Archive of Our Own

It had been 20 minutes since Ashley pulled his own knife on him and forcibly separated them with a gate. With each passing second Leon worried more that one of the cultists would find her first. Even if they did need her, he’d seen enough of these freaks to know her life was in a lot of danger.

If only anything in this castle were simple or straightforward. At least there weren’t any hostiles in sight. He’d found a few headless corpses twitching on the ground, along with still-smoldering puddles of oil and the odd blood splatter. There had been a fight here, but it was long over. He didn’t know who he had to thank for clearing the place out. Luis, maybe?

He took another step forward and then froze up. The godawful noise swelled in his head, a horrible ringing that made every muscle in his body seize. Leon grunted in pain, his eyes squeezed shut. The feeling had never had this urgency to it before, never been so loud. Someone was wrenching at his puppet strings with new desperation. There was something dangerous nearby, he had to act.

Intruder.

Outsider.

KILL.

Without his input his body turned on his heel and shouldered through the door behind him. His sights locked on to the man who stood so casually by a table, idly reading a book. He was tall and blond, wearing nice clothes and a shoulder harness. Definitely not local.

The blond head twisted at his entrance, a pale face looking at him through a pair of sunglasses. His vision blurred; he could see nothing beyond the image of Saddler frowning.

“A devil walks among us. I feel the evil in his blood. Destroy him before he harms the holy body!”

The vision disappeared, and Leon struggled against the overwhelming tide of violent impulse left in its wake.

"Aren't you--" the well-dressed stranger began.

Leon rushed forward and seized the man's throat with both hands. The other man gave surprisingly little to the attack, only setting one foot backward to brace. Warm hands clenched around Leon's wrists.

He couldn't tell very clearly what happened next. He felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, the world rolled around him, and then he was on his back with his hands empty. Leon rolled up on to one knee, glancing up at the stranger who looked down on him, unphased.

His puppetmaster then remembered that Leon had a gun.

His hand reached back for it. The cool grip met his fingers.

No. No, he would not. This man obviously wasn't part of the cult. Whoever he was, whatever reason Saddler wanted him dead, Leon refused to help. He wouldn't let Saddler make him hurt anybody. Shaking off the fog and the Sound, Leon managed just enough self-control to stop himself from pulling the weapon.

"R...run..." he choked out, his hand trembling on the grip of his pistol.

"No, I don't think I need to," the stranger replied calmly. The fine shoes stepped closer to him. "Your willpower is quite impressive."

It didn't feel that impressive to Leon in that moment. He couldn't even get his hand to release the gun. All he could do was clench his teeth and hold his arm still, and even that much control was slipping from him, like he was trying to hold on to a greased 5 pound weight with his fingernails.

The stranger twisted a hand in Leon’s shirt front and pulled, effortlessly lifting him into the air. He was placed on the desk with his back pressed into the wall. He surrendered to the impulse to seize Marvin’s knife and drive it towards the stranger’s neck. The man batted his hand away before he could even reach the hilt.

“Hmm. The infection has progressed much further than I thought.”

Brisk, firm touches to his face, pulling his eyelids open, turning his head right and left. He could only see blobs of color.

The touch left him. He felt oddly bereft, sitting on the rough wood half-blind, everything swimming and ringing. The walls lit with blue light, and the floor rippled with dark water.

“You’ve been such a good distraction. I was hoping you could be of use a little longer.”

A needle plunged into his neck. His breath caught in his throat. He would have struggled, had a strong arm not pinned him down. A pinch and a burn, and the syringe finished depositing its contents.

The room began to clear. Saddler’s oppressive presence vanished from his minds’ eye. He was back in the old study, lit by flickering torches. His body was his again.

“Don’t tell me I never indulge you, Ada,” the blond stranger muttered as he pulled away.

“What?” Leon wasn’t sure he’d heard that correctly. He’d thought he heard Ada’s name, but--

"Your reprieve will be short," the stranger warned him. "This solution has been reverse-engineered based on fragmented research notes. It's not as effective as the original suppressant."

"Th-thank you," Leon gasped, unbelieving his luck. The black veins were clearing up from his arms, leaving clear skin behind. He looked up at the mysterious blond. "Who are you?"

His reply was a smirk. "Just be a good boy and see to your mission. Leave the rest to us."

"'Us'? What are--"

The man didn't answer him, simply walking away to the nearby window.

Leon hopped off the desk, groaning when his back muscles protested the sudden movement. The stranger had not been very gentle when he threw Leon to the ground.

"Are you working for Ada?"

The blond paused with his foot on the windowsill, turning to look over his shoulder. He angled his head so that his pale eyes were just visible over the rim of his sunglasses.

"She works for me," he said.

This was his parting shot before he vaulted out of the window. Leon poked his head out and gaped at the long, long drop down the sheer wall to forested cliffs below. The man was nowhere in sight.

"Are they all like that?" he muttered to himself. Like employee like employer, he guessed. Maybe being insufferably mysterious and making dramatic exits was just company policy. Both of them seemed to favor sunglasses at night, too. Dress code?

He shook his head at himself. Ada’s mysterious employer wasn’t his concern. Right now, his priority was reuniting with Ashley.

This mission really just kept throwing curve ball after curve ball at him, Leon mused as he paced the confines of the cage. He was kicking himself for not noticing anything off about the floor or the pillars here. Now Ashley was on her own, pursued by a horde of monsters, and there was nothing he could do to help. At least he could comfort himself that he’d heard her voice a short while ago from the upper floor, and she still sounded alright.

