//------------------------------// // 21 - Some Minor Changes // Story: Without You // by Dustchu //------------------------------// Speed. That was my middle name. Speed. No one was as fast as I am, no one ever will be. That didn't make things any better for me. I had blasted off away from that human and left Dee with him, to go and find the ingredients to make that cure so Dee could live. I wasn't thinking, I was just focused on finding and getting the things, and they were in some underground place or something, like a cave or a basement. But where would that be at? Where would the entrance underground be hiding around a place like this?! It wasn't like a bunch of hills or valleys I could search, it was a city like Manehattan! A maze of concrete and glass I had to look through. The area was small enough, so it had to be nearby if it was under the main building! I just had to find it, I just had to! I blasted off into the air to get an eye in the sky and look at everything, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary from up here. I was so high up, I could see the whole city, and it was on fire; buildings were crumbling from the flames, those loud sirens echoed through the monster-filled streets, and from what I could see, it looked like entire groups of those things were headed this way. It was a nightmare and I was living in it. I have to find those things and get us out of here; if those things get here before then we're screwed! There was no way we could fight them all off; they're too big, too packed together and I could barely fight! I shook my head and kept flying around, trying to find the way to that underground thing. He said we needed three things, P something, and uh... some kind of poison? Some blood I think? I couldn't remember exactly what they were, just that they were important. If they're so important I should be able to find them. No sweat! As I was flying around, I landed near the water on a rickety-looking pier and looked around, maybe it was nearby? I recoiled when one of the planks tried giving way, creaking under my hoof and weight. The whole thing looked like it had seen better days; the water lapped at the pillars holding it up, a few of the planks had already fallen into the water. This thing is falling apart. I couldn't let that stop me, and I kept moving across to get to the other side. It went around the water where a few boats were floating in the water, but no one was on board any of them. With the fog rolling in and the silence all around me, it made everything really spooky, and I couldn't stop the chill from going down my spine. The water splashed nearby, I just barely caught the noise. Another splash and the surface of the water was torn asunder with a mighty clap. A monster appeared from the depths of the water with a silent roar, its maw opened wide and showing its jagged razor-sharp teeth. My body moved before my brain did, and I launched myself off of the pier and into the air, a powerful flap of my wings sent me flying backwards into the air to avoid him. The thing slammed its full weight onto the pier, shattering and splintering the wood until it gave way and sank into the water below. It was a shark... A fucking shark. How many creatures could this virus turn into monsters? The shark plummeted into the murky waters, taking half of the pier with it and vanishing from sight. I swallowed the knot in my throat and kept myself in the air, even flew up a bit higher. Of all the places to end up, I get thrown into this nightmare. The aches and pains across my body just reminded me of everything I had gone through in this place, every wound I've received, every bruise I've gotten, everything hurt. I wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer, exhaustion was creeping up on me and I could feel it with every movement and every burn. I got to keep moving... I keep getting distracted. I flew down towards the main building nearby, and I saw a door leading inside. I took a moment to land near it and take a breather. I'm so tired, shit. I blinked and shook my head, I was starting to sound more and more like Dee, with his curses. Heh, it hasn't even been that long and I'm starting to sound like him. I blinked and felt sweat coming down my brow, and it hit me how hot it was outside, uncomfortable, sticky... I felt disgusting, and looking down at myself I was reminded of the bandages I was wearing, dirty and mucked with brackish stains. Blood, and most of it was mine... Most of it was mine. The blood on my hooves wasn't mine, that was... a monster's, someone that was alive, but turned into a monster. I shuddered as I approached the door. I heard something that made me stop, a thumping noise. It grew louder and louder by the second, faster too. Debris flying by the side of my head after the wall caved in caused me to freeze up. In between the broken-up brick and stone, a huge grey figure was glaring right at me; with cold emotionless eyes. Sliding out of the