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The last time that anyone would want to go on a mission to take down a bioterrorist underground facility was in the month of December.
It was awful timing, two weeks away from Christmas in the Big Apple and the weather had been a classic winter despite the proximity to the coast. No huge nor’easters beyond the one that ambushed the city in October, just regular snowfall two days a week. Instead of Christmas shopping and enjoying the lights, the Hound Wolf Squad found themselves getting packed and briefed for a mission with an agitated Alpha.
Nobody knew what was under his skin that day, but something was brewing. Watching as he checked and re-checked weapons, ammo, and med kits, the Wolves weren’t sure if it was safe to poke the Bearfield or not. Leon S. Kennedy took the decision from their hands as he walked over.
“Chris, what’s up your ass? You’re scaring your pups again.”
Chris paused his inspection and eyes darting to his Squad before hitting Leon with full eye contact and a serious expression.
“I have a bad feeling about this one.” That grabbed Kennedy’s attention immediately.
“How bad?”
“…Edonia bad.”
“Shit.
Chris just nodded, not missing the small flinch from Piers in his peripheral vision. Rubbing his face, he checked on the last few items that included some anti-virals Rebecca slipped him for a worst-case scenario that he really didn’t want to think about right now. He was about to say something else when his phone rang with the default setting a cell has. Checking it, his brows knit further before answering it.
“Have you been arrested and this is your one phone call?”
“No.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, hungry though.”
“Then it isn’t an emergency?”
“No. You told me to quit fuckin’ with your phone, so I generously complied, Big Boy.”
“Then I’m hanging up and you call me properly.” Chris did exactly that. Less than thirty seconds later his phone started singing loudly.
”You and me, baby, ain’t nothin’ but mammals. So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel!”
Tundra dropped her pack as it registered with the team who was calling.
“That better, Big Boy?”
“Don’t ever call me with a normal ring again.”
“Roger that, loud an’ clear. You deploying soon?”
“Half an hour.”
“See you there. Hunnigan said there were Lickers present from the thermal imaging, maybe a Tyrant.”
“...Be careful West.”
“Greet the pups for me!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Minnesota in December was both beautiful and abominably cold.
“Why the hell would somebody pick the outskirts of Minne-fucking-sota as their base of operations to jack up the world with viruses?” Umber Eyes muttered. “Why not some place warmer?”
Leon snorted as he overheard, walking with the Umber and clearing rooms as a member of the team for the first time ever. No lone wolf activity, it was too damn cold and there were too many screwed up lab creations roaming around the underground facility based on the thermals he’d studied. Plus, he was looking forward to Christmas this year; heading to Redfield’s for dinner for the first time in a few years.
The man could cook. Leon liked to eat. Sue him.
“It’s not any better in the hotter places. You have to deal with heatstroke, dehydration, and an unwavering case of chronic swamp-ass. Plus mosquitos.”
“Point taken.”
The comms crackled to life from Tundra and Lobo.
“Eastern wing is cleared. Nothing but some bloody smears, no sightings of any Lickers on this side yet.”
“Keep an eye out, and if you see a figure that isn’t a mutation don’t shoot.” Redfield responded as he walked with Piers towards the western wing.
Umber looked over with a brow raised in question.
“Ah yes, the resident six-foot-nine Shadow Daddy is here somewhere. He probably already cleared half the Lickers out.” Leon quipped.
“I’m telling West you called him that later.” Chris almost smiled.
“Sir, this is Night Howl and Canine. We’ve got some unusual activity here. North corridor.”
“South is cleared. Beta and Umber are on the way to your location.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Night Howl and Canine could hear a few Lickers close by… Not in the vent system, but the scraping of claws on the concrete floors and walls was enough to raise the hairs on the backs of the necks. The entire corridor was barely lit, only two or three light bulbs straining to light more than a thousand feet of length. The hideous creatures were coming towards them, but how close was an impossible thing to tell. Rifles up and ready, they made slow progress to avoid getting ambushed. But something in the atmosphere of the hall changed.