From above, he heard the rattling and clanking of a gate lowering. All the tension in his chest eased when Ashley’s blond head peaked over the railing.

“Leon! Hold on, I’ll get you out.”

He nodded to her.

Unfortunately, there was a dead body lying on top of the release lever. That was Leon’s bad. He just hadn’t reacted well to getting shot at. Ashley struggled to lift the man’s dead weight for a little bit, until something fell to the floor with a soft clink. Ashley bent down to grab it.

“Leon, here!” she called, and tossed something at him.

Because the god of luck actively laughed in Leon’s face, the little metal object bounced off the tips of Leon’s fingers and went skittering across the floor, between the bars, and out of reach.

It was a key.

“Oh no! I’m sorry!”

“It’s OK, Ashley,” Leon said.

"I-I'll try to get the lever," Ashley said, once again laying her hands on the heavy corpse that was draped over said lever.

"Wait. See that ladder over there?" Leon pointed to the end of the upper walkway. "You can get down that way."

Ashley nodded to him.

Behind her, a hulking figure with glowing eyes stepped out from the darkness.

"Ashley!" Leon cried in alarm.

One of Salazar's giant robed minions seized Ashley around the waist with an enormous clawed hand, picking her up as if she were a doll. She screamed and kicked to no avail. Leon drew his pistol, but he dared not fire. He couldn't get a clear shot with Ashley in the way.

There was nothing he could do to stop her getting dragged away.

And he was still in the goddamn cage.

With renewed desperation, he shoved his arm through the bars and grasped after the key. It was useless to try. The key was several feet away, even when he shoved his arm through all the way up to his shoulder. He pulled back, drew his knife, and tried to catch it that way. Still not enough reach. Shit.

He turned around, looking over the cage for the 30th time for some way to escape. Nothing new caught his eye. The statue was still too short for him to reach the top by climbing on it, the bars were too narrow to squeeze through, and there was nothing he could shoot down that would help.

If he got lucky, maybe a stupid cultist would open the door to come kill him?

Footsteps echoed on the tile behind him. He turned.

The well-dressed stranger was leaning against the cage, idly examining the key in his hand.

“Well. Hello again.”

“I need that!”

Leon lunged for the key. The stranger pulled it just out of reach, smirking down at him. He was taller than Leon by a few infuriating inches.

“The first one was free,” the stranger purred. “If you want another favor, you will have to pay for it.”

Leon bared his teeth, fingers clenching impotently around the bars.

“What do you want?” he bit out.

“Just a little favor in return. An agent of your caliber should be able to handle it with ease.”

Never give a man a blank check, as his dad used to say. Especially not handsome, mysterious men who were acting like assholes. Yet, he had no choice. Neither he nor Ashley had time to waste.

“Fine. Yes. I’ll do whatever you want--within reason.”

“That’s more like it.”

The stranger paced over to the cage door and unlocked it. Leon burst through it before the man even stepped out of the way, just in case the stranger had any second thoughts.

“What’s the favor?” he asked, uncomfortably aware of their proximity but too stubborn to back up.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed by now a few of the monsters around here are a cut above the rest. I want to know more about them. They must have been engineered somewhere. Find me the information about their creation. Any sort of study or laboratory would be worth searching.”

“And what are you going to do with that information?”

“Ah-ah.” The stranger waggled a finger in his face like he was a misbehaving school boy. “You already agreed to my terms. There’s no backing out now. Be a good boy, or you’re going back in the kennel.”

Internally, Leon seethed. He did not consent to this pet play bullshit.

The radio clipped to his belt buzzed.

“Leon. Still being stubborn?” At the sound of Ada’s voice, the stranger’s head tilted. “If you are, I’ve got a tip for you. Looks like there’s going to be a party in the throne room. Babysitting’s tough, huh?”

Leon’s fists clenched. He didn’t have time.

“Fine. But I have to get Ashley back first.”

The stranger shrugged.

“Do as you will. In that case, I’ll explore the castle in the other direction.”

“Can I get a name? Or do I have to pay for that too?”

The stranger hummed, like he was thinking about it.

“I don’t think you realize how steep a price that would be. No, it will avoid complications if we skip the introductions.”

The stranger didn’t want Leon to run a background check on him, then. That only made him more uneasy about this arrangement. He could describe the man later in his report, but ‘blond, muscular Caucasian with douchey sunglasses’ would fit hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.

“Fine. When I radio, I’ll give you the call sign ‘hey, asshole,’ then,” he said.

Before he could blink, his collar had been seized and he was dragged in nose to nose with the man.

“Have a little respect. I have saved your ass twice now when it profited me very little to do so.”

“You’re a real hot and cold kind of guy, aren’t you?” Leon said.

“And you’re like a little crow who can’t resist pulling on wolf tails,” the stranger replied. He released Leon’s collar, letting the agent stagger back from him.

Leon banged his shoulder on the cage door and caught his hand on it. He braced himself with it, all too aware of the fact the stranger was still blocking his path, and could all too easily shove him back in that cage.

“If you must have something to call me...” the thin lips twitched at one corner. “Let’s just say that I’m a ghost.”

“Ghost?” Leon repeated.

The man adjusted his sunglasses, shot him a smirk, and then vanished. The air rippled in his wake like smoke.

What the actual fuck.

Leon swallowed hard, looking around the grand hall for some sign of the man. There was none.

But that was nonsense. Ada wouldn’t be working for a supernatural entity. He must have just...dropped down a trap door? Turned invisible? Leon waved his arm experimentally through the air in front of him, testing that it was empty. His hand hit nothing.

