September 28. Raccoon City. 9:00 P.M.
Jill Valentine's muscles burned. Every stride on the broken asphalt was an act of pure will, fueled by fear, but channeled into professional fury. Her mind kept replaying the involuntary hiss of pain that had escaped John during their brief call.
"I'm... fine. I found a technical stop."
She knew he was lying. She could hear it. She could hear the effort to keep calm. That thing found him. The creature that had relentlessly pursued her, the same being that screamed her name—S.T.A.R.S.—was also screaming John's. The implication was clear and chilling: it wasn't just a monster; it was an execution machine designed for the extermination of specific targets.
"Hold on, John," Jill murmured, her Beretta firmly gripped, her eyes scanning every shadow. Worry was a lead knot in her stomach. A man like John Wick was a machine of war, but Nemesis was an unstoppable biological disaster. Had he too succumbed to the horror of Raccoon City? This uncertainty drove her faster than any cry for help, feeling guilty for having left him alone.
As she rounded the corner of Main Street, the urgency of her sprint froze into horror.
There was only a smoking skeleton. An irregular hole, the size of a car, had been torn open in the upper wall of what had been a building, as if a meteorite of fury had crashed there.
Debris was scattered for twenty meters, fragments of concrete and brick mixed with hundreds of charred books, their pages now bitter ash.
A bust of a poet, strangely intact, stared at the chaos with empty eyes. The air smelled of molten metal and heavy gunpowder, a chemical cocktail of total destruction.
"God, John," Jill whispered. If John had been here, he had been attacked. Could he have died, crushed under the rubble? It was a possibility she didn't want to face. The sight of the devastation confirmed the magnitude of her error in doubting the seriousness of John's injury in the call. The rage of knowing the monster had attacked her only hope mingled with fear.
She moved toward the crater, feeling a cold pang of panic. Just as she was about to descend into the ruins' sub-level, she felt it. The ground trembled.
A heavy, methodical trot, accelerating rapidly. The sound of a hunter who had just finished cleaning its prey, or who had just detected a new one. The sound was now as familiar as a recurring nightmare.
Jill spun on her heels.
And there it was. The Executor. Nemesis.
The creature emerged from the shadows, its massive silhouette unmistakable. Its red eye lit up, blinking upon detecting her. Jill paled. Time slowed, allowing her to notice the new damage the monster had sustained: explosion marks on its chest armor and the loss of its rocket launcher, meaning it had been in very recent combat. Nemesis raised its arms to show its armored fists. They were a silent testimony to its ability to shatter not only flesh but also armored vehicles.
"Damn you," she ground out, raising the Beretta and emptying five bullets into the monster's head. The sound of her weapon was pathetically small against the monster's ambient roar.
Bang. Bang. Bang. The weapon's recoil burned her wrist.
Nemesis was unfazed. It casually raised an arm to shield itself, and the effect was as if the bullets were raindrops. The flesh around the wounds swelled, but the dense, black skin did not break open. Then, it entered berserker mode. Its trot became a bestial stampede, its weight resounding with a violence Jill felt in her bones. The creature was pure impulse, without the need for tactics, only the certainty that its target could not escape.
Jill only had an instant to react. She threw herself to the ground, spinning around, the gravel tearing at her skin. Nemesis's armored boots landed with devastating force where her head had been a second before, leaving a deep mark in the concrete. The air vibrated with the impact. She jumped up, the Beretta in hand, fear turned to adrenaline.
Nemesis dodged a burning taxi and closed the distance in two strides. Jill fired her Beretta. The Nemesis roared.
Jill saw a desperate opportunity: a UPS delivery van with its swinging rear doors open and the driver's door off its hinges.
She dived toward the back of the van. Inertia dragged her across the metal floor, over empty cardboard boxes, and she smelled mold and oil. The Nemesis was only two meters away. She stood up inside the vehicle, running through the dim interior.
Too slow. Too strong.
Halfway to the cab, the sound of her running was drowned out by thunder. The Nemesis did not attempt to circle the vehicle, nor did it try to open the door. It simply raised a colossal fist and smashed it through the side wall of the van with the force of a battering ram. The metal bent, screamed, and exploded in a shower of scrap and paint chips.
The monster's armored fist, wrapped in leather and chains, appeared a meter from Jill, tearing an irregular hole in the side of the van. The blow destroyed the interior shelves and bent the engine like putty. The entire van tilted and groaned, the chassis on the verge of collapsing.
