23 Resident Evil 0 Part 2

Word count 9,513

After the revelation of Aeon's past and motivations, a deep silence fell unto the group, everyone too busy thinking of what they learned or just remembering the horrors of the past.

Eventually however, Aeon was the one who broke that silence.

"Before we go, I feel that a few more things need to be addressed."

She turned to look at him, Billy doing the same.

"First, I'm not going to reveal my more… esoteric abilities out of this room if at all possible. I am not sure if you noticed, but the cameras of this place have been tracking our every move since we arrived. This room's camera is broken, which is the only reason I agreed to show and say as much as I did."

Rebecca tensed, Billy doing the same nearby.

They were observed all along? But who-

"Umbrella?" questioned Billy.

Aeon frowned, before shrugging. "Them, or the escaped B.O.W.'s. Either way, I'd like to keep as many of my secrets from either of them for as long as possible, especially if we end up having to fight them."

Billy nodded. "Keeping your enemies in the dark is always a good idea."

Aeon grinned. "Indeed. However, I feel that I can help in other ways. Specifically…"

He turned his gaze upon her.

"You're a rookie, and it shows. You've got good instincts, and you are surprisingly good in a gunfight for someone without experience, but you need more training and more experience in fighting. The second can only happen with time, but the first I can help with. So from now on, I am going to teach you various… tricks of the trade I am in, alongside some more general advice and even just useful bits of trivia."

He looked at Billy.

"You're naturally free to listen in, and even provide your own insights whenever you have something that could help, of course."

Billy glanced at Aeon before looking at her.

Then he nodded.

"He isn't wrong, Rebecca. I understand you are the medic, but if we get separated again, I'd be less worried if you were more capable of fighting by yourself."

She swallowed, then sighed.

Their words weren't anything she hadn't noticed herself, but it still rankled to be considered something of a burden.

Only one thing to do to change that, though.

"Very well." she agreed. "I could use all the help I can get in this madhouse anyway."

Aeon smiled at her, his approval clear, before he turned serious and looked at Billy.

"As for you… Well, I can't make any promises, but I know quite a few people, and I have some blackmail material on quite a few more. It shouldn't be too hard to get a proper investigation going so that the truth will be revealed eventually."

Billy swallowed.

"You don't have to-"

"It's the right thing to do." interrupted Aeon firmly.

Billy stared at Aeon for a long moment, before nodding.

"Thanks." he said softly.

Rebecca smiled. That had been a concern she had the moment she began doubting his guilt, the fact that he was still a criminal in the eyes of the law.

But if Aeon could ensure the truth would be revealed…

She wasn't entirely comfortable about his comment about blackmail, but she wasn't going to throw stones after having just protected a criminal at the risk of her career.

"Right then." declared Aeon, opening his coat to take out some kind of high-tech device. "First things first, I'm going to give you a briefing on some of the more likely B.O.W.'s of Umbrella we may encounter, their strengths and weaknesses, and also the files I've got on some of their leadership, such as Albert Wesker. If I'm going to put my cards on the table and help you out, I might as well go all out."

Aeon threw the device in the air, and it began floating, while a 3D image of a zombie appeared.

She and Billy stared in shock at the technology he just pulled out of his pocket.

"Is that a hologram?" she questioned, looking in awe at the device and the image of the zombie.

"It is. See, I am actually working for Insight Corporation. Have you heard of it?"

She blinked. "Isn't that one of the biggest corporations in the world right now? Not as huge as Umbrella maybe, but I've definitely heard of them, yes."

Billy nodded in agreement at her words.

Aeon smiled. "Well, let's just say that I personally know and am very close to both the CEO and head researcher of Insight Corporation."

He chuckled, before shaking his head.

"So yeah, I know quite well what's going on in Insight Corporation, and we've been investigating Umbrella's true, horrific experiments for a while now. Unfortunately, they have a lot of moles and agents at every level of society, and we had to be quite careful about who to contact about the truth of Umbrella's evils. We've managed to get our own contacts throughout the government and the army, but as long as something big doesn't happen, something big enough that all eyes will be drawn to it and big enough that Umbrella can't simply cover up the truth, we can't act too overtly."

He sighed. "Not without setting off a spectacular shadow war, at least, one that might not remain in the shadows for long. And if that happened, then the other corporations will join in, which would get… messy."

She swallowed. That sounded really, really bad indeed.

"In any case, I'm going to show you some of the data we've got on Umbrella and their abominations, so listen up and listen well."

And with that, he showed them a massive amount of data over what Umbrella has been doing in secret for decades, using the hologram to better point out strengths and weaknesses of every B.O.W. he briefed them on, the sheer amount of detail making it obvious he had extensive experience fighting them.

She couldn't help but go pale as time went by, and more and more abominations were shown.

There were so many… each more horrific than the last, and the way Umbrella went about creating them was just as horrific.

People being kidnapped all across the globe and forced to go through bloody experiments with insanely high mortality rates were common, and the sheer number of facilities Aeon knew about, coupled with the data on the numbers of estimated human test subjects…

It was terrifying to see a real-life global conspiracy at work, and Billy was obviously not doing much better if the way he had clenched his hands to stop them from trembling was anything to go by.

The fact that Aeon closed the briefing by saying that Umbrella was not the only corporation in the world that did such things was really not helping, either.

This was… this was so utterly big, so utterly insane, and yet she was standing in one of those very same insane facilities, seeing the truth with her own eyes…

She swallowed, forcing down the bile rising up her throat and taking a deep breath.

