"No time to explain, run!"
Chris' voice came through the speaker mounted on the drone in the smoke-filled room. Given their life-or-death history together back in S.T.A.R.S., Jill reflexively trusted Chris' command.
"Run!"
Jill hadn't forgotten Carlos, the man who'd saved her just minutes ago—even if he was a U.B.C.S. mercenary from Umbrella.
She gave Carlos a tug.
Carlos reacted quickly, and the two bolted through the scorched, blast-blackened doorway. As they passed, Jill finally got a clear look at the burning creature that had been blown apart.
Humanoid. Undeniably a small giant, nearly three meters tall. Its face, now unwrapped from burst bandages, was a mangled blur—no skin, its exposed jawbone and swollen facial muscles grotesquely pronounced.
In the explosion, the creature's pitch-black straightjacket-like coat had completely caught fire. Its torso—the point of impact for the self-destruct drone—was a mess of splattered blood. Its left shoulder and chest had been blown open, fragments of rib jutting out, tendons twitching beneath, covered in pink and charred flammable residue.
Jill could practically smell it—like poorly cleaned roast meat, tainted with a rank, burnt stench.
"Follow the drone! The streets of Raccoon City are all blocked, survivors and zombies are mixed together. I'm at least three blocks away from you..." Chris' urgent voice came from the hovering drone.
As Jill listened, she caught movement from the corner of her eye—across the street, another monster, this one carrying a rocket launcher.
"Chris! It's not just one bio-weapon."
Roar!
In a flash, the second Nemesis let out a low growl and raised its rocket launcher.
"Stop it." Chris' voice spoke quickly to someone else through the drone's speaker.
In response, the drone leading the way suddenly tilted and charged straight toward the Nemesis aiming at Jill.
Roar!
Sensing the danger, the Nemesis switched targets with its rudimentary intelligence. Whoosh! The rocket launched, blasting the oncoming drone to bits.
That power—not quite as strong as the previous one?
Sweeping aside the smoke with one hand, the Nemesis tossed the spent launcher aside. Its eyeless monocular gaze locked on Jill.
Thump, thump! Despite its massive size, its speed was absurd. Clang!
Like a raging bull, it ripped a fire hydrant from the ground and swung it at her. Jill dove forward, narrowly dodging the blast of air that skimmed past the back of her head.
This thing… is relentless!
Ratatatat—
Carlos pulled Jill up, raising his M4A1 carbine. He fired while retreating, even tossing grenades, but the Nemesis ignored him completely. It used the tentacles sprouting from its hand to catch and fling the grenades right back—toward Jill.
Boom!
Jill scrambled through a shattered storefront to dodge the explosion. She emerged from another direction, face, shoulder, and arm bloodied and bruised.
Tossing a flashbang, she shouted, "F*ck, if you can't throw properly, don't throw! Got any flashbangs or stuns? B.O.W.s like this usually hate high heat and bright light."
Bang! A burst of intense white light. The Nemesis staggered—her guess was right.
"But I don't have any!"
"F*ck! Then what do you have?"
"Offensive grenades, tear gas, flares, signal rounds..."
The two makeshift teammates dodged and counterattacked as they ran. What had started off clumsy was quickly becoming a coordinated effort.
"Hey, miss, where are your teammates? Have them send another flying thing to bail us out! I'm almost out of ammo..."
ROAR—!
Before Carlos could finish, an even more terrifying, inhuman scream echoed.
It was that one!
Off in the distance, the Nemesis that had been kneeling—charred, burning, seemingly defeated—began to move again.
Squelch.
A vile, pus-like fluid sprayed from the scorched and mangled body. Its muscles and bones writhed like bacteria under a microscope.
The monster dropped to its knees, howling. Its mutated limbs—barely contained by its ragged bindings—slammed into the ground. Carlos didn't know exactly how strong it was, but when a nearby compact car shook with each impact, he was sure one swipe would send him straight to heaven.
"Oh no. That thing's still not dead?!"
Thud. Thud.
More heavy footsteps echoed. From a narrow side alley, a group of figures emerged—each wearing black trench coats and wide-brimmed hats. But one look at their pale-blue, lifeless faces and grotesque frames told Carlos they weren't human.
He forced a smile that looked more like a grimace.
"Tell me, Miss Beautiful—did you bomb Umbrella's headquarters? Or do you have their stock certificates in your backpack?"
"I just blew up one damn mansion! And it wasn't even me—it self-destructed!"
