Best of Intentions: All They Fear Is You (ch. 20)

You know, honestly, I had just kinda figured that the major characters of the Resident Evil series would have plot armor. I mean… I didn't know much about the games. I absorbed most of the information I did know about them from memes, which I hadn't thought was a particularly good source but in hindsight were way more reliable than the movies, and the memes painted a pretty clear picture of the main characters of the series. They were DC or Marvel's idea of ‘peak human’ in that they were blatantly superhuman.

It wasn't like the thoughts happened in a vacuum. Everything that me and Jill had survived? We should be dead a hundred times over. Frankly, if it wasn't for my reality bending powers, we would be. So, I just kinda figured that if we ever ran into Leon, he'd be fine. 

He wasn't. There was a puddle of blood spreading around him and by the time I dropped down to heal him, it was already too late. He was dead.

“Bag of Holding, please,” I said as Kaboom approached, opening her chassis for the storage port. Inside was the Bag of Holding and I reached inside and started fishing around. It took me a second to find what I was looking for, but I did -- a big diamond that was about the size of me. 

“Revivify,” I uttered, the diamond turning into dust that flowed up and into the gunshots that had killed Leon. Then, with a wet gasp, his chest heaved. He curled into himself, sounding like he was hacking up a lung, only to reveal it was the blood that had filled them by the looks of things. 

“Hey buddy, just breathe. Deep breaths,” I encouraged, patting him on the hand. Leon did as I recommended, coughing a bit and spitting up blood- then he nearly brained me when he jerked his head back. 

“W-what the fu-” he cut himself off, his eyes going so wide that there was a genuine risk of them falling right out of his head. He gaped down at me, “You- you're real? Why are you so… so small? Are you… a fairy or something?” 

“You bring a guy back from the dead, and he starts with the short jokes. Alright. See if I resurrect you next time,” I tsked, crossing my arms as I looked up at Leon. Though, admittedly, I had underestimated how… effective Enlarge/Reduce was as a spell. It hadn't been my intention to shrink us down until we were about a foot tall, but I couldn't deny that it had benefits. Like crawling through the air ducts and allowing us to save Leon and a girl who, apparently, was Chris’ sister. 

“I died?!” Leon yelped, a hand going to his chest, only to find smooth skin. 

“Just for a little bit. You'll be fine. You can walk it off. Probably,” I added, tilting my head at Leon. I had used healing magic on others before, but Revivify was supposed to bring you back with one health point. I wasn't sure how that would be expressed with others, but by the look of things, Leon was fine. Not great, sure, but that was mostly the panic that he had died and been resurrected by a one foot tall man. He didn't look like someone who had one HP left in the tank. A bit pale, maybe, but otherwise fine. 

“Rude -- we need to move,” Jill said, bringing my attention to her. Chris’ sister was staring at Jill with a slack jaw and naked disbelief. “It won't be long before they figure out their overwatch is compromised, if they haven't already.” 

I nodded, before my gaze darted to Chris’ sister's bleeding arm. She had been shot. “Alright, yeah. Let me patch her up first, though,” I said, approaching her. “Yo. I'm a friend of your brother. You got a name?” 

“Claire? Redfield?” Claire introduced herself, sounding uncertain. “Um, are you… real? Because the Jill I know is a little bit taller…” 

“You can blame this idiot. He shrunk us down too much,” Jill said, casting a pointed look at me. Meanwhile, I aimed my Arcane Firearm at Claire's bleeding arm and shot the wound with Healing Touch. She jerked a bit, realizing that she was healed with the same disbelieving awe as Leon. 

Well, she wasn't wrong. I figured the smaller the better -- I had flying shoes, and Kaboom, so it wasn't like mobility should be an issue. But I’d really underestimated the challenge of opening a door when you were a foot tall. Very tiny hands made it hard to get a grip. 

“Shrunk…?” Claire echoed, but now really wasn't the time for explanations. Which was what I had already said to Jill when she asked ‘how are you doing this’ and she caught that I had ripped my explanation from Ant-Man when I mentioned ‘removing the space between molecules’. So, I was going to get chewed out. Eventually. Hopefully, she'd forget all about it at some point during this rescue operation. 

“Not really the time to chat. If the two of you are okay now, then you need to leave. Chris and his team are on their way up. Claire, you two get out of dodge,” Jill instructed, snapping both Claire and Leon out of their stunned stupors. 