She felt a large, gloved hand settle on her left shoulder, and she opened her eyes, staring into Aeon's concerned black ones.

She gave him a weak smile, and his hand gently squeezed her shoulder, sympathy obvious in his gaze.

"I'll be alright." she promised, hoping her voice didn't betray the doubts she had about those words. "It's just… a lot to take in."

He smiled sadly. "I know. Trust me, I know. The first time I had to pick up a gun was in that city, and witnessing the full truth of what humanity is capable of at its worst was…"

He fell silent, face grim and a faraway look in his eyes.

"Never again." he said firmly.

She swallowed and nodded.

"In that city… were you alone, or…?"

He grimaced. "There were a few survivors… they were very few, however. I can count the number with only the fingers of my two hands… probably with some more to spare. It was… bad. I had only myself to rely on, and any mistake meant a bloody, painful death. Still, it wasn't all bad."

He chuckled, the look in his eyes lightening.

"I've met the man who would become my mentor in the way of the Hunt there, after all… and most importantly, I met my wife there, too. If she hadn't been there…"

He fell silent, before smiling.

This time, there was a change in him. Where before he was somber, or grim, or at most sarcastic, there was a genuine joy in his eyes, a genuine emotion that was clearly love.

And a lot of it.

Rebecca was left blinking at the sight of the sheer amount of love and joy he seemed to almost radiate, so different from his usual cool composure.

"Well... let's just say I owe her a lot."

Then he shook his head, and the moment was gone, the monster hunter being all that was left to see in him once again.

"But enough wasting time. I've taught you all about our enemies, so let's keep going."

And with that he turned around and headed for the door, Rebecca and Billy sharing a look behind him.

The man before them was what she expected from a war veteran, someone who fought in countless battles yet still refuses to put down his weapons until he was certain the war was won.

She couldn't help but wonder, however, if his war would ever be fully won…

And what that meant for him.

With one last deep breath, she followed after him.

If nothing else, if she had to walk through Hell, she was relieved it would be at the side of one who called it home.

The more time passed while she stayed close to Aeon, the more comfort she was beginning to take from his presence, simply because she was starting to genuinely believe there simply wasn't anyone more dangerous in the whole world.

And she prayed that she would never encounter anything that could give even him a serious fight.

Because she held no illusions of her own chances of survival if that ever happened.

As they finally left the room where so much happened and was revealed, it did not take long for them to encounter more enemies.

Aeon held Billy back, letting her take the lead, arguing that from now on, they should act as back-up but otherwise let her gain battle experience the only way possible, by making her fight her own battles.

Thankfully, her first enemies were just two giant insects, and two shotgun rounds to their heads put them down quickly, allowing them to find a key hidden behind the monsters.

The key allowed them to open a locker containing a case with several handgun add-ons that Rebecca quickly put on her own gun.

Staring at her newly improved gun, Rebecca smiled, before nodding towards Aeon and taking point to keep moving forward.

This time however, Aeon held her back, pointing at the nearby controls for the room downstairs instead.

"It's a bit too soon to throw you down alone into what promises to be a small death trap of a room. I'll handle this one, you can use your newly improved gun to provide over watch as well as deal with any incoming zombies."

She stared down at the room below and nodded. There were a lot of cramped spaces, and someone needed to stay in the room they currently were in to open certain doors at the right time to allow passage.

Aeon thus went downstairs, picking up various items while Rebecca used the controls before her to open up a path through.

At first, everything went fine… until suddenly, the words "battle sequence initiated" echoed throughout the room, a couple of what Aeon referred to as "Hunters" (which he always said with subtle disdain) going in the same room as he did.

Rebecca didn't even have time to shout a warning before Aeon turned and began firing, one of the Hunters running straight at him, heedless of the wounds he took doing so, while the other one stumbled back from a shot hitting it between the eyes.

Rebecca's eyes widened in concern when the Hunter reached Aeon… only for her jaw to drop as Aeon used a judo throw on the Hunter and put it on the ground in one smooth motion, using the clawed hand reaching for him as leverage to do so.

Then Aeon's guns came up and executed the Hunter on the ground before finishing the other one.

After that, he took the key that was hidden in the Hunter's room for some reason, before going back to them, holding it high in triumph.

She and Billy blinked at him.

"Did you really-"

"Yup." declared Aeon, smirking widely. "I did just judo throw a giant monster."

Billy shook his head, the look on his face eerily reminiscent of the one he had when Aeon killed the giant centipedes.

Rebecca sighed, and then took point and led the way as they went to the locked door that the newly found key would at last open.

Along the way she had to put down several zombies and monsters, with Aeon giving her pointers on how to best handle any given situation.

Finally reaching a blue door, she used the key to open it, and making their way into the newly opened part of the facility revealed several undulating and rising humanoid leech zombies waiting beyond.

Those she immediately reached for her shotgun to deal with, blasting them over and over again until they finally stopped moving.

Coming into a room with a piano, Aeon took one look at it and immediately asked her if she knew how to play.

Blinking, she admitted that she did, indeed, learn to do so when she was younger.

He then nodded, went near a wall and told her to play the song that was described on several pages of sheet music on the piano.

Rather confused but trusting him to have a reason for this, she did as requested… and then the wall that Aeon was staring at open to reveal a secret room.

He immediately went in, and she traded glances with Billy, similar looks of annoyance on their faces.

"Madhouse." they said at the same time.

Aeon then returned, looking satisfied, and they kept going, Rebecca killing a few more zombies and Aeon putting some kind of stone tablet he found in the next room into one of his pockets.

Again, neither she nor Billy said anything, for they were sadly far too used to the general madness of this place to dare ask why he did that.

