Merciless Judgements (S2)

All of their faces flashed in Leon’s mind and he couldn’t help imagining the pain and despair Sherry, Claire and the others felt in their final moments. He was overwhelmed by guilt and the only thing he could do right now, was to drown himself in something else and try to empty his mind.

Leon went on to collect all the evidence on this outbreak. Ada could sense his depression but she didn’t know what to do. Usually, she would just use her mind control ability to make them forget, but that would not work on him, who was immune. So she just quietly followed him from behind.

In the storage tank at the end of the room, a little vial of blue liquid was silently sitting there. This is the G-Virus sample, a creation of ill omen, the source of tragic in Raccoon City. Leon sighed helplessly before handing it to Ada.

“This is it.” Ada quickly confirmed that this was what she needed. She smiled in relief.

“Attention: Unauthorized removal of a Level 4 virus detected.” The female synthetic voice suddenly sounded along with piercing alarm bells, “Facility lockdown initiated. Self-destruct sequence will begin when lockdown is complete.”

“Great...” Ada looked around at the red lights shining in the lab. Damn it, I should’ve seen that coming. What’s wrong with me, she questioned herself but that wouldn’t help. She sighed, “Leon, we need to go.”

He just nodded and followed up. However, upon returning to the power room, they heard a loud noise and the whole structure was shaking. Suddenly, an injured G2 crushed the ceiling and dropped right in the center of the room, blocking their way out. It growled with excitement and started to stumble towards them, since in front of it was the only living human in this area which could be used as a host for its parasitic offspring.

“You again.” Leon stared at the monster with anger. He and Ada silently looked at each other for a second, then pulled out their guns simultaneously and fired.

But bullets barely had any effect and, instead of being slowed down, G2 was enraged by the shots and it charged at them. Leon and Ada jumped to both sides to dodge the attack, as it hit heavily on the door behind them.

“Class A breach detected. Lab quarantined until target is neutralized.” The female synthetic voice echoed in the room. The doors back to the Main Shaft and to the lab were simultaneously closing.

“Jesus...” Leon backed off to keep his distance from it while firing. The quarantine notification was like a **** bell to him. How could he defeat this undying monster?

“Keep it busy for me!” Ada yelled at him and swiftly ran away.

“What? Where are you-”

Leon immediately focused back on the monster as it turned around and started to change. G2 was quickly mutating. Its skin turned gray while it grew another huge claw on its left side. The human head on its chest has disappeared and the monster head became more sinister. With multiple eyeballs growing on its shoulder, its back and even its ankle, the monster has become the third malformation of the G creature, aka G3.

Its hardened skin was more capable of blocking bullets, so Leon could only try to aim at the eyeballs with his shotgun. G3 was larger, more fierce and powerful, but slower, and it gave Leon enough space to maneuver.

With a bit of luck or perhaps tactics, he managed to take out all three largest eyeballs over its body, and it painfully knelt down. G3 arched backwards and screamed, while numerous bone spikes on its chest opened and revealed a pile of smaller eyeballs. Leon shot at those eyeballs but no significant damage was dealt.

“Leon! Move out of my way!” He heard Ada’s voice from behind and immediately backed down.

Ada was holding a sharp steel pipe in her hands. She charged at G3, jumped on top of it and stabbed the steel pipe right through its chest, popping several eyeballs and pinning it on the floor with her supernatural ****. G3 shrieked and tried to swing its claws at Ada, but she already got away.

The severe damage has exceeded its regenerating ability, as more and more untouched eyes on its chest started to pop. It was **** to remove the pipe, but all its efforts were not only in vain but also exhausted it even faster. Eventually with the wicked light in its eyes faded, it ran out of juice and collapsed. Leon couldn’t identify whether G3 was actually dead or not, but at least it couldn’t bother them now.

But the quarantine didn’t get lifted. Just when Leon was trying the figure out their next move and looking at Ada, he noticed that a huge shadow was outside the locked door behind her.

“Ada! Behind you!” He yelled in panic.

Ada immediately turned around when Mr.X crushed the door and choked her throat single-handedly. She struggled desperately but even her supernatural power couldn’t match the Tyrant’s as she was slowly being lifted up. She pulled out her pistol loaded with silver bullets, aimed at its head and rapidly fired at a point blank range.

The bullets went through the Tyrant’s eye and caused it severe pain. Mr.X cried aloud and threw Ada away before stepping back and kneeling down to heal.

