Best of Intentions: Enemy (ch. 21)

“Rude, please tell me you have an actual plan?” Jill asked, hating the pleading note in her voice. Fear crawled up her spine as she gazed up at the gigantic creature that seemed to still be pulling itself out of whatever hole it had crawled out of. Something like that… It wasn't something she could have imagined in the worst of her nightmares. 

She watched as a house sized claw hooked around a skyscraper, nearly effortlessly tearing the building down as Nemesis used it as a lever to pull itself forward. She watched as the building buckled, glass giving way, then the steel supports as they succumbed to a pressure that they were never meant to endure. The top half crumpled, leaving the building to collapse into itself while the monster just ignored the damage it left in its wake. 

She couldn't think of anything to do. Her shotgun felt entirely ineffective, leaving her with… what? Her fists? Hopelessness grasped at her heart as she looked to Rude, desperately hoping that what he just said wasn't some bluster and false confidence. 

Leon and Claire weren't much better, even as Claire picked up Sherry. Claire clutched the girl to her chest and barely reacted when Chris, Carlos, and Kevin all arrived at the roof to get a better look at the monster that was tearing through their city. 

“I do,” Rude answered, his voice as serious as she had ever heard and it contrasted so harshly with his size. Something he thankfully picked up on as Jill felt herself growing to full height as ‘the space between atoms returned to its proper distance.’ “It looks like it's heading towards Central Station. The rail line out of the city should still be secure, but I doubt the military will let anyone leave.” 

Rude took in a slow breath, “I have an idea, but it's a bad one.” 

“Better than no idea at all,” Chris remarked, his weapon at the ready as he eyed the black ops team with eyes full of suspicion. 

“I need to go to the main power plant for the city. And I need someone to guide that thing there instead of Central Station,” Rude said, a certain kind of grimness in his voice as he looked between her and Chris. Then, reluctantly, he continued. “And since one of its directives was to hunt members of STARS…” 

Meaning that they had to be bait for that giant monster. 

Chris didn't hesitate. “How long do you need?” He was ready, and there wasn't a shadow of doubt in his mind, Jill knew. It was in moments like these that Chris thrived. Jill had to swallow down her fear, and calm her racing heart. 

“Twenty minutes. Thirty at most,” Rude answered, and that was a punch in the gut. Jill just wasn't sure for what reason -- that they had to survive being bait for half an hour, or that Rude could conjure up something that could kill that thing in so little time. “Split up. I need one team to get to the Police Station and grab Annette to guide them through it. The other team? Get on a motorbike or something, and don't you dare slow down for anything.” 

That didn't sound like a lot to go off on. It sounded less like a plan, and more of a desperate gamble. But perhaps that's all this had been up to this point. In any case, Rude's course was set and he simply stepped off the side of the building before Jill heard a familiar ‘woosh.’ 

Chris flinched until Rude reappeared, flying off into the inner city, leaving a trail of smoke from his boots. Chris watched him go for a brief moment, “I'll never get used to seeing that,” he muttered under his breath. But then he turned his attention over to the black ops team, and the tension once more swelled now that Rude wasn't here to break it. 

Jill found herself tensing, alongside all the others. Her gaze bounced between the woman, Lupa, and the big one with the helmet and gas mask. There was a very loud silence on the rooftop and it was only broken by the sounds of distant destruction. 

Chris worked his jaw, looking between the lot of them. “This isn't over,” he told them outright, admitting that he wouldn't make the first move with a promise that he would make the last one. 

The tension diminished, but it wasn't quite gone. At least not until Lupa offered a small curt nod, “Until then.” 

They watched each other as Jill and her team backed off towards the rooftop door, leaving Kaboom to bring up the rear. There was still a heavy silence all the way up to them reaching the bottom floor. 

“There's no time to talk about things now,” Chris said, flicking Claire's ear. A very old habit of his when he was annoyed but couldn't show it. “Jill and I are going to lead that thing on a merry chase around the city. If Rude says he can kill that thing, then I'm going to believe him. Claire, Kevin, and Pretty Boy -- you three head to central station. Reunite Sherry with her mother and protect them both.” 