The answer would no doubt reveal itself in due time, it always did.

At Aeon's urging, they then made their way to the entrance of the building, going outside where Aeon took out a battery he had apparently found in the hidden room opened by the song of the piano to activate a lift, that let him get access to a wooden box that he then used to access the top of a stone pillar upon which yet another of the stone tablets was found.

Needless to say, neither Rebecca nor Billy wasted any of their remaining sanity trying to think of how that stone tablet got up there.

Aeon's amused chuckling at their dead-eyed looks only earned him both Billy and Rebecca grumbling about "this fucking madhouse."

This feeling was not helped by the fact that the next room Aeon led them to was one where several statues of animals could be found, where it was revealed that, if the nearby goblets were lightened up by flames at the correct order, then this would unlock a nearby door.

Grumblings aside, they nevertheless took the newly opened corridor, and in the first room found a third stone tablet.

The second room only held two zombies that Rebecca made short work of and the diary of one of the two now dead men who once worked there.

No new revelations were found within, only further evidence of Dr. Marcus' insanity.

Aeon then led them to an observatory room, upon which a pedestal with three clear holes for three stone tablets could be found.

With a smug look on his face, he put them on the pedestal, the roof of the observatory and a nearby door unlocking as he did so.

Going through the newly opened door, they arrived at another building resembling an old church, though the door appeared locked.

A few moments of investigation revealed the existence of a nearby pressure plate which, if kept pressed, would keep the doors unlocked.

Aeon shrugged, took a nearby vase, and put it on the pressure plate, before bidding them to enter the building with a grin.

Shaking her head with a smile, she entered, Aeon and Billy behind her.

Staring at the inside of the church, she couldn't help but frown.

There was something about this place that made her instincts scream…

By her side, Aeon stared at the church with a complicated look on his face, whispering something about… wrecking yet another holy building?

What?

Billy opened the door to a side room, coming back with several incendiary grenades, when suddenly a loud, inhuman shriek echoed across the church.

Everyone looked up, seeing a giant bat monster coming down through a hole on the roof.

Her shotgun came up, and she prepared to shoot…

Except the next time the creature shrieked, it started choking when a grenade went flying straight into its maw.

Seconds later, the giant bat blew up in a mass of blood and gore, its remains painting a good chunk of the church's floor and parts of the walls red.

"Sorry Rebecca, I kind of just reacted when I saw it open its mouth. The next giant monster is yours to deal with, if you want?" questioned Aeon, looking apologetic.

She coughed slightly.

"I think I'll be fine with you killing them, so don't worry about it." she dryly replied.

He frowned, before shrugging. "If you say so."

Then he looked at her… or more precisely, at what she had on her back.

"Say, is that the hookshot we found back at the train? Do you think you could use it to reach the hole in the roof?"

She blinked, a hand going at her back to find that yes, she had kept the hookshot on her back all this time.

She had almost completely forgotten about it, since it hadn't proved useful since arriving in this place.

But now…

She grabbed it, took aim and fired, smiling slightly when it worked perfectly.

Making her way up the rooftop, she found a ladder going down on the ground on the other side of the church, where she activated the power grid of this place, allowing them to take a nearby elevator.

From there, they found a laboratory where Dr. Marcus once performed his experiments on leeches with the t-Virus, though she had to go onward alone as the path forward required the use of the hookshot.

Billy looked worried, but Aeon only nodded, asked her to check her ammo reserves and then asked her to be careful.

Thus, after taking a deep breath, she used the hookshot, and went into the laboratory of Dr. Marcus alone.

It did not take long for her to come across more zombies, though by now she was well-used to just shooting them in the heads.

A few were actually trying to play dead, remaining on the ground even as she came closer, but Aeon's tactic of shooting any bodies in the head before proceeding forward proved useful at putting those down for good before she came into striking range of those more cunning zombies.

After activating various devices and opening various locked doors, she froze when she came across two Hunters in the next room on her path.

Yes, Aeon made short work of them whenever they met more of those, but she wasn't him.

Taking a deep breath and clenching her shotgun tightly, she raised it towards the nearest one and fired.

It immediately stumbled, but the gunshot also warned both of her presence, and it sadly didn't kill her target.

Firing again, the Hunters screamed before running at her.

Feeling her heart beat like crazy in her chest, she fired again, one of the Hunters finally dying and falling to the ground.

The next one was dangerously close however, and her eyes widened when she could see the naked hunger in its eyes directed at her.

'Remember: against monsters, mobility is the key to survival' came the memory of Aeon's voice, and she stumbled backward, the claws of the beast barely missing her.

Running backwards now, she fired, the hunter stumbling back before running after her with an angry hiss.

It suddenly jumped towards her, her eyes widening at the sight, and she rolled behind a nearby desk, the beast smashing on the ground less than a meter to her right.

Lying on her back on the cold ground, she gulped when the beast's eyes narrowed straight at her, a hiss of triumph leaving its mouth when it noticed its prey laying on the ground, and she desperately fired again, the shot hitting the monster at near point-blank range in the head, making it stumble and fall at last.

Letting out a shaking breath, she reloaded her gun, before letting her head fall back on the ground and closing her eyes, basking in the fact that she had survived on her own against two hunters… if barely.

"Damn Aeon… How the hell do you make it seem so easy?" she whispered, before getting up and on her feet with a grunt.

Staring at the body of the hunter before her, she hesitated, before the memory of Aeon always making sure that a corpse laying on the ground was actually dead flashed in her mind.

