Chapter Text
the first thing leon hears is the distant thump thump thump of a helicopter. leaning on the hood of his porsche, he can nearly make it out through the cloudy night sky. disappointment ran hot through his veins; he hadn’t managed to save grace nor emily. rationally, he knows there wasn’t anything else he could’ve done but the thought weasled itself into the self depreciating portion of his brain and hadn’t left since.
sherry had told him he did well to save grace from emily once she turned, that there wasn’t anything more he could’ve done, but what good had that done? she was effectively kidnapped by who he assumed could only be victor gideon. he had grumbled something back to the effect of ‘we need to save her’ somewhere in between a coughing fit which is, he supposes, why you were here now. the helicopter draws nearer, leaves and dirt scattering around him as it lands. he doesn’t see you at first, only two agents he’d briefly seen before lugging a crate out of the helicopter. gear, he assumes, for the trip he has ahead of him. how thoughtful.
you step out next and he spots you instantly. dressed head to toe in attire that was indeed suited for where you two would be going. you’re wearing boots that remind him of jill’s with your pants and light jacket covering your arms and legs. smart, who knew what you would find in raccoon city. an assault rifle was strapped to your back with two simple pistols on either side of your tactical belt which was loaded with supplies. you pat one of the agents on the back as you look around, taking in the care centre before locking eyes with him. he doesn’t move, even as the agents pick the crate back up and follow you as you walk over to him.
“agent kennedy? it’s a pleasure to meet you. my name is yn..i believe sherry told you about me?” you say, extending your hand for him to take. despite his sour mood, leon is a gentleman so he takes it within his own and grips it gently.
“you don’t have to do this, if you don’t want. i’m not sure what we’ll find out there,” he says with a careful look, brows impossibly furrowing even more.
“i was briefed, i know what i’m getting into. i haven’t been training for nothing,” you grin at him, turning to look at the crate as it thumps on the ground beside you. it’s opened to reveal more ammo, guns, healing items. anything you would need for an almost suicidal mission to raccoon city.
he doesn’t say anything else to you, only helping the two men load the gear into the boot of his car as you step away, hand pressed against what he presumes is an earpiece. leon leaves the two agents to finish up as he walks back over to you.
“hey,” he starts, a hand gentle on your shoulder for only a moment.
“no, sherry don’t–hey–can you hold on for a sec? great, thanks,” you give him a polite smile as you wrap up your conversation with sherry, “are you ready to go?” you ask. he nods. you both turn back to your car as sherry starts talking again, this time in both of your earpieces.
“can you both hear me? great, leon and yn, your mission is to find grace. if you manage to take out gideon, then that would be great but it’s not your primary objective, alright?” leon grunts in agreement as he walks to the drivers side of his car.
distantly, the helicopter takes off, the wind whipping his hair around. he notices you on the other side, hair unmoving from the tight braid its in. he tells himself you’re prepared well enough, quieting any doubt that lingers in his head, as you both clamber into his car. he reminds himself of the training you must’ve went through to even be allowed to accompany him on a field mission. he calms himself with a deep breath as he starts up his car. he’s still vaguely following along with what sherry is saying, but as he pulls out of the care centre, his mind drifts back to raccoon city.
he remembers seeing the sign for the rhode hill care centre for the first time 30 years ago, wondering who was there and why. he remembers the seeing the turnoff–the same one he just pulled out of–never imagining having to end up there when, before he can fully believe it, he’s back on the same road 30 years ago heading back into the place that caused a ripple in time, a tremor in his life that led him to this very moment.
‘--leon, are you okay?” your voice pulls him out of his head. he glances over to see you, hands folded politely in your lap as you look back at him with a confused gaze.
“what? oh yeah, i’m fine. just thinking,” he gives you a small nod with a polite smile before his eyes turn back to the road, “say that again, sherry.”
…
it doesn’t take long to get to raccoon city, but it’s long enough for sherry to run out of things to brief you on and for the polite conversation to get stale. which is when you start asking questions.
“have you and sherry worked together long? she told me about her hand…said it was from raccoon city,” you ask, half mindedly playing with the ac.
