Word count 13,370
"Ow."
Leon grunted in sympathy towards Ashley as he slowly got up, the bulldozer they were on having crashed into a nearby building after a bunch of cultists rammed it with a bus.
Thankfully, there were no cultists around to take advantage of their momentary dizziness, so that was good.
Leon shook his head one last time, then scowled.
"Right, we need to keep going on foot. Come on Ashley, let's move, and fast- I have little doubts that the cultists are running towards this building as fast as they can.
"I'm coming!" replied Ashley, sending one sad look at her trusty bulldozer before following after him towards the nearest door.
Leon opened the door-
And then froze at the sight of who awaited on the other side.
Saddler stood at the end of the room, surrounded by a number of heavily armed cultists, and they all were looking straight at him and Ashley, who had frozen in fear at the sight.
"I can feel them, growing ever so strongly inside you…" the mad cultists leader whispered, his eyes fixed on Ashley.
"Saddler!" Leon shouted, raising his plasma gun-
Saddler raised a hand, and Leon stiffened when Ashley suddenly put her right hand on his wrist with inhuman strength.
"Now… come to me, Ashley..." he the cult leader said softly, and Leon grit his teeth when he saw her move towards the man as if in a trance, her eyes shining a bright blood red color.
"Ashley…" he growled, and acting quickly he threw a tracker on her back, before returning to his stand-off with the cultists all standing ready to fire at him.
Saddler gently took Ashley's right hand, and then guided her towards the nearest exit with him at her side.
"Dispose of the American." Saddler declared, before leaving the room with a mind controlled Ashley.
Leon snarled. With Ashley mind controlled and so many cultists in the room, trying to save her would have been far too dangerous. The risk that Ashley might get wounded in the ensuing fight was too great.
Still, now that she was no longer there…
The group of cultists had no time to press the trigger of their weapons before Leon ducked and rolled into cover, before he started blasting.
First, he needed to kill these guys. And then, he'd have to stage yet another rescue mission to get Ashley back.
Aeon dammit, how many times do I need to save her before I finally get her to safety?! He thought incredulously, while bullets started flying around him.
Leon carefully moved forwards, his instincts screaming that danger awaited in this wide-open room of some kind of factory he was now in.
He stopped in the middle of the room, his right hand slowly moving towards the knife over his shoulder, the familiar grip of it bringing some comfort even as the screams of his instincts grew greater.
He suddenly turned, taking a combat stance, his eyes narrowing upon the form of the tall military man staring back at him with cold, merciless eyes.
And then his eyes went wide when the man moved, holding on a pipe in the air for added length to his jump, and Leon barely avoided being skewered upon the man's knife as he came down upon where he stood a second ago.
Leon immediately got back on his feet… before pausing at the feeling of something warm falling down his right cheek.
Passing a fist over it, his eyes narrowed grimly at the sight of blood. The man's knife came incredibly close to killing him outright, obviously.
"It's been a long time… Comrade." coldly said the man, standing up and looking coldly at Leon.
Leon blinked in shock. "Krauser?!" he exclaimed.
The man grinned. "I died in a crash two years ago. Is that what they told you?"
Leon said nothing at first… and then scowled. "The government, yes. But Aeon recently told me the truth: that you switched teams for Wesker. That you are the one who kidnapped Ashley. That you craved the power of the viruses and now, of Las Plagas!" he growled.
Krauser chuckled. "Aeon, huh? Figured he knew all of that. And good on you to know better than to doubt him. After all, we both know where we come from."
Leon tensed when Krauser made his move, falling back then slashing forward, a few slashes and stabs sent by both sides being barely avoided before they both paused, expressions grim.
"What do you want?" questioned Leon. After all, Krauser had been satisfied with not making a move… until now.
Krauser attacked, and they both exchanged a few stabs and slashes, but neither were able to hit the other.
"The sample that Saddler's got, that's all!" Krauser finally replied, and Leon used his knife like a sword, deflecting his former comrade's strike to the side and then stepping back.
"Leave Ashley out of this!" he said firmly, his eyes never leaving his former friend.
"Oh, I needed her to buy Saddler's trust in me. Like you, I'm American." Krauser replied, before kicking an old barrel of oil at Leon, who batted it away from him, and then once again used his knife to deflect Krauser's attack.
Blade practice with Aeon is really paying off, Leon noted but otherwise focused on regaining his footing and being ready for the next attack from Krauser.
Leon didn't exactly want to kill him. They had been teammates once, friends even, but it was obvious that their mission in South America had changed Krauser greatly… and not for the better.
Still, he couldn't help but get angry. Krauser effectively just told him he'd kidnapped Ashley, seen her brainwashed and more just for… what, gaining powers? Becoming a monster?!
"You got her involved just for that?!" he shouted, before for once actually attacking Krauser, his knife slashing right, then left, then right again, Krauser's blade deflecting his attacks…
Until Leon turned, switching hands to hold his knife mid-air and finally managing to get a long, if sadly superficial cut across Krauser's torso.
Krauser stumbled back, quickly looking down at the red, bleeding cut on his chest before looking up at Leon with a dark scowl.
The man charged, knife hitting knife before Leon took the man's right arm and then twisted it, both men dodging punches and knife slashes before finally coming to just glare at one another while both held the other's weapon back away from their faces.
Then Leon gasped when Krauser twisted his entire body and successfully kicked Leon in the back, sending him flying and then crashing on the ground with a pained grunt, his knife flying out of his hand somewhere above his head.
"All for Umbrella's sake." Krauser whispered, and Leon's eyes shot towards him in surprise.
"Umbrella?!" he exclaimed incredulously. Umbrella was finished- or damn close to it!
Krauser grimaced. "Almost let it slip." he grumbled. "Enough talk. Die, comrade!" he shouted, before jumping towards Leon.
If Leon hadn't been trained by Aeon, he might have been caught off-guard.
As it was, however, "Think fast!" was pretty much one of the golden rules of survival whenever training involved Aeon in any way, shape or form. The man seemingly delighted in setting up situations where you didn't have time to plan, only react.
So Leon put his feet unto Krauser's chest… and then pushed upwards and above.
Krauser's eyes went wide as he began flying above Leon, before roughly crashing on the ground several feet away from Leon, who didn't waste a second getting back on his feet and getting his knife back in hand.
The two of them, once back on their feet, eyed each other warily, neither all that eager to make the first move this time.
"Well now, starting the party without me? I'm hurt."
Their heads turned towards the newcomer, their eyes widening.
"Ada!" shouted Leon, while Krauser scowled at the woman pointing her gun in their general direction. "Ah, damn, the bitch in the red dress." he growled.
Ada stared at them both… and then pointed her gun at Krauser. "Looks like we have the upper hand, here." she said smugly.
Krauser scoffed, then jumped far higher than physically possible for a human, retreating back towards a nearby exit.
"You may be able to prolong your life now, but I can assure you that you won't be able to escape your inevitable death, Leon." Krauser declared with a sneer, before running away.
Leon stared at where he was for a few seconds, before putting his knife back in its holster.
"You two know each other?" asked Ada, who came down to his level and was now calmly looking at him.
"More or less. Maybe it's about time you told me what you are doing here?"
"Maybe some other time." declared Ada, walking away.
"It's the sample that Saddler has, isn't it?" Leon said, putting two and two together easily enough.
Ada paused.
Leon snorted, then glared at her.
"Come now, Krauser admitted that that was what he was here for, and Saddler almost killed Luis for it. It isn't hard to see what's going on here. I'm not entirely sure why you and Krauser aren't working together, but either way it's obvious what you're here for. Ada, you've seen what's going on here! You really think that Wesker needs that kind of thing in his hands? Think of the horrors he could unleash!" he said loudly, angrily even.
Ada stayed unmoving, then turned to look at him.
"You were always a smart one… but there is a bit more going on here than what you think you know. Good try though, A+ for effort."
And then she left without another word.
Leon snarled, but after a moment he just shook his head angrily.
He had no time for this- he needed to get to Ashley before it was too late!