Raising her shotgun, she prepared to fire at the beast one last time-

And then it suddenly woke up and lunged towards her!

*Bang!*

She exhaled, staring at the now thoroughly dead Hunter, whose brains were scattered all over the floor.

"Lesson well learned and accepted, Aeon." she whispered, noting that yet again his advice had saved her life.

Taking a deep breath, she then kept going.

Not long after, her radio crackled to life.

"Rebecca here. Over." she replied, eager to hear from her teammates.

"It's Billy. We've found something that might make you happy. There's a cable car here."

She smiled widely. Progress!

"Really? That's great! Now we can get out!"

"Yup. Let's regroup as soon as possible. Over."

"Roger." she replied, cutting off her radio.

It thankfully didn't take long for her to rejoin her team, and the moment she did she immediately hugged Aeon.

"Thank you." she whispered in his coat.

There was a moment of silence, before he chuckled, gently hugging her back.

"I take it that my crash course lessons on monster hunting proved useful?" he questioned.

She stepped back, nodding.

"Yes. If it hadn't been for some of those…"

She shivered, remembering the look of hunger in the eyes of those Hunters as they stared at her.

Then she shook her head, forcefully banishing the memories and looking up at the aerial cable-car instead.

She smiled, before turning back towards Aeon and Billy.

"Come on, let's get out of here!" she shouted eagerly, both men smiling at her enthusiasm.

However, just as they prepared to go into the cable-car, her eyes widened when several zombie monkeys suddenly jumped down from the rafters of this place and towards them.

Her gun came up, and a brief firefight began, when suddenly Billy screamed.

Turning, her blood seemingly froze in her veins when she saw Billy go above the railing and into the water of the sewers below, one of the monkeys still holding onto his shoulders.

Aeon cursed, killed the last monkey, and then began running towards the railing.

"Take that thing and join us on the other side! I'll go make sure Billy survives!"

And then he jumped into the river below too.

For a long moment, Rebecca stared in shock at where her two companions had disappeared, struggling to acknowledge how badly things had turned in seemingly no time at all, before she closed her eyes and scowled.

They didn't make it this far to just die at the very end! If Aeon told her to rejoin them on the other side, then they would be there waiting for her.

Trying to go aboard the cable car, she noticed that the power was out, and once she went to the control room outside to check, she noticed several leeches on the ground.

Scowling harder at what she took as proof that the escaped sapient B.O.W.'s was now trying to ambush them, she turned the power back on, and finally took the damn cable-car.

As she looked out of the windows at the darkness beyond, she swallowed.

"I hope you guys are alright... " she whispered.

When the cable car finally arrived at the other side, she stepped out, threw a concerned glance back where she came from, and then kept going.

She was truly on her own now, at least for the time being, and that fact single-handedly terrified her almost as much as the various monsters she had met so far did.

It was one thing fighting them with a team, it was another to do so alone.

Remembering that Aeon apparently fought alone in that city that had so utterly left its mark on him, she felt her already high respect for him go rise even further, because if that place was even worse than this one, going through it alone had to be…

She didn't know.

And she didn't want to know.

As she kept going forward, she strained to listen to every sound surrounding her, because each of them could potentially herald her death if she wasn't careful.

Eventually coming across several monitors, she noticed that one of them still worked, and she gulped when she saw what it showed.

The monster on the screen was mentioned in Aeon's briefing as a Tyrant, one of the most deadly monsters of Umbrella.

It was currently suspended in a tank filled with liquid of some kind, probably kept unconscious for the time being…

But she feared what it could do if it awakened.

"I really need to get back to them and we all need to leave this place. The sooner the better." she whispered.

Taking the key laying on a nearby console, she used it to activate a platform elevator, going down and deeper into the facility, hoping to find her companions.

As she stepped down the platform and headed towards the nearby doors, she heard footsteps coming from inside.

Wary of whoever it was being a zombie, or worse, she hid behind the doors, waiting for them to open and reveal-

Wait, wasn't this Captain Enrico?!

He turned, his gun pointing at her.

"Don't shoot!" she screamed.

His eyes widened at the sight of her, a smile spreading on his lips.

"You're alive..." she breathed in shock, genuinely surprised to see her captain still in one piece in this place.

His smile widened, though his eyes looked at her with worry.

"I am. Are you okay, Rebecca?"

She nodded.

"Where is everybody?" she asked, now hopeful there might be other survivors.

He frowned, glancing around. "They should have arrived here before me."

He looked at her. "Haven't you seen them?"

She shook her head.

He sighed. "That's unfortunate."

He looked at the elevator platform she just took.

"If we go straight from here, we should arrive at an old mansion Umbrella uses for research."

He looked at her, nodding of the head towards the platform.

"Come on, let's go."

She hesitated, before shaking her head.

"Wait! I was with someone else." she declared, deciding to mention only Aeon. "There was someone here, investigating Umbrella's activities. We got separated, I'd like to wait for him before following you."

He frowned. "Really?" he shook his head. "It doesn't matter, I doubt whoever it is could make it. Come on, we should go."

"Sir, please. I need to find him." she smiled. "Don't worry, I'll catch up with you later."

"Rebecca, you…" he trailed off, closing his eyes and sighing.

"Alright. Just be careful." he commanded, before turning around and making his way towards the platform.

Smiling slightly, she replied "I'll do my best." before making her way towards a nearby elevator doors.

The moment she stood before it however, she heard sounds on her right, where a massive amount of rubble could be found… and now standing on top of it, a new monster stood.

She gulped.

This… this was one of those "Tyrants" Aeon briefed her on.