A deep, bass growl from somewhere behind them caused the scrabbling of mutant claws to stop. The growling grew closer, before something emerged beside the Wolves from the darkness and took off running through the shadows in the direction of the now screaming Lickers that were fleeing back to where they came from.
“What just happened?” Canine thought he saw a male figure illuminated at the end of the corridor pursuing monsters.
“Something scared the piss out of those B.O.W.S. and left us alone. That’s what I just saw. I’m calling it in.”
In about six minutes, they were joined by Kennedy and Umber Eyes. Seeing their uneasy looks, Leon cut right to the heart of the matter.
“Big, dark, and growling?”
“Sir…?” Canine wasn’t sure he just heard that right. The description was both on point and far too familiar for him to be comfortable with how easy those words came from Leon’s lips.
“Did the Lickers run? When you heard and saw what you did?” Night Howl nodded.
“Yeah. Exactly that.”
“That means this area is about to be cleared fully. We can head through to central, there won’t be any more.” The comms hummed to life again.
“Team this is Fenrir, the western corridor is blocked completely, appears to be collapsed like imaging said. Secondary exit is compromised.”
“All members meet us at the central doors.” Redfield ordered.
“Why are there no corpses when we’ve walked through cleared areas?” Umber asked to no one in particular.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The central doors could not open manually, no matter how much elbow grease Kennedy and Redfield put into prying them open. The electronic console was destroyed and coated in what could only be described as a smear of B.O.W. effluence. There were huge gashes carved into the floor that traveled under the doorway to where the HWS needed to go. Not like something had been dragged, but that seemed to be the way the monster walked.
“We’re going to have to blow the door open. These are magnetically sealed and there’s no way we’re going to pry them apart in the next twenty years.” Chris grumbled as he opened the pack with explosive ordinance.
“That’s not a problem; we’ve got enough C-4 with us to send the whole place sky high.” Leon was already on it, making sure to set it up so that only one half of the double doors would open. Best to try and bottleneck anything that might try to greet them with too much enthusiasm from the other side.
Positioning themselves far enough to be away from the blast and fanning strategically to shoot enemies, the door was soon open. Proceeding through with caution, it was clear that the B.O.W.S. created by the would-be Umbrella impersonators had…redecorated the room with the scientists that birthed them.
Intestines littered the central lab like some form of perverted sausage, bone fragments and twisted limbs all over the room, and enough blood to form a small lake. No signs of the monsters responsible in the actual room, but there was a tremor of an enormous crash from the secondary laboratory on the left. What sounded like an explosion and a roar ripped through the air.
The comms quietly sparked again with music of all things…
“I feel so untouched and I want you so much, that I just can’t resist you! It’s not enough to say that I miss you…”
“West needs help. Now.” Redfield growled leading the team carefully over to where the commotion was coming from.
“Goin’ crazy from the moment I met you!”
“Look alive, there’s more than one target here.”
What greeted them was the music fading and a creature straight from nightmare fuel; an abomination of what might have been a Cerberus at one time, merged with a G-Virus-fueled Tyrant. Twenty feet tall, six limbs, too many claws, too many eyes, faces distorted into a rictus grin and patches of rotting fur spread over its distorted body.
Two of them.
To the left of the monsters and getting their full attention was West, who grunted as he stood up from the crater in the wall his body had made upon impact. A wicked-looking black scimitar was in his left hand as he spat blood on the floor before charging the closest monster, dropping to slide in the blood that spattered the floor to get under it.
“Oh shit.” Kennedy was running to go help West after a nod from Chris.
“Wolves focus on the secondary target, West and Kennedy have the first.” Redfield barked, springing the team into action.
“Mind the tail! Infectious barbs!” West bellowed from underneath the monster he was playing slice ’n’ dice with.
“West! There’s a piece of rebar skewering your gut!” Leon was shooting eyes and dodging swipes.