Right. Later problems.

“Ghost. I found your goddamn lab,” Leon panted into the radio a short yet harrowing time later. He had his hip propped up on an old wooden table and was glaring at an ancient chemistry set like it had personally offended him. Which it had. Everything in this place was so fucked up and he was beyond done with it.

“You sound winded,” Ghost observed.

“Yeah, well, you are not going to like what you have to do to get down here.”

Leon gave him the directions.

“...you’re certain that falling down the well is the only way?”

“Until I can get this lift running? Yeah.”

“Very well,” Ghost sighed, and the distaste in his tone lifted Leon’s spirits.

“Oh, and if you run into Salazar on the way, please punch him for me?”

“That’ll cost you.”

“I’ll pay it.”

Ghost chuckled.

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

Leon had been planning to explore the small lab in peace, maybe squirrel away anything he found that he didn’t want Ghost to have, and then fix the elevator. All these plans were dashed by the large angry bug-man who crashed through the ceiling and made Leon’s existence his personal problem. Leon had pieced together enough from the notes lying around to guess that this was the former owner of the lab, Salazar’s self-proclaimed right-hand man and Verdugo. He was just as much of an asshole as a bug as he had been as a man.

He would give the Verdugo this, though. He was easily one of the toughest bugs yet. Leon had already unloaded most of his high power ammo into the thing’s skull while it was frozen by a nitrogen shower, and it was still kicking. And now it had learned to jump through the nitrogen before it could get frozen, boxing Leon in against the dangerous spray.

He fired once more into the thing’s ugly mug, forcing it to stagger back, giving him time. On the second shot, his gun clicked empty. Shit fuck that was his last magnum round. He groped for another weapon as the Verdugo closed in on him, claw raised to strike. He’d have to duck around and go for another nitrogen shower--

A gun banged.

The Verdugo staggered, swayed, and finally fell down. A few last twitches, and it was still. Leon stared down at the corpse in disbelief.

Behind the fallen Verdugo, Ghost lowered his gun.

“I don’t know if I want to kiss you or hit you with a brick,” Leon told him.

“You have such odd ways of pronouncing ‘thank you’,” Ghost replied, unconcernedly holstering his weapon.

“Thanks,” Leon said, unable to keep himself from meaning it. “Even if you did steal my kill.”

“I didn’t know we were keeping score.” He looked up. “The lab?”

“Right this way.”

Waving for the older man to follow, Leon limped along the winding tunnels back to the lab and, hopefully, a now powered and functioning elevator.

“I’m curious,” Ghost said as they walked. “How did you manage to avoid being impaled on those spikes?”

“I caught that chain that was hanging down, and swung myself clear. Why? How did you get down?”

Ghost didn’t answer that.

“It’s not easy stopping a fall of that height. I’m surprised your shoulders didn’t rip out of joint.”

Leon rolled one of his shoulders, just to reassure himself that everything was still attached and in working order.

“What can I say, I’m a tough guy. Here we are. It’s a little medieval for my tastes, but...” He made a sweep of his arms, showing off the whole room and all its little torture devices and other messed up bullshit masquerading as science. The light for the elevator was shining green, Leon noted with great relief.

“Medieval is one way to put it.”

Ghost was already poking around the central table, examining the bottles and skimming over the notebooks.

“You have fun. I’m gonna go look for a way back up.”

Leon departed with a cheerful wave, displaying an energy he did not feel. Ghost did not even look up as the elevator doors closed between them.

The last thing he heard before the elevator rose out of range was an angered mutter of: “this can’t be it. It’s too old.”

"I've lead a pretty shitty life. What do you think, Leon? People can change, righ..." Luis trailed off, both men swiveling their heads at the sound of the elevator approaching. Leon reached a hand up to his combat knife. For fuck’s sake, couldn’t Luis even die in peace?

But it wasn't a cultist who emerged when the heavy metal doors clanked open. It was Ghost. He paused, drinking in the tableau of him: Luis huddled against a crate coughing blood out around a cigarette while Leon knelt beside him. Ghost power-walked over to them.

"Oh...there you are, W--" Luis began.

"Where's the wound?" Ghost cut him off.

Leon took note of the fact Ghost's real name started with a 'w' sound, and that Luis apparently knew him.

Luis weakly jerked a thumb at his back. Ghost grabbed his shoulder and twisted him forward to look at the wound, ignoring the man's yelp. With brisk, brutally efficient movements, Ghost stripped off Luis's motorcycle jacket and laid him out on the ground on his side.

A half-delirious hope swelled up in Leon. Thank god, Ghost seemed to know some field medicine. This time, maybe, he wouldn’t have to sit idly by and watch another Umbrella scientist die just after they decided to do the right thing.

Ghost wadded up a handful of cloth and pressed it over Luis's stab wound, applying pressure. Desperate to do something, anything, to help, Leon scrunched Luis’s jacket underneath his head as a make-shift pillow. Luis grimaced a smile up at him in thanks. Ghost had two fingers pressed to Luis’ neck and had leaned in to listen to his breathing. He pulled back and rummaged around in a pocket, pulling out...a plastic ID card? Leon couldn't read it from so far away.

"Exhale as much as you can," Ghost instructed.

Luis obeyed, making an absolutely miserable sound as he did. As Leon watched with mountain incredulity, Ghost slipped the card between the bloodied cloth and Luis's wound, then kept pressure on it. "Now breathe."