He kept moving, coming across a door which led to-
He paused, blinking.
Much of the factory he was in was old and full of rust…
But from one moment to the next, he was now in front of a white hallway with not so much a single speck of dust, and actual laser beams acting as protections against anyone trying to go beyond.
And if he wasn't wrong, those lasers could cut off a man's limbs like a knife through butter.
"Well, I guess I now know where the cult's money went. But in that case… What are you hiding there?" he whispered, before moving forwards.
He had to do some acrobatics to get to the other side of the corridors while avoiding the moving laser beams, but once again his training with Aeon made certain that his agility was more than sufficient to the task.
And on the other side he found-
A throne?
"Seriously?" he deadpanned.
Then he glanced at the throne with a considering look.
"I've hung out with Aeon far too much if I'm thinking about this." he muttered, but his eyes still didn't leave the throne.
After a long moment of hesitation, Leon sighed and sat on the throne, taking a good posture for a villain plotting something.
His eyes narrowed.
Hmm… this is surprisingly comfortable, he mused, noting that the throne was obviously made for comfort in mind.
Then he shifted position to be on the side, arms crossed behind his head and feet dangling in the air, a smug smirk on his face as he thought of Saddler's face if he could see Leon right now.
Aeon is truly corrupting me, he couldn't help but think in amusement, before eventually sighing and getting up.
"And of course there is a secret elevator behind the throne." he dryly noted, not even surprised anymore.
Leon glanced around, half expecting to see a white cat somewhere too, but no such cat was found.
With a shrug he took the elevator, eager to find out what secrets and revelations could be found at the end of it-
The elevator arrived at the destination.
"Hey there! What are you buyin'?"
And Leon stared with an utterly dead look in his eyes as the shady merchant grinned at him, waved and shouted in greetings.
This is all your fault, Aeon. I don't know how, but it has to be! He mentally screamed.
Despite his exasperation at what had to be Aeon's idea of a joke at his expense, Leon nonetheless moved onward deeper into the cavern, eager to find any secret of Saddler.
Leon paused as he entered a wide open cavern, before his eyes fell on something glinting on the ground.
Rushing closer, he knelt to pick up the tracker he had thrown at Ashley's back when she had fallen under Saddler's control.
"Ashley…" he whispered.
*CRAAAAAASH!*
Leon was sent flying backwards as the wall on his left suddenly exploded towards him, his eyes widening as a monstrous mutant appeared from the resulting cloud of dust, the creature looking like a mix between a human and an insect from the waist down.
The monster roared at him, and Leon scrambled to his feet, took his plasma gun and began firing.
The first shot made the monster stumble backwards with a pained roar, while the second made a smoking hole in its chest.
It roared in agony… and then violently mutated, a massive limb sprouting from its back with two massive claws beginning to slash wildly around it.
Leon pressed the trigger again, but this time the monster dodged and began digging into the ground with its new claws, disappearing in seconds.
"Shit." he cursed softly, tightening his grip on his plasma gun and waiting unmoving, a bead of sweat falling down the side of his face as he tried his best to feel any movement from underground-
There!
Leon jumped backwards, a second before the monster violently bursted from the ground where he had just been standing, claws whipping around in its desire to kill him.
Leon didn't waste a second to begin firing, a shot impacting it's torso, and then another, and then the monster went back under ground.
Leon licked his lips in anxiety, his heart beating face as he tried his best to prepare for the next time the monster would burst out of the ground to try and kill him.
"I hate borrower-type B.O.W's." he grumbled, squeezing a bit more tightly than recommended the handle of his gun-
The monster bursted out of the ground with a screech, Leon barely jumping back in time to avoid his chest being open from neck to hips, his finger instinctively pressing the trigger of his gun.
The weapon glowed, and then spat a pale blue bolt of death that hit the monster right in the face, blasting more than half of it out of existence instantly.
For a moment, the monster froze… and then Leon fired again, whatever shreds of the monster's head remained quickly being disintegrated under the heat of the plasma bolt.
Leon sighed deeply in relief as the monster fell to the ground dead.
He looked down at himself, seeing the faintest white scratch mark on his belly… and his upper clothes, unquestionably cut in two by the monster's claws.
Leon swallowed at how close he had been from being disemboweled, and then took a grenade a threw it at the dead monster once he made sure to be out of the blast radius.
"Fucking Borrower-types B.O.W's." he cursed as the grenade exploded, incinerating a good chunk of the remains of the monster.
After a moment he shook his head, took a deep breath, and exhaled.
"Right, Ashley. Hang on, I'm coming."
With a determined scowl, Leon kept walking onwards.
Leon began speeding up, and then outright ran once he began hearing the sounds coming from around the corner of the cliff he was on.
He had found his way out of the caves, once more being on the island itself, and now he could hear the increasingly loud sounds of war being waged.
When he finally turned around the corner, he couldn't help but freeze, staring at the sight before him with wide eyes.
Before him stood what once was a full-on town on the island, with stone buildings everywhere and enough space to house hundreds, probably thousands.
No longer.
The entire city was seemingly on fire or turned to rubble, explosions echoing even now while the craters of dozens, if not hundreds of explosives littered the area.
The air was rich with the screams of the dying and the enraged cultists, the seemingly never-ending explosions, and above all the sounds of gunfire.
Whether shooting bullets, lasers, or even plasma, the night sky was filled with the sounds and sight of gunfire being exchanged from every corners, and Leon could see the remains of countless trench and defensives positions bombed or littered with cultists corpses.
In the distance, he could even spot what had to be a few Hunters, if the massive fireballs, lightning spells and more lighting up the sky was anything to go by.
Massive, hulking mutated monsters could be glimpsed across the city, either dead and blown to bloody chunks of flesh or still alive and trying to charge outwards at the ISIS soldiers surrounding the city.
Leon's eyes caught sight of something glinting in the night sky a second before he flinched back when what had to be a full artillery strike from somewhere hit part of the town, which blew up in a rather spectacular fashion and made his ears ring for several seconds from the shockwaves.
The area in question seemed to almost go silent for a second… Before the combat returned in full, surviving cultists popping up from trench and holes where they had managed to survive to fire back at cautiously advancing ISIS soldiers, who wasted no time taking cover in the rubble and returning fire.
An area outside the city suddenly began lit up with laser and plasma fire, and Leon could just barely see dozens of Borrower-type B.O.W's come out of the ground in the middle of a group of ISIS soldiers to engage in a truly brutally all-out melee.
Leon had to flinch back again when one loud explosion outright vanished an entire building nearby, and he was pretty sure he recognized the missile having exploded as one of those thermobaric weapons Aeon had mentioned in the past.
For a long moment, Leon simply stared at this vision of war stretching out before him, his ears ringing from the sounds of battle and the screams of the dying, his eyes jumping from flashes of light from laser and plasma fire to that of impressive explosions from what had to be a very liberal use of explosives.
Then again, there are no civilians to worry about here, he thought, only monsters in human flesh… if they even still look human, he considered as he noticed a number of cultists with heavy mutations try to sneak towards ISIS' lines, only for a second artillery barrage to wipe them out of existence alongside the entire neighborhood they were in.
"Impressive, isn't it?"
Leon jerked back, his eyes narrowing at the man now standing a few feet from him.
"Krauser!"
His old teammate smirked at him. "Look at this, Leon. The power of viruses and parasites against the power of human civilization at its strongest. Isn't it beautiful to watch?"
Leon frowned, before glancing back at the war below.
Then he snorted. "Yeah, and I'm pretty sure humanity is winning."
Leon chuckled. "Too afraid of ISIS to try and go down there, Krauser?" he mocked.
Krauser sneered back at him. "I have nothing to gain from fighting ISIS. Let them clean up this trash, the world belongs to men far greater than Saddler could ever be."
"Yeah? And what do you intend to do by restoring Umbrella?"
"To bring balance and order to this insane world of ours." Krauser replied, taking his knife and beginning to circle Leon, the two men soon standing in a tense stand-off.