building, it kept stomping forward before sliding to a halt and turning around to stare at me again. it was huge, hairless... Once it hit me what this thing was, my body finally reacted to what my brain was screaming at me. MOVE! My wings extended and I shot up, flying into the building to get away from it. I should have flown up and away, but I went inside! Stupid! The hallway was narrow, and I could see a lot of bodies lying around, it took me a second to realize I couldn't keep flying in here, it was too narrow! Too many things hanging, too many of those things moving around. I folded my wings to my sides and dive-bombed through a pair of those monsters, my speed kept them from grabbing me but I felt them brush by my hide. I spiraled and landed on my hooves, and slid forward before using the momentum to rocket forward and away from the monster behind me. I didn't need to look behind me to know he was chasing me. I kept fighting off the urge to look behind me, I didn't want to see it. Fear gave way to reflex and I couldn't stop myself from glancing behind me. The thing was charging through the zombies like a runaway train, he swung his arms from side to side and slammed a few of them into the walls, cracking the concrete with sheer force and muscle power. Every stomp shook the ground, the sounds he was making triggered my flight response and all I could think about was; Get away! Get away! The hallway took a sharp turn and I skidded to a halt, just barely avoiding a black rope hanging from the ceiling. I sped past it, almost slipping in the water that flooded the floor. "Move out of the way!" Someone shouted. In those few split seconds, I saw one of those other humans Dee and I were with. The one in the green shirt and backpack. She had her hands on a switch and was staring right at me, and at the beast closing in behind me. My instincts fired up and I knew something bad was going to happen. I flared out my wings and jumped up, took flight and kicked off of the wall, and twisted my body to avoid the thing from grabbing me from behind as he closed in. The human had flung the switch hard, and the hairs on my body stood on end, I felt it in the air. Lightning. Pure lightning shot out from that black rope, and a loud pop crack crackled through the air as the smell of ozone filled my nose, and I just barely avoided getting hit by it myself. I landed from my spin on the ground and spun to face the beast and the human, the water had conducted the electricity and traveled up through the giant's body, and even he couldn't stand such high voltage. His body convulsed as arcs of white blue electricity danced across his mutated skin, frying him from head to toe. Smoke escaped his body as the current ended and he fell to his knees, before finally hitting the ground hard. The human had rushed over to him once it was over, where she knelt down. I swallowed and walked over to her. "W-what the heck was that?! You can control lightning?!" I asked her and peeked over her shoulder to see what she was messing with. There was some kind of metal claw buried into the back of this thing, and a container filled with... blood? "No, it was a loose electrical wire," She told me and pointed above, to the rope sticking out of the ceiling. When I looked back down, she had pulled the container free. "I just turned the power on and shocked him, to get this-" she held up the container to me, sloshing the blood around. "W-what is that?" I grimaced, why would anyone need that? That's disgusting! Her next words though, that's what got my attention. "To create Daylight, the cure for the T-Virus." I balked, that was one of the things we needed to cure Dee?! He had told me there were three base components we needed to create Daylight, I didn't know that this was one of them... Looking at the thing, I guess this was Thanatos, the Tyrant Dee was talking about earlier. This was one of those bioweapons someone had made, for money and power he told me, and I shuddered. This was way worse than any sword or spear, even magic wasn't this monstrous; I don't see how anyone could do something like this and think it's okay. She stood up and stuffed the container into her backpack before looking towards me. "George told me you're after Daylight, for your friend, right?" My friend. I thought about Dee, and the pain he's got to be in right now. It was closing in how close he was to death's door, and if I didn't hurry, he was going to- I swallowed and nodded my head. "Yeah... I gotta save him." I looked down the hall, and swallowed as I looked past the fencing and all of the junk lying around. "That's one of the components down, so now we need two more to make Daylight..." "George found the blueprint for making Daylight in his partner's underground study, we need two more but the location of them isn't marked down anywhere." She told me and pulled out one of those handguns, and pulled the slide back. "If I had to guess, the other two are somewhere underground..." I