Claire immediately opened her mouth to argue, only for the building to rattle as Nemesis unleashed another ear rupturing roar. She thought she heard an explosion in the aftermath, but it was hard to tell with her ears ringing like they were. 

That killed any argument that Claire might have had. “Be careful, okay?” She requested with a small sigh. 

“Not sure if that's in the cards at the moment, but we'll come back alive. Hopefully, in one piece too,” Chris said, offering a grin. Claire managed a feeble but worried smile in response, but there really was no more time to linger. They had a giant monster to distract, and they needed to kill it before the President decided to overrule Rude’s policy on nukes. 

They went their separate ways with Chris coordinating with his team. Meanwhile, Jill found the bike that Rude recommended and hot wired it. Chris got on first with Jill behind him, leaving Kaboom to crawl up Jill’s back to become a shoulder mounted turret. With that, Chris glanced over his shoulder, “Are you ready?” 

“The next thirty minutes are going to be the longest of my life,” Jill knew, earning a grim chuckle from Chris. 

“So far. They'll be the longest thirty minutes of your life so far,” he said, his tone rather optimistic for what they were about to do. It was more reassuring than it had any right to be. “Hold on tight, Jill. I'm taking Rude’s advice.” 

Chris revved the engine, popping a wheelie before they sped away towards Nemesis. As cops, they knew every single road like the back of their hands, even if neither of them had walked the beat as regular boys and girls in blue. Rude’s work building fortifications and controlled zones had cleared most of the streets for them, even if it meant blocking them off from some. 

Even over the roaring engine, they could hear the lumbering giant making its way through the otherwise silent city. The sounds of buildings collapsing, the ground giving away, it's every footstep making the ground tremble. It only got worse as they began to near, giving Jill her first up close look at the monster Umbrella had created to kill them all. 

She had never gotten a look at the original Nemesis. According to Chris, it was an ugly sight. That hadn't been improved with its latest form -- at the center of the looming creature, there was a nose and eyeless face, with only a wretched maw filled with misshapen teeth. The bulging and discolored flesh from the head that was the size of a two-story house flowed out and downward.

Muscle, flesh, and bone grew mindlessly with nothing resembling a normal body except for, perhaps, the two large arms that it was using to drag itself forward. Them, and the slithering crawling flesh that spread forward, hooking into the ground and buildings around it to pull the mass forward. Tentacles, bone spurs, and everything in between shifted and formed in a chaotic mess that Jill couldn't make sense of. Only that it was massive. Three or four hundred feet tall massive, and wide enough to completely fill the road between buildings. 

Jill swallowed a lump in her throat as she saw the flesh of the monster twist and bubble before an eye emerged. Massive and bloodshot with an unhealthy yellow hue to it, but it zeroed in on them regardless as Chris pulled ahead of the monster. 

Nemesis recoiled, before the lumbering mass began to move and with a loud bellowing voice, it roared, “STARS!” 

Jill had been ready for the sound. Her ears were covered, her mouth was open, but it still felt like someone had jabbed an icepick in her ears. The bike under her wobbled a bit as Chris was hit with the noise as well. He righted the bike, and Jill realized that both of their eardrums would have ruptured if it wasn't for Kaboom, who submerged them both in a light green swarm of ‘nanites.’

Nemesis started to move faster upon catching sight of them, its fresh rippling like water as spurs of bone protruded from it like grotesque fingers the size of streetlights pointing at them. Aiming at them. Alarm climbed in the back of Jill's throat before bone spurs shot at them, slamming into the ground with blistering speed. Chris had kept an eye on them from behind, just barely weaving his way out of their path as they slammed down close enough she could have touched them. 

Their attempt at distracting Nemesis would have ended in disaster then if it wasn't for Kaboom, who fired at a bone spur flying towards them. The shot shattered the bone, sending what was left off course into the ground instead of impaling them both. 

Chris sped up, putting more distance between them and the monster as they were forced to rely on his reflexes and Kaboom's targeting. Nemesis thundered its rage, picking up speed to give chase as the fleshy mass spread faster over the ground and buildings while a titanic claw began to rise up. 

