired boy stared at the gun leveled for his face before looking past it, meeting his girlfriend's cold grey eyes, a part of him hoping this was some kind of joke, and he would break it once he spotted anything like humor in her eyes.

There was none to be found.

"'Really my name?'" he echoed back, his eyes once more drawn to the gun aimed at his face before going on. "What makes you think it isn't?" he asked calmly, remaining still.

He didn't want to try to move or say anything that may cause her trigger finger to twitch. He had been shot plenty of times in the past, and he'd heal all the same. But like Tony had told Claire earlier, it always hurt.

"If you're willing to lie about what you are... then you're more than likely willing to lie about who you are," she retorted.

...Well, damn. She had him there.

Raising his hands up, the man nodded in compliance. She was fishing for any more untruths he may have told her, so it was best to just come clean now, even if the answer was only going to raise more questions. No sense in making her any angrier than she already seemed to be.

"Well, for starters, I'd like to reiterate that I'm not with Umbrella..." he began, stressing that point heavily. "...But no. It's not... In my defense, though, the guy I took it from doesn't exactly need it anymore."

Claire furrowed her brow, demanding, "Explain."

Sighing, he shrugged. "About ten years ago, a reporter was killed overseas in Europe. He died under... well, let's call 'em 'strange circumstances,' the prime witness being his only son... The guy's name was Antonio Redgrave."

At the name 'Antonio Redgrave,' the woman blinked, surprise breaking through her controlled expression.

Tony nodded before continuing. "He was an unconventional reporter, to say the least... but I always admired his work. And I needed a name at the time, so I ended up taking his. Put my own personal spin on it to make it my own."

Claire watched him silently, but didn't lower her gun. That wasn't a good sign, the white-haired youth concluded. Something else was clearly bothering her, agitating her enough to keep her gun trained on him, but he was at a loss as to what.

"So what's your real name, then?" she finally asked.

Internally, the man calling himself Anthony Redgrave steeled himself. She had believed him about the more superhuman aspects about himself, mostly because he had shown her physical proof of them. But what he would have to tell her next, well... He didn't exactly have a way to physically convince her this time.

"...What if I told you I don't even know what that name is?" he inquired, looking away from the .38 pointed at him back to the face of the woman holding it.

Her expression became a combination of confusion and incredulity. "You don't even know your own name?!" she retorted in disbelief.

Reaching over his shoulder, unafraid the sudden motion might cause Claire to fire her gun and nail a bullet between his eyes, Tony drew his gothic longsword, looking the weapon over before speaking again.

"Most people... Their earliest memories of being a kid are wakin' up on Christmas morning, or on a birthday, happy as can be. They can remember their parents' faces and names easily... Me, on the other hand?" He inhaled deeply, his shoulders sagging somewhat before straightening again, his explanation resuming. "I can't remember anything before my eight birthday. My earliest memory is waking up in a dirty alley, covered in ash and blood, not a scratch on me, with only this sword and the clothes on my back."

Redgrave idly gave the sword a little spin in his hand before looking back at Claire.

"Even as a kid, no matter where I went, this blade always found its way back to me. It's my oldest keepsake, and my oldest companion. I can't explain how or why it keeps coming back to me... any more than I can explain why I can't remember anything prior to waking up alone in that alley."

And that was the honest truth. He had been on the run ever since he was a child, fleeing from some nameless horror he had always felt was right on his tail his entire life. It wasn't until he took up the 'Anthony Redgrave' alias that he had finally felt like whatever it was he had been running from had lost his trail.

And it wasn't until he met Claire that he finally began to feel like a regular person, he thought to himself. A part of him wanted to say that out loud, but he remained silent, letting his girl digest this final revelation about himself. There'd be time for sweeter truths like that later...

Or so he hoped, he thought to himself as he met the young woman's angry glare once again.

She held his stare, her grey-blue eyes stone cold, even compared to his lighter, icy-blue orbs.

Without another word, she took a step back closer to the wall in the corner of the ledge, and as she did, Tony finally noticed a large blue valve was situated in front of the gated door to her left. Looking away from him long enough to shove her revolver back into its holster, the irate college girl reached into her side pack, producing a large t-shaped valve. She shoved it into the blue valve and began turning it, her anger giving her a boost as the door began rising with each turn, punctuated by a soft *squeak* at every rotation.

Unsure of what else to say, and still befuddled by her obvious lingering anger, the man in red slung his sword behind his back again as he took a step closer, moving to climb up onto the ledge while speaking up again.

"Hey, uh, you want me to help you out with tha-"

"Stay back!" Claire snapped, her gaze rounding sharply as she shot him a warning glare with a clear single warning: Come no closer.

Tony stopped in his tracks, raising his hands in surrender, stunned by her sudden cry. The only sounds between them were the continued rusty squeaks of the twisting valve as she turned her face forward to look away from the young man's surprised expression. The gated door was almost entirely raised before she spoke again.

"Sherry's trapped in some kind of compactor room in a section of the sewer above us, but there's a large steel door, like a bank vault's, blocking the way. I need to find three electronic plugs that look like chess pieces to unlock the door so I can get her out of there. There's also a cable car not far from there, which can hopefully take us out of the city."

At the mention of the little girl and her current predicament, Tony almost allowed himself to relax, a part of him hoping it was Sherry's situation, along with all of the bombshells he had just dropped, that was the source of Claire's anger. She'd cool off sooner or later, he told himself. The red-clad swordsman allowed himself to cling on to that hope, and he almost succeeded in fooling himself into believing it was exactly that.

Her next sentence, however, made his heart stop beating.

"Once I've saved Sherry, and we're out of the city... you and I are done."

With that declaration, the college girl shoved the valve back into her side pack, and briskly stormed off into the newly-opened area.

Tony wasn't exactly sure what happened next. One moment he was standing hip-deep in sewage waste, watching Claire vanish into the next room, the next second everything became a blur. And when his vision returned to normal, he found himself in the newly-opened area, some kind of large storage room filled with crumpled boxes, piles of black garbage bags and rusty barrels, with a single light glowing along the wall in the far end of the room. He had caught up with the girl in that same instant, his left gloved hand snatching her by her upper right forearm, halting her in her tracks. She whirled around in the same instant, using the momentum of her spin to pull herself free from his grasp-

-and draw her revolver out, quickly aiming it dead center at his chest as she backed up a step, exclaiming, "Don't you dare!"

Completely unfazed by the deadly weapon currently positioned to blow a hole where his heart was, Tony boldly took a single step forward.

"Go ahead and shoot if that'll make you feel better," he hissed, taking another step closer while speaking on. "But whatever your problem is, you need to tell me right now. I wanna know what the hell's going on with you, and what this is all about! I get you're upset that I lied to you, but I didn't know how else to tell you! If that's why you're breaking up with me, fine. But if it ain't, then I have a right to know why you're ending things with me, and where all this is coming from!"

Tony was angry now, too, he realized. Not because he had to tell her so many things about himself he had always felt uncomfortable acknowledging, let alone openly speak freely about, but because of her continued ire towards him, even after revealing the truth.

Meeting his icy glare with her fiery own, Claire retorted, "If you think I'm angry because you didn't tell me about what you can do, or about whatever it is that happened to you to as a child that forced you to find a new name for yourself, then you are so wrong, Tony! I'm angry because I'm sick and tired of all the lies! I can forgive you for hiding the fact that you're different; that's understandable! But the truth is you still haven't stopped lying to me!"

Unable to hold his frustrations back any longer, the fed-up youth barked back, his voice just shy of shouting as he demanded furiously, "Lying to you about what?! I came clean about everything!"

Completely unfazed by his outburst, the furious redhead kept glaring back at him, revolver still up for a moment before she lowered it again, never breaking eye contact with the raging Redgrave as she uttered two words that froze his anger over.

"Bobby's Cellar."

...For the first time in his life, Tony Redgrave was at a complete loss for words, stunned silent. He forced himself to try to speak again, only to fumble over his words.

"What?... Wait, how...? H-how'd you- Who...?!"

And then it hit him, his confusion giving away to realization as he figured out exactly who could have told her: the only other person from the underworld guild in Raccoon City aside from himself. The bastard had sneered it in his face less than ten minutes ago. The confusion was burned away by his sudden anger, both of his hands clenching into fists so tight, the leather of his gloves squelched in protest.

"Gilver..." he hissed under his breath.

Hearing Tony mutter the bandaged stranger's name, Claire nodded in affirmation, further fueling the man's spark of growing anger.

Before he could stop himself, he exploded, furious words rushing out of him in a single breath of rage. "Why the hell didn't you tell me you ran into him?! He's dangerous, Claire! You can't trust someone like him-"

"Oh, you're one to talk!" she snapped back, cutting him off and silencing his rage as she went on. "After every story you've fed me to cover your ass, you think you have any right to preach to me about trust?! You've been lying to me since we first met! Every day since we've been together, for almost a year!"

Tony had no rebuttal for that, Claire's righteous fury drowning out his own anger in an instant. Redgrave had to keep his shoulders from sagging again, knowing nothing he could say would help him at this point.

The young woman panted sharply for a moment, before slowing her breathing, taking in a deep inhale, followed by a slow exhale a second later.

When she seemed to better compose herself, she began to explain further in a calmer tone of voice. "I met him down in the kennels of the police station... I ran into two more of those inside-out creatures, and he saved me... I'm not sure what he did, or how he even did it, but he cut them down to nothing but cold cuts."

The boy's gaze narrowed in bewilderment, stunned that someone as cold-hearted and ruthless as Gilver had actually gone out of his way to save Claire's life. Hell, it was purely out of character of him to do something like that. So why had he?

The girl's voice broke him from his brief contemplative stupor as she continued to recount her encounter with the mysterious swordsman. "He asked me what I knew about you... And then told me all about the kinds of 'jobs' you get at Bobby's Cellar."

Her voice gained an edge as she mentioned 'jobs,' and despite himself, Tony felt himself twitch just ever so slightly in soft flinches as she began to list off the kind of 'work' he got from Bobby's, the edge in her tone getting sharper and hotter with each word. "Protection. Transporting! Racketeering!"

The last one she practically spat out in her growing fury, glaring at the floored, uncharacteristically quiet Redgrave.

Claire drew herself back, her next words a hushed hiss of ever-growing anger. "I find out all of this from one of your so-called 'coworkers...' And you had the fucking nerve to say what you said about my brother back at the dorm."

Tony was at a total loss of words, but the quiet, rational part of himself realized all of the younger Redfield's frustration towards him that moment was righteous and well-deserved on his part. He had no right whatsoever to feel any anger of his own at Claire. Not when she had called him out on so many of his own lies, which, compared to omitting the fact that one of Bobby's patrons had saved her life in his place, seemed criminal.

What a perfectly fitting word for how he currently felt.

She then glanced down at her feet suddenly, her anger fading into a more subdued, somber expression.

"He also made me realize something... He made me realize that I... I don't know you, Tony... Not as well as I thought I did..."

Such a comment was enough to make the boy grind his teeth in fresh fury at his fellow mercenary for making her believe something like that.

"Look, whatever he told you to make you think that way is pure bull! You know me better than anyone, Claire. Hell, probably even better than myself!"

The woman looked back up at Tony, her face both sad, pained, and angry once again. "...All you've been feeding me since we've met is pure bull."

Unable to stop himself, the man in red twisted away from the pink-vested biker as he sighed in aggravation, stalking off a little ways before finally saying, "Oh, for fu- See, this is why I didn't wanna tell you in the first place! I knew you'd react like this!"

"Then how the fuck am I supposed to react, Anthony?! Hell, how would you react?!" she demanded from behind him, prompting the taller male to turn back around and meet her frustrated gaze. "You lied to me - to my face - over and over again, for months! I've been nothing but honest with you since our first date, but you couldn't even trust me enough to be truthful about who you really were!"

She trailed off, her voice pained. When she spoke again, the young woman sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

"That's what hurts the most about this!... Realizing someone like Gilver was right all along! That I don't know who you are!... And that I never did..."

Hearing such betrayed pain in Claire's voice was enough to make Tony inch closer to her, his own voice soft and gentle as he began speaking.

"C'mon... You know me. It's me! Tony! Anthony, when you're pissed! Don't ever doubt that!"

"Anthony isn't even your real name!" she scoffed quietly, raising her left hand to her face to wipe at the corners of her eyes.

"Well, it's the only one I've got! And it's better than having no name at all, trust me on that!" he argued, moving closer as he spoke on.

"Yes, I lied about a lot of things, okay? I lied about getting jobs at Bobby's, I lied about these weird powers I have - and the sword, I technically lied about that, too - and, yes, I lied about my name! But everything else is the real me! I love rock, I love any type of metal, I can live off of pizza and strawberry sundaes for years on end!"

He stepped forward, placing his hands on her cheeks - like he had earlier in the night when he had found her by the downed helicopter - raising her teary gaze to meet his own.

"And you have to know... You've gotta believe me when I say that the way I feel about you, even now... It's real!"

That seemed to the tipping point for her anguish, twin streaks of tears running down Claire's cheekbones as she used both of her hands to pull herself free from his touch, shaking her head as she turned away from him.

She spoke again, this time her voice choked with pain. "...How can I believe anything you say... when no matter how much I wanted you to, you never trusted me enough to tell me the truth?..."

The young man, clearly at a loss for words, could only stare at her back, his eyes directly on the image of the Valkyrie on her back. Inside, he could feel the pang of dread once more in his heart, this time squeezing it to the point of shattering. Unable to help himself, he reached out for trembling young woman...

Who walked just out of his grasp, taking a few steps forward, both hands suddenly lifting up, and reaching behind her neck to undo the clasp of a silver chain resting against her pale skin. For a moment, Tony believed she was about to take off the silver feather charm he had given her for their six month anniversary, a concept he had once sneered at after hearing of such ludicrous things chatted about in Bobby's Cellar among some of the other mercenaries. But the boy's fear was unfounded, replaced with genuine surprise as Claire, without turning to look back at him, thrust her left hand out towards him, gripping the links of a familiar red and silver charm, presenting the necklace back to its former keeper.

