Best of Intentions: Here's a War (ch. 26) (Patreon)

‘Why is this happening to me?’ Rebecca thought to herself, screaming internally as she tried to fall through the floor. Out of everyone, she felt like she was the least qualified person to be standing where she was. Leon was tough and charming, if a bit of a doofus. Ada was suave and sexy to the point she could have wrapped everyone in the room around her finger with a few words and a flash of cleavage. 

“Why is this happening?!” Alfred Ashford raged, going red in the face as he swiped everything off of his desk with a sweeping gesture. In the days prior, he seemed like a polite, if distant, man. Handsome, in his thirties with slicked back blonde hair and a clean shaven face, while he wore one of those stuffy outfits that Rebecca thought only existed in period pieces, complete with golden shoulder tassels. “Damn you, answer me -- how is this happening?!” 

The man before his desk was more or less what Rebecca imagined when she thought of ‘career military.’ Dark hair cut close, form-fitting attire, tactical gear, hidden side arms, and built like he lived in a gym and only ate protein powder. Yet, even he was cowed by Alfred's rage, swallowing thickly before he answered, “I-I don't kn-” 

“You’re the head of security! Why don't you know!” Alfred screamed at the top of his lungs, spit flying from his mouth while veins bulged in his neck. There was a part of her that felt a little bad for the man -- both of them, really. Rude hadn't been wrong when he said that their method of infiltration was simple. It hadn't exactly been easy dealing with the Veil on her face for days on end, but after a while, you kinda just got used to it. The worst part was keeping her guard up at all times so she didn't somehow slip up and give the game away. 

“You assured me that our location was secure! You assured me that the people we brought in were vetted!” Alfred continued the dressing down, and Rebecca's eyes bounced around at the others in the room, all of whom seemed every bit as uncomfortable as she felt. “My lab is in total lockdown, my bridge is at the bottom of a fucking ravine, and you don't know? What good are you? What am I paying you for?!” 

Before the head of security could answer, there was the echo of gunfire that reached the office where they were all within. He reacted instantly, grabbing a radio at his chest and speaking into it, “Sitrep!” 

“Contact North-East main hallway! Smoke is obscuring numbers! We're holding position-” The radio was cut off with a wet gasp, followed by silence. If Alfred was mad before, then he was furious now. Enough so that Rebecca was half certain that he was about to drop dead from an aneurysm. 

“They’re inside my family manor?!” Alfred whispered with a terrible intensity, gnashing his teeth so harshly it was a wonder they didn't shatter. “Fix this! Fix it now!” He hissed at the commander, who snapped off a salute and turned on his heel before marching so quickly he half fled the room. When the door closed behind him, Alfred sagged, leaning heavily upon his desk. 

His gaze seemed to be looking at nothing, staring through the desk and the floor, taking no notice of the rest of them as he whispered to himself. “I failed her. I failed her so terribly. She'll never forgive this… this failure. How could she? I've cost us everything… God, I thought I was helping…” He heaved so heavily that Rebecca thought he might just break down crying. 

The ‘she’ wasn't too difficult to puzzle out. Alexia Ashford, his twin sister. A sister that Rebecca had assumed she would meet at some point, but there didn’t seem to be a trace of her beyond the occasional rumor. 

There was a very loud silence in the room that absolutely no one wanted to break, but all the same, it was broken when gunshots rang out once more. Louder this time. Closer. Rebecca had to suppress a wince -- it had been a discussion back on the Bus, what to do with Rockfort Island after all was said and done. Rude was very vocal about ‘deleting it from reality.’ Something that the others were laughing off, but Rebecca was very concerned that he was being extremely serious. 

Rebecca had wanted to take them prisoner. To bring them to justice and to have their day in court. It was naive. Even she knew that, but when she put forth the option… she had been met with the sheer impracticality of it. Simply put -- they were a small team taking on a small army. They had the element of surprise on their side, they could divide the enemy, and they had enough firepower to level the island completely. But the operation was only possible because of the first two. 

They simply didn’t have the numbers. Prisoners would be taken, but they could only afford to take the ones who outright surrendered and were secured. Only, to get them to surrender…

An explosion echoed out in the distance and she closed her eyes for a moment before she forced herself to speak, “Perhaps you should let her be the judge of that?” She said, making Alfred’s gaze snap to her, and for a split second, she wished she could grab the words from the air and swallow them back down. 

