78Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil/Biohazard, or the Left 4 Deads('cause I plan to use both of them eventually). Just to give you a warning, I call Resident Evil "Biohazard," because the Japanese name is, in my opinion, a lot cooler, and makes a lot more sense.
Yay for Leon! :3 Because indeed, he is the focus of this story.
…CANNOT believe that nobody thought of this yet…
Now, To anybody who reads "Gatekeeper: Divinity" or "Vulpes Alveus" …I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY DON'T KILL ME! I plan on updating BOTH very very soon, m'kay? So no killing the author, or NO STORY FOR YOU.
Predator
A Biohazard/Left 4 Dead(s) crossover
Chapter 1
Waking in Hell
"Ow…" He groaned, sitting up and rubbing his head; his head was fine, but he just had a feeling that there should have been a bump the size of his fist present. He looked slowly around the room, kicking the remaining part of the white sheet that had been drawn up over his face from his body. He was in a hospital room, everything white. Well, everything was supposed to be white. In reality, much of it was graying, and a large portion of the room was splattered with a red liquid that had turned nearly black with age. Blood. 'What happened here…?' The man looked down, nearly screaming at the bite-marks that littered his arms and torso. 'Better question, what the hell happened to me?' They were bite marks, that much was certain. But what had inflicted them upon him? One or two looked distinctly like a dog's, but the rest looked almost human. Almost. Like a human who had chipped and broken teeth, or a human who had gotten their canines sharpened into fangs. 'Another question.' He thought, squinting as he tried to remember…well…anything. His name, his job, the town he was born in, his parent's names, even why he was in the hospital in the first place; though, he figured that whatever had given him the bite-marks were probably the culprit. Nothing. 'Who in the hell am I?'
He shifted, and when he moved, something that he hadn't noticed when he had woken up shifted in his hand. He raised his arm slowly, the muscles burning and stretching as if they hadn't even twitched in years, and uncurled his tight fist, staring at the duel dog-tags attached to a thin chain, the edges of the tags rimmed by a bit of black rubber. Both of the tags were covered, in majority, by dried blood that obscured most of the words. All but one line on one of the tags.
Leon S. Kennedy
'Leon?' The man thought, frowning as the muscles in his arm began to grow to tired to even hold itself up. "Leon S. Kennedy." He repeated, this time out loud, with his voice rasped; how long had it been since he had last spoken? "Is that my name?" He glanced over to a body leaning against a wall, the head missing, and the blood surrounding it black with age. "Well, it's not yours, Mr. Ew." He snickered, the sound like a rolling cough. "What? Can't keep your head in a crisis?" 'That was lame…'
Ignoring the way his muscles burned and ached, the newly-dubbed Leon - if that was his name - swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and spurred himself to his feet. While his pants were still on - dark gray 5.11 pants - his shirt, shoes, jacket, and what looked like a belt and shoulder-holster, along with many other equipment bags.
'Dog-tags? Equipment pouches? …what kind of work was I in?' Hopefully somebody in the lobby would know.
Leon limped slowly over to the chair on the opposite side of the private hospital room, grunting with every other step; it felt like his right ankle was broken, or in the very least, sprained. He sat heavily in the chair next to the one that held his clothes, and took a moment to huff and puff, wincing with every breath. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and soon Leon found himself sucking in air greedily. Had he been on oxygen support? No…he hadn't woken up with that annoying mask over his mouth and nose. So why did he feel like he had kept his head underwater the entire time he had been asleep? Even twenty minutes seemed to long(which brought another question that wasn't important: How long could he hold his breath, exactly? It felt like for a while…).
After he regained his breath, he picked up his shirt, groaning at how there were a few holes in the material, most likely from whatever had bitten him. It was a dark navy blue 5.11; what was with him an 5.11? He pulled his shirt on over his head, wincing as the material dragged over his wounds; he was an idiot, he should have found bandages and wrapped up the wounds first. …ah, he'd do that later, after he found somebody to help him. He would have found the service button…but the remote was clutched in Mr. Ew's hand, and Leon, surprisingly, didn't feel like prying the dead man's fingers away from the remote just to call a nurse for assistance. He would do it himself, and then go find somebody.