"A psycho like you can't bring order or balance." Leon coldly replied. "The men and women fighting Saddler's cult down there can, but certainly not the likes of you."
"You don't seriously think that a conservative mind can chart a new course for the world, do you?" questioned Krauser, a mocking tone to his voice.
Leon sneered back. "By conservative, I think you mean sane, Krauser."
Both Leo and Krauser rushed at one another, knives flashing through the air as clang of metal hitting metal echoed while the war below continued to echo as background noise of the conflict between two old friends.
"What do you think you're even fighting for, Leon?!" growled Krauser after he got a slight cut on his right cheek from Leon's knife.
"My past, I suppose." he replied.
Krauser scoffed. "Umbrella."
The two went back to fighting, punches and kicks mixing with knife slashes and stabs as both men scowled at one another, cuts and scrapes slowly growing in numbers upon both.
Eventually Leon decided to take a risk, and when Krauser went for a stab instead of deflecting it with his knife, Leon let go of his weapon and then used the split second of surprise from Krauser to take his arm in his hands and twist.
"Gah! Bastard!" shouted Krauser, his arm spasming in pain and his grip on his knife releasing from the pain.
Leon didn't waste time, taking the falling blade mid-air and bringing it up into Krauser's side.
The man's instinct saved him from the worst of it, but he still shouted in pain as Leon's newly acquired knife cut a deep, bloody path into his right side.
For a moment both fighters stared at one another, Krauser with a hand over his wound and Leon holding tightly on his new knife, before he scowled at him.
"Surrender, Krauser. It's over."
"Like hell it is." the man growled, before removing his bloodied right hand from his side and holding it up in the air.
"Raaagh… RAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" he screamed, as Leon stumbled back from the sight of Krauser's arm heavily mutating until it turned into a bloody, extremely long sword-like limb, the man looking at it with equal amount of awe and glee.
"Witness the power!"
Leon stared at him and his newly mutated arm, and truly realized how far his old friend had fallen.
"You've completely lost it, Krauser." he said, grief and determination both in his voice to grant his old friend peace from his folly the only remaining way possible: through death.
Krauser looked back at him with a grim look.
"Prepare for your death, Leon." he said coldly, before jumping at him, trying to impale him on his mutated arm.
Leon rolled backwards, letting Krauser's arm sink into the ground instead, and Leon wasted no time shooting at Krauser with his plasma gun.
The man took cover behind his arm, the shot hitting him and making him scream in pain as his mutated flesh melted.
Leon shot again, though this time Krauser knew better than to tank the blow, and instead dodge before rushing straight at Leon with murder in his eyes.
Leon fired at his feet instead, but Krauser jumped over the explosion of heat from the shot hitting the ground and once again tried to impale Leon on his arm.
Leon's eyes narrowed as he dodged to the right, considering the fact that Krauser kept trying to use his arm instead of anything else to kill him.
A few seconds of dodging and fighting later, and Leon confirmed his suspicion: Krauser wasn't thinking rationally anymore, fighting more like a beast than the experienced soldier he was supposed to be.
Leon spent a second to grieve over how badly Krauser had damned himself, before he began ruthlessly exploiting that weakness, deliberately leaving openings in his guard to make Krauser think he might be able to stab Leon, only for those openings to be traps which Leon ruthlessly exploited instead.
Eventually Krauser stumbled backwards, and Leon shot his limb to forcibly move it away from Krauser's body… before his next shot hit him straight in the heart.
Krauser gasped, his still human hand coming to his chest to grasp at the new hole in it, his bloodshot eyes staring wide-eyed at Leon… and then Krauser fell face first into the ground.
Leon stared at him for a long moment… and then sighed.
"Krauser… You could have stayed with the good guys, you could have avoided all of this." he said sadly.
Then he took one of the plasma grenades he had kept for the most dangerous enemies, and threw that at his old friend's body once he was out of the blast radius.
A second later, and the plasma grenade did its job, utterly incinerating Krauser's body until only ash remained.
"Sorry Krauser." said Leon, "But Aeon told me to always be extra paranoid with infected people with greater mutations, and honestly I can't help but agree. And it's not like I can arrange a burial with you like this, so cremation it is."
He kept staring at where his old friend was, before sighing and nodding at him.
"I hope that Aeon or whoever is in charge of your soul won't be too harsh on you. Hopefully things will go better for you in whatever next life you will get. I owe our friendship enough to try and give a good word for you to Aeon, at least."
That said, he turned and walked away.
He had a V.I.P. to get back, after all.
When Leon tried to go towards the nearest exit of the city, because he seriously doubted that Ashley was in this mess, Saddler wouldn't have endangered his prize tool for world conquest like that, he was stopped in his path by finding an outpost with over two dozen heavily armed cultists in it.
Leon hid behind a rock big enough to hide him, cursing slightly.
"Shit. If I need to go in the city right now, It'll be like walking through a war zone. But two dozen heavily armed cultists at the same time is a bit much-"
He froze when he heard the sound of incoming artillery barrage, before kneeling a second before they hit the outpost.
Screams and explosions echoed for several long seconds, until things went quiet once more…
And then when he looked up he saw Aeon with a dozen ISIS soldiers looking from a nearby top of a cliff at the burning outpost, his gun casually coming down to gun down a trio of survivors.
"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you want artillery on your side, and not the opposite side. Things are so much easier when you are the one with the big guns… or in this case, with the warship holding the big guns." he said smugly.
Aeon glanced towards him and waved. "Hey, Leon! Keep on your current path, and you'll find Ashley… eventually. Do you mind if we serve as back-up for a little while? The city already has several Hunters in it on top of ISIS troops, and the guns from the warship we took for support, I'm pretty sure they'll do fine on their own."
"I won't say no to more and bigger guns." Leon joked, getting out of the rock he used as cover.
Aeon smiled. "See? Now that's a wise man! Now come on, let's go help this honorable knight save his princess!"
Leon rolled his eyes at him. "Do you have to say it like this?"
"Is anything I said factually wrong?" he replied smugly.
Leon opened his mouth.
Closed it.
"I'm not a knight, and she's not a princess?"
"She's the daughter of arguably the most powerful human being in the world, and you're you." he calmly pointed out, before pausing. "Try and disagree, and I'll fucking knight you myself!" he warned.
"You-" Aeon raised an eyebrow.
Leon swallowed his words. You aren't a king, he was going to say, but:
He was a god, which was arguably even worse;
Aeon might go and become an actual king just so he could knight Leon.
He wouldn't put it past him to do that just to troll him.
"Let's just get this over with." he said instead, ignoring the smug smirk on Aeon's face at his words.
Of course, just because he was going out of the city itself didn't mean they didn't run into even more cultists.
The opposite, in fact, as they apparently were going straight towards a cultist base important for Saddler, which meant the path leading from the city to said base was chock full of cultists and outposts.
Ones very well equipped and prepared for any assaults.
Which is how they all ended up having to let Aeon charge first at one point, since he was the only one capable of surviving going through the kill zone the cultists had set up, with turrets and snipers and more.
It lasted a full total of one minute against Aeon.
Apparently, he had decided to get a bit more serious than usual in honor of the sheer effort of the cultists in trying to stop them, so when he rushed out of cover to be fired at by dozens of cultists with guns, heavy turrets, RPGs and more, Aeon had fired back with two plasma guns.
Both of them scoring a dozen headshots with each press of the trigger.
Somehow.
The sheer, utterly mind-blowing slaughter that ensued could hardly be described with words, as rockets fired were made to explode mid-air, or while still in the rocket launcher, same with any grenades thrown, and Leon swore it felt as if a good chunk of the mountain suddenly went up in flames as every red barrel in the area exploded in shockwaves of flames.
Cover meant nothing in the face of a man with a plasma gun, unless you were behind some very thick outcropping of rock, and it showed as the entire base they were in went from being a death trap to any newcomer into a slaughterhouse for cultists in seconds.
Once the ISIS soldiers saw just how badly mauled the enemy was, they rushed behind their leader, deadly accurate shots killing off any survivors as they made their way deeper into the enemy lines.