Jill was beyond exasperated.
An assassination squad. Then B.O.W.s, Pursuers, Tyrants... Umbrella sure was pulling out all the stops.
Bzzz… Bzzz…
The rotors of drones buzzed overhead.
"Jill! Move! We'll use suicide drones to cover you."
Chris's voice—through the drone.
Several boxy, quad-rotor drones zipped over Jill's head.
"Take the alley on your left. No horde there yet. From the drone's perspective, I just saw a squad circling behind you. Head for the open plaza on Raccoon Avenue—zombies won't be a problem. We've got snipers set up there from our Umbrella unit—they'll cover you!"
Chris's voice continued, but now he seemed to be arguing with someone else:
"That B.O.W.—the one from earlier—didn't die from the blast?"
"No, the payload was too small. I've called in the heavy drone—we'll blow it to hell. It's not getting out."
"You—bring the launchers. You, set up the recoilless rifle… Delay them. Hold fire until the last second."
"Captain, Director Russell just sent intel—her mole in Paris says HQ mobilized a huge batch of test specimens. These B.O.W.s must be from them."
...
"Pursuers, at least two. T-103 mass-production Tyrants—we've spotted over seven already... Other T-virus mutations and derived B.O.W.s—countless."
Back in San Francisco, watching the real-time feeds, Vela pressed her palm to her forehead.
The footage wasn't crystal clear, but she could see it—two Pursuers cornering a man and a woman in a city street.
This... really was her fault.
She might not have had anything to do with viral research or B.O.W. design. She never personally built any grotesque augmentations. But she did make money for Umbrella.
No matter which division earned it, higher revenue meant more R&D budget. Which meant more funding for Umbrella's labs—in Raccoon City, Paris, and Africa.
Especially when Spencer would siphon off funds from the books to secretly funnel into virology.
Now Vela had another angle to exploit.
What might've seemed minor before—budget reallocation—could now crush someone under a thousand-ton scandal.
Pre-outbreak? A bit of embezzlement was nothing.
Post-outbreak? In the eyes of public opinion and the corporate-financial elite, she was a victim—betrayed by an ancient chairman's madness.
"Prepare the car. Get my jet ready. I'm flying to Washington."
Vela picked up the mic and notified the secretary's office. As she spoke, her gaze remained fixed on the footage captured by the recon drone.
That burst-open Nemesis—its Nemesis-α parasite had begun secreting some kind of biochemical substance. It was entering "Stage Two."
"Andreilov, prioritize eliminating that mutating B.O.W. My AI analysis model advises this: when dealing with B.O.W.s, take them out while they're still humanoid. Destroy the head, torso, and parasite. Letting them mutate leads to uncontrollable, unknown risks."
Unable to resist, Vela offered the suggestion under the guise of her AI model. She couldn't stand seeing her subordinates botch a cleanup and let the enemy "grow."
"Yes, ma'am!"
The voice of Andreilov from U.S.F Mobile Unit 4 came through the earpiece.
...
Boom boom boom boom boom—!
Explosions roared, as if the surrounding districts had plunged into some kind of chaotic symphony.
Clang clang.
Footsteps pounding the pavement.
"Hey, miss, your partner must be loaded... That thing was a drone, right? A drone carrying explosives... Back at the U.B.C.S training base, I heard rumors we might be equipped with these new toys for recon support. But once I was deployed here? Hah, forget it..."
Carlos smashed down a zombie climbing over a chain-link fence with the butt of his rifle.
Bang!
"Call me Jill," she replied, finishing the zombie off with a shot to the head. "I don't know where Chris found these Umbrella troops."
"OK, Jill."
Carlos added confidently, "My guess is your buddy hitched a ride with the California branch. Only California's got that kind of money to burn."
As they ran, Carlos looked back toward the smoky sky at the end of the alley. The rising smoke and non-stop explosions... drones loaded with bombs, being used to stall those bio-creatures. Honestly, he had a sinking feeling that infantry like him were becoming obsolete.
"Stop staring. We're almost at Raccoon Avenue."
Following Chris' suggestion, Jill and Carlos stuck to the alleys, cutting through buildings to reach the avenue. A T-virus-infected zombie dog, gnawing on a corpse, looked up at the sound—and immediately had its head blown apart by two shots from Jill.
Then—BOOM! —a deafening explosion erupted from the block behind them. The pressure wave slammed into them, the ground trembled underfoot.