His socks weren't salvageable. They were covered in blood, which was already dried and chipped off in dry flakes. Sighing, he tossed them away, and just pulled on his black Magnum combat boots over his bare feet. He stood, wobbling slightly, and picked up his belt, staring at the assorted equipment that it held. An attaché case that would go on the small of his back, double pistol magazine pouches, navigation light, a few storage pouches, and radio pouch. After securing the belt around his waist by sliding it through the loops, he picked up a drop-leg holster, and out of a habit that his amnesia had made him forgot, strapped it onto his right thigh. The last object was a brown leather shoulder holster, with many pouches going along the straps. It took him a bit to remember - or guess, really - on how to put it on, but he finally figured it out, and slid on his leather jacket over the holster to hide it from sight. At first, he had wondered where his guns and ammo had gone, but he guessed it made sense; why would he have weapons in his hospital room?
He paused for breath again, leaning against the side wall as black dots danced in his vision. After the spots had shrunk to pinpoints, he pushed himself off the wall, and stumbled towards the door, throwing it open after twisting the lock. He leaned halfway out of his room, huffing for breath as his ribs gave a painful throb, feeling like they had just shifted in his body. "Nurse!" He called down the empty hallway, the lights dim and flickering like some cliché horror movie scene that, no matter how obvious, still managed to make people jump and scream at just the right moments. Nobody responded. No sounds at all, actually. "Nurse!" Leon attempted once more, calling louder this time. Still no response.
Growling in annoyance, Leon limped from his room, instincts taking over to make his footsteps light and quiet, the sound barely even making it to his ears. He reached a hand up to his chest, rubbing his fingers against the dog-tags that he had slipped over his head, only a bit of the dried blood turning into dust between his fingers; it didn't help clear it away enough for Leon to read the other words, but it still gave him something to do, to give him something to focus on so he could ignore the fact that something wasn't right about the way the hospital felt, the way everything was happening. Keeping busy made sure that he didn't question why nobody came at his call, why the hospital was silent, and why there was a headless corpse in the room that he had woken up in. Especially why he had had a sheet covering his entire body, something that people only did when the person being covered had passed away.
'Something's going on here…' Leon thought. 'Yeah, like that wasn't obvious…hopefully somebody in the lobby can tell me what's going on…'
:::Twenty Minutes Later:::
Leon limped down the road, glowering at nothing. His knuckles were turning white, his fingers going numb from the grip he had on the broken broomstick. "Note to self: Next time I wake up in a room with Mr. Ew as my only company, stay dead." He spun around on instinct, swinging the broomstick like a bat. A limy length of…well, it looked like a tongue…wrapped around the flimsy weapon. "Not on the first DATE!" He gripped the tongue, and pulled as hard as his muscle dystrophy-effected arms would allow. A tall, lanky man stumbled out of an alley, pulled by his tongue into Leon's way; the amnesic man spun around, lifting his leg in a high roundhouse kick that dropped the long-tongued man to the ground, part of his skull caved in. Leon crouched, inspecting the corpse of his most recent victim. Long tongue, and tumor-like growths covering a decent portion of his arm. He wanted to call it a Licker…but he just felt like calling them that would be wrong. And a huge over-statement of their abilities. For some reason, Lickers + Combat + Broomstick made him laugh hysterically. And want to cry a little bit, but not like he would admit that.
So to keep away from going into any form of hysterics, Leon just called the creatures that attack via tongue "Long-Tongues." Not the most creative thing in the world, but it was good enough.
He obviously hadn't found anybody in the lobby of the Mercy Small-Practice Hospital. Just more blood, flickering lights, and a pile of partially-decomposed bodies. He had searched for a paper copy that he figured hospitals kept for their patients, looking for any with the name "Leon S. Kennedy." There was no such file. Of course, that was when a corpse decided it wanted to get up close and personal with the amnesiac man. And that was when Leon learned that his instincts were that of a freaking ninja. He had decked the "zombie" right in the face, his knuckles shoving the cartilage of the corpse's nose into its brain. And then the spear of cartilage continued to sail up, punching a hole right through the corpse's head, through its skin, and up through the ceiling seven feet above them.