Jill felt the rush of air and the heat of the impact, her ears ringing. She launched herself through the driver's door opening, which was already ajar, just as Nemesis's armored hand retracted and the vehicle crumpled in on itself, a mass of wrinkled, useless metal. The strength and speed of the T-Virus, combined with Umbrella's engineering, made close combat a death sentence.
Jill emerged on the other side, feeling the monster's stale breath on her neck. She was cornered in the center of the avenue.
The Nemesis lunged, raising both fists for a mission-ending blow. Jill stopped dead. Her weapon was out of ammunition, and the monster was moving too fast for her to reload. There was no escape route. Only combat remained.
With trained precision and the determination of a cornered animal, Jill drew her combat knife from her thigh, its double-edged blade gleaming under the distant firelights.
"Come for me, you damn bastard!" she shouted with all the strength in her lungs, ready to sell her life for the highest price in pain.
The monster roared, its great gloved fist descending with ten tons of force. Jill raised the knife, not in defense, but as a last, futile offense. She could hear the screech of the monster's internal gears, the sound of death meshing.
BANG!
The sound was that of a bullet impacting the right side of Nemesis's head, exactly where the skin fused with the synthetic tissue. The impact was lateral and blunt, not fatal, but enough to damage its orientation. The blow was strong enough to make the monster's head spin abruptly, interrupting its attack and diverting its fatal trajectory.
The Nemesis roared, a sound of momentary rage and disorientation. It turned its body to look in the direction of the shot.
Jill lowered the knife, her breathing accelerated. She saw the silhouette twenty meters away, in the entrance of a dark alley.
John.
He stood, in a perfect firing stance, his icy, concentrated gaze locked on the monster. He held a pistol in one hand (the P30L) and a submachine gun in the other (an MP5), an arsenal Jill didn't know he possessed. His presence was so overwhelming a comfort that the relief almost made Jill collapse. The man who had fallen unconscious and was supposedly dying was there, fighting for her.
"John!" she managed to shout, her voice choked.
Nemesis, his primary target, prepared to advance toward him, but its focus was slow, as if its systems were struggling against the recent damage.
"Circle around! Get closer to us!" John commanded, not taking his eyes off the monster. The distraction would only last a second.
"Us?" Jill wondered, confused. Was he delirious? Who else could be with John in the midst of this madness?
Just then, before Nemesis could take a step, a grappling hook shot out at full speed. The click of the tense cable was the only thing that gave away its arrival.
The hook, launched from an adjoining rooftop, approached Nemesis's face dangerously. The monster, too focused on John and the agony of its wound, reacted late. The hook pierced part of Nemesis's head, right into the orbit of its right eye, shattering part of the eyeball and several of its prosthetic teeth from the gripping force of the impact.
The figure on the rooftop, a woman of elegant and deadly appearance, pulled the trigger of her grappling gun. The hook, which had penetrated, churned inside Nemesis's head, causing more damage to its nervous systems. The cable vibrated, and a small electrical arc sparked where the hook's tip had perforated the organic tissue, suggesting an unusual alloy material.
The monster struggled to reach the cable, but at that moment, the woman released the hook and the cable retracted back into the gun with a metallic hiss.
Jill, stunned by the brutality of the tactical attack, turned to look at the shooter. It was Ada Wong. Extremely beautiful, with an expression of glacial professionalism, and her red silk dress swayed in the breeze.
Jill felt a chill of surprise and, yes, an unconscious frown upon seeing the woman next to John. It wasn't just the surprise of seeing her alive, it was the tactical familiarity and the implied intimacy of their coordination.
"Move! Jill!" ordered John, his face serious. The distraction would only last a second.
Nemesis was slowly getting up, his healthy arm hitting the damaged part of his head as his left eye blinked erratically.
Jill, understanding the message, ran toward John and Ada. Her rescue had arrived, but she had just realized that she would not only have to fight Nemesis but also the mystery of the beautiful and dangerous woman who was with John. Tactical priority took precedence over personal confusion.
She ran, but her eyes did not stray from the figure moving with unnatural lightness. Ada Wong, wrapped in her dazzling red dress, jumped from the building's ledge with a grace that defied gravity.
