Jill could feel the exact moment Rude took command of the situation, even before she learned that he somehow put himself in charge over at HQ. The situation in the long hours they were in the depths below the city… it was sliding the wrong way. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, it wasn't total anarchy, but it was slowly heading that way. The evidence of it was everywhere - the conflicting orders, the overstretched front line, the chaotic evacuations, and the gaps in their defenses.

It was like the city was in neutral, rolling towards the edge of a cliff, and then all of a sudden Rude slammed his foot on the brakes. The car stopped, but it wasn't enough to reverse it away from the edge. Not yet.

Which was how she found herself spinning an airhorn in the middle of the city, filling the air with a high pitched whine that echoed out. She stood at the edge of a carpark, watching as the sound attracted the undead that seemed to fill the streets. There seemed to be a wall of them just shambling down one of the main roads, hardly even drawn to the house but shoved forward by those behind them. Plenty just ended up getting trampled underfoot.

It wasn't a sight she'd ever unsee. Rude had been pretty confident in his estimate that 'only' a few tens of thousands of people were dead. It felt like a lot more when she was looking at them like this. Honestly, looking at the dead - almost all of them so fresh that she could make out their faces… it felt like a nightmare had followed her into reality.

But, that wasn't all she saw.

"We're moving into position. It's just like herding cattle. Nothing to it," Chris said through the radio as she watched the others take advantage of the moving horde. And she saw Rude's guiding hand in everything that came next.

Rude pulled everyone back hard to regroup and to check what forces that they really had. Which was less than they liked. Volunteers were collected, some given guns, but most were kept away from the actual combat. Since the situation had been so unmanaged, to set up a highway to Central Station from the Police HQ, Rude decided that the bulk of the undead had to be lured away before they could reestablish a front line to their green zone.

As the horde was drawn away, people moved up. Cars blocked off the side streets, alley ways were barricaded off, then both were reinforced with cinder blocks filled with concrete to make sure they didn't go anywhere in the face of weight of numbers. The work was panicked, but fast. Not perfect, as the noise did attract stragglers. But, that was where their new… friends came in.

Jill watched as a straggler was shot in the head, and tracing the angle to a sniper that was posted in a fast food joint halfway down the block. Silencers weren't perfect, but with how much ambient noise there was in the air with the air siren going off, the gunshots were quickly lost in a sea of noise. And, as if it was on a timer, the moment her air siren fell silent, another further up the street began to wail.

So the daisy chain would continue until they could park the horde in one of the pre-marked red zones - places that could hold a couple hundred or even a few thousand of them and be blocked off with some ease. The rest would naturally begin to dissipate back through the city, but by that point, the highway and their defensive lines would be established enough that they could look to take the next step in dealing with this outbreak.

"Jill, you are clear to hop on over," Chris said through the radio and Jill gave a click of acknowledgement before she broke down the station she was at and shoved it all into a pack that Rude had provided. A load-out of gear that had been prepared for this plan from a list in his little black book. One of which was particularly interesting as she could only describe it as a grappling hook.

Not exactly hand held, but more of an attachment for her rifle. Taking aim, she fired it and watched as the hook punched through concrete before locking itself in place. After securing one end of the tether to a parked vehicle - another car that had been stolen by Rude some days in advance, and parked exactly where she needed it to be, she applied the pulley and began to make her way over a corpse-filled alley.

An offered hand helped pull her over the ledge, and she came face to face with a logo that made her guts tie themselves into knots.

Umbrella.

"This is going about as well as we could hope for," Chris said, and thankfully he was also on the rooftop. The curly haired man that helped her over took a step back - Carlos, as he introduced himself. Their attachment to round off the squad to five man team. He seemed to sense the unspoken distrust that she and the others - Brad, and Kevin - all had of him. So, he was trying to avoid stepping on toes and giving them a reason to justify their distrust.

"That's how you jinx something, Chris," Kevin pointed out, looking through the scope of a rifle at the shambling horde. "Don't go doing that. This mess already has too many ways it can go wrong without you tempting Lady Luck." To that, Jill snorted as she withdrew the hook, even if she did have to leave behind the rope.

"That's why I have this," Chris said, holding up Rude's little black book that was rapidly becoming like a Bible for the man. "Even when this does turn to a shit show, we have a game plan in place."

Out of the corner of her eyes, Jill watched Carlos to see if he gave any kind of reaction to that. He was a member of Umbrella - one of their response teams. That didn't make him a bad guy, not exactly. It did make him untrustworthy, though.

"Does that include the big guy kicking our house of cards over just to get to us?" Brad asked, standing next to Kevin as he spotted for him.