Leon knew based on common knowledge that that was not normal. But the thing was a corpse, so, denying that it had anything to do with him, wrote it off as something a zombie could do. After looking through the halls for anybody who wasn't dead and rotting on the ground, he learned that running into a horde of the undead with fists flying wasn't the smartest thing, even if he did possibly have super-strength. He had escaped a few hordes only by the skin of his teeth. So his solution? Find a weapon.
And it just figured that the only weapon that he could find in the entire damn hospital was a broomstick that was half-missing.
But the weak weapon paired with his still-denied-strength made for a lethal combination. Even if Leon thought that he would get farther by ripping the arms off of a corpse and using those to beat down anything that was moving when it shouldn't.
After confirming that there was nobody besides him in the Small-Practice medical building, Leon made his way out, finding a pleasant lack of the undead outside. That is, until he made it out onto the main streets, heading on some unknown instinct towards a large building in the middle of what could only be Mercy City, or some similar name, this building holding a large neon sign that said "Mercy Hospital." The main hospital out of the two, it seemed.
Normal zombies were easy enough. But then he had started to come into contact with the "Special" zombies. Ones that could shoot out long, disjointed tongues to ensnare their prey, ones that could leap twenty feet as if they were jumping twenty inches, ones that seemed obsessed with the idea of throwing up on you. Leon had learned with a few unlucky attempts/successes at killing the "Bile-Bombs" that he should just run away. They detonated when killed, and the bile that they threw up, and the bile that coated whoever and whatever was standing to close to them when they died, would call a medium-sized horde to attack anything that was covered in the disgusting liquid. So trying to beat the crap out of them with a broomstick was a quickly-learned no-no.
So far Leon had only encountered the Long-Tongues, Bile-Bombs, and the jumping ones that he called Long-Leaps, but he had heard some type of wailing that sounded suspiciously like crying, and a roar of a beast. Leon's first instinct had been to look for the source of the wailing, to find the survivor that was crying and fear and help her to safety. But right as he had been about to act on that, another instinct had started to literally warn him in his mind.
Run run danger crying Infected run danger death pain pain run pain death Infected crying death death Queen death Queen Infected…
Obviously, Leon listened to the creepy whispering-instinct in his mind that told him to retreat. Not long after he left, and could no longer hear the fain crying, did he hear an inhuman screech, followed by grinding metal, and what sounded like gunshots. So whatever instinct had spoken had been right; it was a zombie, and apparently one that he should avoid. Whatever had been crying had been labeled the Screech-Claw. Where he had gotten the 'claw' part, he didn't know, but he liked the sound of the name, so it stuck. Then he had heard the gunshots start again, along with the demonic roar of some behemoth. And then from multiple city blocks away, he saw a car fly up into the air, and vanish over a roof onto a new street. Whatever had thrown that car was a definite zombie to avoid. The Strong-Arms. Hopefully they weren't as plentiful as the Bile-Bombs and Long-Leaps.
Leon knew from some lost experience that staying in one spot for to long was sure to get him killed. He climbed to his feet, readjusting his grip on the broomstick as he continued down the road, sticking to the shadows, spinning around to keep his back towards the wall. It was evening already; oh how he wished he had batteries for his flashlight. Somebody had cleared his flashlight and radio of batteries, and in a few of his ammunition pouches were only a few stray bullets for a half-dozen different types of guns; either he had been involved in some weird stuff and used up all the ammo in all of his ammo pouches, or somebody had taken all of his ammo, too. Considering how the world had gone to hell in a hand basket…well, now that he thought about it, both answers were plausible. It all considered on how long he had managed to hold out before being taken to the hospital.
