Chapter Text
It has been two months since Leon Kennedy’s partner, Jack Krauser, had gone missing. Just the day before, Leon was informed of rumored reports of Krauser being spotted in a small Spain village. Not wanting to draw too much attention to the disappearance of a climbing government agent, the US government sent Leon alone to investigate. So far, the journey has been quite boring. He only half listened to the two cops sitting in the car with him that had kindly agreed to take him to the village. Thinking about it now, whoever the president contacted to escort Leon to the village, they had not sent in their best cops. Or Leon sincerely hoped these jokers weren’t their best.
“We’ll stay here and watch the car. Don’t want to get any parking tickets.”
Leon rolled his eyes as he closed the car door. In his pocket, his communication device blinked. He brought it up to his ear.
“Ahem,” a female voice said on the other end. “You don’t have to put it to your ear. There’s video and audio.”
Leon held it in front of him and looked at the beautiful woman. He hoped he looked okay.
“I’m Ingrid Hunnigan. I’ll be your support on this mission.”
“Somehow I thought you’d be a little older.” Leon cringed internally. Her name suggested an older woman, but the line didn’t come out as flirty as he’d initially thought it would. They both moved on and got the pleasantries out of the way.
Stepping closer to the old decrepit house, Leon prepared what he would say. Surely Krauser was not being held here, but somewhere else in the village. At the very least, whoever lived here might know where Krauser was or who had tipped the US government with his supposed whereabouts. Krauser stuck out like a sore thumb.
Climbing the steps, he could faintly hear someone coughing inside.
Leon cautiously approached the man who stirred around the fireplace. It occurred to him for just a moment that he hadn't bothered to knock. “Sir, I’m looking for this man. Have you seen him?” Leon pulled a picture of Jack from his pocket, holding it out to the man. It was the only picture Leon had of Jack, standing in a boat holding an impressive bass he had caught in some lake.
The man didn’t even glance at Jack’s face.
The man reached behind him, picking up a hatchet. Leon stepped back and drew his pistol. He never entirely let go of his beginnings as a cop. “Freeze.” No hesitation. The man continued to walk towards Leon, hatchet raised above his shoulder. “I said ‘Freeze.’” Leon was weary of shooting him, but he knew he would have to do it. He fired on the man, who fell back onto the floor. Better call Hunnigan , Leon thought. They’re going to want to know that I had to shoot someone who wouldn’t cooperate. At the very least, this man isn’t a zombie.
Pulling out his call device, Leon announced the troubling news to Hunnigan. “There was a hostile local. I had no choice but to neutralize him.” But this troubled Leon a bit. The man did have a weapon, but that didn’t rid Leon of the guilt he felt in his chest. Even after all he’d been through, he didn’t think he could ever get over the guilt he felt every time he had to hurt someone innocently affected by the viruses Umbrella continued to throw onto the unsuspecting.
Leon’s train of thought was interrupted by the loud sound of a vehicle starting outside. Then a crash and some screaming. He looked out the crack in the blinds of the window but couldn’t get much of the situation. He no longer saw the cop car of the men that drove him to the village.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself. Three men approached the house, yelling at him and brandishing weapons of their own. Leon ran to the back of the house, finding a staircase with a lot of human remains underneath it. He’d need to report this to Hunnigan as soon as he was safe. He just hoped that one of them wasn’t Krauser.
He jumped out of the window on the second floor, rolling as he hit the ground to keep from injuring himself. He looked around quickly to assess the situation. The three men were now coming towards him. They held farming equipment and torches. “Stand down,” Leon said, raising his pistol.
They continued walking towards him. No hesitation. Not even a flinch when Leon brought the pistol up to fire. Though he knew they weren’t zombies, something just didn’t feel right about the situation. Leon decided to trust his intuition and shoot them too. They did speak after all, but besides that, they seemed mindless.
Back at the bridge, smoke billowed up from the river. Leon peered over the edge, spotting the police car now burning. However, luckily, it seemed like neither officer was in the immediate area. They must’ve gotten out, but as to where they were now, Leon had no clue. He only hoped they were still alive.
