Chapter Text
2004
His brain had been dead for more than ten hours, nothing that Wesker couldn't handle. Not when he had developed the ultimate regenerative virus. Luis was just too perfect of a subject to pass up in Albert's experiments, to see if Uroboros could start the heart and brain waves of a body well beyond rigor mortis. After some bone cracking and electrolysis post-infection, Luis woke up once more with an inhuman pain shooting throughout his nerves, his brain overworking to restore his systems to their full capacity with the help of the virus. An inhuman mixture of every shameful job he has been a part of.
With a painful turn of his head, his visions barely focused on the operating table about ten feet away from his own, the mutated Major lying dead as Wesker ever so gently removed the armored limbs. He had already expertly sliced along the thick skin of his chest and muscle until he had reached the bug attached to his spinal cord. Luis's head was burning and his body started to convulse as it restarted, the retching of blood and built-up fluids following soon over the table and onto the floor.
Wesker turned to Luis once he finished up and had an assistant wheel away the limbless major, no doubt to be cremated. "Ah, Luis. Welcome back. This is normal, just your body adjusting to being alive again. Strange, no?"
Luis stayed silent, his thoughts and his memories started to process. Nothing came out of his lips other than a groan of discomfort. He thinks about his last moments, mainly of Victoria. He wondered if she and Ashley had made it out of that hellhole alive and sane. The assistant came back and began to clean up the mess of blood and bile on the floor. Wesker had changed his gloves and coat before sitting down next to Luis.
"You know, this was my thank you to you and your research. You have saved me a great deal of time." Wesker says, his tone light. "And I know how valuable you are to science. Your discoveries are unparalleled. You remind me of an old friend. Hopefully, you don't mutate as horribly as he did."
Luis finally mustered up the strength to move his jaw. "Why did you..."
"Because you're now a subject. My virus has proven to be unmatched to even the illness of death." Wesker says. He stands and pats Luis's shoulder. "You should be up on your feet in an hour or so. Not to worry."
Luis watched as he walked out of the room, his assistant moved to put a cool rag on Luis's forehead and sip water. The assistant was a fidgety young man who walked with shoulders pointed, his eyes darting to every noise. Once Luis had cooled down, he turned to the assistant and spoke. "Got a smoke?"
The assistant immediately turned away. "Um... no. Wesker doesn't like the smell of it."
"Hm. What a party." Luis groaned as he sat up. "How about clothing?"
The assistant nods. "That, he has." His feet quickly scurried off to a closet to find a folded stack of black pants and a black shirt. He soon returned to hand it to Luis. Before Luis could mutter a thank you, the assistant hurries off, leaving Luis in the cold operating room, the fluorescent lighting shining down unpleasantly bright. Luis decides to take a few steps after dressing up. His mind is a scattered mess as he tries to recount everything leading up to this moment. The village, Victoria, Ashley, the mines. That was the timeline. He ends up walking towards a bag in a locker, his stuff inside. The old lighter, his rings, his clothes. He slips on the rings and pockets the lighter, looking around before doing so. He goes back to the middle of the room, letting it fully dawn on him that he is a lab rat now. Not even a researcher. He was better off decomposing into a gaseous sludge in the mines than he was here. But if there is one thing Luis knew how to do, and how to do good, it was escaping tight situations, weaseling himself out of imminent torture, death, and exile. And maybe, just maybe, another chance to see Victoria again.
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2006
Months had gone by, maybe even years. It had been the same routine. A check-up, breakfast, some time outside in the courtyard, lunch, maybe working with Wesker if he requests an opinion, dinner, sleep, and repeat. Luis was dying from boredom and only thought of the feeling of a cigarette as he fidgeted with his lighter, flipping it in his palm. As he was slowly let around the compound, he practiced a map in his head of every exit he could see. The only problem was a key card. No one in this facility would be dumb enough to lose a card or misplace it near someone. But, there is someone who would be nervous enough. Luis had barely gotten to know Lenny, the nervous assistant. He could tell he was probably a medical school graduate who was naive enough to accept a job in Tricell. If he had to guess, Lenny was paid a healthy sum of hush money and was given a demonstration of what would happen to him if he ever spoke out against Albert Wesker's practices. And the fact that he's still around.
Lenny had come into the room more nervous than usual. He checked his computer obsessively and paced back and forth, biting his nails. The perfect person to catch off guard.
"Lenny, come here real quick," Luis says, sitting down. "I'm feeling a little odd."
Lenny's eyes immediately darted towards Luis. He gulps and carefully steps towards him, sitting down on a stool in front of Luis while pulling on new gloves over his spindly hands. "Um, yeah, what do you mean?"
"Like a sickness. Flu symptoms, mostly." Luis says with a shrug, casually lying. "And something crawling under my skin." That wasn't a lie.
Lenny's shoulders became more narrow, his forehead becoming shiny under the fluorescent lighting. "Crawling?"
"Sí, crawling." Luis holds out his arm, showing how his skin seemed to move. "What do you think it might be, Lenny? My cholesterol is suddenly disappearing?"
Lenny immediately stands up and attempts to back away from Luis. With a quick grab and slam of Luis's fist, Lenny is knocked out cold. "Sorry, amigo. Surely, you understand where I am coming from." Luis takes his key card and stays close to the walls as he scans his way to the room close to the courtyard. Surprisingly, the halls were empty. Papers were scattered about on the tile floors, some coffee spilled as if the employees left in a hurry.
"Deja Vu," Luis mutters to himself.
The floor had begun to shake under his feet, and distant yells from the entrance to the courtyard echoed into the halls. Luis carefully peeks his head over the entrance to see a woman and a man in military gear, fighting Wesker. In a split second, he saw the woman tackle Wesker out the window and fall into the depths of the cliffs, the man yelling out her name. Luis looked away and pressed his back against the wall. What just happened? He thinks. Was Wesker gone? Just like that? Could Luis just waltz away from the facility as if he walked in by his own will in the first place? Luis decides to not interfere with the man calling in his company, the BSAA, and instead searches for Wesker's office.
The office was bland and desolate, the only decoration being the essential desk, piles of paper, and a file cabinet. Luis sat down and found his computer still open. Perfect, maybe he could take his money and fly to... well, he didn't know where he could go. His village was probably destroyed and empty and as far as everyone knew, he was dead. He clicked on his email and opened up a draft. His fingers hesitated as he thought about contacting Victoria. As much as he wanted to see her, doubt crept in. After learning who he was and what he did, would she genuinely want to see and help him again? Sure, they had become chummy, but even that was a stretch. He shook his head and pressed the backspace key until the slot had been empty again. He started to type to the one person who could help him, who he had unfinished business with, who would most likely believe him.
To: Ada Wong
From: BurnerEmail@123
It's Luis. Surprise!
Wesker had his fun with me. I didn't know who else to contact. He's gone now, and you still owe me.
P.S. Please bring some smokes while you are at it. Being off it for two years sucked.