looked at the far wall, where a pair of old rusted doors waited. "How do you know?" When I turned to look at her, she looked away briefly. "It's hazy for me... but—" she started to walk ahead of me, and I followed, "—I used to work for the Umbrella Corporation, the ones responsible for this catastrophe." That alone caused me to stumble over my own hooves. She picked up the pace, and I tried to speak, "w-wait, what?! You worked for the guys who did this?! All of this?!" "I did." "S-so many people have died because of this!" I shouted at her, and she stopped. "You think I don't know that?!" She shouted right back and glared. "I know what they've done... what I helped create! That's why I'm going to do everything I can to put a stop to them! So that this doesn't happen again!" I glared at her, I wanted to yell at her more... but I backed down. Any fighting we were about to do stopped when we heard a growl from where Thanatos was, and when I looked. I saw him getting back onto his feet. “Shit, run!” the girl shouted, raising her handgun and pulling the trigger—the loud booms causing my ears to ring before I turned tail and ran for it towards the metal doors. Just our luck he wouldn't stay down! I rushed for the doors and immediately noticed a problem, no door handles to grab onto! How do you open this thing?! I searched all around it, but no handle, except for some kind of panel on the side that had two triangles on it, and one was upside down. I didn't know what it was but I hit the upside-down one. It clicked and lit up, and the doors opened! I rushed inside, ready to keep running, but it ended up a wall, what was this a closet?! The girl had rushed in behind me, and I turned to tell her it was a dead-end but she hit one of the numbers I saw on the wall, and the doors closed around us, trapping us inside. "W-what the heck! Now we're trapped in he-" A thunk sounded and the lights flickered, and the closet we were in jostled, and my senses told me we were going down. This thing moved? I felt we were headed down, but to where I had no idea. It didn't take long before there was a loud ding, and the doors slid open, and ahead of us was a completely different area. I saw a hall ahead of us, with old lights flickering on and off. It was a dreary-looking route, but it was the only one ahead of us, so we had no choice but to keep moving ahead and try to find those other two things we needed. I took the lead and moved into the hall, and kept an eye and an ear out for anything. I wanted to find these other two ingredients and get back to Dee, before it's too late. Back Above Ground I felt weightless and I didn't like it. Everything around me burned like the fiercest flame, crawling up and down my skin. The sweat didn't help, making me feel sticky and clammy all over, and my clothes as well, the armor didn't help. God, let it end. I managed to open my eyes briefly and only saw hellfire, or maybe that was a ceiling? It was hard to tell with the virus tearing me apart from the inside out. My stomach had other plans, and it was a short trip for me from whatever I was laying on to leaning over and puking up whatever was in my stomach, as hot bile ran up my throat and out onto the floor below me. I retched, dry heaving until it stopped and everything in my vision cleared up, and I saw where I was. In the main lobby of the college, rather, below it, in the secret hidey-hole of Peter, George's colleague. I spit and wiped my mouth before looking around, and I noticed George was nearby on the computer, likely rifling through his friend's files. The body of Peter was nearby, on the floor with a lab coat over him, the best they could do for him at the time. Kevin was in the room as well, and he had apparently gotten the same idea as me and had looted the bodies of the UBCS members, he was consolidating magazine ammunition together. Cindy was next to me, and she had a worried look in her eyes. "A-are you okay?" I spit again, away from her. "P-peachy." I struggled to get up, but the burning pain in my joints and the nauseating ache in my stomach fought against my efforts. "Fuck..." "I'd take it easy," George spoke up from where he was. "The anti-virus wore off, so it's only a matter of time before the inevitable happens... the more you move the faster the virus will finish its intended purpose." "H-hopefully it won't, if we just g-get Daylight," I muttered and coughed, before sitting up and shuddering. My body didn't like anything I was doing, and Cindy taking off the bandages didn't help, at least until she pulled out a piece of paper with powder on it, three colors mixed together. She gave me a look, and I just braced for it before she started to put it on my wound along with a clean bandage. It burned like a motherfucker. "Yoko is currently out looking for it, as are Jim, David and Mark. Kevin, Cindy, and I stayed behind to assist you." George told me, before adding, "Alyssa had gone elsewhere, I don't know why, but I hope she comes back