"Variation F with twenty six subplans depending on which stage we get hit in," Chris rattled off. "Though, some of those involve someone named Alice. Without her, we'll have to improvise a bit."

There was that name again. Alice. Rude hadn't admitted to it, but he had been looking for her and had seemed shaken when he hadn't found her. He recovered quickly, so Jill had put it out of mind, but then she linked up with Chris and he revealed the litany of plans that Rude had cooked up, and half of them had revolved around this Alice person…

"The thought of you trying to plan anything scares the piss right out of me, you meathead. How about we just give your prophet a ring instead? Since he made the damn things?" Brad questioned before he pointed one zombie out and Kevin took the shot.

Chris scowled but he didn't seem to disagree, taking out his radio and switching it to a private channel while they had a moment. "Rude, it's Chris. Your plan is working pretty well at the moment - we're at stage three, but we wanted some advice on how to proceed without Alice."

There was a pause on the other end of the radio, and in that time, another air siren started to sound out further up the block. It was a long few seconds later before Rude responded and there was obvious hesitation, "...Chris, what are you even- wait, are you using my notebooks?"

Well, that didn't sound good. "Yeah?" Chris tried while Jill swallowed a smile, recognizing that tone.

"Oh. Wow. How are you not dead? Those things are trash," Rude questioned with genuine wonder in his voice.

Brad cracked first, simply throwing his head back and laughing so hard it came out as a wheeze. Chris just looked at the radio like it had personally betrayed him. Rude kept going, "I wasted too much time with those things. It's impossible to anticipate everything that could happen, so at best, they're a useful guide. And they should have some useful info about some caches I have throughout the city I guess. Other than that though they're useless, I'd appreciate it if you burnt them."

Brad doubled over, unable to even breathe as he just beat a fist on the ledge of the building, tears in his eyes.

Chris seemed honestly speechless. The others were starting to crack up at his expense, even Carlos was unable to keep a smile off of his face. So, Jill took pity on him because she was pretty sure this was an instance of Rude not realizing how smart he really was. "We're halfway through the plan, so we're committed to it. It's working so far, but it seems like a waste to just let the horde disperse back into the city. You got anything for us since Alice isn't here to use 'psychic bullshit', in your words?"

"Already on it," Rude answered. "We got more volunteers than I expected, so I've been putting them to work. When I heard you were setting up a red zone, I started to put a project in play." He really didn't understand how reassuring it was to hear that. He was genuinely oblivious to the weight his words had, or the effects he had on people. Watching him build that railgun had been as mesmerizing as it was disturbing, because it was then that Jill realized that as dumb and as careless as Rude acted, he was without a doubt the smartest man in any room he would ever walk in. "You'll have to switch targets a bit, though. Your destination is going to change."

"Where to?" Jill asked, readying herself for the task at hand.

"The stadium," Rude answered. "We're going to turn it into a cage - stuff as many undead as we can fit inside, then set the whole thing on fire to kill the lot of them all at once." That sounded like a tall order, and Chris snapped out of his stupor. "It'll need to be prepared beforehand, though. I don't fancy sending anyone inside once it's full to plant the bombs."

Chris looked at Jill, who mulled the idea over for just a few seconds. The Raccoon City stadium could seat around twenty thousand people. Seal off the entrances the right way, and you could potentially fit a lot more than that inside. If they did it right, they could fit nearly every walking corpse in the horde in there and take them out all at once. Then they would just be dealing with stragglers.

"We're on it," Jill decided for the team.

"We'll need to hoof it if we want to get there before the horde does," Carlos pointed out, inclining his head to the horde they were going to have to get through. There was that, and then there was that creature that was hunting them. It was a risk, but…

If they pulled this off, then that was thousands of undead off the streets. And that was a number that could make all the difference when it came to saving this city.

"Then let's get going," Jill replied, adjusting her hat before she attached another cable to her grappling hook. As she did, Carlos informed his team of a change in plans. That pretty much instantly resulted in squabbling that Jill tuned out - either the Umbrella team would help, or they wouldn't… Or they'd sabotage the entire thing for the sake of their monstrous experiment.

Firing off the grappling hook, she was the first one to zipline beyond the barricades of the horde. The others trailed behind her as they broke into a sprint pretty much as soon as their feet touched the ground. As they did, Carlos called out, "Platoon lead is sending a forward squad to meet us there!"

Jill and Chris shared a glance as they ran, both having the same exact thought, so they didn't need to say it out loud. They just picked up the place, determined to reach the stadium first.

As it turned out they didn't need to worry, because something was waiting for them when they arrived.