“she was just a kid then, my friend claire helped her get out,” he said, carefully dodging the point of how he sacrificed his freedom for her. some things you didn’t need to know.
“oh, wow. i always thought she was like 25,” your voice trails off, but leon can sense a lingering question poking around somewhere in your head.
“is there anything else you’d like to ask?” leon adds, glancing over at you with a tired look. your eyes dance from his, to your hands, then around the car as you think. silence permeates for only a moment before you speak up.
“why didn’t the virus spread elsewhere?” you ask. leon takes a moment to sigh, carefully weighing the question you asked in his head.
“they bombed raccoon, no one infected could’ve made it–”
“no, i get that, but i heard there were samples of the original virus somewhere…surely someone tried to get it out?” leon almost laughs at this. despite the years, he hasn’t forgotten what happened at NEST, everything with ada. the sting has worn away with time. he understands why ada did what she did, but he struggles to move past it. each time he’s seen her after that, he’s reminded of the worst night of his life and how willing she was to let it happen again.
“leon? are you alright? you’re zoning out again,” you speak up again, this time, your hand moves to his arm. he barely registers it as the trees on all sides of you begin to clear and the desolate ruins of raccoon city come into view. it takes your attention away, absently your hand falls from his arm.
you’ve only ever seen raccoon city on reports and any old images you can find, but none of that could’ve prepared you for the reality of it. the city itself is a sad grey, almost as if there’s a mist forever looming over the city limits, encapsulating the terror from 30 years ago. what houses remain are falling over and fading and the skyscrapers are more or less ground-scrapers now.
leon himself can barely look for more than a moment. he focuses on the road and pretends as though his heart hadn’t started racing the moment he saw the first hint of raccoon. your amazement and awe dies down as leons car dips in between trees as the city line, or what was left of it, plunges from view.
“gosh i hadn’t realised it was so…” your sentence dies on your tongue, unspoken words falling with a full understanding between you.
“yeah, well, we’re nearly there so you can get a closer look soon. any more questions?” he asks, taking a turn to lead straight into the city.
“not right now,” you reply, shaking your head. you hear leon murmur something you can’t quite make out as you settle back into your seat.
..
“is that a bsaa container?” you ask from behind leon. as soon as you got out of the car, you were under strict instructions to stay behind him at all times–watch his six–and, currently, thats not where you were.
“get behind me, yn. i don’t know what’s here so best to stay alert,” leon said, tone stern. only when he turned to look at you did he see what you were looking at. low and behold, there it was: a shipping container with the bsaa’s northern american department’s logo on the front. he studies it as he walks closer.
“how old do you think it is?” you ask, now falling just behind Leon.
“not sure. be grateful its them and not someone else,” leon says with a half-hearted laugh but you struggle to laugh yourself. there was no reason for the bsaa to be anywhere near raccoon city–no one had been near raccoon city until, well, now with gideon and grace.
leon starts to walk toward what you assume is a hotel due to the torn porte-cochére. leon makes a beeline for the rotating doorway while you stagger behind him.
“did you go ever go here? before, i mean,” you ask as he begins to push on the door, forcing it to turn as it creaks and cracks under his strength. you slip in the compartment behind him, pushing it forward yourself as he steps out. he turns back to you, moving to help you push it further when you slip out, having pushed it the rest of the way yourself.
“i got it,” you smile at him.
“alright. and, no, i didn’t. you overestimate how much time i actually spent here,” he says, turning back to give you a quick smile when he hears a crunch resound under his foot. stepping back, he sees a skull, now broken under his weight, with a thin stretch of…cobweb? you make a noise of disgust from behind him.
“you think spiders are here?” you ask, looking up at leon and, somehow, only now noticing the large expanse of cobweb stretching over the bridge above you. you reconcile with the fact that no normal spider could have done that quickly as you notice cars suspended in mind air, webbed in the thick web.
“i guess some bugs may have wandered in here–”
“Leon–”
“but i don’t think they–”
“leon!” you grab his arm, pulling him back and pointing up toward what appeared to be a giant spider. of course.
it was grotesque, to say the least. giant arms that stretched nearly the length of your vision descended the bridge with ease. you could hear its fangs, tchk tchk tchk-ing as it reverberated off the street, which, you now realised, was uncomfortably claustrophobic with no immediate way to run. it’s eyes were the worst part by far. giant orbs that seemed to never end settled malevolently on you and leon.