soon." I winced as Cindy finished bandaging my wound, and I let out a tiny sigh of relief as the concoction she made started to work, at least a little bit. I looked over to George, Alyssa was MIA? Weird she'd ditch like that when everyone was so close to getting out of here. I'm sure there was a reason why that was, but I had no fucking clue what it was. I shuddered and tried to keep my shit together as Cindy stood to dispose of the bloodied bandages and used medicine in a trash can nearby. Even in an apocalyptic scenario, she keeps it clean. It was funny. In a few hours or less, it wasn't going to matter. I swallowed and checked myself, but aside from the infected wound I had, I was doing decently. I had a few bullet holes in my armor, the bite mark, but the bite was the only real injury I had. I could still move, but it would take an immense amount of effort to do so. I was so close to turning, the virus was moving through me faster than I would have preferred it to. Daylight was still far off, as far as I knew none of us had any of the base components, and Yoko could be dead... Wait. I blinked when I realized something. Rainbow wasn't in the room. "W-where's Rainbow?" I looked at the group, and only George turned to look my way. "That's the name of the uh... creature?" He asked, and put a hand to his chin in thought, before sighing. "She had rushed off to try and find the components to develop Daylight, and Yoko had gone after her. With any luck, they'll have found some leads and return with the components in hand." George didn't look so positive about his theory, however. "But we have another problem." Shit, she went after the cure? That dumb idiot! "That problem is?" I had to ask. Kevin decided to pipe up this time, "something called Thanatos got set free." He told us and racked the slide of the MP5, before setting it aside. "As if that wasn't bad enough, in the time you've been passed out, a helicopter crashed in the parking lot and there's a fucking... I don't know what it is." He looked disturbed, and that didn't help my nerves any. "Some kind of mutant blob lumbering around outside, gobbling up bodies and trying to get inside, we have no idea what it is." "Another of Umbrella's sick experiments, no doubt," George commented and nodded. "A twisted amalgamation of human life set free to prey upon the weak." "That's Umbrella for you." I struggled to get up off of the couch, and I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. Despite the fiery pain I was in, I still stood up. My third or fourth wind? Who knows at this point. "So we got two of those things on the loose, along with zombies... fantastic." George finally got up out of the chair, and approached. "You shouldn't be standing, your wounds-" "Look, I'm gonna die one way or another, I ain't going out lying on a couch like a bum." I looked around until I found my shotgun leaning nearby, and I grabbed it before racking a shell. "If I'm dying, it won't be in here... and right now my f-friend is out there and probably about to get herself fucking killed for my sake." I groaned and checked my pockets until I found some shells buried away, which I slid into the shotgun loading chamber with a click-clack. "I gotta go find her before she gets hurt, or worse." I started for the stairs and made my way up, and I heard George about to protest, but Kevin stopped him. "Kid's right, doc. I'd rather go out fighting than waiting around, besides, the quicker we kill those things, the easier it'll be for a rescue chopper to land here, we can't exactly escape if the place is swarmed with monsters." Once I reached the top of the stairs, I was about to make my way to the service halls that led underneath the facility, to try and find Rainbow and Yoko, maybe Alyssa as well. The cold steel of a gun barrel being pressed up against my head, stopping me in my tracks. I felt my heart leap up into my throat, and I froze as the sudden threat of death made itself known. "Going somewhere, are we?" That voice... it didn't sound familiar in the slightest. I knew every voice, I had almost everything in Resident Evil memorized, so why did I recognize this voice? Who was this? My eyes flicked to the right where the figure stood, and I saw the business end of a Colt 1911, but the wielder of it was someone in a nice looking clean-cut black suit and tie. Their hair was black, slicked back, and they wore a pair of eyeglasses, and a pair of solid blue eyes peered out at me... they were almost unnaturally blue as well, and that threw me off. This guy. "Trying to," I replied to him, and did my best to steel myself. I turned my head briefly, and he slightly let off on the gun, but he kept it pointed at me. "Who the hell are you?" I heard Kevin come up behind me, but I couldn't move to let him by, so he could only just stand there with his gun at the ready. I don't know if this guy knew about him though, so if we played this right, we might have an advantage here. His mouth just stretched