"This is yours..." was all that escaped her lips, her voice as quiet as a whisper.

Silent, both in disbelief and confusion, Tony wordlessly found himself accepting the necklace, his right hand reaching out to grasp the palm-sized charm. He looked first towards the surface of the red ruby, shining ever so faintly in the dim light, before looking back up at the girl, who remained in place. Struggling to find words - any words at this point - the stunned man's lips parted-

Only to close again as the woman resumed her pace towards a small elevator situated in the right-hand corner of the storage room.

How can I tell you the truth... when I don't even know what it is?

He wanted so badly to tell her that, but his voice refused to work.

Pressing a switch on the cart, powering the small platform up, Claire called back to him, her voice firm, with barely a hint of the tremoring grief that had riffled through it moments ago. "I'm gonna start looking for the plugs so I can go save Sherry. You can come with me, or you can go it alone. Do whatever you want... Either way, that's it... We're through."

With those last words, the lift activated and carried the pink vest-wearing biker girl away from the miserable red-coated mercenary.

"C'mon... Claire..." he weakly called after her, helplessly raising his right arm towards her. "Claire, wait..."

But she did not respond, not even bothering to look at him, even before the lift took her out of his sight...

For a long moment, Tony simply stood there, while inside him a storm raged. The part of him he struggled with, the side of him that came alive in battle, wanted to rip, tear, and smash the room he was standing in to pieces. To howl for blood, and roar its pain.

But the man did nothing...

He remained where he was, slowly inching down to a squat as he wallowed in his misery, once more overwhelmed and disconnected from the world around him. That even in a necropolis of the undead like Raccoon City, he still felt like an outsider amongst everyone else.

Once again, for the first time since waking up in that alleyway almost eleven years ago, the man who called himself Tony Redgrave... felt utterly alone.


Her vision blurry with tears, Claire stumbled off the small elevator lift and into the new area. Her left hand was clamped firmly over her own mouth to stifle and muffle the sounds of her sobs, her eyes closed as tightly as she could force them to be. But even that wasn't enough to stop the tears still streaming down her cheeks.

Blindly, she bumped into something solid, coming to a stop as her shoulders shook harshly, her entire form wracked by the intensity of her sorrow. Turmoiled emotions ran rampant in her chest, each struggling for dominance.

The relief, genuine and true, over the fact that Tony was still alive.

Confusion and fear over the strange, superhuman powers he possessed, though not of the abilities, or even towards the man himself. Just a sense of wonder of what he truly was, along with a deep lingering fear of discovering just what exactly that entailed.

And the anger, first and foremost, that even after he had admitted the truth of his past to her - what little of it he supposedly knew - he had still lied about his lifestyle as a patron of Bobby's Cellar, a place where only thieves and killers looking to earn a quick dollar ventured and frequented.

But the anger wasn't just at Tony for his lies.

Claire was furious and ashamed at herself for turning a blind eye to all of the oddities surrounding him for so long. She had allowed herself to get swept away by his wit and charm; to just ignore the holes in his claims of being a simple handyman who just happened to have the required skill set for high-paying jobs.

She felt like such a fool.

She knew better. Had been taught better by Chris, and still she had fallen for a criminal. He had lied the entire time about who he was to her, simply because she had been stupid enough to let him. Her anger was well-justified. She knew and believed that with all her heart.

That he had still tried to lie to her face even after revealing his healing factor... Not to mention the fact that one of his 'bar buddies' had to practically spell all of the little details she had failed to pick up on out for her...

Anger and humiliation boiled in her veins, but she was still firmly set on her decision...

So why, then, did that very same heart - burning furiously with righteous, deceived rage - ache with so much pain, feeling like it was about to shatter under the heavy weight suddenly pressing down on it?

"And you have to know... You've gotta believe me when I say that the way I feel about you, even now... It's real!"

With a shuddering inhale and a final sob, Claire forced herself to open her eyes, wiping the slowing tears away with the tips of her fingers.

His words had sounded so genuine... but then again, so had all the other times he had lied about where he had gone for a 'job,' or whatever explanation he had given to ease her concerns whenever he'd vanish for days on end. He would just up and disappear, then reappear, and take her out on a date, paying for it with the extravagant amount of cash he always seemed to have when he'd come back. Claire had let her initial concerns melt away, and convinced herself to just keep being happy and having fun with him...

The tears stopped entirely, and the Redfield woman was able to get a better grip on her breathing, bringing it back under control.

It only hurt because she had thought it was real... but it wasn't.

What was real was the situation she and Sherry still found themselves in. The little girl was trapped in the sewers, and she wasn't about to waste any more time feeling sorry for herself.

She would find the plugs, save Sherry, and get themselves out of Raccoon City. After that, she'd see to it that the little girl was somewhere safe before trying to find Chris. Getting to Europe wouldn't be cheap, but she had to find her brother.

And putting an entire ocean between her and Tony Redgrave would probably help her get over him.

With that decided, Claire set her jaw and stepped away from the table she had bumped into. Now that she was paying attention to where exactly she had arrived, the young college student saw that she was in a workroom of some kind, with boxes and various other items piled about on the multiple tables and lone cart sitting idly by itself, a single door just past the table in front of her. As she started to approach it, the biker girl moved past the desk, and paused momentarily upon spying the lone body of a heavyset man collapsed face-down on the floor.

Backing up and taking the long way around the table to avoid the corpse entirely, she arrived at the door, and peered through the open grille at eye level built into it, allowing the redhead to peer into the next area. She saw that the door was locked with a strong bolt lock just a little ways above its handle, keeping it securely in place, which was a good thing for her, considering the number of zombies she was able to see idling about in the next area.

But that wasn't all that was out there...

Looking away from the stumbling walking dead that ambled about mindlessly, the young student saw the real prize along the left-side wall. There, snugly secured in an open power panel, was one of the plugs she needed. The chess piece atop it was a rook. The only thing standing between her and the plug was a door, and a few zombies.

Undeterred, Claire reached for her holstered .38, quickly checking the cylinder to confirm it was still fully loaded.

As horrible as it sounded, she was grateful for the presence of the undead only a doorway ahead. They were a much-needed distraction from the still-roiling emotions in her chest. Putting them out of their misery would allow her mind to focus on the task ahead, and get her ready for whatever dangers that were standing between her and rescuing Sherry.

With that in mind, the youngest Redfield sibling pulled the hammer of her revolver back while reaching for the latch of the locked bolt, her body tensing as she prepared herself for the fight ahead...


Back below the workroom Claire - now his ex-girlfriend - had arrived to from the elevator platform, Tony Redgrave - now her ex-boyfriend - was still crouching over the damp, dirty floor of the sewer, all alone, and pondering over the red gem encrusted in the silver necklace. The necklace - an amulet, really - was another one of the few possessions the formerly nameless man had carried with him for the last decade now. It had been around his neck ever since he woke up in that dirty alleyway.

As his icy eyes studied the charm, he recalled how often he had struggled to simply hold on to such a small thing. There had been times when others had sought to take it away from him, either in exchange for something he had needed, or to simply possess it for themselves. But Tony had always held onto it. It was important to him, of that he was certain.

No. More than important.

There were times when giving it up would have made the days ahead easier to bear, easing the struggles that still lay ahead. But he never considered giving it up an option.

That is... until he had to accept losing it forever, or following after Claire.

It was no contest. The pendant, or finding the one person who had made him feel like something more than what he really was after having lived like an outsider for so long, even among the gaggle of nomads who made Bobby's Cellar their home. He would have easily left it all behind for her.

Always for her.

But she had taken it with her, or found it herself, while he had been incapacitated. She had held onto it, believing him dead.

Because she cared.

"She cares... Always did... Until I went and screwed it all up..." he whispered bitterly to himself.

He had lied about who he was, what he was, and what he did for a living. She had every right to be angry with him. And maybe that same anger was blinding her to the sincerity of his feelings for her. But as much as Tony wanted to desperately dig up some excuse that would convince himself he could win her back, the young man resisted. She had made her decision clear, and he would accept it, as much as he didn't want to.

Unbidden, his left hand moved into the inside of his coat, where his fingers traced the outline of the gift he had gotten for her as an apology for the fight they'd had back in her dorm. Somehow, the thing was still intact despite all the punishment the mercenary had taken over the course of this single hellish night in Raccoon City. A good sign, perhaps.

The pale-haired man turned his gaze upward, towards the shaft the pink vest-wearing redhead had disappeared into. She had told him she was looking for something - electronic plugs shaped like chess pieces - to unlock a door barring her from the child they had found in the power plant underneath the police station. Claire had also made it clear she didn't care if he followed her or not, but hadn't expressly forbade him from doing so.

She probably wants to be as far away from me as possible right now... Can't really blame her for that... She's probably even hoping I won't try to follow her... But like hell am I gonna just let her wander around this place on her own. I made a promise to Marvin, and I'll be damned if I break it.

The dying officer had made him swear he would see Claire safely out of the city, and Tony Redgrave always kept his word. Marvin had kept her safe when he hadn't, and now he would repay that kindness by honoring his final request.

Promise or no, Claire Redfield would survive the night.

The snowy-haired youth doubted the young woman would find a way to argue with that, and even if the rest of their journey to escape Raccoon was in silence, he didn't care. Once they were out of the city, and safely away from the undead and monsters roaming it, he would let the girl go on her own if that was what she really wanted. There was no point, at this time at least, in trying to change her mind.

Maybe later, after they escaped, and if she was willing to give him another chance to explain...

But now was not the time to even begin to hope for something that may never be. Right now, he had to catch up to her, and help her find those plugs to save Sherry.

With that objective decided, a goal now firmly in his sight, Tony raised both hands towards his neck, quickly re-fastening the silver chain of his amulet back around his neck as he stood to his full height. His legs started moving at the same time, walking towards the now-empty cart shaft that had carried Claire off, his icy eyes spotting a recall button. Finished with his amulet's chain, the crimson-coated mercenary reached out to press the button-

BAM-BAM-BAM!*

Three shots, one after another. They had all been muffled, but were still fairly loud, considering they were coming from just above his head.

Gaze snapping up, Tony's body reacted all on its own. The man quickly stepped directly into the shaft of the elevator cart, his legs bending just slightly before he pushed against the ground, his boots kicking him off and straight up into the air, leaping several feet high-

-before promptly crashing his head against the bottom of the parked elevator cart, sending him falling back down onto the filthy floor of the garbage-strewn storage room. Groaning, the gunslinger clutched the now-very sore spot on the crown of his head that had collided against the very sturdy metal bottom of the cart. For a moment, the stunned swordsman was wondering where he was, and why he had even done that.

Then he heard two more shots, followed by a third, and the boy realized that six bullets was all the ammo Claire's small revolver could carry.

That thought prompted him to hop back onto his feet, and quickly lunge forward, fist striking the recall button for the elevator hard enough to crack it, and sent a small electrical discharge of sparks. The elevator cart above began to lower itself down, but Tony refused to wait for it to lower entirely. Instead, he backed up a step, his ice blue eyes watching the cart descend by a few more feet before he leapt off the floor a second time, this time jumping at a slight angle, his right arm outstretched.

Tony's hand snatched the edge of the cart, and with a tug and a flip, the long edges of his coat flourishing behind him, he deftly pulled himself up and onto the cart in a single smooth motion, before jumping again with enough force to force the cart down several feet. Rolling in midair, the mercenary landed on both soles with a hard *THUMP,* his hands disappearing into his coat to produce his Colt and Beretta. Both handguns flashed out, arms crossed as he readied to open fire on whatever it was that was attacking Claire-

-when he stopped, blinking once, then again.

The white-haired gunslinger found himself in a rather cramped workroom littered with boxes and other items, the only door across from him wide open, revealing a metal walkway, with two zombies collapsed dead on the floor, the majority of their heads blown to smithereens by close range shots to the head. Stepping forward, walking over the motionless body in the center of the room, Tony entered the new area, and found himself standing on a walkway overlooking a series of pools of sewage below. Moving forward, he spied a third body ahead, slumped against a wall close to another door, a good portion of what was once its head now splattered along the wall.

A little further ways ahead was Claire, standing by a bright light by some stairs heading down, her open revolver in one hand while the other was moving, fingers reloading the spent rounds.

Tony had to admit that he was rather impressed with the efficient - dare he say ruthless - way the biker girl had dispatched the zombies. A part of him wondered if that was how she vented her anger. When he heard a soft groan to his left, the gunslinger turned his gaze towards the direction of the sound, glancing down, and spying a zombie trying to get up from where it was slumped against a wall. Behind it, a large mechanical platform had raised itself up, blocking off any chance of pursuing the path beyond it.

Casually, he pointed the Colt flush against the ghoul's temple and fired, blowing the dead man's brains out in a single loud shot, the body collapsing back against the wall it had previously laid against.

The sudden noise prompted the surprised girl to whirl around, revolver raised and pointed at Redgrave in a split-second.

"Hey..." he waved weakly. "Just me."

For a moment, both man and woman simply stared at each other.

Then, Tony indicated the still smoking head of the zombie he had just killed, lamely calling to the college girl, "You, uh... missed one."

All that earned him was a disgusted roll of her grey-blue eyes, before she lowered the revolver, holstering it before looking back at him, expression controlled and neutral as she called back, "Keep up, or I'm leaving you behind."

With that, she spun around, and headed down the stairs.

Yep... Tony thought to himself, hunching over slightly. Still pissed...

Holstering his own sidearms, the red-coated mercenary followed after the pink-vested biker, hoping she wouldn't be too far ahead of him by the time he had her back in his sight. Fortunately, she had not gotten very far. In the stairway was where he caught up with her, the college girl standing slightly to the side as she looked down at another body propped up against the wall.

If this particular body had looked anything like the last couple they had passed, neither would have given it any mind. But this one didn't look like any of the previous bodies of dead and undead. The last ones had all been regular people, formerly, wearing coveralls, civilian clothes, or even a reflector vest; more than likely sewer crewmen and the odd survivor looking for refuge.