Leon himself didn't hesitate to join in, killing off any cultists foolish enough to poke their heads out of cover where he could see them, until all the cultists were dead and they were now facing a thick steel door.
Aeon glanced at the heavy specialist of his team, who stepped forward, holding a very big plasma gun.
The man pointed at the door… and fired.
And Leon blinked as the door and the ground for a dozen feet behind it outright melted instantly.
He whistled.
"That's… some serious firepower."
Aeon laughed. "You should see the real fun toys we came up with in Insight Corp! This is mild compared to them."
Leon frowned "You aren't using them here?" He waved the island around them.
Aeon shrugged. "A bit, but many of them are still in the prototype phase. Though…"
He glanced at the man with the heavy plasma gun, before making a decision.
"Why don't you give Leon that? I'm sure he'll find something worth utterly obliterating out of existence." he said with a smirk.
The man visibly slumped in depression at his leader's words, but did give Leon one of his weapons.
Leon blinked at the sight of the glowing green gun, since he was used to red or blue usually.
"What is it?"
Aeon smiled.
It was wide, full of teeth and absolutely, utterly gleeful.
"Ever heard of a grav-gun, Leon?"
Leon, after separating with Aeon and his soldiers, decided to try that new "grav-gun" of his.
He pointed it at a cultist… and fired.
He blinked when a green glowing ball sped up towards the cultist… and then it hit.
And then he blinked again when the cultist's insides became the cultist's outsides.
"Huh." he said numbly, looking at the rather impressive mess that was once a cultist, then at his gun.
Another cultist appeared.
He fired.
The cultist jumped to the side… only for the green glowing ball to turn and follow after the cultist.
Guts and organs and blood promptly showered the area around where the cultist stood in a radius of several feet… at least.
Leon nodded.
"That looks-"
A five man group of cultists appeared.
Leon charged the gun up, something Aeon told him he could do, then fired in the mass of bodies.
The entire mass promptly turned into a new modern art representation of what gravity could do to flesh and bones when harnessed for war.
It was… very impressive.
And spread across a very big area.
Leon whistled softly.
"Right. So that's what Insight Corp. decided as their new trump card against infected who really, really need to die."
Leon smiled.
"Now I can't help but wonder how this gun would have fared against some of the things in Raccoon City…"
He mused on that for a moment, before hugging his new gun tightly.
"I want my own." he deadpanned.
Leon carefully went through Saddler's base, hearing the sounds of combat in the distance.
If he wasn't wrong, Aeon and his team were currently trying to deliberately draw away from him as many cultists as they could in order to make Ashley's extraction easier for Leon.
Which he definitely appreciated. He already had to go through far too many tunnels, an entire prison area and more just to get where he currently was, and even with the lesser amount of enemies in his way he still had to kill around two dozen cultists so far.
True, his new weapon made things easier, but still!
Arriving in front of two heavy steel doors, Leon made sure he was as ready as he could be for a trap…
And then he entered the next room.
His eyes immediately went to Ashley, bound in some kind of medical tank in the center of the room, but otherwise seemingly uninjured.
His eyes then scanned the room, but seeing no one else he quickly walked towards her-
"You seemed so determined to choose death, when you have no idea of the power that could be yours."
Leon turned, his grav gun fixed on Saddler who somehow managed to sneak up on him.
"I'm taking Ashley back." he coldly replied. "Whether you like it or not."
"Ah, the audacity of youth." Saddler remarked-
Leon's eyes widened as suddenly Saddler moved, and the only reason he didn't get thrown back like a rag doll in the air was his training with Aeon, allowing his instincts to be fast enough that he just barely got out of the way of a palm strike at his torso.
Saddler frowned slightly, before trying to punch him again, Leon barely managing to duck and dodge-
Until he failed.
"Gah!" he coughed, stumbling back from a hit in the stomach which made it hard to breath from the sheer strength of it.
Saddler smiled-
*BANG!**BANG!**BANG!**BANG!**BANG!*
And then jerked violently when his body was repeatedly shot at by a lasgun.
He stumbled back, while Leon glanced up, his eyes widening at the sight of Ada on a platform above with a lasgun in hands, laser bolts tearing into Saddler by the dozens.
Their eyes met, her lips quirking up, before she stopped firing, her eyes turning to look coldly at Saddler.
"Leon, now!" she shouted, and he nodded, before hitting the release button on Ashley's containment tank and taking her in his arms.
He glanced back at Saddler, whose body was smoking heavily, a low growl coming from his throat as his whole body trembled.
Leon had the bad feeling he was far from dying, unfortunately.
Their eyes met, and Saddler grinned cruelly back at him.
"Move!" screamed Ada, and he wasted no time, taking the blinking Ashley by the arm and shouting at her.
"Let's go!" he declared, before leading her out to a nearby entrance leading up deeper into the facility.
Saddler began walking towards them, and Ada wasted no time firing into his back.
The lastbolts tore into the man's back, but to her surprise and frustration barely slowed him down.
She snarled, before her eyes caught a few red, explosive barrels near the entrance.
With a cold smirk, she fired at those.
*KA-BOOOM!*
She grinned in triumph when the explosion created enough destruction to block the passage, trapping Saddler in the same room as her.
Leon glanced back, seeing the way the entrance was now blocked, before dragging Ashley forward with him.
"Leon… Leon?!"
He glanced at Ashley, relieved to see her rapidly gain focus on the here and now.
"Ashley, you're alright?"
"I'm fine, yes. What about you?" she replied, her eyes trailing over him like she expected him to be hiding any wounds.
He grinned back. "I really could use a pizza and a good beer, or something stronger, but for now I'm fine. Now come on, the further away we are from Saddler, the better."
She shuddered. "Yeah. That guy is a creep. But…" she bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I just… I couldn't do anything, he just-"
"Shh. It's alright, okay? Don't worry about it. I got you back, you're still yourself, we'll get you all better somehow, I promise."
"Maybe I can help? For a fee, of course, hehehehe."
Leon and Ashley jerked, staring wide eyed at the shady merchant staring at them from a nearby dark corner.
Ashley pointed at him with wide eyes.
"How… What… The Hell are you doing here?!"
"I go wherever the customers are, of course!" the man cheerfully replied. "And speaking of which, you seemed to be having issues. Anything I can help with?"
"Not unless you know where we can find a way to cure Ashley of the parasites in her body, no." Leon replied with a snort.
"Oh, that simple?" calmly replied the shady merchant. "Sure, I can indicate to you where you can find the equipment for it, it's not even that far, as long as I'm paid for it of course."
Leon and Ashley stared at him.
The shady merchant calmly stared back.
"You… know how to cure me?" said Ashley, voice trembling from the sheer hope in her at the news.
"Sure. What are you willing to pay for directions and instructions for the equipment for it?" the shady merchant cheerfully replied.
Leon blinked. "Wait, how do you have that equipment? Or-"
"I don't have it." the man replied, "But Saddler does, and I know where it is and how to make it work."
They stared at him.
Then Leon pinched his nose.
"So, do you already have a price in mind, or…?"
The man seemed to glow with smugness.
Ashley sent Leon a desperate, yet hope-filled look that she could be saved after all.
I don't how, but it has to be your fault somehow, Aeon. he mentally grumbled.
"Pleasure doing business with you!" shouted the shady merchant, while Ashley all but skipped forward in an attempt to get to the equipment already.
Leon grunted, reading quickly through Luis's notes that somehow, someway, the merchant had gotten his hands on.
"So, will it work?" Ashley asked when he was done reading, a storm of emotions in her voice.
He grimaced.
"Well, do you want the good news first or the bad news?"
"... The good?" she hesitantly replied.
Leon grunted.
"Theoretically, it will work. The bad news…"
He sighed.
"It will hurt immensely, and you might die from the procedure."
"Oh." she said weakly, voice barely above a whisper.
"Yeah."
They kept walking in silence, eventually finding the lab they were headed for.