Taking her shotgun in hand, she swallowed hard when it roared, before jumping down at her level.

She immediately shot it in the chest, seeking to fire on the big, protruding heart-like organ on it, and it stumbled back, before jumping towards her.

Rolling underneath its claws, she got up and fired again, striking it on his exposed spine, but the monster took the shot with barely a grunt.

It turned and jumped again, Rebecca rolling underneath it once more and firing again and again.

One thing she quickly noticed was that it was surprisingly slow.

It jumped far, and it soaked up shotgun shots like a sponge did with water, but at no point so far had it bothered to run towards her. It only focused on jumping.

A fact that she ruthlessly took advantage of, as she followed Aeon's advice and never stopped moving, seeking to always keep it at bay.

It had seemingly no range capabilities after all, and while it kept taking shot after shot, it was starting to seriously bleed a lot.

Finally, it roared again, and began charging straight at her, its massive claws in front of it to protect it from bullets.

She rolled away, the tyrant smashing head first into the wall, stunning it for a few seconds.

With a snarl, she took out one of the grenades she had found in the research facility, took out the pin on it, and then ran to the monster, jamming the grenade in its chest while it was disoriented before running away.

A loud explosion echoed behind her and she jumped to the ground, her hands coming up above her head, and when she looked up, she noticed that the Tyrant was laying on its back, an impressive smoking hole in its chest.

Sighing, she got up, and then walked away.

Well, she thought with tired pride and satisfaction, Umbrella's best is apparently not enough compared to one spunky, 18-year old teenager who's really fucking tired of all this bullshit!

She snorted.

Maybe she really should look into becoming a monster hunter herself…

No one can argue that she had the necessary experience for it now! She thought with a grin.

Then she took the elevator, followed by having to bring back power to various facilities in order to keep moving forwards.

That was followed by having to go through various corridors and rooms, killing zombies at almost every step of the way, before she finally arrived at a wide room deep underground where she found both Aeon and Billy staring at something out of her current line of sight, Aeon having put a hand on Billy's left shoulder for some reason.

"Aeon! Billy!" she shouted happily, glad beyond words to see her companions alive and well.

They turned towards her, Billy's face unusually grave and Aeon's being not much better, if slightly, though they at least gave small smiles at the sight of her.

The reason for their unusual behavior became apparent when she finally came close enough to see what they had been staring at, and her left hand went to cover her mouth as a gasp left her when she saw the small hill of human bones that had to have been washed down the shores by the currents of the sewers.

She slowed down, stopping quietly at the side of Aeon as they all stared grimly at the number of dead this amount of bones implied.

"What could have done this?" she whispered.

"Isn't it obvious?" grimly replied Aeon, and Billy, pale faced, swallowed.

"They must have been used as test subjects in Marcus' research. He must have kept messing around with the mother virus." Billy declared, a faraway look in his eyes.

Aeon sent him a sympathetic look, before gently but firmly making him turn around.

"Come on. We need to keep going." he said softly, and Billy took a deep breath before nodding.

"Yeah."

She looked at them both with concern, throwing one last look at the hill of bones before turning away with a grimace.

Yet more horrors done at Umbrella's hands… she thought darkly.

As they exited the room, Aeon turned to look at her, his eyes glancing over her body to search for wounds.

Satisfied there was none, he nodded.

"No problem on your end?" he asked.

She shook off the last remnant of the dark discovery in the last room, and smiled at him.

"Well, I took down a Tyrant?" she declared, a hint of smugness in her voice.

Aeon stopped, blinking, before staring at her.

Billy did the same, before looking at Aeon.

"I thought that Tyrants were-"

"The best of Umbrella's weapons, yes. Can you describe it and your fight with it?" replied Aeon, his dark eyes unusually serious and fixed on her.

Still, she grinned, and told them of the tyrant she encountered and killed.

Aeon listened attentively, before shaking his head with a smile when she finished.

"Damn, Rebecca! Already taking down a tyrant when less than twelve hours ago a few zombies terrified you! Way to go! At this point, we might make a hell of a huntress out of you!" he declared brightly, a large smile on his face, his hand coming up to affectionately ruffle her hair.

Billy sent her an impressed glance too, nodding in approval. "He's right. You did good, Rebecca."

She grinned, puffing up her chest. "Told you I could handle myself!"

He chuckled. "Indeed."

Aeon nodded, before delivering the bad news.

"Now, we'll just have to do it again next time he shows up!"

She and Billy blinked.

"Huh? What?" she replied blankly.

Aeon looked at her curiously.

"Well, yes. Considering how good a Tyrant's regeneration is, it's probably already healed up and back on its feet. So we'll have to put it down again."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well, shit." replied Billy, a sentiment she quite agreed with.

Aeon shrugged. "It's a tyrant. It's meant to be bullshit. In any case, we should keep going."

And on that oh-so-reassuring revelation, they kept going, killing any zombie standing in their way as they went through rooms and corridors in their path out of this madhouse.

Aeon's words proved accurate soon enough however, as after entering a room with a rectangular hole in the middle full of water, potentially leading up to the sewers beyond, a massive clawed hand bursted out of said water, before the rest of the body followed.

Rebecca gasped as the monster she had hoped was killed was now standing once more in front of her, looking no more worse for wear.

"Told you." said Aeon, as he brought out his twin guns.

Rebecca swallowed, preparing herself for another fight with this thing, this time in a room where she wouldn't be able to maneuver as easily because of the hole full of water in the middle of the room…

The room…

She and Billy stared at Aeon who calmly walked towards the giant humanoid monster.