This body, however, was covered head-to-toe in all-black tactical combat gear, with a gas mask and helmet obscuring their face. Definitely not a sewer worker or a civilian.

Claire looked from the body to Tony, whose eyes remained on the corpse, following his movements as the taller man kneeled down next to the body. The college student watched in silence as he peered closely at the cadaver, his head moving slightly as he examined one part of it to another.

Finally, she decided to ask him the first thought on her mind, mostly to break the tense silence between them. "Is it... someone from the military?"

The youth stayed silent for another moment, his hands beginning to pat along the corpse's belt, then fish around the various pockets along the body's hips, before palpating along the upper arms, where he produced a small leather pouch lined with several shotgun shells. Tearing the bag off of the shoulder with the distinct ripping sound of Velcro, the mercenary rose back up, stuffing the shells into one of his coat's pocket's before responding.

"If he was military, he wasn't part of any official branch I've ever heard of. There aren't any emblems on his gear, either. Could be from something covert, or a private security firm. Maybe even a hired gun."

Something you'd know all about, I'm sure... she thought bitterly, but kept it to herself.

She had said her piece, and she would leave it at that. If there was a time to talk further, and only if - IF - there was anything else left to be said, it would have to happen later...

And only if they were hopefully still alive, away from the city.

Tony was silent as well, beginning to step forward when a soft, metallic *clink* issued from below. Blinking, the swordsman glanced down by his feet, and spotted several shell casings lining the floor, long, thin, brass casings partially rusted thanks to the ambient moisture from the sewer pools in the area below the walkway. He crouched down to pick up a few, scanning them over, before letting them drop to the floor as he turned his attention back towards the body, his eyes looking over for something.

"His piece's missing... These came from an automatic, but he doesn't have any weapons on him. Someone must have taken whatever he had left on him."

Claire blinked at the sudden statement, while the gunman stood back up, looking at the wall behind the corpse. The woman spotted it almost as soon as she looked. The wall just slightly above where the body was collapsed against, right at about chest level with Tony himself, was an impact site, the mortar and brick partially cracked in several places. Redgrave traced a thin cracked line with a single finger for a moment, before twisting around to look at his companion, or rather, past her, down a smaller set of stairs into a dark corridor where several large tanks were lined against the wall.

His gaze dropped lower, prompting Claire to look over her shoulder to follow his line of sight.

There, collapsed on the floor, was another body in identical tactical wear as the one against the wall.

Without saying anything else, the man in red quickly strode past the young woman, and down the small flight of steps, crouching down next to this body as well, beginning to search all the pockets and pouches lining its belt. As Claire slowly followed after him, Tony raised his right hand up, showing her two small, but very dangerous hand grenades, both just a bit bigger than her whole clenched fist.

"More bang for your buck," he quipped with a smirk.

She didn't return the grin, which made the young man's own falter. She tried to ignore the sudden sting in her chest, and looked away from him. That was when she spotted what was lining the walls above the dead man.

"Tony," Claire called, pointing out with her right hand.

Redgrave followed her gesture, turning to look at the walls behind him. Both the front and wall to his right had long, jagged scratch marks across from them, reminding the pink-vested girl of the ones she had seen in the police station, but much longer and deeper. Tony stared at the gouges for a moment before glancing back down at the body.

The young mercenary dug his hand under the front of the corpse before unceremoniously flipping it over onto its back. Suddenly, the corpse reached out to him, proving itself to be undead. Before the girl could so much as cry out or raise her pistol, the mercenary sent a hard fist down its temple, before grabbing it, and smashing the side of its head onto the floor.

"Whoops..." the youth breathed out, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "Probably should've checked him first..."

Claire let out a sigh of relief before blinking, confounded as she saw that he was still fiddling with the corpse, specifically a small compact camera secured in a pouch on the front of the dead man's vest.

Blinking, the woman glanced back to Tony as she asked, "How did you-"

"The other guy had one, too, but his was smashed to bits. This one's still intact... For the most part," he explained as he pulled out the small recording device, his fingers running over it several times before he found the right button to open the small video cassette case. Triumphantly, he raised the small video cartridge high over his head, studying it with a pleased grin. "I wonder what kinda home movies we'll find in here..."

Redfield was tempted to ask him just how he planned to watch whatever was on the cassette, but decided against it. Looking past Redgrave, the young woman saw another set of steps leading further down, back into the main sluice channels of Raccoon's sewer system. After she stepped around Tony, who stayed still long enough to carefully place the video cassette into one of the deeper interior pockets of his coat, he followed after her, but kept a respectable distance between them, much to her relief.

As she arrived at the base of the last set of steps, Claire wrinkled her nose down on the sewage water below, but inhaled heavily before easing herself down into the nasty stuff. Sloshing forward through the waist-high dirty water, the biker girl heard a second splash behind her, followed by Tony's groan, muffled slightly by the distance, but she could easily pick up the aggravation in his tone.

"Ugh... And I was just startin' to like this coat, too."

Annoyed by his whining, his ex muttered to herself, "You can buy yourself a new one with all the money you make at Bobby's, can't you?"

If he had heard her, he didn't respond, which was just fine with her.

The duo pressed forward, wading through the sewage into a larger, open waterway. Ahead, Claire saw a gate with another raised ledge built along the wall it was connected to on the left side. There was another side passage just before the ledge, and from the sound of the flowing water emanating from it, she guessed it was probably just a dead end; a man-made ravine of sewage water from a waterfall of the stuff.

As they drew closer to the gate, Tony spoke up from behind her. "So, uh... How'd you know where to find these chess plug thingies, anyway?"

As much as she would have preferred silence between them after such a painful exchange, Claire was at least grateful he was only asking about their current situation, and not trying to pick up where they had left off. Arriving at the gate, she propped herself onto the ledge, and spied another locked valve and lowered gate door. Reaching into her pack to produce the t-bar crank tool, she started speaking as she went about unbarring the gate.

"There were some papers in the office area where the vault was. They were mostly pamphlets and junk, but I found a map and some notes showing where the sewer workers kept some spare plugs. I found one of them, the Rook, back on that walkway we were on earlier. The last two, the Queen and King, are in a larger supply storeroom, which should be just up ahead. And if I remember that map right, there should be another stairway that'll take us back up to the treatment pool, where the cable car is, and back to the monitor room, where the vault and Sherry are."

She had the gate raised roughly to the halfway point as she finished talking, not looking back at the young man, who remained silent for a moment, before shrugging and commenting, "Sorta convenient, I guess... No idea why the sewer workers thought using plugs shaped like chess pieces was a good idea, though."

On that, she wholeheartedly agreed with him, the whole fetch quest utterly ridiculous and contrived. It seemed like all she had really done - forced, really - since arriving in Raccoon City, aside from struggling to survive against the walking dead and abominable monsters spawned from the very worst of nightmares, was find one strange item after another to keep moving forward, hoping the next unbarred path would be the one to let her finally escape this city of the dead.

The gate finished rising, and Claire pulled the t-bar out of the valve, and placed it back into her pack, pulling out her flashlight, and flicking it on to illuminate the heavy shadows going down a long stairway descending even deeper into the sewers. Once they were down there, it would be a straight walk to the far back of the area, where the supplies storeroom should be located.

It seemed all too easy and simple. And if there was anything the youngest Redfield sibling had learned from this horrible night, it was that nothing was ever as simple or easy as it should have been.

Giving Tony a quick look and a beckon with her free hand, she ordered, "Come on," before beginning down the stairway.

The crimson-coated youth, meanwhile, pulled himself up onto the ledge, thankful to be out of the sewage once again, and was moving to follow her when he paused, nostrils flaring as he inhaled sharply, eyes narrowing. To say something stank in a sewer was possibly the most redundant way of putting it. And while he had long gotten used to the rotting meat stench of zombies - even the combination of waste, mold, and stagnant water didn't really bother him at this point, either - there was a sudden stench in the air more fouler than all of these combined. He noticed Claire could smell it, too, the young woman having moved her free hand over her mouth, though he still heard her gagging momentarily.

As he followed after her, Tony found himself covering his mouth and nose as well. The smell was truly rank, and the air in the stairway was warm, wet, and disgustingly humid. The further down he went, the worse it got, and he briefly wondered what could possibly be the source of such a foul odor.

He was almost entirely at the bottom, the redhead already having made it down the steps. The man watched as she took a single step forward before pausing, then slowly resuming her pace, his ears picking up her faint whisper as she did.

"Oh my god..."

It was never a good sign when those three little words were strung together in a single sentence.

Arriving at the bottom of the stairway, Tony saw that he and Claire had arrived at another metal walkway overlooking a section of the sewer below, dim lights offering little in illumination, while a few red emergency lights also added their otherworldly glow, casting the lower section in an eerie and foreboding light. It certainly set the mood, if anything else, the boy concluded as he followed after the young woman, who was standing by the guard rail of the walkway, her grey-blue eyes wide as saucers as she peered down into the area below.

When Tony caught up to her, he glanced down as well, his icy eyes narrowed as he took in the sight that had shocked his former lover so.

"...In case you're wondering, no, this ain't the man upstairs at work... And yet, blasphemy just doesn't feel accurate enough a word for it."

Below in the lower area was another sewage sluice, about as filthy as both the young man and woman had been expecting. What they hadn't been expecting was the numerous mounds of slimy, greasy-looking red flesh piled together in great big lumps, a few of the mounds just shy of reaching the walkway they were standing on. The strange flesh was the source of the foul odor, Tony realized. The mercenary's eyes traveled upward, spying gaps between the mounds just large enough for someone to walk through. Further ahead, he saw a ledge and a large open tunnel way, where a lone door waited under the eerie red light of one of the emergency lamps.

It was a straightforward walk to the door, and he couldn't see any signs of zombies lurking below... or anything else for that matter.

Twisting back around, Tony ignored the small workstation to his right, and instead approached the ladder descending into the waterway at the bottom below.

Looking back to Claire, he called out to her. "I'm going down to check it out. Once I've made sure it's safe, I'll call for you."

The red-coated man's sudden words broke the collegiate girl from her stunned silence, and she quickly glanced over her shoulder just in time to watch Redgrave simply hop off of the walkway's edge instead of climbing down the ladder itself. A loud splash sounded as the white-haired young man landed, his coat flaring out, his face grimacing not from the impact, but the increased intensity of the pungent odor emanating from the flesh mounds. Both of his hands quickly moved to draw his Colt and Beretta. Crossing his arms and moving forward, Tony examined the only corner around a large mound of red flesh, and saw a single body, a dead man, propped atop a short ledge lining the wall, a bright lamp illuminating the motionless body.

Watching the limp corpse for a moment, the gunslinger cautiously lowered his firearms, his eyes slowly moving about. The sewer water was stilling, the ripples formed from his landing impact settling back into a still surface. There were no other movements or sounds, but it did little to ease his mind.

Turning his gaze upward, the gunman spotted Claire waiting by the ladder, crouched slightly as she watched him.

"Come on down! It looks clear!" he relayed to her.

Nodding, the pink vest-wearing biker girl made her descent down the ladder, while the red-clad merc himself took a few steps forward, holstering his handguns as he sloshed through the sewage, his eyes locked on the body propped up on the ledge. His instincts were on edge, and it had something to do with the body, though he was unsure as to what exactly. It looked like most of the other corpses he had seen so far in Raccoon City, skin gray and rotting, clothes bloodstained and dirty, though the guy had a beer gut, it seemed, his shirt distended slightly around his rising gut.

Behind him, Claire finished her descent, and was trudging quickly to catch up with the pale-haired boy. Tony paused just a few feet from the body, his left arm extending out in front of the young redhead, gesturing for her to stop. She blinked in confusion, looking at the taller man. Noticing that his gaze was locked ahead, she followed his line of sight.

The crimson-coated mercenary was intently watching the still body on the ledge, though the auburn-haired woman didn't see anything peculiar about it. Then the man took another step forward-

-and the corpse jerked, its abdomen spasming. Horror and realization struck Claire before she heard the familiar sound of cracking ribs and tearing flesh-

-when the bloody stomach of the body exploded, a hideous screech emitting from the squirming lump of flesh struggling to pull itself free from its undead womb.

Before the frightened young woman could make a sound - a scream or warning cry, she wasn't sure - Tony reacted first.

His right hand shot over his shoulder, drawing his gothic longsword in a single motion, before bringing it forward, perfectly in time with the body-bursting creature. The barbed tip ran through its long form, blood splashing in the dirty water around them. The creature screeched again - in horrible pain, no doubt - and struggled frantically to free itself from the sword, but its spasms ceased after several moments. The swordmaster drew his arm back, leveling his blade in front of himself, looking the creature over.

Despite the horror and disgust she felt seeing such a creature once again, the college student found she couldn't look away either, and took in the monstrosity for all it was.

It was about as long as Tony's arm, a thin, fleshy tail trailing behind it, with several long and small feelers and nubs on its underside approximately where a regular human's arms and legs would be on their torso, stretched flesh rising across its back somewhat like a hump. Redgrave raised his sword slightly, peering at its underside, and Claire felt her gorge rise when she saw the blade had missed a gaping hole already open on the creature's belly, where a set of human-looking teeth hung open.

The youth glanced back at the redheaded girl, his expression unreadable as he asked her a single question. "You see something like this pop outta Old Man Irons?"

The inquiry brought back unwanted memories - fresher than she had realized - as Claire easily recalled the corrupt police chief's agonized scream as his large abdomen burst open. The college girl hadn't gotten an exact look at the horror that had pulled itself free from Irons' body, but both creatures had made the same terrible screech upon their 'birth.'

Remaining silent, she simply nodded her affirmation.

Tony turned his attention back to the dead implant impaled on his sword, his left hand reaching out to touch the fleshy hump on its back. To Claire's disgust and horrified awe, she watched as his fingers peel the fleshly lid back...

Exposing a dull, orange eye. While much smaller than the one she had seen on the creature Sherry had called 'Daddy,' she recognized it all the same.