Ashley took one look at the equipment in it and blanched.
It was not top of the line medical equipment, to say the least.
"This hunk of junk is what can save me?!" she shouted, voice slightly hysterical. "I-I don't know, Leon, this is-"
"There's only one way to find out." he replied firmly.
Ashley fell silent, staring at the seat with binding on it to prevent someone from escaping it mid-procedure.
"So either I'm doomed to become a brain-dead parasite's meat suit, or I might die in agony. What a choice." she whispered, voice thick with despair.
"Ashley-" he said softly, but stopped when she took a deep breath, raising a hand.
"It's fine. At least… no matter what, I'll be free, I suppose." she joked weakly, before shuddering, blinking back tears.
"Right. Right." she whispered, slowly sitting herself on the seat, clenching her fists tightly as her ankles and wrists were bound to the chair.
Leon prepared the equipment, before pausing once everything was ready.
"You're ready?"
She laughed, even as tears fell down from her eyes.
"Hell no. But I don't have that much of a choice, do I?"
She slumped, sighing deeply.
Then she looked at him; a sad smile on her face.
"If I… don't get the chance to say this again… I wanted to thank you, for going through all of this for my sake." She said softly.
"I…" she swallowed, her voice breaking, before nodding at him. "Thank you." she choked out, before closing her eyes and gritting her teeth.
"Alright, whenever you're ready." she said.
Leon thought about saying something… But there was very little he could say to comfort her.
He didn't think she would die, not when Aeon was no doubt keeping an eye on things in his own way, but he could hardly say that, now could he?
Instead he took a deep breath, exhaled, and nodded.
I really hope you're watching over us right now, Aeon, he thought.
"Here we go." he warned Ashley… and then he activated the equipment.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" Ashley convulsed in her seat as the equipment lit up, two long tubes sending a special kind of radiation into her body that began killing off the parasites, but at the same time made her writhe in utter agony.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" Leon grimaced as her screaming kept going, her body violently convulsing and drool falling from her open mouth, her eyes bouncing in her skull from the pain.
C'mon Aeon, don't let her die after all of this! He prayed, biting his lip as he watched her arch her back as she kept screaming in pain.
And then it was over. The equipment retreated, it's job done, and Leon rushed to her side.
"Ashley? Ashley!"
Ashley Graham was having the worst day of her life.
Which was saying something lately, but bound as she was in a chair, some kind of medical equipment currently trying to remove the parasites in her seemingly doing a much better job, in her humble opinion, at trying to kill her in the most painful fashion possible, she felt it was nonetheless the objective truth.
Her eyes rolled in the back of her head, her teeth were gritted so hard she worried she might just crack them, her entire existence was just pure, absolute suffering.
And the worst part was, it still was better than the alternative.
The fact that damn creep Saddler could just… take control of her at will was going to be something that will keep filling her nights with nightmares for the rest of her life, she just knew it.
So between being that creep's slave, and potentially worse, for the rest of her life or dying free, well it was a hell of a choice but she knew which one she preferred.
She wasn't sure she would have had the courage to go for it before all of this… but after the last few… hours? Days? However long it has been since Leon came crashing into her life, she knew that death would indeed be preferable to the alternative.
Still, that didn't mean she wanted to die, so she kept her mouth shut, that way she wouldn't bite her tongue off or something, and she kept trying to stay conscious even as she felt the parasites go crazy in her body, which was an incredibly disturbing sensation in the first place on top of all the pain the damn junk serving as medical equipment in this place caused her.
Her vision started going dark, and she tried to glance to the side towards Leon, whether to beg him to stop or apologise for not being strong enough after all she had no idea, before she repeatedly blinked, banishing a few tears from her eyes, when the weirdest mix of a scent of warm blood and the best-smelling flowers she had ever heard of suddenly hit her nose.
From the corner of her eyes she thought she saw something standing to her right, which made no sense when Leon was to her left and no one else was in the room, a tall form whose only vaguely distinct features was a soft, comforting smile, incredibly gentle green eyes and a shock of silver hair, the faintest sensations of fingers gently trailing over her face accompanying a soft melody that made Ashley instinctively relax, the pain ebbing away alongside all of her concerns.
Soft lips ghosted over her sweaty forehead, and Ashley closed her eyes, knowing without knowing why that everything was going to be okay.
Darkness welcomed her, twinkling lights of distant stars flashing in her mind's eye as they gazed kindly upon her, and she sighed as she fell unconscious, knowing that she would wake up free of the parasites, but that for the moment she could rest in peace with the stars watching over her.
And Ashley rested, nightmares of monsters, humans or horribly 'other' things kept at bay by the will of those infinitely greater than anything that could ever be found upon the Earth.
And as she did, it almost felt like the cosmos itself sang a melody just for her, so that she may rest in peace without fear of monsters, whether from the waking world or of Dreams.
Leon sighed in relief when he saw that Ashley was only unconscious.
Not that much of a surprise in insight. Considering the sheer physical and emotional toll of the last few days, it was much of a shock that something like this would knock her out.
Keeping an eye on the medical equipment, he could tell that her body was as badly hurt as he'd feared.
… In fact, now that he was looking into it, her body was in a surprisingly good state, and the medical equipment seemed to almost imply that she spontaneously began healing at several points-
He paused.
Considered the medical equipment, then the passed out young woman on the hair.
And then he looked upwards, towards the heavens above.
"I don't know if it was you, Aeon, or something else, but thank you." he said, gratitude heavy in his voice at what could have been otherwise if something had not intervened.
He stiffened when a strange mix of the smell of warm blood mixed with the most heavenly-smelling flowers he had ever heard of hit his face, soothing countless small aches and bruises he had accumulated across his body lately before disappearing, leaving him feeling refreshed and calmer.
He blinked rapidly, before sighing.
"I'll never get used to that." he mused with a small smirk, before looking back at Ashley.
He pursed his lips. A part of him didn't want to wake her up, but at the same time they could hardly stay here…
"Ten minutes." he muttered to himself. "I can at least give her that much."
When she woke up, the first thing she did was hug him.
Leon smiled, hugging her back, before holding her by the shoulders.
"C'mon. Let's get you home."
She smiled back. "I look forward to it." she replied, her voice surprisingly light after everything she went through.
I guess being free of those damn things in her body lifted her mood. What a surprise. He thought with sarcastic amusement.
When they left the base however, Leon couldn't help but frown.
The sounds of combat could still be heard in the distance, but there was an unnatural calm around the area where they were.
"Something's not right." he said grimly, before turning towards Ashley. "You stay here, I'll open the way and deal with anything trying to stand in our way."
She nodded. "Be careful." she replied, eyes showing clearly her worry for him.
He smiled back.
"I'll do my best."
Leon took a nearby platform, checking once again that all of his weapons were loaded and ready.
The platform came to a stop… and Leon stiffened as he stared at the bound form of Ada, dangling seemingly unconscious from a rope attached to the hook of a construction crane.
"Ada!" he shouted, hoping to wake her up.
He paused, stiffening when he saw Saddler walk towards him with a scowl on his face.
Leon scowled back, throwing his knife at the rope holding Ada in the air, cutting it and letting Ada fall to the ground with a groan.
"You okay?" he asked her, keeping a close eye on Saddler.
She grimaced. "I've been better."
Saddler chuckled darkly.
"What's so funny?" Leon asked darkly.
"Oh, I think you know. The American prevailing is a cliché that only happens in your Hollywood movies! Oh, mister Kennedy, you entertain me. To show you my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés."
He opened his mouth inhumanly wide, and Leon flinched when he saw a bulging yellow eye come out of the man's mouth, the eye looking around before settling on him.
"Ada, step back!" he ordered, preparing himself for a fight.
He saw Ada get up and leave, but his attention was entirely focused on Saddler, who had obviously decided to finally forgo any deception of humanity.
The… monstrous thing that he suddenly turned into made that pretty damn clear.
Leon, grav gun in hands, quickly noticed the eyes on the limbs of the monster and targeted those first.