Leon, surprisingly, was the first to shake his head. “No way. Look, I don't exactly know what's going on, but I've already died to stop it once. I'm in this,” Leon said, and that was a lot of resolve for a guy who was still drenched in his own blood after his resurrection. Honestly, I had to admire it. It was stupid, totally foolish, but he had heart even after I had to put it back together from where 5.56 bullets had torn it to shreds. 

“I like the attitude, you're in,” I decided, earning a sharp look from Jill. I shrugged, “We need someone to open doors.” 

“I'm not leaving either,” Claire also decided, much to Jill's frustration. However, when the sound of gunfire echoed down the halls, she knew that this really wasn't the time to argue. 

“Fine. But you're the one explaining this to Chris,” Jill warned as she shouldered her small shotgun and gave the two a nod. 

“What exactly are we doing? I just saw my brother shooting at some black ops looking guys,” Claire admitted, and I tried not to laugh. It seemed neither sibling could resist the Call to Action. Even if they had no idea what the call was for. 

“Rescue operation. They kidnapped a little girl to use as leverage, and I'm pretty sure one of them shot me in the heart.” I caught Leon's look and I shrugged, “I got better. Now, follow us. Hopefully, we'll still have the drop on them.” I said as I jumped on Dakka's back, and Jill joined me a moment later. 

“Bringing back the dead now too, huh?” Jill questioned in a low voice, right in my ear as we strapped in. “Those nanomachines sure are useful.” 

Oh, she was mad. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to wake her up from her nap, because Jill was cranky. And armed with a shotgun. Which felt like an exceptionally dangerous combination. And I don't think she would be forgetting about the nanomachines any time soon… 

Well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that it wouldn't be Umbrella that killed me. 

I- 

My thoughts came to a screeching halt as Dakka 1 continued to put in the good work back at the stadium and I hit Level 16 as a result. My selection was rather swift as I already knew exactly what I wanted to get. 

Metamagic. Extend Spell allowed spells that had a time limit to be extended to a limit of twenty-four hours. Subtle Spell was exactly as the name implied -- it allowed me to cast… well… subtly. Also very useful in a pinch. Something like Empower had its own appeal, admittedly, but I didn’t exactly need the extra damage. 

As for the additional 5th level spell that I chose? It was a bit circumstantial, but one that had a lot of appeal, especially with a stealth mission. 

Arcane Eye. It was a spell that created an invisible eye that could see every direction around it, and in the dark to a limit of thirty feet. Very useful when we were in a building with a bunch of deranged Umbrella Black Ops who had kidnapped a child and already tried to kill me. With that in mind, I was quick to cast the spell, burning my newly acquired spell slot. 

In response, it felt like I was getting a direct video feed streamed right into my brain. Full 360 degree vision too, which let me see Leon and Claire exchange looks behind me as the four of us skedaddled down the hall. However, I didn't have the Arcane Eye come with us. Instead, I left it in the security closet that the black ops members had been in, using the security cameras that they put up and tapped into around the school to see that the Black Ops members were pulling out of the classroom they had been hiding in. 

I recognized only one of them, but they had the same general style that I associated with a black ops team. A woman had Sherry, who was unconscious in her grasp. Good thing as hopefully this whole ordeal would be written off as a bad dream rather than something that gave her PTSD. 

Through the dead ops member radio, I heard the cackling of a radio, “Spectre, our ride is a minute out. Do you read?” 

While the woman, I suppose the leader of the team, tried to get in contact with the guy we had killed, my attention was on the one man I did recognize. I only did the mission once for the sake of completion, but it was impossible to not recognize the soldier that was moving with the woman carrying Sherry. 

HUNK. 

I didn't really know much about him, but given that he had been called ‘Umbrella’s Grim Reaper…’ will, I didn't exactly have a good feeling about the guy. Hopefully, we could take him out quickly so I wouldn't have to deal with any of his shenanigans. 

They were being joined by four others, who were pulling back from their positions of delaying Chris and his squad. From the looks of things, they were converging on the roof. And my eyes narrowed a little hit when I saw that one of them had a sniper rifle. That was probably the one that shot me. 

I am sooooo returning the favor. 

“They're heading to the roof,” I told Jill, who nodded. Then I pulled out my radio, “Chris -- your team is clear to approach. The bad guys are heading to the roof with Sherry. Seems like they have a ride out.” 