"What-"

The monster's clawed hand came down.

Aeon dodged, then shot it at point blank range in the face.

It roared, took a few steps back, and then fell into the water.

Aeon nodded, stepped back, and brought out the grenade launcher on his back.

And then he began firing into the water, saying something about "shooting fish in a barrel."

Less than a minute later, Aeon finally stopped firing, stared into the water for a moment, before nodding.

"Right. It's gone for now, so let's keep going."

She and Billy exchanged a look, before sighing deeply in tandem.

Honestly, neither of them could find it in themselves to be really surprised by Aeon casually forcing a tyrant back in less than a minute of work.

It just seemed like the kind of bullshit he'd do, in hindsight.

With the tyrant gone, it was simple enough to bring back power to a nearby gondola, though once that was done all three of them stared at it.

"Let me guess: I'm the only one small enough to get in there and reach the room we need to go to?" Rebecca said flatly, staring at the cramped space of the gondola.

There was the sound of awkward shuffling behind her.

She sighed deeply. "Fine, then. I'll get into the gondola."

And she did.

It was as cramped as she feared it would be.

At least the trip to the control room was quick, thank God for small mercies…

Once there, she unlocked the door blocking their path, activated the dam to let the guys pass from one side of the riverbed they were on to her side of it, and then waited.

Soon enough, they arrived, though Billy was grumbling about…

Giant frogs?

"Really?" she asked.

Billy grunted.

"He's just annoyed because one of them used its tongue to get his right leg and made him faceplant on the ground." Aeon revealed, snickering slightly at Billy's disgruntled expression.

She shook her head, smiling as the two began to bicker, before raising a hand.

"Boys! We still need to get out of this place. You can argue all you want after we make it out of here."

Aeon nodded. "Then lead the way, we'll cover you."

She nodded, and soon enough they were back on track towards where they hoped to find the exit.

Various zombies and giant monsters tried to stop them, but they made short work of them all.

She couldn't help but note the sheer efficiency with which they kept killing everything standing on their way now, and that included her own skills with her weapons.

Shooting monsters and zombies alike in the heads at a moment's notice was almost entirely subconscious now, something she did without even really thinking about it.

A zombie appears? Boom, headshot.

A giant monster appears? Boom, headshot.

They were still monstrous, they still terrified her… but she was so used to killing them all, now, that it was hard to be as fearful as she once was.

Again, she couldn't help but wonder if that was what Aeon felt, each time they encountered a zombie or monster.

When they had first met, he had told her it would get easier with time to fight monsters…

After so many hours spent fighting them, she could feel the truth of his words in herself.

What would it be like, if she deliberately hunted them down? Kept fighting and killing them, over and over again?

Aeon didn't even blink when the tyrant showed up, he literally walked up to it and shot it in the face.

There had been no fear, no hesitation, only calm, calculated aggression and pragmatism.

Is this what it was like, to be like him?

A hunter in a world of monsters, where things that would bring nightmares to others were only considered prey to him?

She glanced at him, noticing the way he kept calmly walking.

He was alert for danger as always, but there was no real fear in his gaze, no real eagerness to be out of this place.

As far as he was concerned, he looked almost… bored.

She shook her head. It hardly mattered, in the end.

He was here, helping her, and she couldn't deny that fact alone all but ensured that there was nothing to fear in this place.

What was that saying from the Bible again? "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I fear no evil, for the Lord is with me?"

Well, she had the next best thing to a god, in the form of a monster hunter who makes all the evils of the world look like a bunch of tryhards in comparison…

She stopped, her thought process brutally crushed before the sight before her.

The room they had entered was almost completely covered in leeches, from the ground to the walls to the ceiling above them.

"Welcome, young ones. So glad you've joined the party." came a proud, cold voice, and they turned to see the human-looking B.O.W. walking along a railing, staring at them.

"You are the guest of honor. After all, it's your wake." he declared coldly, sneering slightly.

"So. You're the B.O.W.'s who consumed Dr. Marcus' corpse, huh?" came the unimpressed voice of Aeon, looking at the man before them with only a slight frown on his face, not even bothering to look at all the leeches surrounding them.

The man's features changed, taking on the look of Dr. Marcus, and he chuckled darkly.

"Ten years ago, Spencer had me assassinated. However, something wondrous happened. It took the t-Virus inside of my queen years to give me my new life."

He changed back to the form of a younger man. "I live." he said slowly, as if savoring the words and the triumph to be found within them.

"Now, I will have my revenge on Umbrella, and the world will burn in an inferno of hate!" he shouted, before cackling loudly.

"Yeah, death, revenge, burning the world down, yada yada yada. Can we get on with the part where you try to kill us, so that we can get to the part where we successfully kill you already? Seriously, I could do with a shower and a pizza right about now…" declared Aeon, sounding thoroughly bored.

There was a moment of deep silence, as everything in the room stared at him.

That included every single leech.

He blinked slowly.

"What? Back in my day, we just tried to kill each other on sight, none of that insane speech about revenge or mad cackling involved. I can assure you, nothing of value was lost by doing so."

Rebecca snorted, before hiding her laugh behind a fake cough.

Dr. Marcus (or the monster wearing his skin) didn't appear to share in her amusement, as he snarled, his features twisting with hate.

And then he turned into a humanoid leech monster.

Jumping on the ceiling where he proceeded to stared at them hatefully-

At least until he took a grenade in the face, courtesy of Aeon who, as always, seemed hardly bothered by what was going on.

Because apparently, humans turning into giant disgusting monsters didn't warrant so much as a blink from him.