If experience told him anything, it is that eyes made for wonderful weaknesses in monsters.
He fired, the glowing green-black orb smashing into the eye on one of the limbs.
Saddler roared in pain as his limb pretty much exploded into gore, his body collapsing on the ground.
Leon wasted no time, aiming at the head-like limb at the center of the monster and its own yellow eye, taking the time to charge up the gun…
And then he fired.
A bright green-black orb left his gun, hitting Saddler right he wanted to hit-
*KA-WUMP!*
Leon stumbled back as the orb imploded, Saddler now outright shrieking in agony as a good chunk of the limb he had targeted outright vanished from existence.
Leon couldn't help but scowl however, as not only Saddler had actually survived the hit, but his monstrous flesh began bumbling and regenerating. Not too quickly, but still easily visible with the naked eye.
Leon prepared to fire again-
His eyes widened when one of Sadler's limb took an explosive barrel and threw it at him, and Leon dodged to the right before feeling the heat from the explosion once the barrel hit the ground.
He snarled as he got up, seeing Saddler's mostly regenerated body stare back at him, and Leon wasted no time unleashing another green orb at the bastard.
Saddler tried to dodge, only for the orb to shift path mid-air and hit its target anyway.
Leon grinned viciously when Saddler once again fell to the ground, and yet another massive implosion followed as he fired his charged gun again.
Sadler growled in pain… and then Leon's eyes went wide.
"Shit!" he cursed, rolling on the ground to avoid Saddler's body who had somehow fucking jumped in the air to try and squash Leon like a bug.
Leon quickly got on his feet… only to get wacked by one of Saddler's limbs.
"Gah!" he coughed, flying into the air before rolling on the ground once his instincts took over and he quickly got back to his feet, coughing from the way his lungs expelled all air when he got hit.
He dodged another limb, snarling as he fired another green orb at Saddler.
The monster that was man snarled and jumped, trying to once again squash Leon while avoiding his gun's attack.
He succeeded at the second, but not the first, as Leon jumped to the side and then fired again while on the ground, grinning widely when the hit connected and the limb hit crumbled, most of it outright gone, though once again he could see the regeneration quicking in.
Another charged shot went up towards Saddler, who once again shrieked in agony as the glowing green-black orb hit his head, the implosion powerful enough to send Leon fling backward from being too close to it.
"Huugh." he groaned, both from the pain of violently hitting the ground and at the sight of Saddler still somehow surviving, though his regeneration seemed to be slowing down from how badly wounded he was.
"Leon!" shouted a voice he recognized, and he grinned at the sight of Ada having somehow found a rocket launcher.
"Wait!" he shouted back, getting on his feet and glaring at Saddler, who once again was healed enough to stand and glared back at Leon with half a dozen eyes.
"Come at me, Saddler! Let's finish this!" he shouted, charging his gun.
Saddler must have agreed, because a moment later he jumped and tried to squash Leon again.
Leon merely smirked. "Gotach, you dumb bastard." he growled, unleashing the glowing green-black orb at the mid-air monstrous form of Saddler.
Leon could swear he saw Saddler's eyes somehow widened… a second before the orb hit him in the middle, sending the monster flying back in a shower of blood and gore to go crashing roughly on the ground.
"Now!" he shouted to Ada, who didn't waste any time firing the rocket straight at Saddler.
*KA-BOOM!*
Leopn held his breath as the ground trembled from the explosion, waiting to see if Saddler somehow survived the hit…
The smoke from the explosion dispersed, and Leon grinned fiercely at the smoking corpse on the ground.
"Yeah! Finally. Go rot in hell, Saddler!" he shouted, and knowing what he did the man most likely was already on his way straight down there.
His eyes caught a glint, and he frowned, stepping forward and then kneeling to take the syringe on the ground.
"That's what Seras was trying to protect." he muttered as he stared at what he was holding in his hand, before freezing when he heard a well-recognizable *click* behind his head.
"Sorry, Leon. Hand it over." Ada declared, voice cold, with only the slightest hint of an genuinely apologetic undertone underneath.
"Ada. You do know what this is." he said softly, getting up and grimacing slightly when she took the syringe from his hand.
She smiled at him. "Hmm." she simply hummed smugly back, dark eyes twinkling.
His head jerked towards the sudden sound of a helicopter, before looking back towards Ada who was already making a run for it.
He was about to run after her… only to pause as he saw her jump over the platform they were standing on.
He blinked in shock, before running after her to find out why the hell she did that-
And then he paused, seeing the helicopter he heard rise from beyond the platform, with Ada calmly sitting at the back of it.
"Don't worry, I'll take good care of it." she teased him while waving the syringe in front of her.
"Ada!" he shouted, scowling, and she grinned back.
"Gotta go! If I were you, I'd get off this island too!" she said, holding a device showing a few minutes before the bombs she had placed were about to go off.
And then she hit the red button, the device beginning to beep in her hand.
"She really pushed it." he muttered in surprise.
"Here, catch!" she shouted, throwing… keys?
"Better get a move on! See you around."
She waved cheekily at him, the helicopter taking off, while he stared at the small cheerfully grinning bear pendant attached to the keys.
"Very cute." he deadpanned.
"Indeed." suddenly declared a very amused voice.
Leon jerked at the sudden sound, before sighing in relief when he saw Aeon standing not far from him, an amused look on his face as he stared at Leon.
"Aeon! We have-"
"Don't worry about the bombs." Aeon replied, waving a hand nonchalantly. "Me and my team disarmed them all. We couldn't simply let Ada blow it all up, you know?"
Leon sighed in relief, before smiling when he saw Ashley accompanied by a few ISIS soldiers arrive.
"Hey, Ashley!" he shouted, and she didn't waste time smiling brightly at him. "Leon! Is-"
She stopped, noticing Saddler's charred corpse.
"Is that-"
"Saddler's dead." he confirmed, nodding towards the corpse.
"Yup. Good work on that, by the way, even if you did get an assist at the end." said Aeon with a grin.
Leon blinked, before turning to look at him.
"How long were you watching?"
"Long enough to see that Ada got what she wanted, in the end."
"Wait, then why-"
"I already messed with the sample." Aeon smugly replied. "Introduced weaknesses in it that it shouldn't possess. It'll take months of work for the sample to properly work, and even then, good fucking luck trying to remove the weaknesses I introduced in it."
Aeon sighed, his smile dropping.
"I'd have preferred if I could just burn the damn thing out of existence and be done with it, but all things considered I'd rather that Wesker waste time and resources on a faulty B.O.W's from the start than for him to put all of that effort into one that can already work well and make it worse. We can handle faulty B.O.W's with known weaknesses. New, stronger variants that Wesker would create from his current stock of viruses in order to make up for the loss of the Las Plagas? Not so easy to deal with."
"What kind of weaknesses did you put in it?" Leon couldn't help but ask.
Aeon's smile returned, sharp and vicious.
"Any B.O.W's based on Las Plagas will be extremely vulnerable to heat-based weaponry."
Leon blinked.
Glanced at the lasguns held by some of the present ISIS soldiers.
Then at the plasma guns.
"Oh." he said numbly, before grinning viciously back at Aeon.
"Wesker's in it for a nasty surprise, isn't he?"
Aeon chuckled darkly. "Oh yes. Most definitely. And the man's pride and obsession with viruses won't let him just discard the Las Plagas, so he's going to waste a lot of resources into trying to make them better."
Aeon shook his head. "And as I said, good fucking luck with that."
Leon nodded. Much like Aeon, he'd have preferred that the Las Plagas never fell into Wesker's hands… But he could see the long-term benefits of making Wesker waste a lot of time, manpower and resources into what was essentially a dead end.
"So, what now?"
"Now, you can finally bring Ashley back home. I imagine that she could do with a warm shover and a good meal." Aeon replied with amusement, while Ashley groaned at his words before nodding rapidly.
"Yes, God please yes! That sounds like a great idea. And I might as well burn my clothes while I'm at it, because I really can't wear them anymore."
She shuddered. "Too many bad memories."
