At one point during the festivities, Rebecca took Alice to the side. "Alice, there's something you should know," Rebecca told her.

"Let's hear it, Beccers," Alice said.

"Alice… you're a clone," Rebecca said gravely.

"…And?" Alice said. "I mean, Ada Wong told me a few weeks ago when she was busting me out of Umbrella Prime. It's kind of cool, to be honest."

Rebecca couldn't help but chuckle. "Leave it to you to find being a clone cool," she said, shaking her head.

Alice furrowed her eyebrows in thought. "Hey, how did you know?" she asked.

"Well, back in Nevada when I was working on the cure, I was running some analysis on your DNA, and your telomeres are fucking pristine," Rebecca said.

"Damn straight they are," Alice nodded. "…What's telomeres?"

"Basically, there're these little structures on your DNA which ensure healthy DNA replication. They erode over time, leading to imperfections in the new DNA, and this is basically what causes aging." Rebecca grunted. "This is basically elementary-school level bullshit, I can give you a more detailed explanation later if you like."

Alice smirked. "I promise, Rebecca, I barely understand what you're saying as it is."

"Right, how silly of me." Rebecca rolled her eyes. "A person of your age should have had your telomeres show some wear and tear by now, but they're untouched. And as far as I could tell, they've been modified so that, in all likelihood, they're never going to degrade." She put a hand on Alice's shoulder. "Alice, there's a very good chance that you will never die of old age."

Alice shot a look Rain's way. Her wife was in an animated discussion with the other two Rains. "What about Rain? That parasite she has?"

"Las Plagas?" Rebecca shook her head. "I have no clue. I… tried minoring in parasitology early on in university, but…" She shuddered. "I fucking hate creepy crawlies. Given the apparent regenerative qualities it imparts on its host, though? As long as it survives, I think she will too. Only time will tell."

Alice suddenly had a vision of herself and Rain, many hundreds of years from now, piloting an exploration vessel across the galaxy, visiting strange new worlds… and boning like crazy on each of them. "Yeah," she said, voice thick with emotion. "Only time will tell."

XXX

"William, huh?" Chris said, shaking the hand of Rebecca's son.

"Yes, sir," the little boy answered. "Just like my daddy."

Rebecca could tell by the look on Chris' face that he had a bug up his ass, and could probably guess the reason. "Go see if Miss Rain will play with you for a few, William," she said. She watched his little legs carry him over to Hard Rain. "Not that one, Billy!" she called. William didn't hear her and, oddly enough, Hard Rain began to engage him in a pitched battle of rock-paper-scissors.

"So, you want to tell me who his father was?" Chris asked, arms crossed.

Rebecca gave him a mild glare. "I think you already have an idea," she answered.

"Billy Coen, Rebecca? I mean… I get hooking up with him after Raccoon, when the world started going to shit. You needed someone strong to protect you. But… you lied to everyone in STARS about what happened to him. What the hell was that about?"

"First off, Chris, he was wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit. Something you should have some sympathy for, if how you spent most of this decade is any indication." Chris flinched, recalling his time locked up in the Citadel and in Umbrella custody. "Secondly, I may be a fucking nerd, but I didn't need some big tough guy to look after me. I got into STARS same as you, same as Jill and Barry. I'm not some wilting flower. I can look after myself just fucking fine."

Chris nodded, contrite. "I guess so," he said. "It's just… you remind me so much of Claire, you know?"

Rebecca gazed at Chris for a moment. "Hey, Claire! Get over here for a second!" she shouted across the rooftop. Chris flinched.

Claire left the conversation she was having with Alice and Rain and approached. "What's up?"

"Chris said that I remind him of you, and that I needed a big strong man to look after me when the world started going to shit." Rebecca had an inquisitive look on her face. "Did you need a big strong man to look after you the past decade?" she asked.

Claire glared at Chris. "Hold my drink," she said to Rebecca. She kept glaring at Chris for a moment, her brother growing more and more nervous by the second, before her hands darted forward, seized his nipples through the shirt, and twisted them hard. "PURPLE NURPLE, DIPSHIT!" she bellowed into his ear. Chris bit his lip to stop from screaming out. She took her drink back from Rebecca. "Now, what do you say to Rebecca?" Claire asked.

Chris, pained, was even more contrite. "Rebecca, I'm really, really so—"

"PURPLE NURPLE, DIPSHIT!" Rebecca echoed, giving Chris a painful double twist of her own, a savage grin on her face. This time Chris did scream, and Alice (watching from afar) cheered.