The monster screamed, before jumping towards Aeon, who casually dodged out of the way, his grenade launcher firing the second he was at safe distance, while she and Billy began firing with everything they had, too.

Various leeches from all over the place tried to attack them however, and soon enough she and Billy had to focus on the legions of leeches surrounding them instead of the fight against the monster that was probably Dr. Marcus.

The sounds of explosions, gunfire and monstrous screams echoed in the room, until suddenly all the leeches began leaving the room, their moves coinciding with a particularly loud scream from the humanoid monster that Aeon had been fighting.

There was a long moment of silence after that, until Aeon made his way back to them, grenade-launcher casually held in his right hand.

"Right, that thing fled for now. Guess he didn't like that last incendiary grenade he took to the face… or its equivalent of a face, at least. Let's keep going, it will come back soon enough, I'm sure."

He glanced at all the dead leeches, before nodding approvingly.

"Well, you certainly kept yourself busy while I fought that thing. Good work."

She snorted. "Says the guy who took on that thing essentially alone and made it run without a scratch of your own to show for it."

He scoffed. "Please, that thing was weak. Three people shooting at it would have been overkill."

He shook his head. "Anyway, let's go."

They followed him as he walked on a nearby lift, and Rebecca closed her eyes and sighed deeply when they got it activated.

Soon, they would be out of this place… but after that, there still was-

Her eyes flew open when the lift shuddered.

"What?!"

"It's the queen!" shouted Billy in answer, and when she looked downward she saw it, too.

She opened her mouth-

"The self-destruct system has been activated." came a robotic voice, and they all looked up as warning red lights and a blaring siren echoed around them.

"The self-destruct system has been activated." it repeated.

Aeon snorted. "Guess Umbrella finally sent someone and successfully activated that, huh?"

Billy growled. "Come on!" he shouted at the control of the lift. "Can't this thing go any faster?!"

Aeon looked down at the queen below and grunted.

"Be careful what you wish for, Billy, because we're about to get a boost of speed, alright! As a matter of fact, I'd heavily suggest being ready to jump!" he shouted.

Rebecca barely had the time to be worried about what that meant when the queen's body, now much larger than before, hit the lift, and all three of them went flying upwards and, thankfully, into the hangar at the top.

Aeon got on his feet first, looking up at the blaring red lights.

"Alright, we've got around five minutes before this place blows up, if I know Umbrella's systems well, and I do!"

"So what's the plan?" shouted Billy.

"Kill this thing, or at least push it back down into the hole leading towards the base, in the next four minutes! Then run like hell!" Aeon replied.

Well, she thought, that sounds easier said than done.

"Any idea on how to do that?" she shouted back, looking at the pretty massive monster before them.

It had to be, what, ten meters long now? Something like that.

And no matter how many shots she fired into that thing, it didn't even appear to notice!

Aeon stayed silent for a long moment, the sound of gunfire and grenades exploding filling the hangar alongside the screechs of the Queen Leech, before eventually shouting back.

"The sunlight! This thing is actively avoiding any area in this hangar where there is sunlight! I'll go open the roof of this place. We are lucky enough this hangar is meant to hold helicopters!"

And then he began running at the various corners of the hangar where the valves to open the locks on the ceiling could be found.

"Shouldn't Rebecca take care of that? You're the better fighter!" Billy shouted, not stopping to fire while talking.

"Bah! Let her fight, she has learned a lot since I first met her! It's about time she gets her real trial by fire!" he replied.

"And what about that Tyrant thing?" asked Billy.

"Well it didn't die, did it? So it doesn't count!"

"Not for lack of trying on my part!" she shouted back, firing as much as possible at this thing that just refused to die!

"I damn well put a grenade in its chest for heaven's sake!"

"Well next time, put two! No, three! And then burn the corpse afterward with a flamethrower if you've got one!"

She growled.

"Well you didn't kill it either, now did you?"

"Well it's your prey, now isn't it? Kill-stealing is bad amongst hunters, Rebecca! Unless it's meant to be a competition, then all bets are off!"

"Less talking, more fucking sunlight!" yelled Billy, dodging a tentacle from the abomination in front of him.

"Gladly! PRAISE THE SUN, ABOMINATION!" shouted Aeon, as the rooftop finally opened.

The Queen Leech screamed, backing away and towards the hole in the ground leading towards the underground research facility.

"Keep firing! Now's your chance!" yelled Aeon, and both she and Billy eagerly did so.

"Hey, Queenie! Feast on this!"

And then Billy fired his grenade launcher, while she did the same with her shotgun.

The Queen Leech, weakened by the sunlight, promptly exploded, its remaining body parts falling into the hole behind it.

The hole leading towards the base where the self-destruct mechanism has finally activated, the explosion engulfing the remaining pieces of the Queen Leech and annihilating all remaining traces of its existence from the world.

Aeon, Billy and herself then ran as fast as they could from the fires of the explosion, while in the distance the above ground part of the research facility blew up.

Eventually, they arrived at a hill overlooking an old mansion, Billy having finally managed to get the other handcuff off his other arm and gleefully throwing it away, down into the cliff below the hill they were now standing on top of.

He then fell to the ground, exhaling loudly and closing his eyes, obviously enjoying the moment of hard-won peace they had finally gained.

Rebecca looked out beyond at the old mansion, staring at it for a long moment.

That must be the old mansion that both Aeon and Enrico had talked about, she thought.

Aeon came to her side, looking at the building too.

Rebecca glanced towards Billy, who had now sat up on the grass, before taking his dog tags and staring at them.

"I guess it's time to say goodbye."