Aeon snorted. "Entirely understandable. Well, in that case I still need to see to the complete pacification of the island, then I'll have to look into evidence gathering to make sure that no one from the cult still lives elsewhere, and… Well, a great many things. So!"
He turned towards Ashley, who blinked then blushed when he took her hand and kissed the back of it.
"My lady, it was a pleasure to see you again, but I'm afraid that this is where we part ways! You and your knight in shining armour can finally return home."
He straightened, flashing the young woman a roguish grin that made her blush deepened.
"I hope that we will meet again, but until that day I wish the best. Leon, take care of her on the way back home. I'd be rather unamused if I have to send ISIS into another large-scale assault because you somehow let her get kidnapped again on the way back by random aliens or something."
Leon snorted. "I don't think you have to worry about that."
He paused.
"Right?" he said, a measure of concern in his voice.
Aeon grinned, black eyes twinkling in mirth.
"Right? Aeon, don't you turn your back on me- Aeon, stop laughing or so help me-!"
"So, Mission accomplished?" said Ashley as they sat in the back of the helicopter that would bring both of them back to the United States.
Len smiled. "Not quite. I still need to get you back home properly first." and hopefully without aliens getting in the way, he mentally grumbled, not 100% sure that Aeon was just messing with him or being deadly serious.
Hell, it could be both knowing the guy!
"So…" Ashley smiled hopefully at him. "Once you get me back to my place, how about we get to do some… overtime?"
"Heh." he chuckled, but shook his head. "Sorry." he replied, apologetically.
She looked away, blinking rapidly. "Somehow I knew you'd say that." she replied, voice slightly choked, "But it doesn't hurt less, you know?" she whispered, before taking a deep breath and sighing.
"So." she began after a moment of awkward silence. "Who was that woman in the red dress, anyway?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Come on, tell me." she said with a smirk, leaning forward towards him.
He sighed. "She's… like a part of me I can't let go." he replied after a moment, trying to think of the best way he could frame… whatever weird relationship he and Ada actually had.
"Let's leave it at that." he said firmly.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "An ex you still have feelings for, then?"
He laughed. "If only it could be that simple!"
He fell silent… before blinking in shock when his radio suddenly crackled with life.
He quickly took it and brought it to his face. "Hunnigan, is that you?" he said with surprise at the sight of her on the screen of his comm. system.
"Finally… the line's jack free." she said, relief in her voice.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Hey Hunnigan, no glasses…" he remarked, noticing the lack of her usual pair of glasses on her face.
"Forget the glasses. What's the status of the mission?" she demanded quickly.
He looked up at Ashley, smirking, before looking back at Hunnigan.
"I've rescued the subject. We're returning home."
A massive sigh of relief came from her. "You did it Leon!" she exclaimed, the woman visibly slumping in her seat in relief at the news.
"Thanks." he replied with amusement.
For a moment, he considered flirting with her… and then he glanced up at Ashley, who was not even hiding the fact that she was listening in with interest.
Guess I'm still on duty… he sighed. Story of my life.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Summer Rose in ISIS, records of a lost Huntress in the multiverse. (Non-canon.)
Her chest heaved and strained for breath, struggling more and more to keep drawing cold, crisp air into her seemingly burning lungs. Her weapon barely remained in one piece and was tightly clenched in trembling, sweat-covered hands. Her white cloak was tattered and torn, stained with blotches of red that grew the more blood flowed from her wounds. Her milky-white Aura rippled around her, flickering and trembling as it barely remained strong enough to not break altogether.
She looked around the dreary landscape around her, as hordes of Beowolves, flocks of Nevermore and even towering Goliaths moved to surround her. And standing at the forefront of this army of Darkness was the immortal enemy of Humanity and Faunus kind, the dark mistress of magic that commanded the Grimms and waged war against all of Remnant.
Salem, Queen of the Grimm.
The witch chuckled slightly as she watched the wounded, exhausted Huntress try to keep standing, clutching her bleeding side staining her white cloak red as she did.
"You put up a valiant fight, I will admit. It has been a while since I've had a fight this… invigorating. But I fear your time is up at last… Summer Rose."
Summer took a deep breath, before exhaling, grimacing in pain from her wounds.
She hated having to agree with the witch… but there was no denying the truth. She was alone, surrounded, and with no hope of escape.
Whether she liked it or not… There was no going back home from this.
She took a step forward.
A smiling, cheerful baby with silver eyes, so very much like her own, shining bright with innocence and joy…
Her bright silver eyes darkened with determination.
She took another step.
A giggling, happy toddler with long blonde hair, smiling in the sunshine.
And another.
A handsome man with blue eyes filled with love, bright yellow hair and tattoos on his body standing over her, bending down to kiss her lovingly, his strong arms around her waist.
She snarled as her vision swam from the pain, but took yet another step.
A bright silver flash emerged from her eyes, burning away the dark tendrils rushing towards her, washing over scores of dark, bloodthirsty foes who shrieked in agony as they died, her semblance throwing hundreds of white petals in the air as she used it to try and rush through the newly opened hole in the waves of Grimms to hit their mistress.
She snarled as she dashed and slashed forward, once, twice then three times before the witch could react, making her scream in agony as the light of Creation burned through her dark, tainted veins.
The Grimm charged forward, trying and failing to come to the rescue of their Queen, but instead something else happened.
As Salem screamed in pain, she gathered her power and threw it back against the Light of Creation, and for a moment the world was drained of all colors except for the White of Creation and the Dark of Destruction, the two forces opposing each other and fighting for dominance over the world, much as they once did on a much grander scale millennia ago as brother fought brother upon the world that would become Remnant.
But this was not the Brother Gods who were involved, it was the immortal witch of Remnant and Summer Rose, and the second could only channel her powers for so long before her dying body started giving out.
In any other situation, Summer Rose would have fallen first, and her story would have ended there, in blood and dust, with her efforts wounding Salem just enough to hold her back for several years, but no more.
But instead, a miracle happened. Creation and Destruction, whether by chance or perhaps the unconscious will of a distant Power making his way towards the Centre of All Things, caused a rip in the very fabric of the universe…
And as Summer Rose fell, she did not do so at the feet of the Queen of the Grimm…
But into the Abyss beyond all worlds.
What Summer saw after she fell into the hole in her universe could hardly be described by human words, especially in her wounded, exhausted state.
She saw countless lifeforms beyond everything she could ever imagine, many of which made her head hurt and her nose bleed from a single glance at them.
She saw gates opening into countless worlds, some showing idyllic paradises that anyone from Remnant could scarcely imagine existing, and others showing worlds holding horrors far greater than any mere Grimm or immortal Witch.
Summer instinctively shuddered at the sight of skies darkened by organic ships big enough to bloat out the sun, billions of spores falling onto the ground while men and women with a double-headed eagle flag screamed the name of their god in defiant rage.
She saw a massive ship bigger than a continent upon a world, outnumbered human warriors with advanced technology fighting against aliens with powers over the minds of others.
She saw a green-armored warrior cross blades with a red-armored one, their blows shattering the ground and causing miles-wide shockwaves as rage-filled eyes met rage-filled eyes, not a hint of mercy or doubt on both warrior's faces, so similar looking, as both sides unleashed their wrath upon the others with power and brutality enough to make even gods and demons alike tremble in fear.
And then she felt more than she saw an immense, mind-blowingly large presence turn towards her, an almost equally powerful one joining a moment later only for a smaller, but still incredibly powerful third presence to follow their gaze upon her.
Summer, even in her condition, froze in terror at the sensation of being carefully examined by those three beings, feeling much like an ant under a microscope, her entire existence dissected gently, but firmly, before a conclusion was reached and the three presences turned warm and welcoming.
She gasped as warmth suddenly suffused her body, the second presence suddenly feeling like it was hugging her and healing her wounds and exhaustion in an instant, and Summer's eyes turn lidded as she suddenly felt better than she ever felt in her entire life, feelings of Comfort/Warmth/Welcome flooding her mind, soul and body.