The two women laughed together as Claire led her away. "Come on, Bec, I gotta get my brand new sister a drink," Claire said, grinning.

Chris sat down, chest aching, wondering how much he was going to regret inadvertently adopting Rebecca into his family.

Probably a lot.

"Want me to kiss them better?"

The sultry voice roused Chris' interest… until he looked to see who the speaker was and saw it was Alicia Marcus. He grimaced. "Uh…"

XXX

Later that evening, after William had been put to bed, Rebecca was sharing a drink with Luther, bonding over their insane mutual friend Alice. "And how about that soul bonding shit?" Rebecca said. "I've seen evidence of literal magic and it still fucks with me." She shrugged and took another drink. "Shame we'll never know for sure," she said.

"Why's that?" Luther asked.

"It is my hypothesis," Rebecca began, pointing her finger authoritatively at nothing in particular, "That the T-virus itself was partly responsible for the soul bonding stuff. I mean… not that it caused it, necessarily, but that it facilitated it. Like, it caused demonstrable psychic and psionic abilities within the creatures infected with it, yeah?"

"Yeah," Luther said.

"It must have acted as some kind of… bridge, if you will, that linked the human psyche to… the world beyond," Rebecca said, waving her hand roughly in no particular direction. "Not that I have the first clue what that would even entail, mind you. Heaven. Nirvana. The Elysian Fields. Whatever. Could be anything." She shrugged. "And now, with the T-virus gone, we'll never see it happen again. There… might be a lesson there?" Rebecca said.

"Like a Garden of Eden thing, maybe," Luther proposed. "We misused the gifts given to us, so we're forever denied them."

"Exactly!" Rebecca said, waving her finger in Luther's face. "Man, you are smart and handsome," she said. Then her face turned beet red. "Shit, I cannot believe I just said that out loud." She eyed her cup. "I'm probably drinking too much." She took another drink. "Or not enough," she added.

They heard movement and looked to the stairwell. Something was coming up, and it made thick, wet, plopping sounds. Rebecca and Luther stared as a six-foot-tall pillar of tofu wearing a beret hopped up the last of the stairs, then waddled onto the roof.

"What…" Luther began.

"…the shit?" Rebecca finished.

The top of it bent a little, and a little white nub extended from the curved area and wiggled at them. "I… I think it's waving to us," Luther said. He and Rebecca helplessly waved back, unsure of what to do in this utterly bizarre scenario.

Claire, who was pleasantly soused by this point in the evening, walked up to it. "Hey, handsome, come here often?" she said. "I feel like I know you… almost like it's fate or something, you know?" The gelatinous mass wiggled its top portion in an approximation of a nod. She gave the giant lump of bean curd a suggestive smile. "Hey, come here, cutie." She threw her arms around the mobile brick of processed plant matter and planted a kiss directly into the center of it.

The rooftop was suddenly awash in an explosion of wind and multicolored lightning. Claire and Tofu floated up in the air, the magic coursing through them and bonding their souls together for all time. Finally, after a few moments, the magical maelstrom ran its course and they came back down to earth. Claire looked lovingly into the blank slate of its front side, then cuddled into it as they began a tender slow dance to music that only they could hear.

"Well that's just fucking great," Rebecca snapped. "So much for my hypothesis! Fucking useless-ass scientific method!" She downed the rest of her drink in one go and grabbed Luther by the collar of his shirt, dragging him to the bedroom areas.

"W-where are we going?" he asked.

"I've formed a new hypothesis," Rebecca growled. "I need your help to test the hypothesis. Lots and lots of extremely vigorous testing. We may be conducting experiments all night long." She gave Luther a hard glare, daring him to object.

Luther West's mother didn't raise any fools. "Yes, ma'am," he obediently gulped.

XXX

"Guys! Hey, guys, wake the fuck up!" Terri shouted at Alice and Rain's sleeping figures.

Alice, curled up into Rain's protective embrace, grunted. "Whoever the fuck it is, go away."

Terri grabbed a metal crowbar (she always kept one on her chair for self defense) and started loudly clanging it against the metal frame of her wheelchair, eliciting more groans of protest from the lovers. "Got reports of a settlement in Manhattan under attack! Do you useless reprobates want to go do something about it, or let innocent people get slaughtered?"

"Option two," Alice said without hesitation. "We're retired."