Almost instantly, she understood.

"The G-Carrier's spawn..." he murmured to himself.

Pulling his hand away while flinging it thoroughly, the swordsman sharply flicked his blade, casting the dead parasite off of it. The deceased creature landed in the sewer water with a splash. Sheathing his blade back across his back, Tony sloshed through the waters, towards a large mound of flesh.

Claire blinked, following his sudden movements...

And saw the boy pull himself onto the mound, where multiple bodies lay. Each bore the same burst abdomen as the corpse across from where they lay. The woman felt her heart climb into her throat.

"How... How many?" she asked quietly.

Tony stood over the bodies, his head moving slowly from one side to the other.

"I count four... And that's just the ones I can see."

Both the young man and woman understood exactly where they were now.

They had found the nest the spawn had made for themselves...

Redgrave looked away from the bodies, turning his gaze towards the edge of the flesh mound, where it led to a short drop into the main section of the sewage on the opposite side. Tony approached the edge, glancing down before looking back up, his icy eyes studying the path before them. More rising piles of strange, tumor-like flesh heaps, some forming mounds too high to climb on, but there was a traversable path between them.

Hearing a soft splash behind him, the boy looked over his shoulder in time to see Claire hoist herself up, the young woman carefully rising to her feet, trying to avoid looking at the bodies as she did so. Once she rose to her full height, Tony held up his right hand, blocking her. The college girl blinked, looking from his hand to his face, unnerved to see a serious expression on the normally-aloof mercenary's handsome face.

"Nuh-uh. Go back up the ladder, and wait for me there. I'll go on ahead, and grab the plugs from the storage room in the back. It'll be safer if you stay up there."

Somewhat insulted, the biker girl shot the youth a glare before retorting, "I can handle myself, thank you very much. Waiting around would be a waste of time, anyway. This'll go faster if we both go."

Tony cocked a brow, pulling his arm back, and crossing both of them over his chest before replying, "Claire, listen to me. There's gotta be more than one of them down here; maybe a lot more. I got lucky with the first one, getting the drop on it before it even knew I was there. But this is their home turf, and they'll be ready and waiting for us. If they aren't already."

Undeterred, the woman quickly countered, "All the more reason for me to come with you, then! I can watch your back, keep an eye out in case they try to sneak up on us while you cover the front. That way, it's safe for us both... Or would you rather I take the lead?"

The young mercenary held her gaze for a long moment, but when he saw she was refusing to back down, he sighed, tilting his head back and shaking it, muttering to himself as he did.

"I just can't win with you, can I?..."

Despite herself, Claire found the corners of her lips twitching in smile, but she quickly forced the familiar feelings away once Tony lowered his head, slowly turning around, drawing his longsword as he did.

Eyes set forward, he spoke again, keeping his gaze front and center. "I'll be taking the lead. No offense, but I'm a bit sturdier than you. In the meantime, cover the rear, and shout if you see one of them comin' from behind, the side, or anywhere else. I know I can handle one of these things one-on-one, but I'm not exactly eager to test my luck against two or three just yet..."

With that said, he hopped off the ledge, landing in the sewage, and started forward. The redhead was already moving to follow him automatically, but paused, looking at her small revolver before quickly holstering it, and drawing out the grenade launcher slung over her back, gripping the light but deadly weapon with both hands. She had two spare shells left, and it would hurt those things more than either of her sidearms at the very least.

With that decided, she quickly hopped off the ledge, sloshing after Tony, who had stopped roughly six feet away, his eyes narrowed, his head turning back and forth in a slow, careful manner. The confused student was about to inquire as to what the snowy-haired man was listening for... when she heard it herself. A sound that chilled her to her core. It was unexpected, and utterly familiar, yet somehow different all the same.

Soft, wordless singing, or rather humming. A lyric-less, nonsensical sound, but much too similar to what it was clearly imitating. For a moment, Claire allowed herself to believe it might be another survivor, perhaps wordlessly calling for help, but even she couldn't fool herself as to what was more than likely making the noise.

Looking to Tony, she whispered to him, "Are they making that sound?"

Without replying, the gunman reached into his coat with his free hand, drawing his Colt, and pulling the hammer back with a soft *click.*

"Ignore it. Keep your eyes peeled."

His words were quick and curt, but she understood his reasoning. One false move, one missed sighting...

The red-coated gunslinger resumed his walk, wading through the sewage, his ice-blue eyes looking from one mound of flesh to another, absently noticing how the substance seemed to expand and exhale on its own, like lungs. Or maybe it was just the shadows playing tricks on his eyes. Somehow, he doubted it.

Behind him, Claire followed his steps, her own grey-blue eyes jumping from one sight to the next, never quite sure if it was just her overactive imagination fooling her into thinking she was seeing something moving under the dirty waste water, or the large mounds of flesh expanding on their own accord. But if her eyes lingered too long on one spot, another movement would flicker in the corner of the other, prompting her to quickly snap her gaze away. She and Tony reached a curve, turning to the left as they did-

-when the young man came to a sudden halt, his left arm shooting out, stopping Redfield from following. Blinking, the biker girl looked past his arm, and tried to see what it was that had stopped him in his tracks. She hadn't heard anything, just the movements of the water from their own steps, and that strange humming song. And then she spied what the youth had seen, which had made him stop.

There, lying in the center of the next open path between the rising flesh mounds, was a smaller lump of red and purple tumor-like flesh. But among the folds was a glowing orange eye.

Acting before she could think, Tony's arm snapped straight, his finger squeezing on his handgun's trigger, firing off two shots. Both projectiles struck the mound, and the effect was instant. The water exploded, and a large creature - a twin of the one that had first attacked her - rose up in a wave of filth, screeching its otherworldly, hissing screech, its hideous grinning face locked on Tony. The eye on its left shoulder bleeding bright orange tears of blood, the beast lumbered toward its attacker.

Redgrave shoved his pistol back into his holster and charged forward, both hands gripping the hilt of his blade, drawing the greatsword back for a mighty slash for the creature's long neck. But the monster suddenly drew its massive left arm up and back, a splash of sewage striking Tony's face, making him stumble, gagging as used his left hand to wipe at his stinging eyes.

Watching in stunned horror, Claire screamed out, "TONY, LOOK OUT!"

The creature swung its over-sized arm down, seemingly attempting to squash the youth with one giant, three-fingered palm, but the white-haired mercenary either heard her warning or sensed its attack, easily retreating out of the range of its strike, the enormous mitt hitting the water, and causing another large wave. Growling in anger and disgust both - each directed at the monster for hitting him with the filthy sewage water - the swordsman jumped out of the waist-high waste, almost fifteen feet in the air, before landing hard on the beast's shoulders, causing it to stagger, its long neck craning back so its grinning face could hiss up at its attacker. Sneering back, Tony reversed his hold on Woozy, and brought the barbed tip down hard, aiming for its glowing eye-

The creature made a quick jerk, trying to shake the man off of itself, the sudden movement causing the swordmaster's lunge to miss its mark, the barbed tip of his blade digging into approximately where a normal human's shoulder blade would be, sending a gush of glowing orange blood splashing into the dirty water below.

Claire meanwhile, maneuvered herself behind the struggling monster and mercenary, moving around its right side, backing up and raising the grenade launcher, before quickly dropping it, letting it hang by the belt strap over her shoulder. Shooting a grenade off at such close quarters would only hurt herself, as well as Tony, who was still atop the creature. And she wasn't sure either of her revolvers would be much better, the very real possibility a stray round hitting the young man crossing her mind. The college girl had momentarily forgotten about her ex-beau's superhuman healing ability, as well as her surroundings...

As Tony struggled to keep both his grip on Woozy and his booted feet from sliding off the jerking adult G-Spawn's slick flesh, he caught a flash of movement in the corner of his eye. A quick dash of pink fell into his gaze, and he spotted Claire running ahead, raising her launcher before letting it fall, a conflicted look on her face-

-while behind her, a large knoll of flesh rose up from the nasty water, moving quickly to catch the college girl unawares.

Eyes widening, he shouted, "CLAIRE, BEHIND YOU!"

The auburn-haired woman spun around at the sound of Tony's warning, her grey eyes wide with terror as she saw the charging creature, its hideous grin rising from the flowing waves. But unlike her last encounter with this type of creature, Claire reacted to it sooner rather than standing still. Lunging itself forward, the abomination's massive arm shot out to snatch her, but she had gone for its blind spot, allowing her to dive into the sewage, and quickly kick away from where she had been standing. Unable to stop itself, the second G-Spawn slammed into its sibling, causing both to fall forward, letting the swordsman rip his blade free and somersault through the air, landing a few paces behind Claire as she rose from the sewage, coughing and gasping.

The two monsters fumbled over themselves, and the mercenary decided it was better to just let them be instead of wasting time killing them. Slinging Woozy over his shoulder, Tony turned back to Claire, who was heading for a raised ledge that led to the doorway of the storage area. The girl pulled herself onto the cement platform, looking back at her fellow survivor-

-and her eyes went wide as she screamed, "TONY!"

But her warning didn't have him react fast enough, the red-coated man passing a large sewage sluice, a flood of the nasty liquid splashing onto him before the massive body of a third G-Spawn slammed directly on top of him as the beast pulled itself free from the pipe. Tony choked and gagged underwater, before finding himself snatched by the creature's large hand, the monster hoisting him out of the disgusting filth, its hideous face sneering down on him, the front splitting open into four fleshly lids, the inner mouth leaking a disgusting purple muck and dozens of maggots as it moved to engulf his face-

-but was met by Redgrave shoving his right arm deep down into its gullet, before yanking the arm back at the same time the creature flinched back, choking. Tony was released from its grasp as the man held his right hand up with a savage grin, a small pin ring dangling off his middle finger.

"Chew on THAT!"

No sooner had he spoken did the belly of the beast burst in an explosion of flames and smoke, the monster howling in agony as its body was attacked internally by explosive fire and shrapnel, orange blood gushing out of its inner mouth, the abomination staggering in place.

Tony allowed himself a triumphant grin before he heard more splashing. A quick twist of his gaze confirmed the other two G-Spawns were lumbering his way, and while the third had clearly taken a lot of damage from the grenade he had shoved down its throat, it refused to fall over, and began to menacingly drag itself after him as well.

"Tony, come on!" Claire called from behind him.

The man snarled under his breath. While somewhat satisfied to have hurt two of them - one more badly than the other - the part of him hounding for more was infuriated to leave the creatures alive. But he reined it in, letting reason win again. Bending his knees, Tony back-flipped out of the water, soaring backwards through the air, coat tails flapping wetly as he landed on the platform next to his partner, both hands producing his Beretta and Colt, and pointing them at the advancing monstrosities, Claire joining him with her grenade launcher.

But the beasts only took a few steps before stopping, glaring at the out-of-reach humans for a moment, before lowering their large bodies back into the water, vanishing entirely in moments. The sewage water rippled slightly in small waves, but after several moments, went still. Both youths kept their weapons on the spot where the creatures had vanished, but there was no more movement, and the strange, humming song had ceased as well.

Letting his eyes linger to where the creatures had submerged for another second, Redgrave drew his arms back, giving both handguns a spin before holstering them again. Claire lowered her launcher as well, looking to Tony for a moment before slinging it back across her back.

"They didn't try to follow us up here," the college girl noted.

Tony scoffed.

"Probably too big to haul their fat ugly asses after us," he concluded.

The pale-haired man looked over his soaked clothes in dismay, flinging his arms, and shaking his legs to get the clinging muck off of himself. Claire wasn't much better off, absently wiping her mouth in a futile attempt to get rid of the lingering foul aftertaste of the sewage water out of her mouth. Both turned towards the lone door behind them, another festering mound of flesh growing along the wall to its right.

Claire went for it first, opening the door, and seeing a new stairway rising into the storeroom. Looking back at Tony, she gave a quick nod before heading up the stairs. The young man looked back at the spot where the creatures had sunk into the water before following after her. It was a short flight of stairs, the duo arriving at the top in a moment.

The woman was tempted to look over the work desk in the corner next to the open doorway, but a quick glance told her there was nothing important there, just old buckets and piles of lumber. Moving through the opening, Tony a few steps behind, the two arrived into what had to be the actual storage area, their footsteps clanging softly on the metal walkway, mesh fences lining the railings to ensure no one would plunge over. Another walk across the pathway, and they arrived next to a large metallic shelf unit filled with dozens upon dozens of small boxes.

Tony looked the containers over, before turning back to the college student and asking, "Think they're in one of these?"

Claire glanced at the boxes as well, but shook her head, saying, "I don't think so."

Peering behind her, she saw another set of stairs descending down into the lower floor. Turning back to the boy, the young woman quickly rifled through her side pack, producing the first plug she had found in the upper sewers: a white rook piece atop it.

Showing it to the man in red, she explained, "I found this one just sticking out of a panel on the wall. When I removed it, the walkway in the corridor in front of it went up, so the king and queen plugs might be in something similar."

Before she could move to put the plug back in her pack, Tony deftly snatched the small item out of her hand, giving it a look over, then shook his head in disgust.

"If these people just sat down and thought about all these little gimmicks they like to use, they'd probably realize they're not being nearly as clever as they think they are."

Claire snatched the plug out of his hand, shoving it back into her side pack while snapping, "Cut the crap, and help me find the plugs, already. I've been away from Sherry for too long."

The young man couldn't help the frown at her harsh rebuke. "C'mon, babe, I was only just-"

"I'm not your fucking babe!" she furiously barked, her angry glare returning in full force, which easily made him take a step back.

Raising his right hand up placatingly, Tony took a moment to think about his response before speaking again quietly, "...Okay... Sorry."

Hearing his apology, almost too meek in contrast to his usual demeanor, Claire allowed herself to calm down, taking a deep breath before gesturing behind her shoulder. "Let's just hurry up so we can get out of here..."