A hand slapped down on his shoulder, and from past happenings, he knew that somebody trying to give him the beginning of a tackle-hug from behind wasn't a good thing. He spun around, raising the broomstick with a snarl, ready to bring down the makeshift staff on the head of the assailant. "Oi!" The man snapped, holding up his hands and leaping away when the staff came down where he had been prior, the sheer power behind the swing turning half of the staff to splinters. "I'm not one'a them, so don' try an' take m' head off!" Leon, upon hearing the voice of another human, abandoned the broomstick he had previously been mourning over. He looked up, his green eyes staring at the brunette man that was partially hidden behind an overturned garbage can. "There there…" The other man said soothingly, as if he was talking to a wild animal. "I'm not gonna hurt you." Leon frowned, taking the beginning of a step away when the man took a step forward.
"I'm not a dog. Why're you talking to me like that?" The other man sighed in relief, deflating a little.
"'Cause I thought you were Infected, man. The way you jumped and your feet cleared nine feet, and how strong you were…thought I had found a frickin' intelligent and human-friendly Hunter." Leon cocked his head, waiting to question the man more on thinking he was a zombie later.
"Hunter?"
"Yeah! Those crazy hoodie-wearing guys that jump around. The ones with the scream." Leon nodded in understanding.
"Oh, those guys. I've been calling them Long-Leaps-" Leon froze when the ground began to shake for a brief moment, and the roar of a Strong-Arm broke through the air.
Strong strong death kill insane Infected King death pain pain dying danger run run strong hide run hide run King…
"We should hide. Now." Leon said, looking over his shoulder to the street that was illuminated by flickering street lights and dying fires. There was no sign of anything that looked strong enough to flip a car ninety feet into the air, but it did look like there was a Long-Tongue that was glaring at him from the other side of the street.
"Yeah, I heard the Tank, too." The man nodded. "C'mon, I have a hideout on the roof. We can talk there."
:::Rooftop:::
"The name's Paul. Last names don't really matter anymore…what's your name?"
"Leon S. Kennedy." Paul gave a small smile at the full use of the man's name. "I can't remember anything; woke up without remembering a thing. The only thing I do know is my name, and even that is a little shaky at the moment." Paul nodded in understanding; Leon didn't even know if Leon was his name, but if there was even a sliver of a chance, then Leon was going to hold onto it with everything he had.
"Amnesia, huh?" Paul asked, leaning back in the lawn chair that he was already reclined in, a small grin forming on his face. Leon knew what he wanted.
"I tell you my story, you answer my questions, okay?" The blonde man asked, leaning forward on his own chair.
"Agreed. Entertainment is hard to come by nowadays. We humans will take it wherever we can get it." Leon nodded, only half paying attention while he gathered his thoughts, staring off into the distance.
"I woke up in a private room in Mercy Small-Practice Hospital, alone. I couldn't remember anything; my name, why I was there, how I got the bite-marks on my arms, and sure as hell not why the room was covered in blood, or why there was a decapitated guy in the corner. The only reason that I'm carrying around the name Leon right now is because I had these." He held up his dog-tags for a moment, before slipping them back around his neck, letting them fall back into the shadows made from the folds of his jacket and shirt underneath. "The entire hospital was deserted. At least, I thought it was. I was attacked by a corpse that picked itself right up off the ground, and ended up killing it with a punch to the face." Paul released a low whistle, but otherwise kept quiet. "I figured I'd be able to go through the hospital and find somebody, using only my fists as weapons." Leon gave a pitiful chuckle. "Fighting through a horde of the undead with only your fists isn't a good idea, especially for the Special types. And of course the only weapon I could find was a broken broomstick, which is now useless."
"Yeeaaah…sorry 'bout that."
"It was my fault; I attacked without assessing the situation…anyway, the rest of my story is pretty much the same; I walked through the streets looking for anybody who isn't crazy, and took out any zombies that decided to try and take a bite out of me."
"…damn…I mean, it's hard for all of us who have had to survive since the beginning, but we were warned. We had a chance to prepare; well, for those of us who paid any attention to the news or warnings of neighbors. You…you kinda just woke up in Hell, didn't you?" Leon nodded.
"Seems like it. Now…I told me my story…what's yours?" Paul gave a small, sad smile.