She recognized the look in his eyes all too well. The manic panic of a man who felt like his back was against the wall, and he was going to lash out at anything that could save him. Even if he had to drag others down to do it. Yet, she continued, because she also learned from hard-won experience the easiest way to defuse that panic. Hope. 

The words seemed to cut through the initial anger because they were a lifeline for him to grasp onto, “Yes… yes -- you’re right. That is for my sister to decide. If this situation can be salvaged, then it will be by her!” He declared with renewed purpose and standing tall once more. 

Rebecca swallowed a breath of relief that she hadn't messed that up. 

She still had no idea what she was doing here, though. When she arrived on the island, Rebecca was certain that she wouldn't stand out but by the end of the day, she had been recruited to a team to ‘aid in Alexia's research.’ A person she hadn't even seen, much less helped. Both Ada or Leon seemed so much more equipped to handle the situation but the most important part of the mission had wound up falling squarely on her unprepared shoulders. 

Because her part was to keep an eye on Alfred. Jill had said it best -- a rat in a corner will fight desperately. So if it wasn't fighting, then it had a way out. 

“All of you, follow me,” Alfred decided, standing tall and without a trace of the earlier rage to be found in him. That startled Rebecca, as she realized that Alfred did have a way out of this mess. 

Thankfully, someone else found their voice. “We're leaving? What about the others?” 

“I will not reward incompetence with salvation,” Alfred sneered so hard it was a wonder that he didn't pull something in his face. “They will live or die by their own merits. If they manage to survive… then they will be worthy of serving my sister.” That got an earnest smile out him as he approached a wall and pulled a candlestick. “Yes… yes, that's all this is. Just another filter to determine the worthy.” 

“You look like you're moving, Agent Squall,” Rude's voice picked up in her ear and she tried not to jump a bit. ‘Has the target decided to make a run for it?’ 

Agent Squall. Rebecca rather liked her code name, though the others seemed to treat theirs like some form of punishment. Rude didn't seem the type to be so petty, though. They were Storm and their agents were named after aspects of a storm -- it was a motif. She was just worried about what would happen when they gained more members and the good names started drying up. 

“It seems so. I'm entering a secret passageway now,” Rebecca said with a low whisper, falling in line behind the others. The staircase seemed to be a long spiral down with their footsteps echoing down. 

“Maintain course, Agent Squall. Don't worry, we'll be with you every step of the way,” Rude reassured. And it was hard not to be when everything seemed to be going exactly as he’d planned. Beyond the fact that she had ended up in Ada's role for some reason. 

Rebecca nodded to herself, taking a steadying breath that got caught in her lungs when the staircase they were on trembled ever so slightly. Like there was a really big explosion. “What…?” 

“That was a gas depot going up,” Rude was quick to reassure her. “The mission is going well. The mansion is being secured and the lab is fully in lockdown. They don't know what hit them.” Rebecca believed that. 

As much as it was an unexpected burden to be part of the infiltration team, she was glad that she wasn't part of the assault team. Rude did everything he could to leverage their advantages as much as possible. 

She knew that the hallways of the manor would be filled with gas, making it impossible to see, or even breathe, without a gas mask. Every step of the operation was meticulously planned out with the information they’d fed him, with every possible deviation being accounted for and back up plans created for their backup plans. After the manor was secure, Alfred's escape would be allowed to happen simply to see where he ran off too, then they would secure the military training ground as well as the prison. 

“However, there has been one deviation,” Rude continued, and that was an unwelcome revelation. “Nothing changes in regards to your mission. However, be prepared for an unexpected guest to show up.” 

“... Alright,” Rebecca replied, letting out a quiet sigh. If her mission didn't change then it was just a heads up. Nothing more than that. 

During the conversation, it felt like they had walked the better part of a mile, and when they arrived at their destination, she saw that the guess wasn't far off. She smelled the sea before she saw it, after walking a long hallway that ended with a false wall. Beyond it was a cove with a biplane floating in the water, with the exit being another false wall. The handful of scientists followed Alfred down the walkway, boarded the plane, and sat nervously as he ran through all of the system checks. 

The tension in the ship was palpable, and Alfred made no attempts at reassurance. Rebecca caught subtle glances between the others, all having their doubts but swallowing their protests simply because… they had no other way off the island. None of them intended to stay beyond that point, Rebecca suspected. All were planning to jump ship, just waiting for the storm to pass before doing so. 