She put the dog tags around her neck, then looked at Billy, who was now standing up and looking back at her.

"Officially, Lieutenant Billy Coen is dead."

Billy smirked. "Yeah, I'm just a zombie now." he joked.

She looked at Aeon. "If the truth comes out about what really happened in that mission, I guess he can always miraculously survive and reappear as a very much living man… But until then…"

Aeon nodded, before taking out a notebook and a pen, writing a few quick pages worth of numbers and names, before tearing the pages out and handing them to Billy.

"Here. There are the locations of a few safe houses that you can use, a few bank accounts that you can help yourself with until it's no longer required, that kinda stuff. Use it well."

Billy took the pages, before looking up at them both.

She smiled… and then saluted, Aeon doing the same after her.

Billy swallowed, before saluting back, his eyes shining with grateful tears that he was holding back through sheer will.

She held little doubt she was no better, not after everything they went through together.

Then she turned away, walking rapidly while her tears finally flowed free.

Behind her, Aeon and Billy shared a look, and Aeon nodded, silently promising to look after her in whatever may yet awaits them.

Billy nodded back, and Aeon turned and followed Rebecca.

"Thank you, Rebecca, Aeon.'' Billy said, giving them a thumbs-up like Rebecca did back on the train, before turning and walking away.

His only mission now was to find a way out of the forest and to go back to civilization.

For Rebecca and Aeon however, their mission was not over yet.

The Umbrella Research Facility was gone, and with it the monsters inside.

But the Spencer Mansion yet remained with its own hidden monsters and revelations, and the woods of Raccoon City would not be safe until it was cleansed of beasts, too.

Thus Aeon could hardly leave this place yet, while Rebecca needed a place to rest and recover from the incredibly taxing night she just went through.

As she and Aeon made their way towards the mansion, she swallowed.

"There will be more zombies and monsters in it, isn't it?" she asked softly.

Aeon nodded. "I am afraid so. We've won the first battle, but the war is far from over."

She considered that.

A war, huh?

Somehow, she had a feeling he wasn't talking about just the mansion up ahead.

As she remembered the events of this night, and wondered at all the ways it had changed both her and the course of her life, she made a decision.

"Once we are truly out of this… Would you be willing to take me as an apprentice?"

Aeon glanced at her, his face grim.

"Are you sure about that, Rebecca Chambers? To be a hunter is to walk with death and madness. There are worse fates than death as you now know, and there are secrets I have yet to reveal which will change the way you will look at the world and reality as a whole. So are you certain?"

"Secrets greater than zombies, giant monsters, and global conspiracies?" she wondered.

"Yes." he replied firmly.

She fell silent.

"Aeon… when you talked about that city, you mentioned a place called 'the Tombs of the Gods.' Does that imply…?"

He smiled.

For a moment, she wondered if his suddenly glowing eyes were a trick of the light.

"How much are you willing to sacrifice for the power and knowledge required to keep Humanity safe, Rebecca?"

Again, the memories of a night full of monsters created by human hands flashed throughout her mind.

In a world like the one she lived in, after what she had learned during this terrible, nightmarish night…

There was only one answer to give.

"Where do I sign up?"

Aeon chuckled darkly.

"Let us survive the mansion and its horrors… and then I shall answer that question. For now, we'll find a room for you to rest in and recover. Then… then, the hunt shall go on for yet another night."

And despite everything she had gone through so far, those words still brought a shiver down her back.

For there was a promise in those words, a promise of horrors beyond imagination and bloodshed beyond comprehension.

And she had a feeling that one day, she'll understand that promise.

In all of its terrible greatness.

Still, she tried to smile at him.

"So, should I call you 'Master' from now on, since I'll be apprenticing under you?"

He grinned at her.

"Ha, the last woman who called me that was Lucy… though she had a very different reason to use that word."

She blinked.

"Well, do you remember when I mentioned that I was close to the CEO and head researcher of Insight Corporation? Well, the researcher is my wife… and the CEO is our lover."

She stumbled.

Aeon's smile widened. "You heard correctly. Let's just say that my wife is... attracted to both sides of the fence, and that while I may be the only man for her… she is quite happy about me bringing female lovers to our bed."

He hummed. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if my wife, Oedon, was actually going down on Lucy as we speak. Not that I would blame her. I'm having my own fun, after all, no reason she doesn't find hers while I'm busy."

Rebecca coughed. That was…

Something, certainly.

Though she could certainly see the appeal he had, because by God was this man a straight up 10/10 in terms of looks.

Handsome didn't even begin to describe him...

"So Rebecca, with all that being said, and on a totally different subject… with me being your new 'Master' now, what are your thoughts on bondage?" Aeon said, glancing curiously at her.

Her eyes bugged out, and she choked on her own spit.

Having a man as good-looking as him say that to her was certainly a new experience.

Despite everything, the mental image of it flashed in her mind, and she gulped.

"Forward, much?" she wheezed, trying to get her breathing back into control.

He shrugged. "When you live every moment of your life as if it was your last, you learn to appreciate straightforwardness."

She considered that for a moment.

After the night she had, she could certainly see his point.

There was something about nearly dying countless times in a row which changed your perspective quite a bit.

She glanced at him… and then, taking her opportunity with courage using both hands, grinned.

He was right after all. In a world as dangerous as the one they lived in, she was very much unwilling to die with regrets and "what-ifs."

"Well, I did say I'll be apprenticing under you…" she replied invitingly.

Aeon chuckled, his eyes twinkling. "Indeed you did, Rebecca."

"Indeed, you did."