Tony's eyes fell at her remark, but he simply nodded, and took the lead down the stairway, walking down into the lower level and towards a wire mesh door gate. The red-clad swordsman looked it over, his icy eyes scanning over the surface before spotting a electronic panel on the left hand side, a red light glowing on it, and an empty socket by the light. As the young man studied the panel, Claire finished walking down the steps and turned for the left corner alcove Tony had ignored.

She found an open door panel in the wall mesh gate, and after stepping through, turned around to find a second panel, this one on the right of the open gateway, and with a plug already set in the slot. Pulling out her flashlight, the redhead grinned when she saw it was the queen piece. Just as Tony had turned away from the first locked gate, the biker girl pulled the plug free from the slot-

-and a soft electronic *beep* issued, quickly followed by the previously open mesh gate slamming closed, cutting both male and female off from each other. Claire flinched at the sudden motion and noise, stepping back while the youth simply stepped up to the gate, giving it a bemused look over.

"Hold on, I'll put the plug back-" she started to say, but Tony simply reached out with his right hand, slipping his fingers through the empty holes in the mesh to grasp it firmly, and without so much as a grunt, shoved the mechanical door back into its slot. Blinking, somewhat stunned by the rather mundane show of strength on Redgrave's part, Claire absently stepped back to allow the taller man through the open pathway.

Walking past her and further into the main lower section of the storeroom, Tony turned right to observe the opposite side of the first mesh door he had been studying. When he saw no panel, he walked across from it to another section cut off by more wire mesh walls. He found a locked door panel in front of it, along with another panel with a red light and empty slot, and chuckled mirthlessly.

"Yep. I see what the game is." Before the collegiate girl could respond to that, the crimson-coated gunslinger turned back towards her, raising his right hand up before asking, "Hey, toss me that plug you just found, wouldja?"

Understanding dawned on her, and she wanted to slap her forehead for not getting it as fast as Tony had. Knowing what he was about to do, Claire nodded and threw the plug, the man catching it without even looking. The white-haired youth then slid the plug into the empty slot, which made the red light turn green and the door panel slide open.

Instead of walking through the open passage, Tony promptly yanked the plug out, his free hand catching the door panel before it closed entirely. With what seemed like a gentle push on his part, the swordsman promptly pushed this gate back into its slot as well, the panel sparking next to him, the red light flashing erratically before powering down. Grinning smugly, he tossed the Queen Plug back to Claire before moving through the open doorway, discovering a second set of stairs inside.

Catching the plug and slipping it back into her pouch as the young man started ascending the stairway, the girl muttered to herself, "I don't think they had someone like you in mind when they were making this little puzzle..."

Just as she finished zipping her pack up, a loud *thump* made her snap her gaze back up, her flashlight finding the source of the sound when she spied a body collapsed on the floor by the stairway Tony had ascended: a man in bloody coveralls. As expected, the corpse uttered a deep groan before staggering up, turning its pale eyes on the college girl, its torn jaws parting open in a hungry groan, feebly reaching out with its left arm while its right hung uselessly at its side. Rolling her eyes in annoyance but taking a cautious step back, she reached for her revolver at her side-

-only for a red blur to descend down in front of her, Tony Redgrave reappearing in a flourish of his coattails, his right hand drawing his great sword out, swinging it once in the same motion. A slick sound of flesh splitting issued, followed by a second *thump,* then a third as the body followed its head to the floor. Turning back to Claire as he sheathed his sword, Tony presented a second plug to her, the white chess piece depicted atop the king piece.

With a relieved sigh, she accepted the plug, opening her pack again to place it next to the other two pieces: the rook and the queen. They had found all three, and in much shorter time than she had thought it would take.

"Now we just have to find a way around those monsters to get back to Sherry..." she murmured to herself.

If Tony heard her, he didn't indicate that he had. Instead, the red-clad mercenary was walking down the middle pathway between the two wire meshed off walls, approaching a door at the end Claire hadn't noticed initially.

He gripped the door's handle, finding it locked securely with a single tug. A second tug, only a hair stronger than the first, saw the door opened, the lock snapping audibly. Pulling the gate open entirely, the gunman stepped into the new room, where a single long, yellow and black object was stocked onto a lone rack on the far wall.

Claire didn't follow after the youth, instead watching as he removed the object from the rack, giving it a look over before walking back over to her. In the glow of her flashlight, she was better able to see exactly what he had found. Unsurprisingly, it was another type of gun, though not like any kind she had ever seen before.

It was shaped like a rifle stock, similar in length to the Remington shotgun the gunslinger had procured from the police station armory, the top half of it a dull yellow, the bottom black, a sight set just above where the handle and trigger were. But the barrels at the end had two small needles sticking out of it, where a large black magazine clip was locked just under. The Umbrella logo and name were on its side as well, which the young student took to mean they were the weapon's creator.

Tony was looking the strange rifle over, even detaching the magazine clip to peer inside it. The biker girl snuck a glance as well, and saw a few more needle cartridges stacked inside. He slapped the clip back home, and turned away from her, moving to line himself up about five feet away from the body of the decapitated zombie. He raised the strange rifle, lined the sight up with the body's torso, and squeezed the trigger.

A soft mechanical *fwip* sounded, and the twin needles struck the body. Ozone filled the air, and the body began to twitch and jerk, making Claire flinch and blink in surprise. Then she saw the wires connecting to the two needles sticking out of the corpse, small arcs of blue sparks issuing from the rifle into the wires, traveling down their length and into the body, each jolt seeming to grow in charge, the body's movements growing more erratic, the limbs spasming and jerking.

Tony meanwhile, was observing a small L.E.D. gauge on the rifle, which was fluctuating from green, to yellow and orange, then flashing red. An understanding grin formed on his lips as he waited another moment, watching the readout turn red before releasing the trigger. The effect was instant, and, well, shocking.

A powerful bolt of electricity charged down the connecting wires, connecting to the needles in the body, which exploded in an arc of artificial lightning that shot out of the body, blowing off its hands and feet in a burst of gore and smoke.

Unable to stop herself, Claire let out a shocked cry, stepping back, eyes wide.

Tony drew the rifle back, giving it an appreciative look over before his lips curled into a familiar shit-eating grin.

"I think I just found the answer to our eyeballed freak problem."


Minutes later, Tony Redgrave was casually sloshing his way through the sewage water back outside of the storeroom, his icy eyes observing the large mounds of flesh in the G-Spawns' nest, his ears once more picking up the curious humming song. Stopping next to the sewage pipe jutting out of the wall where the third G-Spawn had pulled itself out, the man in red placed his hands on his hips and leaned forward, cocking his head slightly as his hearing caught a new sound under the strange wordless song. Heavy splashes of something, or rather somethings, approaching slowly.

Smirk returning, Redgrave leaned back and waited. From around the corner of one of the higher piles of discarded flesh, two of the adult G-Spawns lumbered into view, their long necks weaving slightly, their grinning snake-like heads slithering in the air as they locked their sightless eyes on the lone male. As they rounded the corner, staggering closer and closer to the stationary swordsman, behind them, the nasty filth water bubbled and frothed, the third adult Spawn rising up, this one covered with burns, and leaking long strings of drool and dull, glowing orange blood. Tony instantly recognized it as the one he had fed the grenade with.

Grin widening, the boy gave the three abominations a two-finger wave before exclaiming, "Hey, there you are! Y'know, you guys're pretty quick for such big loads."

The lead G-Spawn's face split open, a long hissing growl emanating from its internal mouth, purple gunk and maggots spilling out into the sewage water below it. Unimpressed, Tony crouched slightly, beckoning the approaching monsters with a laugh.

"Come on, you can do it! Over here!"

Seeing their prey remaining stationary, mocking them openly, the three G-Spawn advanced just a bit faster, heavy splashes sending strong ripples and waves across the sewage. In a moment, they were nearly on top of the red-coated swordsman, the lead G-Spawn drawing its massive arm back, its inner mouth snaking out as it prepared to strike. Completely unafraid, the merc sneered up at the looming monstrosity.

"Haha, right where I wantcha!" he declared with a laugh.

Then, the white-haired man crouched and jumped straight into the air with a shout of "NOW!"

The front G-Spawn stopped in its tracks as its prey soared up and above it, while from the raised ledge less than twenty feet away, Claire Redfield held the yellow and black electrical rifle, dubbed the "Spark Shot" by her ex-boyfriend. With the sight lined on the front G-Spawn, she squeezed the trigger, shooting the twin needles and wires straight at the creature. As soon as the projectiles punctured the beast's thick, rubbery skin, small charges of electricity began discharging down the wires and into its body, making it lock up and twitch painfully, small lines of smoke beginning to waft from where the needles had punctured its flesh.

Tony landed on top of the same drainage pipe the third G-Spawn had crawled out of, watching the lead monster jerk and writhe in obvious pain as the growing electrical charge continued to pump into its body, its two siblings behind it watching the display in dumb confusion. The gunslinger grinned ferociously, enjoying the morbid show while Claire watched the display readout on the Spark Shot's sight. When the flashing light glowed bright red, she released the trigger.

The wiring connected to the lead G-Spawn lit up, glowing an intense mix of blue and white, a powerful surge of electricity charging directly into its body, which exploded outwards in a burst of white lightning. The sewage water the beast was standing in became alive with arcing bolts of man-made lightning, each bolt finding a target to strike, from the pulsing, smoking mounds of piled flesh, to the two G-Spawn adults behind their lead sibling. Each creature screeched in agony, their bodies spasming, burning and frying at the same time, the intensity of the amplified electricity causing their large orange eyes on their shoulders to explode in bursts of glowing gore.

With one final dying hiss from each, all three collapsed into the sewage with a single splash, their bodies twitching in death throes, small sparks bouncing off their burning skin. Above, Tony whooped and hollered, clapping his hands and looking back at his partner, who had a more subdued, stunned expression at the display of death.

"Told ya it would work!" he called out to her before leaping off of the pipe and landing on the cement ledge next to Claire.

The female Redfield had to admit, to herself at least, that the Spark Shot had done its job just like Tony had said it would, the released shot of lightning amplified by the water the creatures had been standing in, killing all three with a single strike.

Turning to the grinning young man and offering him the rifle, the young woman moved past him while saying, "Right. Come on, Sherry's waiting for me."

Sighing, but letting it go, Tony held the Spark Shot with a single hand, resting it on the crux of his shoulder as he followed after her. The two descended back into the sewage water, the charge from the taser rifle having dissipated entirely, and they quickly sloshed their way around the twitching corpses. An exit from the main nest presented itself not too far from the bodies, a rising slope of a smoking flesh mound allowing them to climb it and make their way back to where they had arrived.

Before Claire could hop off of the edge of the mound, Tony stepped in front of her, extending the arm that held the Spark Shot out to block her path. The biker girl gave the taller male an annoyed look, which became a confused expression as Redgrave reached into his coat and produced the last of the two grenades he had taken from the body of the armored dead man they had come across earlier. Without a word, he slipped his thumb into the ring of the pin, popped it out, and casually tossed the grenade.

It sailed through the air, landing about seven feet away from where the descending ladder was jutting down from the platform above. A moment later, the water exploded in a rain of sewage and shrapnel, the sound drowning out as a pained hissing screech cried out, the wobbling form of a badly burned G-Spawn, rising out of the sewage and screaming its pain and fury, its shoulder eye a dull red and weeping orange tears of blood. Before the redheaded woman had a chance to react, Tony sprung into action, literally.

The gunslinger leapt off of the flesh mound's slope, drawing his longsword as he sailed downward, reversing the blade so it was pointed downward, aimed directly for the monster's bloody eye. Redgrave slammed into the beast's front, his sword piercing through its shoulder eye in a spray of glowing blood and tearing flesh. The G-Spawn let out a warbly death cry, its body pitching backwards from the force of the impact of Tony's frontal strike, a small splash of sewage issuing as it finished falling over entirely.

Standing atop the dead abomination, Redgrave calmly ripped his sword free from its shoulder socket, flinging the lingering clumps of flesh and blood off of the blade's dark metal, while behind him, Claire carefully hopped off of the flesh slope's edge, landing with a gentle splash near the first corpse they had seen upon descending.

Tony turned to face the college girl, sheathing his sword back over his shoulder before commenting, "And that makes four."

It took the college girl a second to remember that he was referring to the number of bodies piled nearby; the G-Spawns' unlucky host wombs.

Just as Claire reached the burned and bleeding body of the final deceased abomination, her ex gave her a sudden salute and cocky smirk before saying, "See ya at the top."

Then he promptly kicked off of the dead creature soaring the entire length of the ladder before back-flipping in midair, vanishing over the rail of the platform above, where he landed with a dull metallic *thump* as his boots struck the metal floor grating. The woman stared up in flabbergasted silence, unable to believe he had left her behind like he had.

With an eye roll, she approached the ladder, beginning the long climb back up while murmuring to herself, "I swear, it's almost like he wants me to shoot him..."


Upon arriving back at the top of the ladder and back onto the metal walkway overlooking the bottom of the storeroom, Claire led Tony across the small connecting pathway and up a second flight of stairs, where she found the locked gate door that would take them back to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Treatment Pool Room. Using the t-shaped handle bar a final time, Claire opened the locked gate door, leaving the handle bar in the old valve lock once she was finished. With the gate opened, the girl power-walked through the lower waterway, ignoring the bodies of the zombies she had put down previously, her fellow survivor only sparing them a glance before following her up the stars.

The redhead arrived back in the treatment pool, quickly making a mad dash across the lowered walkway, Tony following her at a more leisurely pace, observing the new location as he walked, his icy gaze lingering on the cable car in the distance before returning his gaze forward. Claire reached the door to the monitor room first, shoving it open and quickly striding inside. She paused at the built-in wall window long enough to get a good look at Sherry, who remained where she had collapsed earlier.

The biker girl felt her heart ache at the sight of the child simply lying there, looking so small and vulnerable. But as far as the older girl could see from her vantage point, nothing had been able to get to her, and she didn't seem any worse for wear. Stepping away from the window and resuming her quick pace, Claire reached into her side pack, digging for the three chess plugs, and striding towards the back section of the room where the electronic panels to insert them were. Behind her, Tony entered the monitor room, giving it a quick look over, his eyes falling on the wall windows.