Alfred lowered the false wall, and the plane took off, quickly leaving the island behind to parts unknown. 

…

There was a part of Jill that thought they were outmatched. Rude didn’t have a single good thing to say about Umbrella, but that didn’t make them half as stupid as he claimed. Umbrella’s paramilitary force wasn’t anything to scoff at. In the time leading up to the attack on Rockfort Island, she did her research -- how Umbrella recruited and trained children, or how they poached promising career military men from across the world, from various nations or mercenary companies.

They were going up against roughly three hundred veterans in the assault on the military compound. Three hundred men and women who had seen live combat, who had killed, and had a taste for danger. They were cut from the same cloth as she, Carlos, and Chris -- the kind that felt right at home when death was one mistake away. 

Rude had his plans. He had his tech. He was without a shadow of a doubt the smartest person she had ever met, even if he was a resoundingly shit liar. However, he wasn’t a soldier. He didn’t have their instincts, he didn’t have the experience, and he didn’t have their mentality. 

She was expecting a fight. Hall by hall, street by street, filled with grinding combat against some of the best Umbrella had been able to scrounge up. 

That was not the case. 

Jill felt like a veteran going up against children in laser tag. 

Smoke filled a hallway in the Rockfort Manor, and beyond the sounds of gunfire that echoed out, she heard the sounds of ragged coughing. Rude had cooked up a ‘family-friendly’ version of mustard gas -- that also cut through regular gas masks like they weren’t there. No lasting damage, no long-term effects. Just one whiff that would cause no small amount of pain, and make coordinating a counter-attack nearly impossible. 

Worse, you couldn’t even vent it normally as it was ‘sticky.’ Opening a window wouldn’t disperse it, you had to either let it settle or set up an industrial fan to blow it away.  

The gas was so thick that she could barely see her hand in front of her face, yet through the visor of the vacuum-sealed helmet she was wearing, she could see the outline of everything down the hall. And beyond it. A squad was fighting to stay in position, hacking and slobbering as they waited for a sign of her. The visor gave her an outline of the hall, the portraits hanging on the walls, even if they were stripped of detail, and even the contents of the rooms along the hall. 

It was tactical X-Ray vision, making an ambush next to impossible unless they had some way to spoof the system. She hefted her custom-made rifle that was synced up with her helmet, the auto-targeting function came online, and without hesitation, she pulled the trigger. 

Slowly, far slower than a normal bullet, five projectiles jumped from the barrel of her rifle and banked around the corner of the hallway she was in. Each bullet was equipped with an internal gyroscope and a microchip, making them ‘Smart Bullets’ as Rude called them. Also something he had shamelessly stolen, because she had played the Cyberpunk 2020 board game. 

Still, she wasn’t complaining as each bullet struck, hitting the entrenched position before they realized what was happening. Each bullet was tipped with a kinetic explosive, filling the hall with five loud bangs, and she spared a moment of gratitude that the smoke was so thick. She wouldn’t have to see the mess she'd just made. 

“East Wing cleared,” Jill said into her mic as she pressed onward, not letting her guard down just because the HUD didn’t display any enemies. She did a pulse as she moved through the hallway, which was essentially a radar pulse to detect any enemies and the structure of the surroundings. Because of it, she saw all of the hidden passages, the peeping holes, and the false walls. 

“West Wing clear,” Chris followed her up with. 

“North Wing clear,” Came Carlos’ voice. 

“South Wing clear,” said Kevin, bringing up the rear. The manor was secure, and it had been secured within minutes. Part of that was because their opening move had been to flood the manor with gas, and another part was that the island’s military was currently on the other side of the island. The lab was in a complete state of lockdown, so they could clear it at their leisure. 

It was then that Claire’s voice echoed in her ear, “We have a problem on the military side of the island. They’re shooting at something and I don’t think it’s us. Rude?”

“Flying over-... ahhhh fuck.” Jill nearly laughed at the bone-weary exhaustion that was contained in that sigh. “Well, it wouldn’t be an Umbrella base without a bioweapon escaping the petri dish. Looks like they weren’t keeping all of the bioweapons in the lab, and one of them got out. How predictable. Can I blow up the island now?”