“Sounds like it'll be a helicopter. Can you stall them?” Chris questioned, and I gave it a moment of thought.

“I can do something better than that,” I replied. “Also, be advised -- we have guests in the school. One of them is your sister.” There was a strangled noise that came through the radio at that, but that wasn't my problem. Perks of being an only child, I guess. “If you would, could you get someone with a vantage on the roof? I get the feeling that we're going to need an ace up our sleeves for this one. And someone else should probably handle the whole ‘negotiations’ part if they take her hostage.” 

“I- yeah. I’ll put Ada on the roof across the street,” Chris said, sounding like he had a thousand questions but knew this wasn't the time to ask them. 

Alright. I looked over my shoulder at Leon and Claire, “I'm going to send Kaboom with you two. I want you to head up the staircase after the black ops team. Kaboom is equipped with an energy barrier, so you'll have cover. It'll distract them from our approach up the side of the building.” I said, pulling a plan together easily enough. 

“Well… I guess if we die, you can just bring us back. Hopefully?” Claire said, remarkably at ease with the idea. I did have two spell slots left, so… Yeah, that checked out. But, as part of reaching Level 15, the Eldritch Cannons became half cover -- which, in essence, was the Shield spell applied around the Dakka. It wasn't perfect, mind you, but provided that the plan went how I wanted it to, they wouldn't need to test out the Fortified Position feature of my class.

“That's the spirit,” I said, giving her a thumbs up before I grabbed Jill. She knew what was coming, accepting it even as she scowled. I picked her up bridal style before my rocket boots activated to lift me off Dakka. “Just follow Dakka's lead, alright? Don't take any unnecessary risks.” That got a couple of quick nods before Jill and I flew to a window under Claire and Leon's disbelieving stares, slipping through it. 

Through the Arcane Eye, I saw the positions that they had taken on the roof. Just as I saw Chris, Carlos, and Kevin all start filing into the school's front entrance. 

“What is the plan, exactly?” Jill asked, looking up alongside me as we started to fly up the side of the building. 

“Divide and conquer,” I answered in a low whisper. “Do you think Umbrella black ops would value the lives of their team members?” I asked her, and Jill cocked an eyebrow at me before considering the question. I, personally, was under the impression that Umbrella was exclusively staffed by slack-jawed moronic psychopaths, but I would rather not kill anyone if I didn't have to. I would if I had to, but… I didn't want to have to. 

“Worth a shot,” Jill admitted, as we flew just beneath the ledge. The rooftop was silent. If I didn't have a magic eye looking at them through a security camera, I'd never guess that they were up there. They took up firing positions centered around the stairway, expecting someone to follow them up. 

However, because of the silence, I could hear the steady ‘whump whump whump’ of helicopter blades. Chris was right -- they had a helicopter coming. Which… complicated things. Just a little bit- 

My train of thought was derailed once more as I hit Level 17. Already. That was… alarmingly fast, if I was being perfectly honest. At least until I checked on the mental connection to discover that Dakka had switched to Flamethrower mode since I was no longer in harm's way. And, as it so happened, clustered together zombies made for good kindling. 

Level 17 was something of a dud, feature wise. No new spell slots, no new features -- however, I did get access to two more spells. Cone of Cold, and Wall of Force. The latter had some use here, I think. 

With a small shake of my head, I refocused on the situation at hand. I looked at Jill, who gave me a small nod. She was ready. Kaboom, Leon, and Claire were all heading up the stairs to the rooftop. Contact was imminent. Which is precisely why I chose that moment to reveal ourselves. 

I darted up, clearing the roofside ledge directly behind one of the black ops members. A woman with short black hair. She began to react right up until Jill dropkicked her knee from behind, making her cry out, before I landed on her back with enough force to knock her over. The black ops team reacted instantly, whipping around to face me while Jill put the shotgun to the back of the woman’s head. 

At that same moment, Leon and Claire burst onto the rooftop with Dakka shooting the door off the hinges. It divided their attention, but no one had started shooting yet. Simply because Hunk immediately put a gun to Sherry’s head. Not ideal, but honestly, I expected it. We just didn’t have a way to get Sherry away from the lot of them, so taking hostages was the next best thing. 

“What in the fuck is going on here?” The team leader said, looking at me. “Vector, you told me the target was dead.”

“Heart and lung shots, boss. Twice,” Vector, the black ops member with the admittedly kinda cool hood and gas mask combo replied, taking aim at me with his sniper. 