“oh my god,” is all leon could muster out. sometime between that and being able to unholster requiem, one of its ugly legs reared, ready to plant itself directly through leon when he dived out of the way. you, yourself, took a step back, unholstering your assault rifle to unload your fire on it. distracted now with you, leon was able to take out his hatchet and swing it onto it’s leg.
luckily for you, it shreaks in agony as it stumbles around, a moment you take to quickly run to cover behind a car. unluckily for you, you weren’t fast enough. the spider launched another one of its legs, smacking you away and, by some miraculous luck, through the open doorway of a sheltered building.
distantly, you hear leon call out your name to which you respond, albeit weakly, with an ‘im good!’ he takes your sign of life with a grain of salt, but doesn’t miss a moment to unload his own weapon onto it before turning and running into the same doorway. the spider, as a mass of flailing danger, tries to squeeze itself into the door. It thrashes around for a moment as it reaches for you and leon before rubble begins to fall onto it. rationally, you know it’s probably not dead, but you take the quick moment of reprieve for what is it: quick.
“are you alright? nothing broken?” leon asks as he kneels next to you. you shake your head, taking his hand as he pulls you up to stand. his moves his hand to your shoulder where it stays for a moment as you catch your breath.
“im all good, just a little winded. lets get out of here,” he nods and, once again, positions himself in front of you as you begin to walk further into the building. the peace doesn’t last long as the spider appears again, this time it crawls over the window. you jump but, ahead, leon seems unfazed as he hacks through more cobwebs.
“when i accepted this mission, i didn’t realise it involved giant mutated spiders,” you said, watching the windows carefully. you round a corner, following leon as he carefully moves up the stairs.
“well aren’t you lucky,” he teases as he shoots toward actual sized spiders who explode with a sickly teal pop. you follow leon further into the building, going up a ladder when the spider reappears behind you.
leon turns first, grabbing your arm to lift you the rest of the way as you take off ahead of him. leon follows closely behind as the spider wriggles its way through the hallway. unfortunately for the both of you, the hallway comes to an end. you turn to leon who is already looking around when he’s thrown against the adjacent wall. the spider follows him in, fangs clanging and fully intent on spearing whatever part of leon it can get to first with more success this time, but he recovers fast.
rolling out of the way, the spider clicks its fangs in annoyance, which is quickly replaced by a deafening shriek as you unload another round of bullets onto its back. it moves to cower quickly, scaling the wall nearest to it, allowing leon to shoot at the bulbous rounds attached to its rear.
he shouts for you to do the same and runs over to the opposite side of the building. the spider crawls its way over to him, allowing you a perfect moment to shoot at it’s weak spot. pulling a lever on your assault rifle, switching it to single shot, you line up your aim. the shot pierces straight through as another cry breaks from the almost lovecraftian spider.
turning back toward you, there’s nowhere you can think to go, so you pull that lever again and unload a cascade of bullets into wherever they’ll hit. it scuttles toward you at an alarming rate when from somewhere behind you, you hear a single shot ring out through the building.
the spider faulters, seemingly dazed as you see leon standing behind it, requiem in hand.
“i’ll distract it, you get to the second floor and throw those gas canisters on it!” he shouts from across the room as the spider regains its surroundings. you don’t hesitate. you bolt for the ladder, jumping and clambering your way to the top as leon rings out more shots from his weapons. dashing through the ruins, you make it to the first gas canister you can see, and just as you pick it up, leon appears on the floor below you baiting the spider closer. hauling it over the edge, leon shoots it and it explodes with a resounding blast. you feel the heat from the fire singe the hairs off the spider and lick at the edges of your combat boots.
the spider makes another sound, of annoyance or disdain. maybe pain. whatever it is, you can’t tell, but it charges toward leon nonetheless, forcing him against a wall with its fangs tchk tchk tchk-ing once more. you pull out your assault rifle and aim down the barrel, a pointed shot obliterating its leg.
that gives leon enough leeway to draw out his hatchet and hammer it into the spider’s head. it crumbles for a moment, leaving him another chance to do it again, and again, and again, until the ground underneath both the spider and leon falters. his hatchet goes flying somewhere through the scrum.
you hear the crack before you see it–the mass of black mangling arms and somewhere between all that, is leon, almost riding the spider down as though it’s a surfboard. the dust settles and you quickly clamber down the ladder to the edge of the hole.