“No- No, you may not,” Jill was quick to nip that line of thinking in the bud. It was becoming increasingly clear how limited Rude had been back in Racoon City. How he had been starved for resources and constantly forced to ‘make do.’ His true nature, it would seem, was to use maximum firepower on any and all threats without fear or reservation. “We’re regrouping in the courtyard. We need to secure the prison first and foremost.”

She got a round of affirmatives as the rest of the team rushed to the courtyard at the front of the manor -- it was a quaint little place with trimmed hedges, a water fountain, and an iron gate that was meant to lead to the bridge that Leon had blown up. As she arrived, the others did as well, and she saw variations of the armor that she wore. 

Dark gray plate armor over a black bodysuit, the plates were made out of the same graphene-adamantine alloy that the Bus was made out of, with a layer of ballistic gel between them and the bodysuit. The demonstration that Rude had put on made it clear that the plates would survive a 50. cal bullet, even if the person inside the armor wouldn’t. An issue he was intent on correcting, but the armor was all he could ‘whip up’ between his other projects.  

They moved as one, heading to the gate before they activated the thrusters on the back of their armor and their feet. Flying through the air and over the fallen bridge, Rude delivered a pulse from the Bus that highlighted everything of note on their HUD. 

She saw a handful of blue figures located in the prison area off to the side of the general camp -- one figure was highlighted as Leon. He was working to secure the area. The rest were marked out in faded red, almost to the point of being pink, denoting them as a low priority. 

Which made the large red figure that was tearing through the barracks the high priority. 

“Deploying Agent Kablam,” Rude informed as they flew over, and she saw the robot land on top of a belltower in the center of town. “I recommend that you switch to the rail gun. Whatever that thing is -- it can take a beating,” He added as they landed on separate rooftops.

She did as he recommended, hitting a switch on her rifle that made the barrel fold out before extending, becoming a rail gun. While the gyroscopes in the bullets became useless, the trade off in raw power was more than worth it. 

Dropping down to the ground, Jill and the others closed in on the bioweapon, catching it just as it flung a body through a plywood wall with enough force to reduce it to a smear on impact. From the barracks, the creature emerged.

It wasn't one Jill recognized off-hand. Tall, close to eight feet with humanoid proportions. Erupting from its back, however, were long wing like claws, while a raw bleeding eye sat in the middle of its chest. Its pale skin was marked with bullet holes, but they only seemed to go skin deep. Interestingly, the ears were tapered off into points, and when its jaws stretched open, Jill saw it was filled with needle thin teeth. It reminded her of the old Nosferatu movie she’d watched when she was a kid. 

“Target sighted,” Jill said, taking aim and pulling the trigger. The rail gun didn't have any recoil, which always threw her off. All the more so when the first bullet struck the bio-weapon in the chest and tore a chunk right out of it. The others joined suit, unleashing a torrent of gunfire into the creature, each one carving away chunks that bubbled and steamed, trying to regrow. 

It was then that Kablam, one of Rude's murder bots, took its own shot at the beast. There was a fraction of a second of warning before the top half of the creature simply vanished. Everything above its waist was simply gone, its legs falling over, but even then, they squirmed as they tried to rise. At least until Claire stepped forward with her flamethrower attachment and lit them up. 

Through the flames, Jill watched what was left of the creature wither away and die, and she could only marvel at the power that they possessed. A month ago, this would have been unthinkable. Impossible, even. Time and time again, they had faced Umbrella's monsters, creatures that were created for war. They always won, but it was always by the skin of their teeth. 

This? 

This was easy. 

The creature was no match for them, and it wasn't even close. The base wasn't a match for them either, something that was proven without doubt when her team turned on the various military forces that had been trying to survive the monster they'd just killed. The very moment their weapons were pointed in their direction, the fight left their eyes and they began to surrender. It wouldn't be all of them, of course. But enough to solidify their absolute victory over Umbrella. 

And it felt good. She couldn't imagine a sweeter feeling than what she felt with their first decisive victory over their enemy, one without cost or loss.

“Looks like you have the situation handled here,” Rude spoke into their earpieces. “There's a bit of business that still needs to be taken care of in Antarctica… and some of you can look forward to a special reunion. They took the bait.” 

For a moment, Jill's breath was caught in her lungs before a slow smile spread across her face. 

It would seem that the best day ever was only getting better. 

It was time to give Albert Wesker his just deserts.