"I lived in Ohio before this - we're in Illinois, by the way - crap broke out. Lived with my wife and two daughters. At first, it was just reports of a strange sickness in California. A new flu, they were calling it. The Green Flu. Made anybody who was infected act crazy and attack anything that moved that wasn't infected. But let me tell you this now; they're not dead. The act like zombies, but they're still alive. Where was I? …right! The country figured that like any other sickness, it would die off. But it didn't. It kept spreading, until most of the country was infected. I told my wife that we had to get to the evacuation points in New York; from New York, we'd be flown to Europe, or islands off the coast of Europe or Canada. She didn't think that we had to leave, even when her parents stopped reporting to us what was going on; they lived in Nevada, which was one of the first states effected. It wasn't until the Infected were coming down our streets that my wife finally admitted that the sickness wasn't like a normal fever. By then, of course, it was to late. I had been preparing my daughters - a 15 year old and a 17 year old - for anything; taught them how to work guns, taught them a bit of melee and hand-to-hand combat, that sort of stuff. Taught them how to survive. So I sent them with my wife to protect her; told them to get to New York, that they were still doing evacuations. I told them I would catch up. While they left, I held off the Infected. That was when I had to run." Paul paused, before chuckling.
"The street my family had gone down became blocked. Apparently, the Infected were drawn by loud noises such as cars. I had to go the opposite direction, towards the west instead of the east. I've been heading west on foot for the past two and a half weeks since the official Outbreak. The evac in New York City was overrun around twelve days ago, according to reports from other Survivors I've come across. I can only hope that my wife and children got away before then, or at the very least, were ferried away to a new evac center. I'm looking for a new evac, one that'll have reports on other evacuations. I'll be able to see if my family got away, or…" Paul shook his head, not continuing. "I was coming through Mercy City when I saw you beating the hell out of a Hunter with your bare fists. At first I thought you were just some body-building Survivor who was lucky enough to sneak up on the hoodie-wearing jackasses. Then I saw you jump like one of 'em." Paul grinned while Leon raised an eyebrow; he had known he was jumping pretty high, but with his amnesic mind, he had thought that it had been a normal height, if not a short height because of how his muscles still burned. "Thought I had found a turn-coat Infected. Guess not, eh? Well, that's my story. Now, you want to know about the Outbreak, right?"
"If it's not to much trouble. I'm not to fond on not knowing what the hell is going on, especially when whatever's going on is trying to rip my head off." Paul burst out laughing, but quieted down when a Hunter's screech answered back from half the city away.
"It's been around nineteen days since the Outbreak in California, and since the world went to hell. Can't tell you how long it's been exactly, since the days kind of just blend together. Ask anybody, and their knowledge of time will be different, unless they carry around a calendar. Like I said, it started in California, then spread through the rest of the country like wildfire. At first they were slow, and so sickly that they didn't pose much of a threat. But then they started changing, as if evolution on steroids had taken over their systems. They got less sickly, and started to move a bit faster than any normal person could. Grew claws, and got stronger so that they could bust through thick doors. Their nerves have to be numbed, because they don't seem to register pain. When they started to become more athletic, that was when everybody started to notice that America was in trouble. The types that had no real special abilities are called the Common Infected, since they're so…well, common!" Leon nodded, partially listening to the end of Paul's explanation on the Common Infected, and partially focused on that instinct that had told him to run from the Infected that had been crying.
Lesser weak weak Lesser lowly bottom Lesser-
'This is getting annoying.' Leon growled, squashing the whispering voice in his head with a mental hammer.
"Within five days of the first change, they started changing again. First, was the Infected that coughed and exploded into smoke when they were shot. They attacked with their tongues, and were dubbed Smokers. Next were the fat ones that threw up on their prey, calling a horde of Common to take down their prey for them, since they're not overly powerful. Because of how they exploded into blood, guts, and bile, they were labeled Boomers. After the Boomers, were the Infected we all know and love, the Hunters. For a while, these three were the only ones that fit into the classification of "Special Infected." That's when the most dangerous Special Infected showed up; the Tank and the Witch. The Tank is…well, a tank. They're moving, breathing, car-flipping mountains of muscle. Their torsos and arms are huge, while their heads and lower bodies are small. Their upper bodies are so big, you know, that they run around like a gorilla! Uh…you do remember what a gorilla looks like, right?" Leon chuckled, nodding.