“Nanomachines, son. Takes more than a couple of bullets to kill me,” I replied, leveling my Arcane Firearm at Vector. “Which, I’m guessing, isn’t the case for the rest of you.”

“Nor for the little girl,” Hunk retorted flatly, jabbing Sherry’s head a bit with the pistol. In response, Jill did the same to the groaning woman that I was standing on. 

“Yeah, but that girl is your only leverage,” I pointed out, really wishing that someone else decided to speak up. “As things are, I’m not opposed to letting you all live, even if you made the horrific decision to work for Umbrella. However, if you kill her… I can revive the dead, you know that? Heal just about any wound. So, if you pull that trigger, then I’m going to have Dakka switch to her flamethrower, and I’m going to burn all of you alive. Then I’ll bring you back. Then I’ll do it again.”

I clenched my jaw and breathed deeply, realizing deep down that I probably would carry out that threat. “I will personally give you a taste of hell right before I send you there. Then, when I’m satisfied, I’ll just bring Sherry back to life. So, your lives hinge on the fact that I don’t want to traumatize a kid any more than she already has been.”

There was a very loud silence on the rooftop at that. They cast subtle glances at each other, shifting their posture in a way that I couldn’t tell if they were about to fight, run, or give up. 

It was Vector who spoke up, “He makes a compelling argument, Lupo.”

“Shut it, Vector,” the now-named Lupo, squad leader, shot back. “Counteroffer -- since you’re not dead, we do an exchange. You for the girl,” Lupo tried, still looking at me, but I didn’t fail to notice how her gaze flickered to the others. In particular, Leon, but not because he was a pretty boy. She saw the blood on his chest and the bullet holes on his shirt. That lent a lot more credibility to my threat. 

“I gotta ask -- what’s your endgame, here?” I replied, not even dignifying that with a response. “Like, I get it, you’re a bunch of spooky scary black ops members and a bunch of highly trained morons blah, blah, blah. But, how exactly do you see this ending? Because I already have the evidence necessary to put Umbrella in the dirt, and I already spilled the beans to the President, so I’m guessing a lot of Umbrella’s upper brass are committing suicide by taking two to the back of the head right about now.”

Pure bullshit, of course. The only people dumber than Umbrella was the US government. However, they didn’t need to know that. 

Lupo was shaking her head, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Our bosses aren’t the type of people to go quietly in the good night. Or get court dates.”

“Well, what a coincidence? I wasn’t planning on giving them one, and I think I’ve proven that I’m rather skilled at killing Umbrella goons,” I pointed out before I felt Jill elbow me in the ribs. “What?”

“I’m still a cop, Rude. Don’t go confessing plans to commit premeditated murder. In front of me,” she tacked on, hinting that she was more okay with it than she let on. The little byplay was to distract them. Throw them off their game. And give them a split second when they thought that we were distracted. 

Especially when their helicopter started to pull up. I made a split-second decision there, having Kaboom aim up with her railgun. The black ops members tensed, but they couldn’t do anything to stop it when Kaboom fired, hitting the back of the helicopter and immediately sending it into a tailspin. The silence as the helicopter crashed into the street below was deafening and I could almost see the revelation settle heavily on them. 

“Oh? Was that your ride? My bad,” I said, looking back at Lupo. “So, let's try this again? Hand over the girl and you get to live. Pull that trigger and you’ll die screaming a dozen times before I let the devil take you.”

“And I’m telling you that you’ve vastly underestimated the lengths that Umbrella is willing to go to come out on top,” Lupo retorted, a certain kind of grimness in her voice. The kind that had warning bells ringing in my mind. “You did your job too well, Rude. Against all odds, you really managed to pull the city back from the brink of disaster.”

I couldn’t say I liked how she was speaking at the moment. It felt like she was giving the prelude to something terrible. 

“You’re monologuing,” I realized, my guard climbing all the way up. “Why are you monologuing?”

“To prepare you for what comes next,” Lupo admitted, reaching out to Hunk and placing a hand on the hand that had a gun pointed at Sherry’s head. “Our orders were to destroy every trace of Umbrella’s involvement in the outbreak. Shred every last paper, delete all the data… and kill every single survivor. But you saved most of the city. Even if we wanted to, it would be impossible for us to kill the thousands that you saved.”