Peering through them, he saw the little girl collapsed on the floor of a trash compactor area just below them. Moving away from the window, a forlorn expression briefly appeared on his face before he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Looking ahead to properly see what it was, the young man's eyes widened slightly when he saw it was a table next to a large storage crate, a whiteboard attached to the wall behind it, while atop the table was a small television, along with a VCR set next to it.

The man's right hand slipped inside his coat, producing the small cassette tape he had procured from the dead soldier's body.

"Time to see what you saw..." the swordsman murmured to himself.

Claire, meanwhile, was looking over the electronic panels lining the far wall next to the large vault door, resisting the urge to pull her hair out as she came across ANOTHER step in this insane puzzle.

When she had first checked the panels back when she stumbled across the locked vault door, she had seen the panel across from the door had a sticker on the inside of its case, marking it as the 'Pawn Panel,' but the other two next to it had no corresponding pictures to tell her which plugs went into the necessary panels. The ones across from it weren't much better off, except she had seen the Knight Plug was in the wrong place, so she had moved it to the last one marked with a sticker of the same plug. She didn't want to waste time trying each plug in a different panel until she stumbled across the right sequence, but she wasn't sure what else she could do.

Remembering she had found a useful map to finding the missing plugs at the wall full of documents next to both panel walls, the woman quickly stalked over to it, looking for anything useful to help her. Her luck seemingly turning around, she found a small post-it note at the forefront among the rest of them, and she ripped it off the wall, eyes poring over the quick scrawl, a grin returning to her face as it turned out to be exactly what she needed. The note read:

Pretty sure the rook and knight are on the same wall and the bishop and queen aren't next to each other. The queen and rook were opposite each other, too.

It didn't tell her exactly where each plug was supposed to be inserted, but it gave her a better idea. Returning to the wall opposite of the one with the Pawn Plug panel, Claire moved next to the empty panel where she had found the Knight Plug. Reading the note over again, she concluded that neither the Queen nor King Plugs went in either of the two panels, just the Rook and the Bishop.

Taking an educated guess, she slipped the Rook into the center panel, the darkened power light turning white in response, same as the one on the Pawn's panel. Moving to the next, she inserted the Bishop Plug, then moved to the opposite side of the room. Checking the note again, the student inserted the Queen Plug into the middle panel so it was opposite of the Rook, just like the note said, and placed the King into the last empty panel slot.

Behind her, Claire heard a soft mechanical hiss, and as she whirled around, she saw the vault door's front lock turn on its own, while the three large locks released next to it. All on its own, the massive metal door swung open. Unable to contain her relief, she sighed, her smile warming up.

Alright, Sherry... I'm on my way!

She was just about to race through the opened doorway when she heard something like gunfire behind her, but softer, with a pained voice calling out under it. Blinking and turning around, Claire saw Tony standing in front of the small TV and VCR set up on the table next to the storage crate, the man intensely watching the flashing images on the screen. Blinking, the woman quietly walked over to where the man was standing.

Seeing her approach out of the corner of his eye, the young mercenary reached out, pressing the rewind button on the VCR, rewinding the video to its beginning just as she stood next him. The crimson-coated boy released the button, letting the video play again. Even though she had wanted to reach Sherry as fast as she could, Claire couldn't help but watch as the video began to replay...

Electronic static briefly overtook the screen before clearing up, showing what the soldier's camera had last recorded in the man's final moments. In the top left corner of the screen, a date readout hung, showing the video had been recorded on September 23rd, 1998, while in the right hand bottom corner, the name A. Kirkpatrick was shown, with a set of serial numbers under the name, though their meaning was lost to Claire.

Kirkpatrick's camera showed the man's hand on the floor, feebly reaching out for a set of smashed test tubes, a strange green fluid splashed on the floor next to the broken glass, beside a large metal briefcase, the man moaning weakly and pleading pathetically, "Please... Oh... Please... Stop... S-stop!"

Rising over Kirkpatrick's weak pleading was another man's grunts and screams, followed by rapid gunfire from what Claire guessed was a high-powered machine gun. Kirkpatrick continued to reach out for the case, and she saw more test tubes filled with that green fluid, and other ones filled with a purple liquid. A shadow passed over the case, the video briefly cutting out into static snow a second time.

When it corrected itself, Kirkpatrick was weakly crying out, "Don't... Don't... No... No... No!" as a large figure bent over, picking up the case and raising it over their head, violently shaking it, and spilling more of the test tubes out, the vials shattering on impact with the cement floor. Less than two feet away from the towering person, a second soldier was firing their machine gun at the figure, screaming in fury as he did, taunting them.

"OVER HERE, YOU FREAK!"

The towering person threw the case aside, and Claire was able to see it more clearly now, realizing it was the monster Tony had fought in the power plant underneath the police station in its first form, still looking somewhat human, save for the massively swollen right arm. The video cut in and out, Kirkpatrick pleading, "Don't hurt him... Don't hurt him...!" as the monster stalked towards the soldier firing at it, seemingly unaffected by the bullets striking it.

With a single swipe of its massive arm, the creature sent the man flying and slamming into a nearby wall hard enough to crack it, the sound of shattering bones rising over the sudden deafened gunfire. The soldier fell to the floor in a crumpled lump, while Kirkpatrick's camera fell back down, catching sight of a few large rats hungrily licking at the spilled green fluid from the shattered vials and test tubes. The terrified soldier could only pant in fear as the creature stomped towards him, sending the rats scattering, the monster's swollen foot crushing the last intact vial as it reached Kirkpatrick-

-and the video promptly cut off, ending in a shower of static snow.

For a moment that stretched on, neither Tony nor Claire said anything.

For once, when the silence was finally broken, it was the woman who spoke first.

"Well... Glad I watched that..." she murmured, tone sardonic, but there was just the slightest tremble in her voice.

Tony remained quiet, his hand reaching out again to tap the play button on the VCR, the video restarting.

Claire blinked, asking in confusion, "Why are you...?"

But the boy ignored her inquiry, his finger hitting the fast forward button this time. The screen flickered between images of flashing static, Kirkpatrick's feeble movements and his comrade's last stand before he hit the play button a second time, right on the scene of the swollen-armed monster swatting the shooting soldier against the wall. As Kirkpatrick collapsed in grief a second time, the youth's finger quickly pressed down on the pause button, freezing the image on the TV screen on the large rats lapping at the fluid spilled from the various broken vials.

Pulling his hand back, he stared at the rodents, his icy eyes intense as he raised his hand again, pointing to the vermin on the screen before finally speaking. "It was the rats. That's how Raccoon City became this city of the dead."

Claire blinked, giving Redgrave a curious expression, a flicker of disbelief in her eyes before asking another question. "What makes you say that?"

Still pointing at the screen, the young mercenary began to elaborate. "Well, the mystery muck they were licking at was my first clue. Then there was soldier boy's freak-out when that big freak started smashing the vials..."

He paused for a moment, his eyes studying the rodents on the screen again before continuing.

"And I couldn't help but remember this one guy at Bobby's a while back. One night, he freaked out when he saw a rat scrambling under the tables. Poor schmuck was screaming about all the diseases and plagues they spread back in the old medieval days... And history does tend to repeat itself. Only instead of the dead just laying out on the streets and gathering flies, they decided to get back up and walk around."

Despite herself, Claire had to admit Tony's deductive reasoning wasn't completely unsound. That, and they didn't have much else to go on for the source of the outbreak, save that Umbrella was connected to it all. Still, there were new questions nagging at her in place of the old ones.

"But why were they carrying a case filled with the virus in the first place? And why in the sewers? A spill here was a disaster waiting to happen. Even without the rats as the first carriers, the virus could spill and contaminate the water. Why were those soldiers moving the vials down here, and not somewhere else?"

And then another, more obvious question finally struck here.

"For that matter... why did that monster try to destroy the vials? The way it was acting in the video... killing the soldiers seemed like an afterthought."

Tony listened to her questions, but could only shrug, his hand reaching out to hit the eject button on the VCR, taking the small tape out of it, and stuffing it back into one of his coat's many pockets. Only after he had pulled his hand back out did he respond.

"That's the most frustrating part of a puzzle, bab- er... partner," he quickly corrected. "You have enough pieces in the right spot, you can almost make out the whole picture... but only somewhat."

With that cryptic comment delivered, save from the awkward grimace on both their faces on his cringey uttering of 'partner,' Redgrave walked past Claire, starting for the opened vault door, calling back to the college girl as he did.

"C'mon. Let's find Sherry, and get outta here. We'll figure out the rest once she's safe."

Now that, she could agree with easily.

The biker girl followed on the tails of Tony's coat, descending down another set of stairs into a new room; a large power room by the look of it. It was heavily shadowed, save for the dim red glow of the emergency lights lit up along the walls.

Opposite of a second large vault door that led to the trash compacting room Sherry was currently in was a section of open space situated directly in the room's center, various turbines and wiring seen inside of it connecting to a large section of piping opposite of it, along with a lone section of walkway leading to another room across from the trash compactor.

Tony hung back to take the darkened room in, while Claire hurriedly made for the front of the compactor, her grey blue eyes falling on a lone, large switch next to the door.

The relief she felt was almost incalculable, the grip on her heart and the weight on her shoulders falling away at the sight of the switch. One last obstacle, and then there would be nothing between her and the little girl she had promised to protect. Reaching the lever, the woman opened her right hand, grasping the large handle, and pulled it down easily enough.

Aside from a soft mechanical sound of the switch descending, then snapping back up into place, nothing happened.

Claire didn't have any more energy left to feel angry or frustrated. Behind her, Tony had flicked on his own flashlight, directing the beam towards the windows of the room across from the compactor door, his icy eyes spotting a large open panel along the wall in the far back right hand corner.

Calling to her as he began to walk for the door to the room, he declared, "Looks like the power's out. I can see a fuse panel in that other room. I'll go and see if I can get the lights back on, and the door working again."

She nodded, mumbling an "Alright" as he headed off, the door opening and closing as he stepped inside. She was suddenly very, very tired. If it wasn't one problem or obstacle down here, it was another. Even something as simple as a power outage was draining her will to keep going.

It's... It's just a blown fuse, that's all... It's an easily fixable problem. Tony will handle it, and then I can finally save Sherry. We'll get her out of there, and find a way out of the city...

As if in response to her thoughts, the lights in the room came back on, the dull shadows mixed with the red from the emergency lights fading away into clear brightness. Blinking and looking up, Claire heard a soft electrical *beep* behind her. Spinning around, the college girl's face lit up into a dazzling smile when she saw the power light under the switch was back, a bright red dot on a dark surface.

Looking back at the window into the other room across from where she was standing, she spotted Tony stepping away from the open power panel before he disappeared past the windows, heading for the door. The young woman allowed herself a small sigh of relief. That was all that had been left. A simple power outage.

Turning back to the lever, Claire reached out to grasp it a second time, prepared to pull it down and finally get to Sherry-

-when a thunderous crash resounded through the power room, followed by a monstrous roar.

Whirling around, her eyes widened in horror at what she saw through the window in the next room. Flames had engulfed the interior, and Tony was in a low crouch, shotgun out, his eyes gazing upward. When a second loud crash issued, Redfield saw a massive set of claws burst from the ceiling above the gunslinger, the long blades of bone nearly impaling him in the shoulder.

Eyes wide with terror, she screamed out his name.

"TONYYY!"


The interior of the small storeroom wasn't much to take in: a bunch of metal crates stacked in one corner, and the rest occupied by just a bunch of barrels reeking of diesel scattered all over the place. Fuel for the generators was Tony's conclusion. Walking up to the power panel, seeing that all the switches were flipped down, the snowy-haired boy studied them for a moment before flipping them all up, one by one. Two meter gauges above them flickered, one staying in a red zone while the other wavered past the same spot.

Cocking a brow, and quickly realizing the solution, he flipped the second to last switch back down, causing the needle in the second gauge to flicker back into the red spot on it. At that, the interior of the room brightened somewhat, prompting the man to look past his shoulder, and out the lone set of windows the room possessed. The main power room had its light back on, and the new lighting allowed the swordsman to catch the bright smile that appeared on Claire's face.

His heart lurched his chest, a familiar bittersweet sensation washing over him as he realized that was probably the last time he'd be allowed to see such a smile on her face like that.

Well, at least I helped put it there, so I got that goin' for me... he concluded with a sad smile of his own.

Moving away from the panel and towards the door, Tony reached out to grasp the handle-

-when his instincts screamed at him, making his eyes widen before he jumped back, just in time, as a massive arm with long, bloody talons burst from the ceiling right above the door, a thunderous crash issuing as the claws collided with a set of barrels next to it, knocking them over, the long jagged tips igniting a single spark that touched the pouring fuel, causing it to burst into flames, the fire and fallen barrels blocking Redgrave off from the only exit.

Reaching over his shoulders to draw his shotgun, Tony glared at the ceiling, stepping back several paces. Above him, he heard rhythmic pounding, like something heavy stomping around. When the pounding ceased just under him, the gunslinger ducked and rolled across the floor just as the ceiling shattered, the large clawed arm wriggling its claws in vain to find its vanished prey. Rising up in a low crouch, the gunman racked the gauge on the shotgun and squeezed the trigger, blasting the arm with buckshot, sending sprays of bright red and orange blood splashing on the burning wall behind it.

The monster above snarled, yanking its arm back, dust and debris falling as the stomping above resumed. As it did, Redgrave caught the faint sight of a large, orange eyeball-like tumor swirling around in the upper bicep before the limb disappeared entirely. The mercenary had already figured out who his attacker was, but that was only the icing on the cake.

"Still kickin', huh?!" he called to it, racking a fresh shell into the shotgun. In response, he heard the beast growl deeply from its higher position.

Rising back up somewhat, Tony's eyes stayed glued on the ceiling above him, waiting for the creature to find a spot and try its impalement game again.