Unfortunately Ada was thrown towards a broken fence, and the sharp steel pierced her from behind. What’s worst, the G-Virus sample has slipped out of her pocket and started to roll towards the edge of the platform. Ada endured the pain, pulled herself out and tried to reach it, but it was already too late as the little vial has fallen into the boiler of molten metal.

“Damn it...” She said in a faint voice while trying to keep standing up.

“Ada!” Leon rushed to her side and nervously tried to check her wound.

“You don’t think I’ll die from this, do you? It’s not silver this time.” Ada showed him wound on her stomach and it was quickly closing, however, she was feeling a little down as the sample was lost. Although ****, she had to accept that she had failed her mission.

“Forget about the sample! We need to go before that thing gets up again!” Leon grabbed her hand after a glance at Mr.X. Ada slightly nodded and ran with him.

Through the broken door, thanks to Mr.X, they returned to the Main Shaft and noticed that humming sounds were coming from everywhere - the self-destruction has begun. Their next step would be using the central elevator to get to the bottom of this facility, and escaped by taking the train. Normally the elevator required an administrator clearance to activate, but with the EMF Visualizer Ada could hack the panel in seconds. Everything was fine...

Until a large tentacle-like branch burst out from the East Area and broke the central elevator. Unbeknownst to them, without a proper containment procedure, another Umbrella’s evil creation, the Plant 43, has been growing larger and larger every minute, and at this point has taken over half of the NEST. The central elevator was totally destroyed and they couldn’t get to the lower levels now.

“Damn it!” Leon punched on the panel angrily, “We have to get back! Get to the cable car and return to the sewer now!”

“Right.” Ada nodded.

The duo quickly ran back to the cable car and started it. The self-destruct sequence proceeded and the NEST was collapsing. Just when the car was accelerating and getting away from the explosions, Leon and Ada felt a huge shake and they knew something was wrong. In no time, Mr.X crashed the window in front of the control panel when it was grabbing the car with the other hand.

“Why can’t you just give up!?” Leon shot at the monster with the shotgun. He failed to shake it off but at least prevented from destroying the panel before they parked in the sewer system.

The moment the cable car stopped they immediately ran out and kept going. Leon gasped heavily while checking if Mr.X has been following them. He didn’t see it right now, but the horrific footsteps reawakened his worst nightmare as he yelled, “I hope you have a backup plan!”

“I do! I’m going to call for my extraction unit. But we need to get to the upper levels first!” Ada showed the special intercom to him, “The signal is too weak down here!”

“Alright!” Leon smiled in relief, “Keep running! Let’s go back the way we came!”

They traversed the sewer system faster than he has expected as Ada has completely healed now. And for some time they haven’t heard the footsteps anymore. Must’ve ditched him, Leon thought optimistically. In less than ten minutes they have returned to the corridor where they first encountered Annette. The stain of Leon’s blood was still there and it reminded them of what happened back then.

“So you just dropped my coat like this on the floor?” Ada picked up that familiar coat and felt nausea when she took a smell at it. She threw it away disgustedly, “Uh...I’m not washing it...”

“Mm.” Leon casually smiled, “Thank you for keeping me warm with it.”

“...Yeah, you really should thank me for that.” Ada blushed a little when trying to call for the extraction unit with her intercom.

To her surprise, she couldn’t reach anyone from the HQ. At first she thought it was a temporary malfunction, but after trying everything, she realized that it was the signal being blocked. That’s not likely to be the case, she frowned with confusion, since her equipment couldn’t be easily compromised. Unless...

Ada was focusing too much on solving the problem to notice the strange noise coming from behind the wall next to her. But Leon did, since that noise was so familiar that he almost immediately recognized it.

“Watch out!” Leon jumped on her and got her on the ground.

It was at the exact moment that a giant fist punched through the wall on the spot where Ada was standing next to. Leon quickly helped her up, grabbed her hand and started to run again, with no explanation needed as Mr.X emerged from the smoke and dust and chased after them.

“That’s really annoying...” Ada just looked back once and continued running.

They wouldn’t stand a chance of beating this ultimate bioweapon, however, outrunning it was totally possible as they were already near the entrance of the sewer. Once they went back into the city, they would be able to hide from it, or find enough firepower to fight it.

The plans were not bad, however, Leon has ignored a basic yet crucial element - time.

The sun was up.