The area blocked off earlier by the truck was now clear. He walked into a shed where he found more ammo for his pistol, but there wasn’t much else. He could hear a faint whimpering in the distance from some animal. He walked towards the sound.
A large dog was caught in one of the bear traps haphazardly scattered on the ground. Leon ran to the dog and opened the mouth of the trap. “There, there. It’s okay now,” he whispered to it, but before he could reach out to pet it, it ran into the dense woods. It yipped and disappeared from sight.
Leon dusted the dirt from the knees of his pants. The dog would probably heal up on its own and he shouldn’t need to worry about it. Though as many bear traps as he kept finding, perhaps maybe he should.
The mine bombs on the trees ahead also weren’t a good sign. He snuck around them, thankful that the tripwire was very easy to spot from far away. And, well, the glaringly obvious red light.
Leon hid behind the tree and pulled out his binoculars. At first, the binoculars were dark. He looked down at them, expecting them to be broken, but they didn’t seem to be. He tossed his hair to the side with a flip of his head and looked again. “There. That’s better.”
But not for long.
One of the cops hung from a wooden beam, burnt to death in a grotesque bonfire. The villagers carried about their work shoveling hay and tending to the animals like there wasn’t a dead cop burning in the middle of town. He felt sick to his stomach. After all these years, he never got used to the bad shit that went on around him in these situations, not like Jack, who almost seemed to not be able to fit in if he wasn’t in some sort of dangerous situation.
Speaking of Krauser, seeing the dead cop burning didn't bode well. Surely, he didn't meet the same fate.
He considered his angles. He could go into this with stealth or guns blazing. He was willing to bet that these villagers were not friendly. None of them had been so far. They'd react negatively to him sneaking around, but they'd react just as bad if not worse if he ran in on them. At least, going stealthy he could avoid hurting anyone. He still wasn't entirely sure if these people were undead. In Racoon City, it was easy to tell.
Stealth it is.
Up ahead from him, the road split off to the left. He could avoid the main center of the village this way if he stayed behind the houses. Everyone he had come across so far had been violent, and judging from the dead cop in the middle of town, Leon didn't want to take a bet that these people would be any different. He didn't like it, but he suspected Umbrella was involved.
He slipped down the path, careful to stick to the sides of the buildings. He could hear one of the villagers faintly talking to themselves up ahead.
As if in a movie or a cheesy video game, Leon stepped on a twig.
The woman turned to him instantly and yelled, alerting the others. He ran in between the buildings and practically leapt through the doorway. Luckily for him, a wooden cabinet sat next to the door and he pushed it in front of the doorway. Outside, he heard the sounds of a chainsaw revving up. Realizing that he had now trapped himself in, he ran upstairs.
Upstairs revealed a loft bedroom. In it, he found a shotgun mounted on the wall. Leon hoped that whoever this belonged to, they didn't need it anymore.
The glass shattered behind him, a ladder breaking through the window.
Inside a cabinet, he found a little chest full of coins. Pesetas. I don’t think they use these anymore, Leon thought to himself, but he picked them up anyway. Might be cool to have these, even if they have no use. Really, Leon just enjoyed shiny things.
He leapt through the other window, landing on the roof. He ran around the makeshift boardwalk to the other side. He could at least get a better feel for the situation from this vantage point. The villagers were scattered all through the town and there was indeed one man carrying a chainsaw. He seemed to be wrapped up in gauze for some reason.
Maybe climbing that tower is my best bet. I’d be trapped but they could only come up one at a time.
Leon decided to save that for a last ditch effort. He didn’t have much ammo for his pistol, and even less for his shotgun. He didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a tower with no way to defend himself. At least out here, he could run if need be. Sighing, he drew his weapon.
Church bells rang loudly somewhere in the distance. To Leon’s surprise, everyone dropped their weapons to the ground and started walking in the direction of the sound. Some of them mumbled to themselves, almost brainless. These definitely weren’t zombies, but there was something wrong with them.
“Where’s everyone going? Bingo?” Leon raised his arms up in a shrug, like he was in a cheesy family sitcom. Already, he missed Krauser, who hated his one-liners, but often played along anyway. Leon thought Krauser secretly really liked his jokes, he was just ashamed to admit it out loud. They often fought or said stupid shit to each other, and Leon found it incredibly lonely to not have the other man around.