Luis gasped in air, coughed bloody spittle on the ground, then gasped air again. He sounded better. His breath wasn't rattling as much.

"Where's the amber?" Ghost asked.

"Krauser took it." Luis panted. "If you hurry, you can catch him before he reaches Saddler."

Ghost looked up towards the elevator. His face was utterly cold and disaffected, like he hardly took notice of the fact a man was dying under his hands. Leon suddenly had a terrible feeling.

“Oh, Lewis,” he said. Luis made an unhappy face, either at his tone or at the mispronunciation of his name. “All I asked was that you complete one simple task, and then you would have been home free.”

Ghost started to pull his hands away. He was going to go chase after whatever this amber thing was that he valued more than a human life, and Luis would die, all because Leon had taken the wrong first aid course and had no idea how to treat a stab in the chest.

“Wait!” Leon barked. “I’ll go after him. Just stay here and save Luis. Please.”

That blank face turned his way, utterly impassive.

“He failed to uphold his side of the bargain,” Ghost said.

“So let me do it. I can kill Krauser for you. I...I know him.”

The hands hadn’t left Luis’ wound, yet. Ghost was listening. There was still a chance.

“Leon....” Luis looked up at him with big, wet, sad eyes, swimming with pain. Leon was making a deal with the devil, and they both knew it.

“You can’t make amends if you’re dead,” Leon told him.

“Fine,” Ghost said. “Kill Krauser for me. But know that there’s only so much I can do here. He’ll need a hospital.”

Them being in the middle of nowhere with no one but infected cultists for miles, a hospital was going to be hard to find.

“Do what you can for him.”

"If he does live, I think you're going to owe me another favor. You better get a move on. Your quarry's escaping."

Leon nodded. With a last look at Luis, he ran in to the 2nd elevator and hit the button. A second time, heavy elevator doors closed between himself and Ghost, and he slowly lifted out of sight while listening to muttering from below.

"...something else, isn't he?..."

"...stop the bleeding...."

He was thrown back in time, to Operation Javier. To the mansion in the hot wet jungle with Krauser, the little daughter of a drug lord laid out on an operating table. She had a T-Veronica infection but that wasn’t the problem, the problem was how much blood she’d lost trying to fight her mutated father with them. They’d won the fight. They’d gotten her back in the complex and bolted the doors, laid out defenses to hold up against the waves of ravening zombies, and settled in to wait for rescue. She should have lived. She would have lived, if the goddamn evac had arrived in time. He and Krauser had spent the better part of an hour sitting in there, listening to the last of Krauser’s men die over the comms, while Manuela’s heartbeat got weaker and weaker. She was cold by the time the chopper finally came.

This time would be different. It had to be.

Leon closed his eyes. He'd done what he could. It was out of his hands now.

Leon shoved his way through the great double doors with an egg in his hand and malice in his heart. Some may rightfully claim that it was irresponsible of him to make this detour while his charge was in danger, but the mysterious merchant gave him good payout for doing these odd requests, and that payout went right into improving his equipment. Better equipment meant better odds at rescuing Ashley. He just had to be quick.

After the wave of free-roaming parasites he’d had to face just to get back here, he was expecting some enemies to be lying in wait within the throne room. He wasn’t expecting to see Ada lounging in Salazar’s throne, contemplating the ceiling.

“Looks like we missed the party,” Ada said.

“I didn’t miss it. They ditched me.”

“That’s a shame. You’d think a castellan would show better manners.”

Leon shrugged in a ‘what can you do?’ kind of gesture and hiked up the short staircase.

“Taking a break?” he asked, while casually scanning the portraits on the walls.

“Just resting my feet for a minute,” she said.

He glanced at her thigh high boots.

“Can’t be easy working in heels.”

“I’m used to it,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be looking for someone? Or are you finally taking my advice?”

“I have to do my job,” he told her, shaking his head. He wound his arm back and lined up the shot. “I’m just here to run an errand for one of the locals.”

With a snap of his forearm, the egg arced gracefully through the air before landing dead center on Ramon Salazar’s veiny little face and bursting in a shower of yellow yolk.

“Good throw,” Ada praised him. She looked at the portrait, watching the slimy trails of egg innards drip slowly down the oils. “Do you think it helps?”

“It must make someone feel better. They pay pretty well.”

“Turning mercenary,” she praised, flashing her half smile.

“You’re a bad influence,” he teased. Then he sobered, thinking about it. He still didn’t have any idea what Ada and Ghost were here for. He didn’t like the fact Ghost was poking around labs, looking for the secrets behind the gnarlier bugs. It put him on edge. “I have to admit, you’re a lot nicer than your boss, though.”

“My boss?” Ada replied lightly. Too lightly.

“He said he was your boss.”

“I didn’t know he’d made contact.”

“I suppose you’re not going to tell me who he is, either.”

“I told you I don’t work and tell.” Her smile faded. “You don’t want his attention, Leon. He’s above your pay grade.”

“You sure about that? My pay grade’s pretty high.”

“I’m sure.” She uncrossed her legs and pushed out of the throne. “Break’s over. You should be getting back to your job, too.”

“Yeah.”

Both his jobs. Now he had to hunt down Krauser and get Ashley back.

A chicken ran over his foot, clucking madly. Leon looked down, a little startled to notice the live fowl wandering about. Had those been here the last time? Why were there chickens all over the throne room? He suddenly had even more questions about that ritual they’d subjected Ashley to.

A little brown egg had been laid near his feet. He bent down to grab it.