"Yes, I remember gorillas."
"Good! Take my advice; if you ever have the choice between a drunken Tank, and a horde of two-thousand Common, take the horde. You'll have a much better chance at survival."
"That bad, huh?"
"Worse, actually. I'm dampening it so you don't get to freaked out." Paul said with a grin. "Now, the Witches…it's hard to decide if a Tank is the most dangerous, or a Witch. Tanks move around, while Witches just sit and weep. If you see a Witch, try and sneak around it. If you startle it - get to close, shine a light on it, touch it, shoot it, anything - it'll chase you and attack you until you're dead. If you're the one to startle it, it'll ignore anything else and come after you and you only. If it's attacking somebody else, stay out of its way and attack from behind, because she'll run right into you, and she has claws that are a foot long and wicked-sharp." He shook his head. "God forbid you light one of them on fire."
"Why? What happens if I light a Witch on fire?" Leon asked. 'Better yet, how would I light one on fire?'
"Whatever she's attacking, she'll turn away from and chase whatever caught her on fire. Even if it was a Molotov cocktail, or a car that just random exploded because of a stray bullet, she'll come after who ever threw the cocktail, or shot the car. How she knows who did it, I hope I never find out, but she knows. Those are the five are the Special Infected, but there's been reports that there are a few more types in the south."
Greater strong strong Greater st-
'Oh no, we are NOT starting this again.' Leon thought, slamming a mental gate in front of the voice, almost sighing out loud when the voice vanished. Note to self: keep the gate down on that useless instinct.
"Okay, so that's the classifications of the Infected. But how'd this infection even start? And how come the military hasn't helped yet?" Leon questioned.
"How'd it start? That's the question, isn't it? Who knows how it started. All anybody knows is that if you're not Immune, then you're as good as Infected. Oh, the Immune are also called Survivors; they're humans that will never become Infected. With that up, comes a down, and that's that you'll always be fighting the Infected until you get evacuated, or just die. I myself am Immune, found out when I got bit in the shoulder by a Hunter and didn't turn. You must be Immune, too, if you really did get bit repeatedly." Absentmindedly, Leon rolled up the right sleeve of his jacket, displaying the parts of his arms that he hadn't yet bandaged, where three bite-marks were visible. Paul whistled. "Damn, must've hurt."
"Can't remember, but I bet it did." Being bitten wasn't exactly a pleasant experience, if the two bites he had received since leaving the hospital were anything to go by.
"As for the military…you've got the dog-tags, which means you must've been in the army or something. Why don't you tell me?" At Leon's glare, Paul burst out laughing. He shut himself up quickly, though, when remembering how the Hunter had responded to his last outburst. "I'm kidding, man. Don't gotta glare like that. I've heard rumors that the military pulled out as soon as they spotted their first Smoker. Lot of good they did, right? Their excuse was supposedly that they were needed to guard the encampments were Immunes and Susceptibles - humans that got out in time, but can still be infected - are waiting for evacuation. I don't know if I believe that, but what am I gonna do?" Paul shrugged in response to his own question.
"So then there's no cure?"
"Cure? Yeah, right. Why would you need it, you're Immune!"
"Not for me." Leon shook his head, before gesturing towards the edge of the roof, where he could hear the quiet groans of the Common. "Them. If they're just sick, then shouldn't we be looking for a cure instead of killing them?" It was basically the equivalent to shooting somebody because they had the common cold in Leon's eyes. And somewhere in the back of Leon's mind, he knew that there had been times when there were zombies that could only be cured by being shot in the head; the difference between now and whenever that had happened was welcome. 'Wait a minute…' With that thought, Leon doubled over in pain, his hands flying to the sides of his head, his teeth mashing together, and his eyes squeezing shut. Over the shrill screech that was echoing through his mind, he could faintly hear Paul speaking in panicked tones, and feel his hands on his shoulders. He didn't know if his eyes were open or closed, but it didn't really matter; the only thing he could see were flashes of brief images.
A red and white logo.