“Ya think?! I thought it was a new piercing, Boy!” Off went the tail.
Meanwhile, the Wolves and Alpha were shooting the eyes with a frightening precision, dodging limbs and moving about as fast as possible to take the abomination out. What
seemed like an eternity later, desks and lab equipment strewn like pebbles around them, they’d neutralized their B.O.W. and were checking for more as West and Kennedy finished off theirs.
Night Howl and Tundra were checking on the computers for any data that could be retrieved about the experimentation that was going on, as well as for any sort of anti-viral data. Downloading files as they found them. Lobo secured the remaining samples from cold storage.
“Injuries?” Redfield called as he walked towards West and Leon.
“Green.” Tundra.
“Green.” Piers.
“Green.” Night Howl.
“Green.” Canine.
“Green.” Lobo.
“Green.” Leon.
“Yellow.” West.
“Red.” Umber Eyes groaned.
Hurrying over, Redfield knelt in front of Umber’s seated form on the floor close to the exit. It didn’t take too long to notice the wide gash that was scraped across the soldier’s chest, the edges and blood already discoloring and seeming to ripple in an unnatural movement.
“Fuck. Status on what they were doing here?”
“Hybridization of G and C Viruses. Somehow managed to get a strain of T to stabilize them, Alpha. Incubation period after infection is under two hours.” Tundra’s voice was grim as she looked over.
“Any vaccines?”
“Negative.” Night Howl’s voice was pained.
“Alpha?” Umber Eyes’ voice was strained as he looked to Redfield, pale and sweaty with labored breathing.
“Here, Elba.”
“It was an honor to serve with you.”
Redfield was about to respond when West sighed and made his way over.
“There will nay be dramatic goodbyes today, Pup. Wind your neck in an’ lemme help. Just don’t fuckin’ shoot me for this, alright? Got an extra hole as is.”
The Wolves were about to ask what he meant when West groaned and ripped the rebar that was pierced through just under his navel, tossing it to the side. He knelt behind Umber Eyes with blood streaming from the wound, wrapping an arm around the man’s middle and trapping the dominant arm down, the other hand gently tilting his head to the side.
He bit into the side of the exposed throat.
Umber bucked weakly and shouted at the sudden pain, the rest of the Wolves raising guns immediately to take West down.
“STAND DOWN NOW!” The Captain roared.
The team watched as West suckled and drank for nearly a full minute before there was a sight they could not explain.
The wound on Elba’s chest had stopped moving and was returning to normal color; the blood that had blackened the gash was starting to sluggishly bleed a healthy human red once more.
Pulling away from Umber’s neck, West took a knife from his pocket and made a slit along the underside of his forearm, close to the center. From it welled a pale lavender fluid, and he pressed the wound to Elba’s mouth.
“Drink or you’ll bleed out.” He growled.
Not being given a choice due to shock and being restrained by West a second time, he swallowed a few times, taking what flowed in freely for several seconds before West pulled away.
The gash was sealed up, skin closed and looking like a weeks old scar, twin silvery puncture scars on the side of his neck.
Moving away from the Wolves, West passed a tired hand over his face before checking on his own extra hole. Not bleeding anymore, but definitely a wound that needed cleaning and care.
“He’s clear, but the cat’s outta the bag, Red.”
“Sure is, West. Thank you.” His voice was quiet, sincere.
“Be seein’ you later, Big Boy. Thanks for the meal.”
West left the lab, the Hound Wolves stunned in frozen silence.
“Not one word of this in the reports or to another soul.” Chris gritted out as he stared down the Squad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the transport back, Piers rubbed the scars on his own neck.
“So…” He looked to Leon.
“Yeah.”
“...Did you know and just redact the information?”
“No.”
“Did Alpha know?”
“Not sure how much he knew, beyond that West helped.”
“What is West?”
“All I can tell you is that he calls himself a B.F.F. and is a virus’ worst damn nightmare.”