“Think I can nail the real thing with this?” He asked, tossing the egg and catching it.

“If you manage that, I’ll give you a trinket,” she promised.

Leon panted and checked his ammo supplies. He had never been so thankful for an egg in his life. He couldn’t say why an egg had finished the monstrosity that Salazar had become so easily when his entire stock of submachine gun ammo and at least 10 shotgun shells hadn’t done the job--allergy, maybe--but in any case, he’d won. Maybe that request hadn’t been just to help someone blow off steam. Maybe it had been a hint.

Steel clanked against steel. He rolled forward on reflex, narrowly missing the arc of a sword slamming into the ground. He came back up with his shotgun in hand and dealt with the armor swiftly and with great prejudice.

More on edge now that he’d nearly been split in half by a lurking armaduras, he proceeded at a more cautious clip, checking corners before walking around them. That was how he spotted the second armaduras, standing with its sword raised, ready to chop up whoever walked out into the little boat dock next. Leon ran past it. He could hear the sword clapping against the stone behind him.

There was a single boat waiting at the dock.

“Won’t have to swim after all,” he mused to himself.

He ran straight to the waiting speedboat, not wanting to waste his precious bullets on the monster chasing him. He was in for disappointment, though. As soon as he’d hopped into the driver’s seat, he discovered the key was missing.

“Shit.”

The armaduras clanged over to him where he crouched in the useless boat. Maybe, he thought grimly to himself as he raised his gun, the stupid thing would have a key lodged in there somewhere.

With careful, precise shots he hit the parasite sticking out of the neck, making the monster stagger all the way back to the corner. There it twitched, as if considering its life choices. It walked off, away from the dock, back down the passage Leon had come out of. Huh. He’d never seen one just lose interest like that before. Leon had a feeling it wasn’t heading to bingo.

Its sword clanged against the floor, the echoes of the clash resounding off the stone walls. Someone cursed loudly. An ear-rending squeal of metal crunching followed, making Leon flinch.

A second later, Ghost walked out, shaking out his hands and scowling.

“Annoying little--oh.” He stopped, noticing Leon.

“How’s Luis?” Leon asked.

“Stabilized and secured. As long as you hold up your promise, you have nothing to worry about.”

Ominous way to put that, yet Leon was relieved all the same.

“I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is I just spotted Krauser. The bad news is, he just took off in another boat, and this one’s missing a key.” He pointed to the wheel.

Ghost planted his hands on his hips and honest to god growled.

“Lose something, boys?”

Two heads swiveled to Ada, who had just appeared with key in hand. She smiled at them, jiggling the key ring.

“Ah, excellent.”

Ghost walked up to her with his hand stretched out, expectant.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

Ada snatched the key back into a closed fist.

“I can drive,” she replied mildly.

“I’ve already studied the island’s topography and I know exactly where I want to dock.”

“You think I haven’t?”

“I could drive?” Leon offered.

“No,” both replied in unison without looking at him.

“Are you afraid I’m going to crash?” Ada asked Ghost.

“Are you afraid of spending some quality time next to your pet?” Ghost returned.

Ada’s mouth opened. Leon had the sinking feeling they would be here a while if he didn’t do something.

“I hate to cut this short, but one of us has a time limit,” he said.

“Fine.” Ada pressed the keys into Ghost’s hand with ill grace.

They played a short game of musical chairs to get everyone seated in the boat, Ghost at the wheel with Ada and Leon in the back.

“You owe me,” Leon told her as they settled into their seats.

“Owe you for what?”

“I got Ramon with the egg. So, what’s my reward?”

She laughed and rummaged in her pouch, pulling out a ruby.

“Here. Is this reward enough?”

“I’ll take it.”

Ghost was watching disapprovingly from the front seat.

“This is how you’ve been spending your time?” he asked Ada.

“Don’t fret about it. We’re still on schedule.”

This did not seem to mollify her boss in the least. He was all but radiating displeasure as he bent to put the key in. Before he powered on the boat, a thought seemed to strike him. Ghost twisted around to look at Leon.

“You say you hit Ramon Salazar with an egg?”

“Yup.”

“Before or after he mutated?”

“After,” Leon answered cheerfully.

“....huh.”

It was a considering kind of hum, and Leon had the creeping feeling he was being appraised. Ghost dropped the subject after that. The speedboat roared to life and carried them off across the dark water.

With Ghost driving and Ada by his side, Leon felt uncomfortably like he was being chauffeured to the school dance by an overprotective parent. All he was missing was the corsage and a badly fitting tuxedo.

The silence (that is, the lack of talking, for there was no shortage of noise) was absolutely killing him. There were a million things he wanted to ask Ada, none of which he expected straight answers to, and even fewer he could comfortably ask in front of her boss. But he had to say something.

“It’s sad, isn’t it? The Salazar family. They used to be heroes. They used to protect this place from the plagas. Now look at them. The bugs’ number one fans.”

“What can you expect? They built their castle on top of the plagas hive,” Ghost said.

“Rot sets in to everything, eventually,” Ada added.

He caught her eyes and lowered his voice, so Ghost couldn’t hear him over the noise of the boat motor.

“The world’s changed, ever since Raccoon. You try to save one life, and a hundred others die.” He was thinking of Manuela again, of all the little girls her father had kidnapped and butchered to harvest organs for her, just to keep her alive a little bit longer. All for nothing, in the end. He took a deep breath, struggling to reign in the sudden flare of bone-deep anger at everything. He’d thought Krauser had trained it all out of him, but sometimes it reared back up. Ada hadn’t stirred, was watching him calmly with that carefully neutral face of hers. “Have you changed, Ada? Or are you trying to use me, too?”