“Chris!” Jill shouted in alarm, her heart rising up with the claw and falling alongside it when Nemesis made to crush them like a pair of insects. 

“I see it! Hold on!” He warned her and Jill did exactly that for dear life, and if she hadn't then she would have been tossed off the bike from the sudden maneuver. Chris banked hard, skidding down a sudden road, and they had to lean into the turn so much that they nearly wiped out entirely. Just as they did so, however, the large claw slammed into the ground. 

It felt like a missile had gone off right behind them. The bike was nearly lifted off the ground, and it actually might have been for a split second. A shock wave rang out, shattering every plane of glass in sight while a large plume of dust went up. Nemesis didn't wait for it to clear before it was crawling through it to chase them down. It's head snaking forward, almost like a turtle, to peer through the dust to see where they had gone. 

The entire ordeal had taken maybe thirty seconds. 

It felt like so much longer. 

Jill swallowed her fear down again and leveled her shotgun at the beast. It wouldn't do anything to it, she knew. But it was the principle of it -- if she was going to die to some monster Umbrella cooked up, then she was going to die swinging. That's all it was. 

But, even as her shotgun bucked against her shoulder, she hoped that Rude's plan needed twenty minutes rather than thirty. Because, as the monster gave chase again… 

She wasn't sure they'd make it to ten. 

…

Ooooh I'm pissed. I'm so fucking pissed off.  I should have known better. I should have known better than to think that I understood the depths of Umbrella's stupidity. Really, what had I been thinking? Of course Umbrella would unleash a goddamn kaiju on the city and put the whole damn world at risk. Why wouldn't they? 

Really. What was stopping them? Basic fucking common sense? Self-preservation instincts? General empathy and the conscious thought of ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn't actively be trying to end the world?’  

Of fucking course not.

I should have expected this. I should have seen this coming. I really should have anticipated that Umbrella would be this brain-dead, and that they would be able to trip over the bar of my expectations when it was buried under the depths of hell. But I didn't. And that was on me. I had dropped the ball. I gave Umbrella too much credit. Now I and everyone else were paying for it. 

For now, at least. Oh, you better fucking believe that I was going to get my payback. I’d meant every word that I said -- I was going to hunt Umbrella to the ends of the Earth and put those miserable psychopaths in the dirt. Every single one. 

But, before that, I had to kill another one of their science projects before it really escaped containment. 

“I can do this,” I muttered under my breath, spying the power station. Chris had already cleared it with his team to get the trains up and running, so I wouldn't have to deal with the creepy spider monsters. 

Despite how utterly caught off guard I felt, I did have a plan. And it was a plan that was ripped right from the third game -- Jill had proved that you could kill Nemesis with a big enough energy blast to the face. So, that's what I would do. I just needed to scale the blast with the railgun to Nemesis’ new size, and I'd be golden. 

The issue there was two-fold -- power and scale. 

Scale, I could manage with Enlarge/Reduce. Power, however, was the problem child. I needed a lot of electricity for what I had planned. Enough that even hooked up to the grid I would only get one shot at this, so I had to make it count. Otherwise, the President would probably decide to throw caution to the wind and nuke the city. 

I drank in the sight of the power station. All the electricity in Racoon City came from the nuclear power plant, but not only did I not have the time to fly all the way there, I wouldn't have the time to fly back after making the adjustments that I needed. While tapping into the power plant would be ideal, Umbrella, unsurprisingly, gave me an alternative that I could tap into which would spell the end of their science project. 

The generator that was beneath the city. 

My plan was simple -- reroute all the city’s power to this power station, then funnel up the power that was reserved for the Hives here as well. Hook up all that power to Dakka and Kaboom, hit them with an Enlarge spell… Bingo presto. One dead Nemesis. 

The real difficulty was getting it done before Chris and Jill got themselves killed bringing the fucker in range. 