Leon wasn’t sure what the hell everyone was doing, but he knew for certain: he needed to find that church eventually. Jack probably wasn't there, but if it was their main hub, someone had to know of his whereabouts.
Even from the outside of the house, Leon could hear banging. Someone thumped on something repeatedly, like they were trying to grab anyone’s attention.
“It could be Krauser,” Leon said to himself, though he knew better. Krauser would never call attention to himself like that. It wasn’t his style. Leon shot the lock from the front door and stepped inside, gun raised. Nothing.
In the hallway, he found more tripwires. Not knowing where the trapped victim was and not trusting the walls of the old house, Leon opted to sneak underneath them and disarm them. Behind a bookcase, he saw an opening, like someone was trying to conceal another room. “Bet that’s where our damsel in distress is,” Leon whispered.
He pushed the bookcase to the side, which led to a large room, with nothing inside but a wardrobe at the end. He didn’t need to watch the doors banging open slightly to know that’s where the victim was being tied up. No way that thing would hold Krauser… Regardless, whoever was inside might have intel, if they weren’t mindless like everyone else he had come across so far.
Leon leaned against the wall and opened the latch. He let the man fall to the floor. Noticing that he was gagged and tied up, Leon ripped the tape from his mouth.
“Uh, a little rough don’t you think?” The man asked in a heavy, Spanish accent. Leon rolled him over and cut the ropes tying his arms behind him. “You’re not like them?” He asked.
“No,” Leon replied. “You?”
The man didn’t answer. Before Leon could pressure him on that, the man said, “I just have one very important question. You got a smoke?” He smirked.
“Got gum.” Leon had never picked up the habit, and he was glad for it to see that before he even got a thank you out of the man, he was jonesing for a cigarette. Even though he wasn't a smoker, after everything he'd been through today, Leon figured he might need a cigarette by the end of it.
Loud footsteps echoed from the hall.
“Great. The big cheese.”
“What?” Leon asked, confused. He ran towards the large man with the intent to kick him, but his reflexes were faster, and he grabbed Leon by the foot and flipped him. He remembered landing hard on the man from the wardrobe, but after that, all was dark.
Meanwhile…
Krauser looked up from the dirty floor when he heard the doorknob rattling. Village men often came in throughout the day to bring him food and water. After being here so long, he had gotten used to the normal times that they came. Despite not having a clock, he knew this was not one of those times.
Towards the beginning of his capture, he had tried to escape on one of these food visits. Though he had no trouble taking the two men down, he couldn’t get out because of the bars surrounding the door. They were almost like a jail cell right outside his room. He hadn't tried again.
One man came inside. Jack recognized him as one of the ones who spoke English best. Though Jack was fluent in Spanish- albeit Mexican Spanish so not nearly the same thing- he hadn’t let them in on that yet, in case they discussed secret information in front of him. Unfortunately, so far, it had always just been casual small talk.
Even from across the room, Krauser could see that the man was shaking.
The man wasted no time and cut straight to the important shit. "If someone were to know that you're here, how would they find out?"
So someone is here looking for me, Jack thought. He sighed. “Really? I don’t know.” What do I look like I know fucking telepathy?
The Ganado stayed silent, seemingly unsure what to say next because of Jack's nonanswer.
"There something you need to tell me?" Krauser asked the man.
"No," he said and promptly left.
These guys aren't very good at interrogation. I could do better.
Krauser scoffed. He couldn’t really believe that these guys had captured him. In another world, it should’ve been some badass mercenary that was really buff. Probably with cool scars. Not that it really mattered, because he was trapped anyway. Just would’ve made the story more cool when he got back home. Maybe he’d lie.
He ended up giving me more intel than I gave them. Not that it's much to go on. Can’t do anything about it either.
But someone was coming for him. He really hoped it was Leon. Some of the other guys weren’t nearly as funny. Or stupid. It was only a matter of time now. The only thing left to do was wait. Jack hated waiting.