“Too?” she mouthed.

He winced at the slip, and her eyes narrowed. Sighing, he jerked his head at Ghost meaningfully. Ada looked at Ghost, then at him, her expression deeply concerned.

“What did you do,” she asked flatly.

“He got me out of a tight spot, and...made some demands. In payment.”

“Leon, you do not want to owe that man a debt.”

“I figured that out already, thanks.”

She leaned in, her eyes sharp and intent.

“Stay away from him as much as you can,” she said. “He’s bad news.”

“You’re the one working for him.”

“Which makes me the expert.”

Ghost’s head turned slightly, pointing his ear in their direction. They broke apart like a pair of guilty teens caught making out.

“Why are you so dead set against me saving Ashley? What have you got against her?” Leon asked more loudly.

“It’s nothing personal.” She looked away, watching the ocean speed by. “I just don’t want you to be one of the hundred who die for her. It’d be a waste.”

Was that her way of saying she cared?

“Wasn’t planning on dying.”

“No one does,” Ghost interjected ominously. Did he practice sounding that sinister, or did it come naturally to him?

“This is my stop,” Ada said. She hardly waited for Ghost to slow the boat to a stop before she got up from her seat, hiking one leg up on the cushion for leverage, a strange gun in her hand. “Don’t think too hard, handsome,” she told Leon, and fired what was apparently a grappling gun at one of the rocky outcroppings above them.

Ghost and Leon both watched her zip away.

“Does she end all her conversations this way?” Leon asked.

“She does love that hookshot,” Ghost replied.

They drove on a little further to a small, sheltered cove where the speedboat would be neatly hidden from view. The rock was slick under his boots, and the air had the salt of sea spray mixed with an acrid tang of industrial smoke.

Ghost hopped up a short ledge of rock and turned, looking down at Leon. He seemed to enjoy that sort of perspective.

“I have my own business here, so this is where we part ways again. Good luck hunting,” he said, and then vanished in another puff of smoke.

Leon huffed.

“Do none of you people know how to say goodbye?”

It was not Leon’s proudest moment. Currently he was huddled inside a locker with his submachine gun pressed tight to his chest, teeth grit and ears peeled for the sound of bare feet slapping around outside. Hiding like this was Ashley’s purview, not his. Outside, he could hear the rattling hiss of the newest freak's breathing, as it crept closer to him. He tensed up, tightening his grip on the gun. How those things managed to move so fast was beyond him.

His options, and ammunition, had run low. Nothing he did to these ‘regeneradors’ seemed to kill or even permanently damage them. They just kept getting back up, and if he did manage to knock them to the ground, they squirmed around worm-style and came at him even faster.

The keycard overwriting machine was taking forever, and he had two of those fucking things lurking around hunting for him, so. Locker. He was going to give it one more minute, and then he'd duck out, run to the machine, grab his (hopefully) finished keycard and get the hell out of here. If he came out and discovered he’d forgotten to hit some kind of confirm button, he was going to cry.

The monster padded away. He held still, counting seconds in his head. There were distant bangs and roars. Something big, heavy, and metal crashed to the ground. Leon pressed one palm flat to the side of the locker, mentally preparing himself to spring out and dash.

The locker door wrenched open, blinding him with sudden light. Ghost stood there, his shirt and vest covered in dark red splotches, another streak of blood crawling up his cheek, and a few strands of hair falling free into his face. He looked harrowed.

“Do you have any weapons that can fit a scope attachment?” Ghost demanded sharply.

“I’ve got a rifle.”

Ghost shoved an oddly bulky scope at him.

“Attach that. Quickly.”

Step, step, step, step. A rattling breath.

Leon shoved himself out of the locker and scrambled to swap his normal scope out for the new one. Ghost had his head turned, keeping one eye on Leon and the other on the dark hallway.

“That’s a biosensor scope. You can use it to target the parasites in their bodies.”

“Will that kill them for good?”

“It better.”

The regenerador rounded the corner, smiling that big toothy smile it had. Unlike the others, this one was covered in long, thin spikes reminiscent of a porcupine. According to the files he’d found, that classified this freak as an ‘iron maiden’. Really cheerful naming scheme they had around here.

The world’s worst Stretch Armstrong doll screeched, tossing one of its long arms at them. Leon parried the strike with his knife, forcing the beast to stagger.

“Impressive,” Ghost said behind him.

He took aim with the rifle. The iron maiden glowed a hot orange against the cool blue-green of the background. There was only one bug in this one, a bright yellow mass sitting snugly inside the head. He tried to line up a shot, but the iron maiden had already recovered and was closing the distance much too fast for comfort. He had no choice but to drop his aim and retreat.

“Can you distract it?” he called.

Ghost popped it a few times in the torso with pistol bullets, catching its attention. The creature screeched again and reached for him. He vanished out from between its grasping arms, reappearing 10 feet away. It was a neat trick and Leon wished he could do that.

He braced himself, lined up the sights, shot and missed. Shot and missed again. Cursed. The iron maiden suddenly started convulsing, its spines rapidly lengthening and retracting. A force hit Leon in the chest, bodying him around the corner behind the cover of a few old crates. The force turned out to be Ghost, who was looking narrowly at the line of quivering spikes now embedded in the wall where he’d been standing.

“Projectiles, too?” Leon whined.

“Might I suggest you stop playing around?” Ghost growled.