With that thought driving me forward, I moved like a man possessed. Rushing towards the control board, I effortlessly prepped the city’s grid for what I was about to ask of it. The connection at the power plant would fail, there was no helping that. It simply wasn’t built to endure what I was going to demand -- so, I would need a flash of electricity that would drain the city dry, then I'd rely on the generator for the Hives. 

That connection, however, I couldn’t afford to have fail. The math was easy in my head, doing the calculations of how much power I was going to use, and comparing it to the equipment that I had on hand. The numbers didn’t add up, leaving me to scramble to prepare. I needed stronger materials. More durable. Enough for the awesome amounts of power that I would have flowing through them. 

I wouldn’t just have the entire city's power flowing through the wires. I would have two cities worth, based on my estimations of the generator below our feet. 

However, I was in luck as the fire in the stadium continued to burn as Dakka made her way back to me. The XP fed into me, and I made my choices instantly with barely a thought. 

Level 18?

Two more Spell Infusions, and both of them were geared to help me defeat what I’m hoping was the final boss of the evening. Arcane Propulsion Arm and Arcane Propulsion Armor -- the latter would be useful later, at another point in time. The Arm was what I needed now, however, so I picked it and my new spell without missing a beat. 

If Fabrication was the greatest spell for Artificers, then Creation was the second best. It was the ability to temporarily change the matter an object was composed of -- useful in a pinch, but less so in longstanding projects. For my needs, however, it was ideal as I dove into the power grid, breaking connections and replacing them in a hurried frenzy. 

Everything that I didn’t need was tossed into a central pile, thanks to my 21 Strength. Making the Belt of Hill Giant Strength was probably one of my wisest infusions taken. With every single second counting, I used Fabrication on the scrap pile, turning it into spools of thick wire, the kind that I would need to make the connection with the generator. 

Then, with Creation, I turned that wire into Adamantine -- a nearly indestructible fantasy metal. Under normal circumstances, the spell would only last about a minute. However, with a bit of Metamagic, in particular the Extend variety that I had chosen, that minute could last up to twenty-four hours. Far more time than I needed. 

With the wire sorted, I turned my attention to my delivery method. That was where the Arcane Propulsion Arm entered the picture. I had to cannibalize my Flying Shoes to get the job done, but the job got done all the same. I also had to cannibalize my phone for the GPS function. The result was an exceptionally ugly but very functional piece of armor that was meant to go over my own, with a rocket booster attached to the base. 

I’d modeled it a bit after Metal Gear Solid’s rocket fist. Loved that ability. 

Placing one end of the Adamantine wire into the rocket fists’ palm, I had it take off towards the police station, where Leon and Claire were hopefully opening the way like I’d asked. Which, in turn, allowed me to focus on the next stage of the project-

Level 19

A Feat. My choice was made instantly -- there were better options to take in the long run, but I had to think in the short term, or there wouldn’t be any long term. 

Elemental Adept. Which would let me ignore a target's natural resistance to the chosen element. 

Which in this case, was Lightning.

With my choices made, I turned to the direction that Dakka was approaching from. She was moving as fast as she could, but it still felt dreadfully slow when seconds counted. When each one could be what decides life and death. Because, ever so slightly, I could feel the tremors underfoot growing stronger. Chris and Jill were doing their job, but I felt the clock ticking for me to do mine. 

Dakka arrived what felt like entirely too late, and I tore into her to prep her chassis for the modifications that I had to make. My hands moved in a frenzy, my fingers picking up nicks and cuts from sharp pieces metal here or there, but I paid them no mind. Even when I nearly tore out a nail to pop off a metal casing, I didn’t care. 

There was a special kind of focus that grabbed my mind and refused to let it go. There was only the task before me, and nothing else, and I gave it absolutely everything that I had. The distant roars that steadily became less distant fell on deaf ears, and the rhythmic vibrations of Nemesis’ approach went ignored. There were only the nuts, the bolts, and my tools as Dakka was undone and remade in mere minutes.

But, it was then that my radio crackled to life. “Uh, Mr. Rude? We’re in the… super secret lab underneath the police station? Annette showed us the way?”