Ohh… I did not like this. I did not like this at all. My flesh was crawling, and there was a pit opening up in my gut. “... No. No. There is no fucking way that they are that stupid. The bar is in the ninth level of hell, and you’re telling me that they still fucking tripped over it?”

“Rude?” Jill asked, glancing at me openly. At the same time, Hunk glanced at Lupo and, surprisingly, lowered the pistol. 

I didn’t even have the words. The idea wasn’t unthinkable. The movies were apparently glorified fanfiction, but they had painted a very vivid picture of Umbrella that my experience so far verified. But to think that they could be that dumb. To be so… so short-sighted. Like, I expected nothing but disappointment from Umbrella, and they still found ways to disappoint me. 

Lupo, however, elaborated in my place. “We couldn’t get the job done, so they created something that could. They understood that the cat was out of the bag… so they did something that would prevent the world from giving chase to them.” She reached up to her mask and pulled it off, revealing a brown-haired woman in her mid-thirties. “And that helicopter was our ride out of the hell this city is about to become.”

The ground trembled, almost like it was an earthquake, but it was too well-timed. A gentle shake that seemed to be a prelude to a bigger one. There was a pit of fear gnawing in my gut and a dawning sense of horror as my thoughts went into a single direction. 

It had been a long time since I had seen Nemesis. 

And, as if to agree with me, the ground trembled once more before the sound of an eruption echoed out from the city. It was a loud, dull noise that swept over Racoon City, something that wasn’t nearly as bone-chilling as the occasion called for as I saw a building in the distance topple… and something rise from the dust within. 

Nemesis seemed to agree as a thunderous roar echoed out from the collapsed building. It shattered every piece of glass in the city, and all of us found ourselves slapping our hands over our ears. I felt the shock wave of the roar travel through me, but even then, I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the sight that filled me with dread. 

Through the cloud of dust, Nemesis moved. He stood hundreds of feet tall, but any trace of a humanoid form was lost. He was an amalgamation of flesh, muscle, and bone -- one oversized hand came down on the roof of a building as he pulled himself out of whatever hole he had been hiding in, crushing the first three stories. As Nemeisis emerged from the rubble, I saw that he had dozens of arms and tendrils, all of them used to pull him forward as he lacked legs of any kind. 

I couldn’t have imagined a more horrifying sight in my worst nightmares. 

Numbly, I found myself walking forward, right by the Umbrella black ops members, until I reached the edge of the roof on the other side. I was bluescreening, unwilling to believe the kaiju monster that Umbrella had unleashed upon the world just to cover their tracks. A small breath rattled out of me as I put the pieces together. 

“Attacking the red zones. That was a distraction,” I realized only too late. Far too late. I had thought it strange that we never saw Nemesis again. He had hounded Jill in the game, but we encountered him once, and then he vanished. Hiding, I now saw. Mutating into whatever the actual fuck that thing was. 

“That, and to draw you out into a predictable location,” Lupo confessed. “So. Still think you’re on the winning side?”

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I swallowed my panic, my fear, and all of my doubts with practiced ease. 

“You’re goddamn right I do.” I just might need to amend my ‘no nukes’ policy. And that clearly wasn’t the answer that she expected because she visibly recoiled from it as I turned around to face them all. Jill, Claire, and Leon were looking at the monster with open despair. Fear. But, at my words, I saw it was all eyes on me, including the black ops members. 

Time to fake it until I make it.

“I’m about to go kill that fucking thing, and when I’m done, I am going to hunt every member of your… oh fuck me. I don’t even know how to describe the sheer levels of fucking idiocy on display here,” I admitted. Truly, I was at a loss for words. I had genuinely, truly, believed that I had witnessed the depths of Umbrella’s stupidity, but I had underestimated the fucking fathomless depths. “But, whatever they are, wherever they go -- I am going to hunt them to the ends of the fucking earth and I’m going to kill them for this. For the sake of the world and the goddamn gene pool because these… these… people have polluted both for too long.”

I then pointed at Hunk, “Drop the girl. Now. I don’t have the time to mess around with you idiots anymore. So, the good news is -- you have until I’m done killing that to reconsider your life choices. After that? You’re fair fucking game. Got it?” 

In hindsight, maybe I should have ended the Reduce spell I had cast on myself because I imagine that little speech would be a lot more impressive if I weren’t a foot tall. However, it seemed to have the intended effect, as Hunk seemed to consider that before gently lowering Sherry to the ground. 

“Good. Now fuck off. I have bigger game to hunt.”