"TONYYY!"

When he heard Claire's voice screaming his name, his gaze snapped to his side, and he saw her running over for the door, one hand reaching for her holstered revolver.

Seeing this, the mercenary shouted back. "CLAIRE, DON'T!"

That sent her stumbling to a stop, her face expressing a mix of confusion and fear, but he was already shouting again before she could even open her own lips to argue.

"STAY BACK, AND LEMME HANDLE THIS! SHERRY NEEDS YOU! NOW GET HER, AND GO!"

Whatever she may have said in response was drowned out by another deafening crash from above, Tony narrowly hopping back fast enough to dodge the beast's third attempt to gut him, the pale-haired man firing a second blast of buckshot in response, nailing the monster's palm and wrist in a spray of blood. The creature howled, yanking its arm back up, but the young gunman wasn't quite convinced it was in response to any real pain, more likely rage at still not having hit him yet.

The fire, meanwhile, had spread over to the remaining fuel cans in the upper corner of the room, the temperature rising with the growing flames. The man backed up, ignoring the sweat dripping down his forehead, and the smoke irritating his throat. Unbidden memories of his only nightmare tried to rear up, but the swordsman tried his best to ignore them, his eyes locked on the ceiling. Still, the flames caught his eyes every now and again, the bright orange and yellow flares rising and spreading by the second.

Now I know what a pizza in the oven feels like! he quipped to himself.

Above the power panel, the ceiling broke apart again, the monster's large arm grasping blindly for its enemy, but it was already yanking the clawed limb back up by the time Tony had the shotgun up and lined for a shot.

Annoyed, the boy looked up, griping, "Mind holdin' still for a sec?!"

In response, the beast roared, the sound seeming much closer somehow. Tony blinked, unsure of where to aim, having not heard anymore stomps from above-

-when the wall behind him suddenly began screeching horribly, the metal bending, and Redgrave realized it wasn't a wall, but a dropped shutter. The steel continued to bend and give way, metallic screeches undertoned by furious snarls, the large claws of the monster's large arm easily shoving and pushing at the shutter, bending it like scrap paper. With one final charge and roar, the steel shutter gave away entirely, the lumbering familiar form of the monster that was the G-Virus Carrier in its second form stumbling in, its new head rising up to look at him, the creature snarling as it set its head's eyes, and the eye growing out of its bicep, on him.

"Is it just me, or did you get uglier?" he asked rhetorically before squeezing the trigger on the shotgun.

The blast of buckshot struck its chest, but the monster didn't even flinch. With an angry snarl, it swung its large arm out, the claws aimed to cut Tony's neck open. The red-coated gunslinger ducked under the strike, rolling behind the towering creature, and into the exposed pathway it had revealed. Rising up in a crouch, the youth saw a second orange tumor-like eye was growing out of the monster's back, the large orb falling on the young male as he lined the shotgun up at it.

"Here's lookin' atcha!" he stated before pulling the trigger.

The full buckshot load hit the eye directly, and the beast howled in pain, stumbling a few steps forward into the burning power panel room. The eye was bleeding badly, but the smaller wounds around it were already healing, the pellets from the buckshot falling away much faster compared to the similar injuries Tony had inflicted on it back in the power plant under the police station.

"Alright, then, let's change things up a bit, shall we?!" he inquired with a fierce grin.

Slinging the shotgun back over his shoulder and grasping Woozy's hilt, the swordmaster began backing away slowly, letting the G-Carrier pull itself up and whirl around with an enraged snarl. The beast charged for him, its large arm dragging behind it.

With a smirk, Tony rolled into the next corridor, dodging the monster's strike, which left deep gashes along the cement wall where he had been previously standing. Rising up to his feet and backing up, he checked his new location, and saw a wire mesh fence between him, with another passageway further down.

Turning and running, the mercenary heard the monster bellow its fury at its retreating prey, which was just fine with Redgrave. He wanted it good and mad. Its anger would make it lose its focus, and see the coming fight in his favor. Turning down the alcove, the swordsman dashed along a final pathway, feeling drops of water descending from above, but paid them no mind.

When he saw a large platform below the drop of the end of an unfinished bridge, along with a massive red shipping container - the type you'd see loaded on transport ships - attached to a massive crane situated on the far opposite side of the room, Tony leapt off of the unfinished path, landing on the pavement below. Behind him, he heard the rapid stomps of his opponent following, the creature howling for his blood.

Turning and backing up, the boy's eyes caught sight of the large yellow control panel for the crane along with a red generator it was hooked up to, and he quickly dashed over for it, smashing the largest button he could see with his fist. Instantly, emergency yellow lights began flashing, along with a series of warning klaxons before the crane came to life, dragging the steel crate off of the platform, and over the abyss. Turning away from the controls, Tony saw there was plenty of room for the coming brawl now that the crate was gone.

Just as the crane finished pulling the container away, the G-Carrier landed on the platform, its misshapen head finding the boy before it tossed its head back and howled. Giving Woozy a twirl with his right hand, Tony's icy gaze fell on the sunken, shaggy face now situated on the creature's left pectoral, the face slack and defeated-looking. Despite himself, Redgrave found himself pitying what was left of the G-Virus Carrier's humanity.

"All that's left is putting you out of your misery, then," he mused to himself.

With that decided, the crimson-coated man thrust his sword out, letting the greatsword pull him forward in a Stinger, the barbed tip of the blade lining up with the creature's torso. The beast lowered its head, and swung its arm out, smacking the broadsword aside and almost sending him sprawling. Dodging its second swipe, Tony responded with a few slashes of his own, cutting into the monster's stomach, leaving deep gashes and spilling its bright red and orange blood on the floor.

The G-Carrier made no sound, save for a grunt as it brought its large arm down, attempting to squash Redgrave under its massive palm, but Tony back-peddled out of its reach, a heavy fleshy *smack* issuing as it struck the cement where he had been standing. Seeing his chance, the swordsman thrust his blade out again, digging Woozy's barbed tip into the glowing eye on the monster's bicep.

This time, it howled in pain, staggering back before suddenly swiping its large arm out again. This time, Tony didn't act fast enough, the claws tearing into his chest and launching him back several feet. The red-clad merc dug his heels into the floor, hissing through gritted teeth as he felt the torn front of his chest spurting hot blood, but the pain was fading gradually, his own healing abilities slower than the monster's, but still effective.

The G-Carrier lumbered after him, snarling then roaring as it leapt forward, once again attempting to impale him with its large claws, the massive forearm descending fast. Dodging to the creature's left, Tony spun Woozy out in his hand, the sword becoming a Prop Shredder that tore into the monster's abdomen, bits of flesh and blood falling away with each spin cycle. Snarling, the G-Carrier swept its large arm out, but Redgrave ducked under the swipe, bringing his weapon down with him as he did, slashing twice more into the beast's legs, just below its knees.

That made it stumble, but it corrected its footing in the same motion, and, with a furious growl, slashed its arm out twice more. Tony ducked and weaved around the blows, but found himself forced back when the monster repeated its downward palm strike. As the man retreated, he found his back colliding with the wall behind him.

"Runnin' outta leg room...!" he commented to himself, quickly dashing out of the way of the G-Carrier's sudden lunge, its claws digging into the wall instead.

The man in red slashed out with his sword, cutting into the monster's gut with several strikes, blood spilling under them, causing the creature to roar out its fury, ripping its arm free from the wall. Before Tony could get out of range, the beast snatched him by the throat with its still human-looking arm, hoisting him up and roaring in anger at his face.

"Ever try a breath mint?!" he quipped with a sneer, raising Woozy up, and ramming the sword deep into the crook of its shoulder.

Blood splashing, the abomination howled and threw him away from itself. The youth hit the floor, sliding across the hard cement before coming to a quick halt, hopping back onto his feet, and dashing for the beast as it reached for the sword jammed into its upper shoulder.

Jumping, Tony snatched the gothic longsword by the hilt with both hands, his momentum and weight pulling the blade free in a spray of blood. Still in mid-leap, the swordmaster slashed his long sword across the monster's tumor-like eye, the one weak point it had carried over from its first form. The long howl of pain it issued was music to his ears.

Stepping back, twirling Woozy to fling off the G-Carrier's tainted blood, the grinning youth watched the creature collapse to its knees, its human arm weakly clutching its oozing eye, harsh pants for breath issuing from it. Seeing his chance, Tony twirled the sword again, preparing to launch another Stinger strike for its eye, but the monster was already pushing itself back onto its feet.

To Redgrave's frustrations, he could see all the wounds he had inflicted on it were either already healed over, or in the process of finishing closing up. Backing up, spinning his blade idly, the mercenary watched the monster finish orienting itself before it began lumbering for him again, furious snarls issuing from its dagger wound-like mouth, its single green eye glowing with dark intent.

Backing up and beginning to circle around the approaching monster, Tony weighed his options.

Guns won't work on it any more than Woozy can. It's just healing too damn fast for me to inflict any lasting damage. I could try cutting him deeper, but then I run the risk of stayin' too close, and letting the freak gut me again, his mind rambled.

He just needed one good clean hit. Something strong enough to bring it down for good...

The man in red's circling came to a halt when his body collided with something. Blinking, glancing to his left, Tony saw he had bumped into the yellow control panel for the crane holding the steel crate container. A wicked grin flashed across his face.

Looking back at the monstrosity, seeing it was closing in and standing directly where the crate had been, the man dropped his fist down on the switch for a second time. Instantly, the warning siren started again, the yellow lights flashing again. Across the abyss, the mechanical crane shook and shuttered to life slowly.

"Have I got a surprise for you!"

Knowing he needed to keep the freak where he was, Tony charged forward in a Stinger, landing the strike dead-center on the monster's abdomen. The white-haired male dodged the beast's retaliating strike, swiping three more times, and cutting into its swollen chest and mutated arm, splashes of red and orange blood falling onto the floor. The monster lunged out with its clawed hand, still trying to run him through, but Redgrave rolled under the attack, rising up in a spinning slash that cut deep into its side.

Seeing the new eye on its back a second time, the gunman's free hand shot into his coat, producing his Colt, which he jammed the barrel of against the eye, squeezing the trigger over and over again, each heavy round piercing the mutant organ deeply. The G-Carrier howled and attempted to backhand Tony, but the man dodged the strike with a quick back-step.

Hearing a heavy mechanical grind, the red-clad youth glanced out of the corner of his eye, and saw the large steel crate was swinging closer by the second, coming in hot and fast. Looking back at the G-Carrier, he holstered his handgun before giving it a quick salute. Behind him, the steel container rapidly swung around, ready to collide with the solitary man between it and its intended target.

But Tony easily backflipped almost twelve feet into the air, sailing over the crate as it crashed over where he had previously been standing, nothing between it and the G-Carrier as it collided with the mutant's massive body. The white-haired boy landed on top of it, feeling it collide heavily with the monster-

-and grind to a slow halt as the beast shoved both its hands against the side of the steel container, slowing its impact. The creature was still forced off of the side of the platform, but it had both hands on the edge, the large clawed limb steadying it as it used its human arm to begin pulling itself up right.

Annoyed, Tony muttered, "For real?! Guess we're both stubborn when it comes to stayin' down..."

Leaping off of the crate and landing next to the control panel of the crane, he punched the large red button a third time, the crane recalling the carrier a second time. As it did, the man in red was scrambling for a new plan, and was deciding on trying to wait for the crane to get back in place, hit the switch again, and try to get the G-Carrier back on its knees before the carrier completed its rotation. With that decided, Redgrave spun around just in time to see the crate being pulled away again-

-and the G-Carrier was practically on top of him, its large hand wrapping itself tight around his chest, yanking up and beginning to squeeze tightly. Unable to stop the surprised shout of pain from escaping his lips, Tony quickly swung Woozy out, stabbing the barbed tip of the blade deep into its large eye. Howling in fresh pain, the mutant tossed him over its shoulder, causing him to release his hold on his sword's hilt.

Soaring through the air, the trickster spun to correct himself, landing in a crouch on both feet. Quickly twisting around, he saw Woozy fall to the ground with a clatter, and the G-Carrier beginning to stomp after him, orange blood oozing down its bicep as it flexed its claws threateningly.

Reaching over his shoulder, Redgrave whipped out his shotgun-

-or rather, the Spark Shot. Looking at the weapon in surprise, which was replaced by a vicious grin, he lined the weapon's sight with the creature's tumor-like eye and fired, the twin needles hitting their mark on the orange eye's pupil dead center. The mutant flinched, but kept stomping towards him, even as the electrical charge began to travel down the wires and into its body. Realizing the G-Carrier would be on top of him, Tony didn't have time to wait for the charge readout to hit red and released the trigger as it settled on yellow.

The G-Carrier's body spasmed as a powerful surge of electricity traveled through the wires and into its body, stopping it and leaving it twitching and smoking, its knees buckling. Seizing the chance, the young man dashed forward, jumping over the paralyzed monster, and landing by the control panel. Smashing the red button for the final time, he hoped, Tony quickly raised the Spark Shot back up, firing the final set of needles left in its clip directly into the bleeding eyeball on its back.

The G-Carrier staggered forward, roaring a deep groan of pain as fresh electricity traveled into its body, its mutant flesh beginning to char and burn. As the crane began its rapid spin for the platform, Tony released the trigger as the charge settled on a dark orange. The second powerful burst of electricity caused the abomination to howl and stumble down to its knees-

-right as the crane completed its turn, slamming the large steel container directly into the unprepared G-Carrier's body. The beast was slammed hard, both it and the crate going over the edge of the platform's side. Reacting quickly, the beast plunged its claws into the container's side, but the sudden additional weight it added caused it to tip further over the edge. The monster's inflamed eye on its bicep blinked rapidly as it struggled to grip the crate's side with its human arm, weakly attempting to pull itself up to the top...

When the heavy cables holding the carrier began to snap and give from the monster's unintended pulling on the container. Then they snapped, and the crate plunged over the side entirely, causing the beast to let go, and plummet into the unending darkness below. Tony watched the entire thing, having taken less than fifteen seconds entirely.