"Rude? What's Dakka doing here?" Jill asked over the radio, a little relieved to see the robot. It had handled itself pretty well against the Tyrant. It was hell of a card to have in their back pocket when it came to a fight.

"Making sure those chucklefucks don't get any ideas," Rude answered without hesitation, and it was no question of which cucklefucks he was talking about. "Also did a little bit of recon for you - the place isn't exactly empty. Most of the people managed to evacuate, but some weren't so lucky. They got trampled on the way out, or bitten, or they turned inside the stadium after the initial wave. I'd say there's a good two hundred of them roaming the halls."

As Rude talked, the stadium came into view. There was a pile of bodies that lined up near the front door where Rude and Chris made their stand trying to stem the tide. Chris strode forward, "First things first - we need to secure the entrances and exits. Then we need to make a way for them to get in without giving them a way to get out. Any ideas on how to do that?"

"That's a robot," Brad blurted all of a sudden, sharing a wide eyed look with Kevin and Carlos. "That's an actual robot."

She and Chris ignored him while Rude answered, "Check the envelope strapped to her chassis."

Jill checked the papers inside to find a blueprint of the stadium, which had key locations marked on how to best firebomb the stadium since it was made of concrete. The other sheet of paper was an incredibly bad drawing of what looked like a ramp leading up to the second story, a hole that wasn't there in reality, and a barricade flanking the hole with a funnel that would lead the dead to falling into the stadium.

On the other side of that bad drawing was a list of equipment that they would need. Most of it was pretty self explanatory - wood or sheet metal, some explosives to blow holes through the stadium where they wanted them. Some weren't so simple, like the two fire trucks that were needed to help make the ramp by using their ladders as a foundation that would be reinforced to hold the weight. Thankfully the plans also told them where to find the fire trucks.

As amusing as it was, it wasn't like Jill didn't understand the blind faith that Chris had in those notebooks. It was harder not to have faith when Rude seemed about five steps ahead of them before they even decided where they were going.

"This is so stupid that it's probably going to work," Chris gave his verdict. "We'll need to break up into teams - one team prepping the stadium, one getting the supplies. Rude, where are we getting the explosives?"

"Swing by the Police HQ. I'm jerryrigging some breach charges as we speak," Rude reassured.

They had a plan, and then the other Umbrella squad showed up and Jill saw what they were working with. Chris' expression tipped Jill off that one of them wasn't good news. He was a guy, and had a better than half decent poker face, but after years on the force together Jill knew his tells, and Chris looked at the squad leader like he was a snake that had just slithered into the room.

"Redfield. And you must be Valentine - I'm squad team leader Nicholai," Nicholai introduced himself. An older man of the gray fox variety, throwing on a charming grin as he offered a hand. If Chris wasn't reacting outwardly to his presence then she wouldn't tip him off either, so she shook his hand quickly and resisted the urge to wipe her hand on her pants. "And I see that the rumors were true. Rudeus Rain has machines capable of combat."

"Among other things," Chris said before he passed over the doodle. Nicholai seemed a bit confused by it until Chris explained what the plan was.

"I've seen Dakka in action - it's a squad in itself. Two small teams should focus on the stadium first because supplies are going to be the big issue. I'd say four of us should be enough, counting Dakka," Jill voiced, looking at Chris, who offered a curt nod.

Carlos stepped forward, volunteering. And then Nicholai joined him, thumping Carlos on the shoulder. "I'm not adverse to some risk, and I very much would like to see this… Dakka in action. Who does not love killer robots, hm?"

With that decision made, they geared up but before they headed in, Chris pulled her to the side. "Double check everything that Nicholai does. Rude knew about him and he said not to trust him."

She narrowed her eyes, "What'd he say exactly?"

"To put him down on sight," Chris admitted quietly. "I'm not about to kill a man just because he says so, but… keep an eye on him, Jill. And work fast. We have an hour before the horde gets here and we miss our shot."

Nodding to that, Jill moved forward and was the first in the building. Inside was a bloodbath, even worse than what they saw in the Hives by the simple numbers and scale of the slaughter. The walls were practically painted with blood, and the bodies that littered the floor were either torn to shreds or so shattered that the reanimated corpses couldn't even crawl.

She took in a breath, the bodies already showing signs of decay, before letting it out slowly. "One group takes left, and the other takes right. We meet in the middle," Jill instructed.

"That is suitable for us," Nicholai agreed smoothly. "Carlos, with me," he ordered and Carlos flashed her a smile that she didn't return.

That would make keeping an eye on him difficult, but better that than having to watch her back, Jill decided, plunging into the stadium. The lights were still on, but some of them were coated with a layer of blood that dyed the whole hallway red. It got better the further away you got from an entrance or exit, but given that the building was meant to seat nearly a quarter of the city, it had a lot of entrances and exits.