“What, aren’t you having fun? I’m having fun,” he lied.

He pulled his rifle up and ducked out of cover, getting a bead on the approaching monster’s head as quickly as he could. It started running at them. It really wasn’t fair that this thing could run. He squeezed the trigger. This time the shot hit true, nailing the head in a splatter of gore. The iron maiden staggered to a stop and convulsed again. Leon pulled himself back around the corner, bracing. This time it wasn’t spines that covered the wall. It was just blood and viscera and other bits of exploded flesh.

In the ringing silence that followed the two men stood elbow to elbow, catching their breath and listening for the sounds of movement. There were none.

“Why did it explode?” Leon asked.

“Not important,” Ghost replied.

Leon took that as an ‘I have no idea but won’t admit it.’

They crept out from cover, surveying the remains of the regenerador: porcupine edition.

“This place is a nightmare,” Ghost grumbled.

Leon was about to agree with him, until he noticed Ghost wasn’t looking at the remains. He had his head tilted up towards the exposed and sparking wires jutting out of the wall near the ceiling. Don’t get him wrong, exposed and sparking wires were also a frightening thing, especially in a laboratory. They just weren’t higher on Leon’s personal nightmare list than all the horrible monsters who wanted to eat him.

“It’s a miracle they were able to make anything good under these conditions,” Ghost mused.

Leon had enough of a sense about this guy by now that he could predict the next few pages of script: Ghost would roll his shoulders and crack his neck, make some dry comment about the fight, and then he’d turn to Leon with that smarmy little smirk and demand another favor in return for his help.

Well, Leon was calling for a rewrite, and the only tools he had on hand were the element of surprise and his own body. He’d worked with less.

He reached up and grasped Ghost by the strap of his empty holster, prompting the taller man to turn his head down towards him quizzically. Then Leon craned up and pressed his lips against that thin, severe mouth. He even slipped in some tongue, for spice.

When he pulled away, Ghost had adopted the posture of an exclamation point, and his face was slack with shock.

“There’s your thanks,” Leon told him.

“Your pronunciation is improving,” Ghost replied. “Although...”

Before the man could think of some other horrible task he needed Leon to perform, Leon backed up and all but draped himself against the wall in a parody of come hither coyness. He wasn’t really trying to seduce--wouldn’t know how to start if he tried, that actually hadn’t been part of his training--he wanted to make the man uncomfortable enough to drop the subject and move on.

“If that doesn’t satisfy, I can show you just how well I can pronounce ‘thank you,’” Leon said.

Ghost slid his sunglasses down his nose so Leon could watch his eyes drag slowly up and down Leon’s body, which told Leon the first personal detail he would ever learn about Ghost: this man was not straight.

“Bad timing for it,” Ghost pronounced, and walked past Leon down the hall.

He had not demanded any kind of payment for the gift of the scope. Leon called that a win, even if he did feel oddly disappointed.

“Have you found Krauser yet?” Ghost called from up ahead.

“Uhh...no, not yet.” Leon pushed off the wall, jogging to catch up. “It’s only a matter of time. He’s got business to settle with me.”

“Because of Operation Javier?” Ghost asked.

Leon almost tripped on a stray cable.

“How did you know about that?” he asked once he’d recovered his balance.

“I’ve read your file,” Ghost answered casually.

That wasn’t chilling or anything. Leon was kept pretty far under wraps by the higher ups, and Operation Javier had been a classified spec op. Who the hell was this guy, that he could access that kind of information?

Ahead, they heard rattling breathing and wet footsteps. Leon pulled out his rifle with a sigh.

“Mind playing decoy a little longer?”

“Are you going to kiss me again?” Ghost asked.

“If that’s what you want.” Leon grinned.

Ghost hummed. He pulled a small box out of his pocket and slapped it into Leon’s chest before vanishing. Leon scrambled to catch the item before it fell to the floor, scooping it up at the last second with just the tips of his fingers. He stared at the container in his hands.

It was a pack of breath mints.

Monster bugs exploding was quickly becoming a new theme in his life. Saddler went with the biggest bang of them all, the force of it sending Leon flying a good 10 feet through the air before he landed hard on the unforgiving metal of the platform. Familiar pain seized up his back and shoulders. He was so, so tired of sudden falls and hard landings. At this rate, he’d need spinal surgery by 30.

Footsteps approached him. He made the tactical decision not to worry about them. There were no threats around that wore shoes that sharp. Reluctantly he cracked his eyes open, squinting up at the looming figure of Ghost.

“You successfully removed your parasite?” Ghost asked him, looking down with more curiosity than concern.

“Wouldn’t be here otherwise,” Leon groaned, turning over on his side.

From the corner of his eye he saw a slender hand grab the vial off the platform. He craned his neck to look up at Ada, a sickly feeling in his gut.

“The amber?” Ghost asked.

“It’s intact,” she said.

“Excellent.”

Leon sat up. He knew what that was, now. He’d read the files in Luis’s lab. That little vial contained a frozen plaga, exactly the same type that Saddler had. The dominant species. If that got into the wrong hands, this nightmare would start all over again.

He’d seen enough of Ghost to guess that this man was not the right hands.

The man in question stepped around Leon, approaching Ada.

“Just answer me one question,” she said.

“I don’t pay you to ask questions,” Ghost replied, an edge in his voice.

Ada ignored him.

“What are you planning to do with this?”

Ghost’s lips pursed. He seemed to realize that whether Ada handed him the Amber or not relied on his answer.