"Let the fucking Umbrella troops in the area take care of it," Rain grunted.

Terri shook her head. "That's just it — Umbrella's troops in the area were utterly shredded by these things last night. They're these giant flying bat monsters, and they've frequently menaced the northeast for years now."

"Oh, one of those fucking things," Alice grunted. "Hasn't the antivirus blown that way by now?"

"Correction," Terri said. "Three of those fucking things. At least. And yeah, the undead are dying out that way, but these things aren't, so they're probably more of those parasite monsters, like whatever it is inside your boo."

Alice and Rain sighed and exchanged weary glances. "What do you think, babe?" Alice asked.

"I think… I think we never did have ourselves a honeymoon," Rain said, smirking. "We could see the sights… Central Park… the Statue of Liberty…"

Alice couldn't help but grin. "The Empire State Building… Madison Square Garden…" She exchanged a slow kiss with her before they both got up and started getting ready to leave. They wanted to leave early enough so as to avoid that fabled traffic on the Queensboro Bridge, after all.

XXX

Alicia grabbed Alice's attention while she was gearing up. "Alice, there's one more thing I have to give you," she said, setting down the hologram puck that let them talk to the Red Queen.

"Thanks, ma, but I already have one," Alice said, patting her pocket.

The Red Queen popped out of the puck like a futuristic Jack-in-the-box. "You became something more than Umbrella could ever have anticipated," she said. "The clone became more human than they ever could be."

"Well, all clones are humans, but I get your point," Alice said. "Go on."

"You have one more step to make," the Red Queen said.

"Huh?" Alice said. What fresh hell was this?

The puck opened up in the center, revealing a contact lens. "Put it in," Alicia encouraged Alice. "I downloaded my memories into it for you."

Alice narrowed her eyes. "Including the ones where you got nasty with a terrorist and a human monster?"

Alicia rolled her eyes. Kids these days… "They're the childhood you never had, Alice," she said. "You are the woman that I could never become. You deserve to have these memories of sweetness and tenderness."

Alice thought about it for a minute, then nodded and applied the contact to her eye. Her breath hitched as she became utterly overwhelmed with the memories of Alicia Marcus, and it took every ounce of her willpower to resist crying, lest her tears accidentally dislodge the contact before its work was complete.

After a few moments, the contact's connection with her brain ceased, and Alice removed the contact and put it back into the puck. "…Wait, did you put that in your eye?" Alice asked. "Did I just get your eye goo in my eye?"

"No, Alice," Alicia said, shaking her head. "I used a different contact." She raised her eyebrows. "Oh shit, it's still in my eye." She took it out and placed it into the puck.

Alice smiled and hugged Alicia. "Thank you so much, mom," she said.

"You're welcome, Alice," Alicia said, returning the hug.

"Even though you did put in the gross sex memories, along with everything else." Alice made a nauseated face, to which Alicia could only darkly chuckle.

Alice stood up, then turned to Rebecca and started connecting the dots between Alicia's memories and stuff Rebecca had told her about her past adventures. "…Beccers, did you kill my leech grandpa?" she accused. Rebecca groaned.

XXX

As Alice and Rain finalized their preparations, Terri saw Alicia staring at her chair. Terri had noticed Alicia had given more than one longing look to the battered old wheelchair she got around in, both last night and today. "Hey, Ms. Marcus, is it true you had an electric one of these babies, and Alice broke it?" she asked.

"Yes," Alicia confirmed. "I was going to ask the Redfields if they wouldn't mind going out into the city later to see if they could find me a new one… so to speak, anyway."

"Well, Alicia… can I call you that?" Alicia nodded. "Tell you what: I'll let you use my chair for now, on two conditions…" Terri lowered her voice and leaned in close. "You have to be okay with me still being in the chair, and you have to be okay with being treated like a vintage wine."

Alicia felt her breathing quicken. "Tell me more."

Terri's tongue subconsciously darted out and moistened her lips. "Back in the day, I was a bit of a connoisseur of fine wines, you know — especially the vintage ones. I'd pop the cork on a bottle… allow it to breath a bit… then I'd lower my tongue to the opening and —"

"Goddamn, Terri, you are nasty!" Alice had walked in on her friend hitting on her mother, and was torn between happiness that Terri had found someone she was interested and horror at the visuals shooting through her head. "Ma, aren't you straight?" she finally asked.