Then a portal opened, and a second later she was back into the familiar bounds of a reality with Space and Time and Laws of Physics, a last gentle hug coming from the three presences before the portal closed.
For a moment she was left blinking, staring blankly around at her surroundings, before her silver eyes snapped towards the three people sitting in what was a meeting room and looking with surprise at the new arrival.
Those three people stared back, all of them feeling familiar for some reason even as she knew she had never met them in her life, before the blonde woman sighed deeply.
"Somehow, I blame you for this, Aeon."
The (inhumanly) handsome man between the equally inhumanly beautiful women blinked, raised a finger, paused, and then lowered it.
"That is something my true self might do… Maybe. Depends on the circumstances."
He looked straight into her silver eyes, curiosity mixing in with… recognition?
"Though I think we should just ask the woman in question. So, Miss Summer Rose, any reasons why our true selves might decide to make you come here on Earth?
Summer blinked. "What?"
"I believe an introduction would be a good starting point, dear Aeon." said the silver-haired woman, a gentle smile directed at Summer which immediately reminded her of the warmth that had healed her.
"True." the man nodded. "Very well then."
The man got up, bowing slightly at her.
"My name is Aeon, mortal incarnation of my divine self of the same name. This is Lucy-" he waved at the blonde-haired woman, who smiled and waved at Summer "-and this is Oedon, my wife." the silver-haired woman smiled brightly.
Then the dark eyes of Aeon turned back towards her, narrowing thoughtfully.
"And from what I know, you are Summer Rose, a huntress of Remnant, which is… very, very far from this world. Still." he smirked at her. "Let me be the first to welcome you to Earth, Summer Rose."
Summer blinked.
Blinked again.
"I have so many questions." she said bluntly.
Aeon laughed. "Good! Because so do we! So…"
He looked at her curiously, a smirk on his lips.
"Ever played twenty questions?"
A few hours later, and Summer had the answers to many of the most pressing questions on her mind.
Not that she was all that happy about all those answers, but it could be worse.
After all, I'm still alive, she couldn't help but think with some shock.
She had fully expected to die against Salem, at the end. Apparently however, she had just… fallen in-between worlds.
At least until three gods noticed her falling across Dimensions, at which point they had brought her here to rest and recover.
And now she was sharing the same room as the mortal incarnations of those three gods.
That had been quite a shock in its own right, but then again everything that had happened recently came as a shock, so at this point she was just… rolling in with the punches.
And those certainly kept coming, because she had made the, admittedly understandable, mistake of asking what three gods were even doing incarnating themselves on this world.
The answers had been thorough, enlightening and disturbing in equal measure.
The footage taken from the Raccoon City Outbreak which had happened just a few years ago had definitely left her wide-eyed.
Turns out, even in a world without Grimms, monsters could still exist. Just this time they were created by human hands, of all things!
Oh, and don't get her started on the crash course she got on Yharnam's history. Dealing with the craziness of this new world was bad enough, she had no intention to think too hard over that of another at this point.
… At least those cookies that Aeon made for her were to die for. Seriously, she liked to think she was pretty good at those, but one bite into her first had proven to her the difference between a master at cookies and a true god of them.
She wasn't even slightly ashamed of having begged on her knees for cooking lessons after eating her first one!
… Okay, she was a little ashamed, but… cookies! Divine cookies!
Worth it!
She sighed. As good as those cookies were, it didn't change the facts.
And the facts were…
She glanced up at the three gods in mortal bodies in front of her.
"You can't get me back home, can you?" she said softly.
They looked sadly at her.
"Reality is big." gently said Aeon. "Really, really big. Even for our true selves, finding the one multiverse we need to get you back home would be like trying to find a drop of water… if the entirety of the universe was one humongous ocean. It's technically possible, but it's going to take time."
"And by then, I'll be dead." she replied sadly.
The three glanced at one another.
"Well, that depends."
Summer blinked. "On what?"
"On what you want to do from here on out." said Lucy. "You can choose to just… be frozen in time. We could easily do that. From your point of view, you'd just… go to sleep one day, and wake up when we can go to Remnant. No matter how long it takes, from your point of view, it'd be a blink of an eye."
Summer swallowed. "If I can make it to Remnant… would… would the time-"
"The difference in time wouldn't be too long… in that everyone you know and love wouldn't be dead of old age or anything." Said Lucy. "Some years might have passed, but your daughters wouldn't be old, married women or anything, if you're worried about that."
Summer exhaled deeply in relief. "Alright. That's… that's good." she weakly replied, before taking another deep breath.
"Right. Option B?"
"Well, besides just living and ageing normally-" said Aeon, throwing her a raised eyebrow in question, and he nodded when she shook her head "- then I suppose that the next option would be a… job offer, of a sort."
Summer blinked. "A job offer?" she replied, puzzled.
Aeon grinned at her. "We told you of this world, its dangers, and the people fighting for it, yes?"
"Yes?"
He leaned forward, eyes shining with anticipation. "Then how would you like to become a Huntress of the Dream?"
Summer opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"Isn't that-"
"Yep."
Summer stared at him.
Aeon shrugged and grinned at her. "You've got the qualifications and then some, the personality for it, and more besides. Instead of simply going to sleep and letting us take care of everything, you could help. Fight with us, grow stronger, learn powers and abilities you could never learn otherwise, be the hero that you dreamed of, and return home eventually as a saviour of worlds. Yes, it does mean taking the long way home… But it's all relative in the end. Whether you take the easy path or the hard path, you'll get back home at the same time, the only difference is in the journey to get there."
He looked her in the eyes, silver meeting black, and she could see the conviction in his words in them.
"How do you want to get home, Summer Rose? As a Hero of billions? Or through the easy way out?"
Lucy glanced at him with a deadpan stare.
"That sounds a bit biased, you know."
Aeon shrugged. "You say biased, I say honest. Brutally so, perhaps, but actions have consequences… and that actually includes inaction."
Then his features softened. "That being said, don't get me wrong. If you choose to go to sleep, I guarantee you that you will return home eventually. No foul play, no betrayal, no bullshit. We'll get you home, safe and sound, back to your family. You'll be free to live the rest of your life with them, I promise."
Summer stared at him for a long moment.
"But?"
He gave her a long, piercing look.
"But answer me this, Summer Rose. Would you be proud of yourself, for taking the easy path? Would you still be able to call yourself a Huntress, if you don't try to help people in danger from monsters? You stared evil in the eyes without flinching, even with your life on the line. With the knowledge that you would be immortal, that you will go back home one day… Can you truly put down your weapon, and still call yourself Summer Rose, a proud defender of all that is good and innocent, if you choose to just sleep while others fight?"
Summer clenched her fists tightly, before looking back at the images of Raccoon City.
At the monsters trying to drown Humanity in endless tides of darkness, just like in Remnant.
She wasn't stupid, she knew what he wanted out of her. He wanted a weapon against the evils of this world, one trained like no one else here was.
And yet… In a way, that just reminded her of Ozpin. Making sacrifices and making the hard choices for the sake of a brighter tomorrow.
Though by the sound of it, Aeon was a lot more… hand-on than Ozpin when it comes to fighting evil.
And in the end… He was simply right. She wasn't the kind of person that would stand idly by while monsters roamed free. She wouldn't be a Huntress if she was.
… Also, full-blown immortality was one hell of a perk and guarantee in exchange to fight for what was right.
All things considered… if she was going to return to Remnant the same day, whether she went to sleep or took the "long way around"... Then at least she might as well take the path that would let her help people along the way.
… Actually… "Say, do I keep the immortality and everything once I arrive back on Remnant if I take your offer?"
Aeon smirked, dark eyes twinkling knowingly.
"You do."
Well then.
She smirked back.
"You have a deal."
And I look forward to seeing the look on your face when I'm back as a kick-ass immortal Huntress blessed by gods, Salem! She thought smugly.
She shook Aeon's hand, her silver eyes softening.
Hold on, Ruby, Yang. Mommy's going to come home, no matter if it takes me a thousand or a million years!