“leon!? are you okay?” you yell down, silence beats in the air for a moment until you hear leon yell back to you.
“yep, all good! you should see the other guy,” he jokes. you don’t laugh. he clambers down the spider before looking back up at you.
“can you make it down?” he yells and you take a moment to analyse the hole and the multiple stories it spreads, “and have you seen my hatchet?” he finishes.
“yeah it’s just over here, but no, probably not. i think i can see another exit, though. can you get out of there?” you yell back.
“yeah, looks to be a subway. get outside and look for a station exit. i’ll meet you there!” you peer down, squinting your eyes to see what appears to be train tracks.
“okay! i’ll see you in a bit! stay safe,” you shout down before standing and turning toward an exit, picking up his hatchet and securing it in your tactical belt. luckily for you, raccoon city health code required all buildings of a certain height to have fire escapes on the outside.
you run down the stairs until you get to the bottom where you see a ladder which lands with a thud as you kick it. you land with your own thud as you take a moment to breathe. an hour into this mission and you’d just helped leon fight a giant spider. this could only get better, surely. you notice what looks to be a giant concrete fence at the end of the street. not wanting to imagine all the things that contains, you walk up to it, passing by an old subway exit you assume leon will find his way out of soon.
in the mean time, however, you press the button to your earpiece which sherry’s voice rings out of.
“how are things going?” she asks first. you tell her about the spider, leaving out more of the gruesome details, and tell her where leon is just as his own voice cuts through the line.
“sorry to interrupt, but i have a door here which looks to be the exit but i think it’s locked on the other side, do you think you could help, yn?” he asks. his voice is static-y and crackling but clear enough for you to understand. you confirm quickly over the earpiece and walk back to where you found that station exit.
sure enough, the door is barricaded with wood and a chained padlock. making quick work of it, you pull down the wood with leon’s own hatchet and shoot the padlock off. opening the door, you see leon standing there, hip popped.
“good to see you, you mind?” he asks, reaching for the hatchet you’re holding in your hand. you stare at him for a moment, taking in his already tired exterior. his hair doesn’t look as messy as it did before, as though he ran his hands through it.
“oh! sorry, sure,” you startle back to reality, holding it out for him. his own gloved hand presses against yours for a moment and you’re sure it sparked some sort of heat that travels right to your cheeks. you shuffle back with an awkward apology as he presses forward, but not before giving you a genuine smile.
“so what do we have here?” he asks as he reaches the top of the stairs, noticing that same wall.
“everything alright?” sherry asks over your earpiece. that same heat from before quickly returns to your cheeks as you shudder thinking of how sherry must’ve heard your awkward conversation from before.
you and leon walk up to the wall, noticing what looks to be a detonator attached to a short stretch of wire. you see leon lean in before motioning you closer with his hand. stepping forward, you can almost hear sherry’s voice through his own earpiece.
“looks like someone was here first, and they were planning on busting their way in,” leon says.
“the bsaa? so that’s why that container was there,” you say, backing up as leon hums.
“know a way around?” he asks sherry, to which she denies.
“the army corps of engineering erected it to seal the city, it goes on for miles,” she explains quickly.
“guess the only way is through then,” leon murmurs, glancing back at you for a moment before turning around to study his surroundings. sherry agrees with a few words of encouragement before cutting the line.
“is this legal?” you ask quietly, “i mean who even has jurisdiction over raccoon city?” leon shrugs and says something off handed about ‘the government’ which you accept quickly.
“whether or not it’s legal, it’s our only way through. we should look for the remaining parts of the detonator so we can get through,” he says as he begins to walk under a bridge to the left, stopping briefly to look back at you.
“you comin’?”