It was Claire’s voice. Okay. Now came the interesting part. Hopefully, she was able to follow directions as well as her brother. “Have Annette guide you down to the generator room -- it’s going to be a giant spinny thing with a bunch of electricity. It’ll be hard to miss. From there, tell me what you see. However, in about… three minutes, a flying robot arm is going to arrive and give you a wire. I need you to connect that wire to the generator exactly how I say. Because, if you don’t… Well, we’re all going to die, but you’ll die first.”

“...Right. No pressure, then,” Claire replied, her tone dry and sarcastic. She was a protagonist. This was what she was built for. I hoped. If she wasn’t, and I got Chris’ sister killed… Rather than beating up boulders, Chris was going to be beating the shit out of me. Just before we both got eaten, probably. “I’ll let you know when we get there.”

I didn’t dare look at the clock. I didn’t want to know how much time I had already spent of my very limited supply. It wouldn’t change anything if I looked at the clock and understood that it had already been fifteen minutes since my departure from the roof. Four to arrive at the substation. Eleven to rebuild it to my specifications. Fabrication and Creation took out the worst of it, but my spell slots were becoming a dwindling resource with every spell. 

Still, it felt entirely too soon as I heard the roaring of an engine approaching. Chris and Jill had arrived. And they brought Kaboom. Good. I needed her. 

“Rude, how are we-” Chris cut himself off when he got a look at me. His expression tightened, but he immediately swallowed whatever he had been about to say when he saw me. He wasn’t shocked or scared. He understood that I didn’t have time to answer any questions. Good. So, I tossed him the enchanted radio in the hopes that he could coordinate with his sister. “What do you need us to do?”

So many things. Too many things, honestly. But what could they possibly do in the time that we had left?

“Let me know when it’s close,” I answered, looking at Kaboom and my hands flew to do the same modifications to her chassis as I did to her big sister’s. They were a bit different, given that Kaboom hadn’t received the same upgrades that Dakka had, but the principles were still the same. The only modification that truly mattered was the connection to the electrical grid that I installed in both of them. 

The Adamantine wire was fed into both of them, and I heard a lumbering crash in the distance. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Nemesis was approaching. I was surprised by how calm I felt, even as my heart felt like it was about to jump out of my throat. My hands were steady, I was focused, and all I needed was the extra juice from the Hives. But on the inside I felt like I was drowning as I waited for Claire to check in. 

The worst part of it was that I found myself idle in the final minute. I did everything that I could do, and it was just trusting Claire and Leon to get the job done. Yet, there was still the urge to trinker. To do something. To let me feel like I had my hands on he driver's wheel of my fate. 

Jill noticed, I think, as I found one of my hands in one of her own, squeezing it until it was almost painful. But the reassurance outweighed the pain. 

It felt like my head had breached the surface  when I finally heard Claire’s voice on the radio, “I’m in front of the generator with the wire. What am I doing?”

I sucked in a deep breath as I turned to fully look up at Nemesis, seeing him loom in the distance with an unquestionable fury. He had run out of buildings to drag himself on, so he used his oversized arms and his ribs scuttled beneath him like the legs of a millipede. Creepy. My mind did the math, even if I really didn’t want it to. 

Thirty seconds until we’re in range of its claws. 

Yet, my voice didn’t waver. “Describe the output for the generator,” I said, knowing every second counted. The ground quaked underfoot as I looked up at Nemesis as he slammed a claw into the ground to drag himself forward. 

“It’s big… and it looks like there are a bunch of cables attached at the top?” Claire said, and that wasn’t really the kind of description that I had hoped for, but it was one I was prepared for. It did mean that things were going to get a little… messy. 

“Then I need you to leave the generator room because it’s about to be filled with lightning,” I told her, and watched as Nemesis lurched closer. He wasn’t firing projectiles at us, I noticed. Even back in the game, he had this habit, I realized. He didn’t immediately go for the kill. Instead he… terrorized, I suppose the right word would be. That sadistic habit bought us the precious extra seconds I needed. 