Alicia, consternated at the interruption, stood up on shaky legs, turned, and sank down into Terri's lap, who wrapped her arms protectively around the older woman. "I happen to butter my bread on both sides," she sniffed. Turning to Terri, she asked: "Do you have a bottle opener, by any chance?"

Terri nibbled Alicia's ear, then looked Alice right in the eye as she said in a stage whisper: "I have a double-ended 'bottle opener'."

"Show me right now," Alicia growled pleasurably. As Terri rolled them off to the bedroom areas, Alicia called back, "Have fun in New York, Alice!"

"Yeah, maybe when you get back you can call me mom, too!" Terri added.

Alice watched them go, at a complete loss for words for the first time in her life.

XXX

The last goodbyes were said and Alice and Rain found themselves getting ready to ride Alice's stolen Umbrella motorcycle east. "Ready to go kill some Ozzies?" Alice asked.

"Ozzies?" Rain asked.

"Yeah, you know, like Ozzy Osbourne," she explained. "We're fighting bats out of hell. Like the ones he used to bite the heads off of?"

"Babe," Rain said, shaking her head. "'Bat Out of Hell' was Meatloaf, not Ozzy."

Alice put a hand on her hip. "So you're saying we should call the bat things Meatloaves?"

Rain just shook her head and gave Alice a quick kiss. "Okay, Ozzies it is," she agreed. And they mounted the motorcycle and took off for the Big Apple, Rain wrapping her arms around Alice from behind. After a few moments, Rain felt a lump pressing into her leg and looked down. "Babe, why is there a fucking human hand sticking out of your pocket?" she asked.

XXX

Now, if you were watching this in the movie theater, this is the part where the camera pulls back, Alice and Rain growing smaller and smaller in the distance. The last song on the soundtrack would begin playing — perhaps "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)", as an ironic little nod to Meatloaf and a celebration of Alice and Rain's romance. Maybe "New York, New York", in honor of their destination. Or, if we wanted to get a little silly and use a song that came out years after Final Chapter, it'd be "Rewrite the Stars", from The Greatest Showman. ("Rewrite the STARS", haha).

At any rate, you'd hear the low din of people murmuring, expecting this to be the end of the picture. You'd be getting up too, collecting your empty popcorn bucket and soda cup to dump into the trash (you're not an asshole who leaves your garbage behind, are you?) and remembering not to forget your half-eaten box of Mike and Ikes. You're also thinking you need to take a monster piss — you drank your pop too fast and you've felt like an overfull water balloon ever since Alice and friends breached the Hive.

But instead of fading black to the credits, the camera keeps pulling back, showing more and more of the ruins of Raccoon City, then the surrounding blighted countryside. It isn't until the curvature of the Earth is visible and the song begins hauntingly fading out into a vaguely creepy echo that you and the other moviegoers realize that this movie isn't over.

You cross your fingers, hoping that it's just a last minute jumpscare. Maybe it's even a teaser for the next movie! Sure, it says The Final Chapter right there in the title, but Friday the 13th IV also had that subtitle, and they put out seven more of those goddamn things before jumping onboard (or laying down in front of, depending on your point of view) the reboot train.

The camera is now out in orbit, and finally slows down and stops as an Umbrella satellite comes into view. The perspective rotates around to the part of the satellite facing down at the Earth, and proceeds to push in to the camera lens pointing down to the planet's surface. There's a little electrical static sound effect as the perspective passes through the lens of the camera…

And then we see Alice, standing alone in the hallway of the mansion from the first movie, looking much as she does in that film — hair, red dress, black boots, the whole nine yards. She looks around in utter surprise. "What fresh hell is this?" she demands.

You begin nervously eyeballing the popcorn bucket and wonder if you can get away with sneakily pissing into it.

XXXXXXXXXX

BUCKLE UP, ALL, IT'S SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME!

Look for all the intricate backstory of how Tofu came to be in Tofu, it's Claireing!, coming NEVER. HAHAHAHAHA! No explanation for you!

Luther and Rebecca have been destined to bone ever since I realized both of them are interested in basketball.

I wrote this chapter months ago, but decided within the past week or so to add the scene between Alicia and Terri. I was compelled by simple arithmetic: two women, one wheelchair. *Laughs in Satan*

Alright, I'm going on sabbatical now, and I'll be back in, two, three years tops! …HAHA SIKE no, it'll be three days, like usual. You'll see what new bullshit I've concocted! It's gonna be FUUUUUN!