The sign for some place called Raccoon City.
The sign for the Raccoon City Police Department.
Multiple creatures that would put the Infected of today's Outbreak to shame.
Zombies. Real zombies.
The brief show of images ended, leaving Leon gasping for breath, the pain in his head dying down to a numbing throb. "Leon! Leon, c'mon, answer me!"
"Give me a minute." Leon groaned, his eyes snapping shut after trying to open them, only to find that his dark surroundings were just to damn bright. "I remembered something…I think…" He paused to give off another pained groan, sitting straight as Paul backed towards his original spot.
"Uh…I don't have any knowledge on amnesia patients, but I'm pretty sure that getting memories back aren't supposed to make you double over in agony." Paul said, and was promptly ignored. "Right. What'd you remember."
"Not…not sure…a place. My former home, I think. Raccoon City." Paul choked on his own saliva.
"Raccoon City? The Raccoon City?"
"Uh…sure?"
"Right, of course. I meet one of the survivors of Raccoon City, and he has amnesia."
"Whoa whoa whoa." Leon's head snapped up. "One of the survivors? What in the hell are you talking about?"
"There was some viral outbreak in Raccoon City around six years ago. Those outside of Raccoon City were never really told what happened, other than it was the fault of some big pharmaceutical corporation named, uh…something weird…Umbrella? Yeah, I think Umbrella is about right. Raccoon City was destroyed by the military, and only a few survived. One of those survivors was you." Paul grinned. "That explains why you're able to beat down the Infected; people said that the infection in Raccoon City made people go crazy."
"I…I think…I think I might have been a cop there…" He paused to chuckle. "Why does saying that feel so damn ridiculous?"
"Well, either way, you're not a cop now. Did you remember anything else?"
"No…just Raccoon City Police Department. And some pretty freaky creatures that put the Smokers to shame." Paul shivered.
"I've only seen a Smoker up close once, and they're pretty creepy. Especially in low light…so…you know just about as much as any other Survivor now. So you have to make a choice."
"Being…?"
"What you're going to do now, how you're going to go about it, stuff like that. You can't just sit on a roof and wait for somebody to come get you; it won't work. Nobody's coming. Right now, in America today, you have to get to your destination on your own power." He pat the handgun tucked into his waistband. "Thought a bit of firepower doesn't hurt."
"So…basically, my choices are to keep running in circles in a burning America, or get to a Survivor camp and try and get evacuated." Paul nodded. "What're you planning to do, again?"
"Get to a camp and get evacuated. Try and find my family." Leon hummed in thought, biting his bottom lip.
"…if I go to an evacuation camp…there might be somebody who knows me. At the very least, the military could probably tell me what my dog-tags mean. I could follow that lead and find out just who I am. I don't know what I'd do if I just kept running through America; can't clean out the country of Infected all on my own, after all." He paused. "I'll go to an evacuation camp. It's my best bet." Paul clapped his hands together with a massive grin.
"Fantastic! You can travel with me!" Leon smirked.
"Why do I get the feeling you were planning on convincing me to go with you?"
"What can I say?" Paul snorted. "You survived Raccoon City, you sure as hell can survive the Green Flu Outbreak. Being a former cop can't dampen your chances, and don't use the excuse of amnesia; your muscles don't forget what your mind does. My own chances of survival are doubled with you watching my back, and your chances aren't exactly hurt either. Plus, I'm beginning to think you're some type of government agent or something, by the way you dress, fight, and carry yourself. Being with a government agent will make my chances go through the roof." Leon nodded in slow agreement. "Plus, I'm beginning to think you're some type of government agent or something, by the way you dress, fight, and carry yourself. Being with a government agent will make my chances go through the roof."
"Yeah, I guess that's fine." He looked around the roof. "Anything I can use as a weapon?" Paul got up and practically skipped over to a piece of plywood placed over a barrels that formed a type of makeshift table.