Dakka took point, and whatever upgrades that Rude had shoved into the thing proved their worth because it cleared the way for her. Somehow, it picked out which of the corpses were down for good, and which ones were just biding their time for someone careless to walk near them. It let her focus on her own task.

Which, as it turned out, was shockingly easy. At least in comparison to being hunted by a Tyrant in close quarters. There were plenty of checkpoints that she could use to act as chokeholds, and from there she only needed some chain and a lock. The work was fast, and largely simple - reinforcing double doors, and pulling the metal gates over the exposed areas. The goal of sealing off the lower floors was accomplished with ease, even if it wasn't exactly perfect.

It was when Jill reached the second floor that she saw what could be a problem - there were a lot of undead that were stumbling around in the stadium itself, all wearing jerseys and occasionally beer hats. There were plenty that were in the field as well, including the teams that were meant to play. They seemed largely oblivious for the most part, but they would get attracted to the noise when they put up the funnel or set the charges.

Dakka didn't seem to mind as it simply climbed up a wall for a better vantage and started shooting. One by one, the nearest of the zombies had their heads destroyed, the killing was methodical and mechanical. Jill watched the machine go, her lips twitching into a smile. "That works," she decided. Dakka was aptly named, as it so happened, because with its new fire rate, it made swift work of the undead.

The bleachers made it hard for the dead to climb, and the ones in the field could only swat at the railing. Carlos and Nicholai were drawn out by the noise, and Jill just pointed at the runways where the teams would emerge from. Then she pointed to the corpses.

The message was clear, even if it was less than preferable. What they lacked in building materials could be made up for by using the dead to form a barricade. And that was something made all the more easier when Dakka baited the undead to those entrances and killed them there.

The entire process took around thirty minutes total, and by that point, Dakka had done an excellent job of clearing the stadium by itself. It might be worth thinking about just sending Dakka to the Red Zones and letting it clear them manually.

"Handy thing, that is," Carlos remarked when they linked up, nodding at Dakka, who seemed focused on the two Umbrella agents now that the immediate area was clear of corpses. "It, uh… doesn't seem to like us much."

"The creator doesn't trust Umbrella much. Or at all. I'd be thankful you aren't on a shoot on sight list," Jill remarked to Carlos, who grimaced. But, to Nicholai, she said, "Let's double back to pick off any stragglers. Make sure the bottom floor is secure and there won't be any spills. The second floor matters less - if they're able to get up there, then we have other problems we should be worrying about."

She watched his reaction for some hint of duplicity, only to find that he inclined his head to her with an easy agreement. That told her what she was going to find when they walked the ground to verify that everything was secure - either Nicholai hadn't sabotaged the grounds, or if he did, then he had been exceedingly clever about it.

It was enough to plant a seed of doubt in the back of her mind. She didn't trust him in the slightest, and not sabotaging them here and now wouldn't mean that they wouldn't later, but it was enough for her to start to entertain the idea that they might be on the up and up. She'd have to talk to Rude when they got a moment - why exactly had Nicholai been 'on sight?' What did he do to deserve it?

Rude had earned a lot of trust from her, Jill could admit to herself as they left the stadium to see that the firetrucks were in the process of being put into position. She hadn't trusted him when the world started to end, but every second since, he had proven himself to her. He was brave, too smart for his own good, and had a mouth on him that could make the Devil jump out of his seat, but he was unapologetically genuine in everything that he did. It was hard not to trust him.

But Chris was right. It was a whole different thing to kill a man just because Rude thought he should die.

And, it looked like she might get a chance for some answers as a car pulled up to the stadium. A dozen men or so hopped out of the back of the truck, ready to get to work on building the ramp. Rude got out from behind the driver's seat, Dakka heading over to his side. Out of the corner of her eye, Jill saw Nicholai take note of Rude, his gaze sharpening in a way that Jill didn't entirely care for but she understood. It wasn't like she hadn't reacted much the same way to Rude when they first met.

Rude approached them with a confident stride and Nicholai stepped forward, throwing on that same smile. "Mr. Rain," he greeted him, offering a hand. "I've-"

He was cut off when Rude, in a single smooth action, pulled a handgun from his belt and aimed it at Nicholai's head.

Then he pulled the trigger, snapping it back with a spray of blood. Jill's jaw dropped just as Nicholai's body did, Carlo's snapping his gun up and pointing it at Rude, but failed to pull the trigger when Rude simply lowered his gun.

He looked to Jill and offered an apologetic lopsided smile, "Sorry, Jill. My notes said on sight, and I meant it."

...

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