Jill and Carlos turned to see a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire rising, shattered rubble raining down like diminishing drizzle.
"That was intense. Must've been an air-dropped bomb."
...
"F*ck!"
Roughly a hundred meters from Jill's position, atop a tall building, the blast had shattered the windows. A silver-haired man in a U.B.C.S. tactical jacket angrily brushed shards off his clothes and slammed his fist into the wall.
Fifty meters below his location, the Nemesis that had, just a moment ago, shed its restraints and begun regenerating—was now gone.
The street was unrecognizable. Power poles and trees had been uprooted. Collapsed buildings, overturned vehicles, and scattered debris created a landscape of devastation, blanketed in thick smoke.
It looked like the area had been struck by a wrecking ball. The cracked ground radiated outward from the blast center, coated in dark, charred blood—mingled with burning black chunks of unidentifiable matter.
Beep.
Picking up the radio, his expression grim, the man spoke: "Nemesis-02 shows no life signs. It's completely dead. S.T.A.R.S. member Jill Valentine is still alive. Her support has arrived."
...
A corner in the eastern part of Raccoon City.
"What was that sound?"
"Was the city gas station blown up?"
"Doesn't seem like it. Sounded more like gunfire and successive explosions. Was it U.B.C.S.?"
That thunderous blast stood out even amid the chaos of Raccoon City. In the shadows, a group of heavily armed men and women heading against the flow into the city halted and exchanged glances.
They all wore highly customized, non-standard black combat uniforms and boots, with various grades of protective vests. Gas masks covered their faces, and on their shoulders—red-and-white umbrella insignia.
"Lupo?" they turned to the tall woman leading them.
"..." With her head lowered and a finger pressed to her earpiece, Lupo seemed to be communicating with higher-ups. Then she nodded silently, raised her head, and swept her gaze across the team. Beneath the full-face transparent gas mask, worry crept into her expression.
"Everyone, mission update."
Her raspy voice carried gravitas. "The U.S.F unit from the USA California branch has entered Raccoon City. HQ is vague, but one thing is certain: they are hostile."
"Looks like our Delta Team just got dragged into a major corporate-level conflict."
...
Raccoon City main street.
"Chris, I've reached Raccoon Street!"
The chaos of the streets—toppled fences, crashed police and ambulance vehicles—was like a tangled mess of wires. Jill, emerging from the alley, felt the oppressive weight of it all.
She fired a few quick rounds, blowing apart the skulls of zombies climbing out of an overturned car. Following the plan, she stepped into the street and waved toward the building Chris had marked.
Whoosh!
A flare fired from a rooftop in response.
Whirr...
A black speck zoomed toward her position. As Jill began to let her guard down—Bang!
A dull gunshot rang out. Though the bullet wasn't meant for her, Jill instantly ducked as Carlos yanked her behind cover.
"Ah—!" A scream of pain rang out as a figure fell from the opposite building, weapon clattering beside him. He wasn't moving.
Tank top, tactical vest, umbrella insignia—one of the assassins sent to silence her.
"F*ck! They're still trying to kill me?"
"Jill, use smoke. Stick to the street. We've cleared most of the zombies."
Chris' urgent voice came through the drone, probably while he was still running.
"Got it."
Tightening her shoulder strap, Jill exchanged a glance with Carlos. Carlos threw the smoke, and the two bolted toward the flare.
Bang!!
Bang!!
Heavy gunshots rang out. For the first time, Jill felt a sense of ease. Ever since entering Raccoon Avenue, she sensed at least five sniper teams watching her. Any zombie that appeared from the alleys was immediately headshotted.
"I see you!"
Not from a drone speaker—a shout from across the intersection.
Jill looked up with joy. A group of well-equipped operatives—miles ahead of anything she'd seen so far in Raccoon City—was approaching, one of them waving.
"Chris, recon team report: those trenchcoat-wearing B.O.W.s appear to have shed their restraints. They're headed toward Raccoon Street."
"Captain Andreilov says we should clear out to avoid collateral damage."
Jill and Carlos heard the exchange as they ran.
The B.O.W.s… were coming?
ROAR!
Boom!
A concrete wall on the side alley burst apart. Wire fencing flew, and a massive, blue-gray skinned soldier stormed out. A T-103 Tyrant!
Jill opened her mouth to warn the others when—FWOOSH!
A blazing projectile streaked in from the distance, slamming into the Tyrant. The explosion bathed the street in firelight, tearing through blue-black flesh and splattering gore.
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