into an unsettling smile, and I felt dirty all of a sudden. "You've become a rather interesting individual to my employer." An Umbrella thug? I swallowed again, and heard some shuffling behind me. "Your employer...?" "I believe you already know." He told me, and ran his thumb over the hammer of the gun. "Did you really think you could talk about such things and escape from this city unscathed?" "Say what exactly? I haven't said anything dude." I told him. He had to be some Umbrella thug, but how would he know I was the one talking about anything? He answered my unspoken question. "This entire city is connected by a series of cameras equipped with audio capabilities." He explained and pulled the hammer back. "We've been monitoring everything that's been going on since it began, from day one... the release of the virus was intentional, but you already knew that didn't you?" He glared at me. "Your knowledge is impressive, but did you foresee this event?" Shit... no one really knows about that except Rainbow. I had no idea about the city being rigged, guess that was something I missed, or I decided Operation Raccoon City was non-canon, I guess it is canon. He knows everything I've ever said apparently, and with their equipment they've been tracking me through the whole damn city. "So you've been tracking me, huh?" "Since we discovered the colorful... creature you've been with, yes." He told me and stepped around to face me, and eyeballed Kevin behind me. "how about you and your friends come out of hiding." He raised a hand and snapped his fingers, and the sounds of a dozen boots filled my ears, and before I knew it we were immediately outgunned and outnumbered by a bunch of USS goons. Goddamn it. They were heavily armed too, they weren't using MP5s or any low caliber arms, it was all fully automatic assault rifles with underslung grenade launchers, tactical scopes and laser sights, full gear. I had to move forward, and then Kevin approached, gun in his holster and MP5 slung around his back, George and Cindy walked up next. We were cornered. I was surprised he didn't make us lower our guns, but with how this was going, even if we tried firing back we'd be torn to pieces before we could even blink. "The thing that troubles me the most is how you know so much, despite not being a resident of this city, or even having accessed our records or files." The man spoke, before lowering his gun and allowing his men to take up that issue. "You are clearly no special agent belonging to the US, or any foreign power, yet you have access to information that is classified to individuals working at the very top of Umbrella's chain of command." He chuckled before he adjusted his glasses and faced me. "You are an interesting individual, and to top it all off, you spoke of being from a completely different world, as was the creature you were with." I don't know why that worried me. It's not like he could do anything with that information, no one could, so why bother bringing it up? "It's amazing..." He started to laugh, and his eyes widened. "To think there are other worlds out there with life... intelligent life." He tucked his gun away into his jacket pocket, and instead pulled out something else, a small black brick-like device. "All of this has been recorded, it will be interesting to see what we can do with such information... I'm curious to see what we can do with that equine you've been traveling with." That struck a nerve with me, anger swelled up in my stomach and it took everything I had to keep it at bay. "You don't get to fucking touch her, let along look. You stay away from her." "Much more interesting would be finding out how magic works." He chuckled gleefully, almost childlike as he continued to glare at me. "The way you and the creature talked about it, it must be so interesting~. I'll have to acquire her for Umbrella's usage-" "Don't you fucking-!" I screamed, and raised my shotgun. I was ready, ready to blast him to pieces. My brain realized too late how stupid this idea was. The guns being aimed at me stopped me, and I heard him clicking his tongue. "Ah ah ahh~ I wouldn't do that." He clapped his hands before a beeping noise sounded, and he looked down at the brick he was holding, probably some comms device. He smiled, again and said, "I think it's time we wrapped things up here." He hit a button and the front doors outside opened up, and for a second I thought it was Thanatos coming in to fuck up our shit, maybe give us all a chance to escape. It wasn't, it was something potentially even worse. Cause first of all, he doesn't open doors. In stomped a monster I wasn't expecting to see, let alone at the college and away from his programmed mission. At eight, nearly nine feet tall, covered in a protective and thick layer of cloth that was riddled in bullet holes and scorch marks, and carrying a massive weapon that no human could wield was a genetically enhanced monster built for one purpose... Eliminating S.T.A.R.S.