Only once he heard a loud heavy crash from deep below did he allow himself to breathe a relieved sigh.

"I'd make a quip about falling and heights... but another annoyingly hard-to-kill freak beat ya to it!"

Giving the Spark Shot a thankful look over, Tony ejected the needle cartridge. To his disappointment, the magazine was completely empty.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," he admitted, dropping the weapon next to the generator the crane control panel was hooked up to.

Picking up Woozy and slinging it back over his shoulder, Redgrave spotted a door just a hop away from the platform, with no visible means of crossing it. But that meant little to someone like him who could easily cross it with barely an effort.

"Gotta get back to Claire, see if she was able to free Sherry," the mercenary murmured to himself.

He wanted to believe it was finally over. That with the little girl found, and the monster her father had become lost to the abyss below, there was nothing left to impede their escape from Raccoon City at last.

He'd soon find out that fate wasn't nearly as kind as he was hoping it would be...


Minutes earlier...


Claire cried out Tony's name and dashed for the door to the burning room he was trapped in, but she had barely ran six feet when his voice issued from the burning room, his words loud over the crashing ceiling and crackling flames.

"CLAIRE, DON'T!"

That made her stumble to a stop, confusion overriding her instinctual fear. She wanted to shout something back, even if she didn't know what. But as was the case in these circumstances, he beat her to the punch.

"STAY BACK, AND LEMME HANDLE THIS! SHERRY NEEDS YOU! NOW GET HER, AND GO!"

That was all that was said on the matter, as more of the fuel canteens in the room he was trapped in ignited, his shotgun's blasts fading to the roaring flames consuming the room. Backing up, Claire could make out Tony's form through the fire blocking the front of the window, seeing him move somewhat, and she could hear a second blast from his shotgun issue. But soon the window was obscured in flames entirely. And while she thought she heard a monstrous and all too familiar roar, she wasn't sure.

"Goddammit!" she whispered to herself.

He was on his own, and she'd have to trust he would survive and come back to her. Maybe not unscathed, but he could still heal, and that would have to be good enough for her. He had survived fighting the creature once, and while he hadn't emerged unharmed in their second encounter, he was better prepared this time. At least, she hoped he was.

Spinning around and dashing for the compactor door, Claire pulled down the large switch a second time. This time, the small red light turned green with a pleasant ring, and gears began grinding as the large door began to rise up. Unwilling and unable to wait any longer, she quickly ducked under the rising door, scrambling inside the compactor. As she did, she heard a voice filtering from the speaker in the upper corner.

"Sherry? Mommy's here... Sherry! Sherry, can you hear me?!" Annette's voice spoke from the speaker, sounding unsure and anxious instead of possessing the annoyed, condescending tone she had given the girl earlier. Somehow, that made Claire's heart begin to pound with worry.

As the college girl stood up and moved towards Sherry, she felt her chest seize up when she got a good look at the girl's face.

Oh, no... Please, God, no...

Sherry's face was pale and dirty, her eyes weakly and blearily half-opened, the left swollen and inflamed... with large, pulsing veins along the eyelid and her cheek.

"Sherry? Sherry, are you alright?!" she asked desperately, the little girl only blinking in response, looking at the older girl, but not really seeing her.

"Claire?" Annette's voice called from the speaker, the female scientist surprised as she watched the older girl storm into the camera's view, appearing on the monitor screen of the observation room she had returned to.

"What are you doing?" the older woman asked the younger, watching as she scooped Sherry's limp body into her arms and rise up.

With contempt, the youngest Redfield looked over her shoulder to glare back up at the camera before responding simply, "I'm here to help."

In the observation room, Annette turned her face away from the monitor in grief, swallowing before looking back, speaking with a detached tone in her voice she struggled to believe.

As she spoke, she admitted the truth, her heart pained as she did. "Sherry's been implanted... She's been infected with the G-Virus. She can't be saved."

William had managed to reach her, either before or after Annette had initially dismissed the child. And now her daughter was infected by the very virus her parents had labored over for the last decade. The irony was not lost on the scientist, as she realized she had given more of her life towards it than her own daughter, who was now a victim of her parents' research like the rest of Raccoon City. Perhaps that was her punishment for the almost unending number of sins she had committed.

Feeling her despair give way to growing fury, Claire looked away from the ailing child back to the security camera, hissing out, "Are you fucking kidding me?! You're her mother! GET IN HERE!"

"You don't understand!" Annette pleaded from the speaker. "William is still out there, and if I don't stop him-"

Infuriated to hear the woman making yet another excuse, Redfield shouted, "This conversation is over!"

Turning, she hurriedly moved for the open compactor door. She would just have to get Sherry out of the city, and pray she could get into contact with some kind of medical help - someone, anyone - who could treat the little girl before it was too late.

She had barely taken two steps when the sound of a door opening made her pause, heavy footfalls heralding Tony's arrival from around the corner. His icy eyes fell on her just as she noticed the long bloody gashes on his shirt, the flesh under the ripped fabric a bright pink, indicating he was probably still healing. When he saw her carrying Sherry, he approached, a relieved smile forming on his face, which fell instantly when he noticed the swelling around the child's eye.

Looking back up at her, he asked worriedly, "What happened?! Wasn't she supposed to be safe in here?!"

"She's infected," she told him, and the man's eyes widened in horror. Looking back at the little girl, the young woman elaborated further, "I think... I think that monster, the one she called 'Daddy...' It must have gotten to her before we did. It... It implanted her, just like it did to Irons."

The young man's horrified expression softened into a pained one as he looked at the child's pale face. His gloved hand reached out, touching her cheek before he whispered, "...I'm sorry."

Looking back to the older girl, he asked, "So what do we do now? Even if we weren't underground right now, I'm willing to bet Raccoon General isn't exactly taking walk-ins."

His humor was weak, but Claire appreciated the effort, for once. She shook her head before responding. "We're just gonna have to find a way out of here even faster than we already were, and hope to God we can find someone who can help her-"

"Wait! Wait..." Annette's voice called from the speaker, interrupting the college girl. Both Tony and Claire glanced up at the camera, the former blinking suddenly at the new voice and the camera in the chamber, waiting for the female scientist to go on.

"I... I can treat her... In my lab, it's not far away."

At the sound of her mother's voice, Sherry's eyes blinked open, half-lidded but conscious as the child struggled for breath, coughing weakly.

"Mommy...?" she uttered.

Claire looked at the little girl, feeling her heart break for her.

Tony blinked, looking between the camera and the blonde, then back to his partner before inquiring, "That's Sherry's mom? She's down here, too?"

In the observation room, Annette felt her own heart squeeze tightly in her chest, the microphone of the security camera just barely registering her daughter's weak voice. Swallowing and struggling to maintain her composure, she spoke on before Claire could answer her ex's question.

"There's not enough time... Millions of lives are at stake."

Looking at the screen, staring at her daughter's face on the monitor, Annette uttered, "Sherry... Mommy loves you, sweetie... Goodbye."

In the compactor room, the mercenary in red, realizing what she was doing, shook his head. "No. Hey, don't...!"

Claire watched incredulously as the red light on the security camera flickered off, and took that to mean Annette had cut off the feed after uttering her final words to her daughter, all without considering telling the college girl which fucking direction to take to get to her lab.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she snapped to the camera.

She was going to kill that woman with her bare hands when she found her. And if she didn't have a cure for whatever Sherry was infected with, she'd make sure to do it slowly.

Equally angry, the crimson-coated mercenary contemptuously waved off the camera and speaker as he declared, "Mother of the year, everyone."

Looking back at the girl in her arms, Claire reassured her, "Sherry, don't worry. I will get you whatever you need, okay?"

Blinking, clearly exhausted and in pain, the child weakly asked, "Wh-why are you doing this?..."

That simple question broke the young woman's heart all over again as she realized Sherry genuinely didn't understand her compassion. Annette had failed her as a mother so completely, Claire's hatred for the woman only growing upon realizing this.

But it wasn't her who answered the little girl's inquiry.

"...Because she cares," Tony declared quietly.

Stunned by the weight of his words, the redhead looked back at him in surprise, only to see her ex-lover giving her a small, reassuring smile. Smiling back, she nodded her thanks.

No one deserved to suffer like Sherry had, and if there was even a single chance that the girl could still be saved, Claire was going to do everything in her power to make it happen.

Smiling despite her discomfort, the child whispered, "Thank you, Claire..."

Repositioning the girl so her head was resting on her shoulder, Redfield quickly exited the trash compactor, turning and making her way towards the stairs she had descended to enter the room. The door next to it, one neither she nor Tony had noticed upon entering, was now open, and Claire presumed it was how her partner had returned to the power room.

The two ascended the steps, the man in red a few paces behind her, his voice calling to her as he asked the obvious question. "So how're we even gonna find this lab?"

The group arrived back in the monitor room, the older girl power walking around the corner for the door back to the treatment pool room before speaking again. "I don't know. There has to be something we missed: a door, or an elevator. Something, anything-"

Arriving in the treatment pool room, she froze, still unsure of where to go-

-when it hit her.

"Wait... The cable car!" she realized.

It was the only thing that made sense. The only possible reason there even was such a thing down in Raccoon City's sewers would be to act as a means of transportation to a secret laboratory underneath the city.

Behind her, Tony caught up, moving past her while saying, "I'll cover you. Come on, it's not much further."

Letting her ex-beau take the lead, the two crossed the lowered bridge, Sherry's soft voice moaning deliriously.

"Hold on, Sherry. You're gonna be fine," she promised the child. The college girl was prepared to do whatever was necessary to honor that promise.

The taller boy crossed the bridge, quickly moving to the left as the student followed by the tail of his tattered coat. The cable car was just in sight, less than fifty feet away.

"Almost there, Sherry. We're almost there," Claire whispered, struggling to keep her voice calm and reassuring as her mind prepared for the worst possible outcomes that seemed to constantly rear their heads down in this godforsaken sewer.

Tony reached the tram first, walking towards the door on the side, next to a glowing green monitor, which the biker girl hoped was a good sign that the car was working. Her heart fell when she saw the words 'Access Denied' flashing across the green screen.

The white-haired youth began looking over the door for a switch or button that would open it. As Redfield stepped closer to the car as well, Sherry's right hand fell limply to her side, the metal bracelet she was wearing flashing a similar green. The words 'Access Denied' vanished, a lock symbol unlocking on the monitor as a gentle musical note chimed.

The door opened automatically with a soft mechanical hiss. Blinking, Claire quickly stepped inside, looking around. A set of stairs descended down into the large car's interior, and the student saw a lone bench situated next to the controls at the far bottom.

Walking down them, she placed the little girl on the bench, gently saying, "Here you go." Looking at the twelve-year-old's pained face, the older girl brushed her pale blonde locks while whispering, "Just hold on, Sherry, okay? You're gonna be just fine."

Rising back up, absently noting that Tony had followed her in and was slowly walking down the steps, Claire moved towards the control panel. Seeing a large handle switch, the college girl reached out to pull it down-

-when the interior lighting and the various L.E.D. lights on the control panel flickered, casting everything into darkness briefly, before flashing back on.

Behind her, Tony froze, his icy eyes widening as he felt a familiar wave of pressure descending down on him.

Unaware of her companion's sudden stillness, the woman reached out and pulled the lever down. Instantly, the cable car lurched forward, the engines starting as the tram began to travel forward into the darkness. A female voice, mechanical and droning, suddenly chimed.

"This tram is bound for NEST. Do not exit until final destination."

There was no going back now, she realized.

They'd get to Annette's lab soon enough, and the young biker girl could only pray there would be no more obstacles standing between them and saving Sherry.

She knew that was asking for a lot, considering everything else that had happened in Raccoon City, but she had to believe that if she was going to save the little girl's life...

Please, God, just one break. That's all I'm asking for, she whispered internally, hoping some deity would hear her, and answer her prayers.

But prayers often went unheard deep under the breath...


Shadowed eyes watched the cable car lurch forward, beginning its descent deeper underneath Raccoon City.

The bandaged swordsman named Gilver watched the tram carry his quarry off into the darkness. Deeper into the bowels dug out for Umbrella's secret complexes. Deeper into the darkness.

The corners of the bandages around the edges of his mouth crinkled as the mysterious stranger grinned to himself.

Deeper into Hell.

And soon, Tony Redgrave would have to face the devil himself.

Unable to help himself, he let out a soft laugh before the lights of the treatment pool room flickered, plunging it deep into the shadows.

When they came back on, the darkly-dressed figure was gone, only the echoes of his laugh remaining.


If you haven't already figured it out, I just LOVE ending chapters on ominous cliffhangers.

Chapter Ten! And it's only...almost four months overdue! New record!

Sorry about the long wait guys, real life felt like beating me down (Still is to an extent, but that's my fault at the moment).

I won't bore you all with the full details, just briefly lost my job, got low, thought I had Covid-19 at one point, etc, etc.

But I pushed through, and this chapter is finally done! It's extra long too, so I hope that makes up for the wait.

ALSO CHECK OUT THAT DOPE ASS NEW COVER ART DA-AWESOM-ONE HAD COMMISSIONED FOR ME FROM NAOMI GUMBS! ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL?!

I'm so happy with all the (mostly) positive feedback this story has gotten. I had no idea people would enjoy this little crackship I stumbled upon almost a decade ago, but I'm glad to see this story do so well, which I attribute to the Awesom-One and his bombass editing skills.

There's not much left after this, just NEST. In the immortal words of Doctor Strange: "We're in the endgame now."

I'm not gonna make any promises on how soon I can get the next chapter out, but there really aren't that many left to be written.

Also, I get the feeling Claire's decision in this chapter is gonna upset some of you. Which is fine, but if I see any hate reviews, I'm dropping the ban hammer. Take that crap elsewhere.

Drop a fave/follow and a review if you like, and please check out Da-Awesom-One's own page as well, give his stories some love because without him, Made In Heaven wouldn't be here.

Pssst...there's a Bayonetta reference in this chapter.