“To restore order and balance to a world that has gone insane,” he replied.

Ashley had appeared from the debris and was picking her way over to them. On the other side of the platform, a helicopter was descending from the sky. Leon got to his feet.

“How?” he asked. “With mass mind control? You really think that will make a world worth living in?”

“I am not Saddler,” Ghost told him. “I can think of far more creative applications for the plagas than that.”

“Nothing good can come from those monsters. You’ve seen the village, the castle. How this whole community has rotted because of this plague.” He was talking to Ghost, but the words were meant for Ada, who stood there silently holding all the cards. She had the amber, and she was the only one with her gun in her hand. The power was all hers. Please Ada, he thought. Please have changed.

“That’s what religion will get you,” Ghost said. “And I do recognize that a mass outbreak of the plagas is not a viable solution. You know very well the world has already changed. A hundred will give their lives so that just one may live.”

A cold chill ran down Leon’s spine as he realized Ghost had been able to hear that whole conversation.

“I’m afraid that change will need expediting before the end. It is the only path forward.”

“How many casualties?” Ada demanded.

“That will depend on whether you give me the amber.”

Ada shot him in the face. Ashley screamed in shock, reeling back. Even Leon was taken aback by the violence of the response.

“Run to the chopper, now!” Ada barked.

Why was she so urgent? That had been a point blank shot between the eyes, there was no way--

Except Ghost wasn’t falling over. He was clutching his head, hunched over in pain, blood trickling down his nose, but the hole in his forehead was shrinking. Red pinpricks shone through the dark lenses of his sunglasses.

Ghost wasn’t human after all.

He didn’t need any further prompting. Leon grabbed Ashley by the wrist and pulled her along after him, sprinting for the waiting chopper with his last ounce of strength. Ada turned to pop a few more shots off, and Leon heard a loud bang somewhere behind him and to the right. He didn’t stop. He pushed through until Ashley and himself were both on the chopper. Ada followed a second later, and then they were taking off.

Down below, he could see Ghost staring up at them from the edge of the platform, next to a crater that had been punched through the grating. The red glow of his eyes were visible even from a height. Feeling cheeky, Leon waved. Ghost turned away.

“Luis!” Ashley cried.

Leon whipped his head around.

There was a stretcher set up near the row of back seats, anchored carefully in place, and on it lay one exhausted looking Spaniard with an oxygen mask, a thick white bandage around his chest, and a bunch of tubes hooked up to him.

“Eyyy, Señorita,” Luis greeted her, waggling his fingers. “How’s your little bug problem?” He looked pale and sounded like he'd been deep-throating a cheese grater, but he was alive and that was a new record for Leon.

Ashley slipped into the seat beside the stretcher, her face beaming.

“Your machine worked! The parasites are cooked.”

“Ahh, muy bueno.”

Leon lowered himself into the seat next to Ashley, while Ada made new ‘arrangements’ with the pilot at gunpoint.

“I can’t believe he actually saved you,” Leon said.

“I’m as surprised as you. I guess he thought I was still useful.”

Leon clapped the man on the knee, reeling from relief so powerful it felt a little like a thunderstorm.

Ada sat down across from them, her dark eyes tired and watchful. She seemed relieved to see Luis was OK, too.

“Now can you tell me who that guy was?” Leon asked. “You both clearly know him.”

“Does he have a plagas too? You shot him in the face and he just stood there like it was nothing!” Ashley said.

“You what...?” said Luis.

“Albert Wesker infected himself back in 1998,” Ada informed them brusquely. “No one really knows what he gave himself. Only that it gave him superhuman powers.”

Albert Wesker. Leon knew that name. A former Umbrella employee, he’d turned up with a ton of evidence against the company and had submitted them under a plea deal, on condition of anonymity. Leon only knew about him because he was part of the special department that had to deal with Umbrella’s monsters.

It looked like the man had learned absolutely nothing since leaving Umbrella.

“Uh. Can his infection spread through mouth to mouth contact?” Leon asked.

Everyone but the pilot stared at him. He shrank a little against his seat.

“Asking for a friend?”

Epilogue

Leon leaned against the elevator wall, struggling not to fall asleep on his feet. It had been a long week of tying up loose ends. Ada had dropped him, Luis, and Ashley off at the nearest hospital and then hoofed it along with the helicopter off to her own mysterious ends. From there it had all been traveling, and debriefing, and bargaining for Luis’ safety, then quarantining, quiet celebration parties, and finally he was home free. All he had left to do was write up his report and then sleep for 1,000 years (approximately).

The elevator doors dinged open. He forced a smile for the two women waiting outside and squeezed past them. It was late, and he had plans to melt into a recliner and possibly stuff himself with Chinese takeout if he could muster the energy to lift the phone.

“Home sweet home,” he murmured to himself as he unlocked his door.

The apartment was a little on the chilly side as he stepped in, as it tended to be when there was no one to adjust the thermostat. He let his door swing closed behind him and reached out to flick on the light.

Albert Wesker was sitting on his recliner, one leg crossed over the other and fingers steepled in front of him. He’d swapped out the blue shirt and vest for a black turtleneck and blazer combo. He was still wearing sunglasses. He had apparently been sitting in the dark, in sunglasses, posing for dramatic effect until Leon turned the light on. If Leon’s blood hadn’t just turned to ice, he’d be laughing. How did this man manage to be so ridiculous and so dangerous at the same time?

"Mr. Kennedy.” Wesker’s lips curled into a Cheshire smile. “I believe you still owe me."