"This is kinda my inventory at the moment." He said, lifting up a red pack with a cross on the back, with an identical pack still on the table. "Med kits." He pointed to a cylindrical container filled halfway with different types of bullets. "Ammunition." He picked up one of four batteries. "Batteries." Next was a brown bottle with a rag sticking out of the top. "A Molotov and a modified pipe-bomb." Last was his fingers gesturing towards a small pile of canned food and bottles of Pepsi and water. "And what is today considered food of a king!" He turned so his back was facing Leon, and when he turned back around, he held in his hand a Mark XIX Desert Eagle. "And this." He walked to Leon, flipping the safety before handing it to the man. "Ammo for that baby is pretty easy to come by, and if used correctly, it packs quite a punch." He gestured to his own pistol. "Found two around a ten days ago, and I've had them ever since."
"Thanks." Leon said, his hands automatically flying through some type of routine, flipping the safety off and then back to on, checking the magazine and then cleared the chamber of its current bullet, catching the bullet with one hand and stashing it away in one of his ammunition pouches, all the while spinning the gun with one finger to swipe the safety off, aiming over his shoulder, and, without looking, pulled the trigger, grinning in satisfaction at the PFFFOP and quiet sigh as the Smoker exploded. He brought the gun back into his line of sight, his thumb pushing the safety as he moved. And all of this had happened in a grand total of five seconds. Paul stared, his jaw dropped.
"Yup. Definitely a government agent."
:::Some Facility:::
"How's the experiment going?" Asked the man behind the desk, his fingers interlocked before his mouth while glared at the few people lined up before him. The five glanced at one another, before looking at their boss.
"…you were informed that the test subject was killed, correct?" One of the two women asked. The man nodded slowly.
"Yes yes, of course I was. I'm asking if the Alpha Team has found its body yet. The sooner it's being studied in the lab, the better." One of three men looked down at a clipboard he was carrying, adjusting his glasses to read the small words.
"Its location has been narrowed down to a small city in the Midwest. Apparently, once it died, its comrades left him to escape on their own."
"Why would they take it with them? Its body would slow them down." Another of the three men scoffed, receiving a glare from the rest of the occupants of the room. "Sorry, Emerson, I'll keep my mouth shut." The clipboard-clutching man nodded, looking back to his notes.
"The Alpha Team should be moving in to retrieve its body for Ellen and her team to study." Emerson said, gesturing to the woman who had spoken earlier. Without any warning, the doors to the office slammed open, a man in full body armor stumbling in while gasping for breath.
"We were to late!" He declared after a few seconds of him catching his breath passed. "By…by the time we reached the hospital that its body had been left in, it had already gotten up and walked out." The boss smirked.
"You're positive it got up and left on its own?" The man nodded his head.
"We reviewed the security footage that was still running. It just got up and left! Woke from the dead as if it was waking from an afternoon nap!"
"Then phase one of the Prototype-Alpha experiment was a success." The boss said with a nod. "Do you have the security tapes?"
"Yessir!"
"Good. Bring them to me." The man nodded, and dashed out of the room, presumably to get the footage. "Anderson!" The boss barking, the last man on the end of the line snapping to attention. "Organize Beta Team. Send them out on the mission that's detailed in this file." The boss held out a manila folder, which Anderson took with a salute. "Organize Alpha Team. Send them out to find the subject and track him; after Beta Team is done with their mission, Alpha Team is to move in and take out the test subject and bring it back, alive, for further experimentation. Got it?"
"Yessir!"
"Dismissed." The five turned on their heels, marching out of the room to leave the man alone. He turned about in his chair, looking out over the skyline of San Diego. The skyline that was burning, black smoke rising to clog the air. His lips curled up into a feral grin, his eyes narrowing.
Wherever that former human was, his men would find it.
It mattered not if his men had to navigate through post-apocalyptic America. Once William Roth claimed something and turned it into his own, it would never escape him.
Yes, the being once known as Leon S. Kennedy would soon return home.
And that's the first chapter. I didn't really like the ending, but hell, I never really like anything I write. So, tell me what you think! For my new updating schedule, I focus on one fanfic per month.
April is going to focus on "Predator."
Go to my profile to vote on which fanfic will occupy next month, "Vulpes Alveus" or "Gatekeeper: Divinity."
Tell me what you think!
~ Kitsune-242