“We’re out!” Claire reported, and my Arcane Arm, which was attuned to me, acted on my will. It ripped the cables out of the generator before it slammed the Adamantine wire into it. Instantly, the wire began to glow white hot, and liquify the ground around it from the heat. I paid it no mind as I approached Dakka and Kaboom. 

Placing my hands on them both, I spoke, “Hit ‘em with your best, girls.” With that, the two began to grow as I burned my final spell slot, even with my rampant leveling up. The two Eldritch Cannons grew until they stood nine feet tall and as wide as a semi-truck, with their railguns pointed directly at Nemesis. 

I looked up at him as he raised a single oversized claw up, determined to crush us beneath it. 

There was the cackle of electricity, a hum in the air that made every single hair I had stand on end, along with the scent of ozone. Both of my Eldritch Cannons charged up their shots… 

And then they fired. 

Twin blasts of pure energy the size of a car slammed into Nemesis, striking him right in the center mass. Instantly, the blasts carved a line through him, blasting apart the titan of flesh and bone. However, instead of gore erupting from the point of impact, everything in its path was vaporized. 

Behind me, there were the pops and explosions that told me that the city’s connection had burnt itself out before Raccoon City went dark all around us. But I only had eyes on what was in front of me. 

The heat from the blasts burned Nemesis, but it liquified everything around it. The ground near the blasts became magma in an instant, while the sparse buildings began to wilt as concrete melted along with the steel supports. Nemesis himself was scorched in a similar manner, the body unable to regrow as what wasn’t vaporized became pure carbon from the heat. 

It was the second after the blasts tapered off that I saw that they had carved two lines through the entirety of Raccoon City -- they carved lines of crimson through the city, punching through buildings and entire city blocks. And beyond, if I had to guess. Sure hope there wasn’t anything too important in that direction because I might have forgotten to factor in the curvature of the Earth. 

And yet…

“It’s still alive?” Jill breathed behind me, sounding like she got punched in the gut. 

“Not enough, huh?” I muttered, looking out at Nemesis to see that even with a massive hole blasted through his body, he was still alive. Still clinging to life, however reduced he might be. I had to put an end to that, however. And there was only one thing that came to mind. 

I breathed in sharply, feeling a pang in my chest as I looked at Dakka. The one who had a reactor built in her. I placed a hand on her leg, almost unable to bring myself to give the order, but… 

I’d really thought we’d be able to get through this with no one dying. I really did. 

“I’ll rebuild you, better than ever. I promise,” I swore to her, as Dakka began to march forward towards Nemesis. Her legs didn’t mind the magma in the slightest as she moved towards the hill of blackened flesh that was trying to grow back into itself and reform. Far lesser, certainly, but still alive. And still entirely too big. As she marched, the railgun attached to her finished melting as I had put entirely too much stress on it. The heat is what gave me no other option to do this. 

Dakka crawled into the center of the charred mound, the flesh of Nemesis growing over her and I had to force myself to keep my eyes open. Yet, even then, I found that I didn’t have the strength to say the words themselves. 

Dakka had saved my life more times than I honestly wanted to count. Without her, none of this would have been possible. Even down to her grinding out the last few levels for me to put me in the position that I was able to bring Nemesis down. She was more than a machine to me now. 

Yet, all the same, as her body was enveloped with flesh, she did what was demanded of her. 

Dakka self-destructed. 

Heat washed over my face as the light from the explosion was blinding. Kaboom used her shield function to protect us from the worst of it, but even then it was scorching. The entire area around the living remains of Nemesis was annihilated, and it almost looked like a small yield nuke went off with how the smoke formed into a mushroom cloud. I felt the connection to Dakka sever, and it was only then that I closed my eyes. 

Nemesis was dead. She got the job done. 

I knew because I had just hit Level 20. 

And, at long last, the worst day of my life was finally over. 

…

So ends the Raccoon City arc. It was a lot of fun. The next chapter or two will cover the aftermath, but after that, the next arc will be a bit different. For the entirety of the story so far, Rude has been forced to fly by the seat of his pants with too few resources and too little time. 

Going forward, we are going to see what Rude can do as a Level 20 Artificer with preptime.