She did not fall, but seemed to glide in the air, landing with the softness of a feline near John, her grappling gun already holstered.
Nemesis, the destruction machine, remained kneeling. Its gloved hands haphazardly struck the asphalt, a spasm of fury and confusion from the sudden damage its nervous system had received. The distraction was momentary, but sufficient.
John, without needing to give further instructions, set the plan in motion. He didn't speak a word, he simply turned and ran. His pace was not a sprint, but a sustained flight.
Jill and Ada followed immediately, a disparate trio running at full speed through the hell of Raccoon City. They plunged into a labyrinth of dark, trash-filled alleys, leaving behind the muffled and increasingly desperate roar of Nemesis.
Jill, as she navigated overturned dumpsters and rubble, couldn't help but glance sideways at the woman in red. Ada moved with spectacular fluidity, keeping pace with John effortlessly, her beautiful pale face and Asian features unperturbed.
It was a hypnotic sight that made Jill frown with a mixture of professional envy and deep distrust. Who was this woman? And why was she moving next to John with such familiarity? Jill's mind, a pragmatic S.T.A.R.S. fighter, hated the lack of data on this new player.
About a hundred meters from the confrontation zone, John raised a hand without turning around. Jill and Ada stopped in unison. John leaned heavily against a brick wall, his breathing ragged. For the first time, Jill noticed him touching a spot on his side, near his rib cage under his arm, where the Humvee impact had hurt him.
"For now, you can stop running," John said in a voice rasped by the effort, his gaze fixed on the street they had just left.
Concern overcame suspicion. Jill immediately approached, her rescue instinct above all else.
"Are you okay? What happened to you?" she asked. Jill's voice was a veiled command, assessing the damage in her mind. Her professionalism did not allow for hysteria, but the sight of John leaning against the wall was something she had never seen.
John, to keep Jill from being distracted, straightened up, although a slight tremor ran through his posture. He tried to put his weight on both feet but failed, subconsciously favoring the side he had touched. "It's small. I'll be fine. A scratch. Just… catching my breath."
"You're lying, John," Jill insisted, her voice dropping to a severe murmur. "That's not a scratch. Broken ribs? Internal damage?"
Ada, who had been observing the interaction with detached interest, intervened with a honeyed tone. "Valentine, John doesn't have time for medical checkups. The distraction of that monster pursuing us is ending."
Jill shot Ada a fiery glance before refocusing on John. They walked at a slower pace, navigating around an overturned car.
"Where are we heading, John? What's the plan now?" Jill asked, shifting her focus back to the urgency.
"Ada has the solution," John replied, nodding toward the woman in red. "We're going to the Raccoon City Voltage Conversion Power Station. We need a way to stop it permanently. The idea is to hit it with a shock, something like 500,000 volts. A controlled electrocution. That should be enough to fry its system."
Jill, the demolitions and tactics expert, understood instantly. It was a high-risk plan, but daring and brilliant. It would give it a definitive end, something bullets could not. Then, her eyes fell back on Ada, who had remained in elegant silence. Tension was a third member of the group.
"Fine," Jill said, addressing Ada with a gravity that barely concealed her irritation. "And you? Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Ada turned to look at her, and a small, sardonic, and perfect smile curved her lips. The smile of someone who already knew the answer.
"Oh, you're the famous Jill Valentine," she replied with unnerving calm, naming Jill without her having introduced herself.
Jill stopped. Her eyes, filled with astonishment and contained fury, locked onto Ada. "How do you know my name? Do we know each other?"
Ada laughed softly, a melodious, condescending sound, loaded with smugness. "Darling, who doesn't know the S.T.A.R.S. girl? You're the only person in Raccoon City who isn't running. It's not hard to know who you are, is it? I'm... Ada Wong. A pleasure," she finished, without offering her hand. It was an empty courtesy.
Jill ignored the mockery. The mystery of Ada was more irritating than any zombie. "And what is your relationship with him? How do you know John?"
Ada walked closer to Jill, her tone becoming even more playful and full of double meaning, visibly enjoying the S.T.A.R.S. agent's discomfort. She looked at John, who was walking a few steps ahead, scanning the rooftops, oblivious or indifferent to their little duel. Then she looked back at Jill with a mischievous smile, her lethal beauty shining in the gloom.
Ada walked closer to Jill, her tone becoming even more playful and full of double meaning, visibly enjoying the S.T.A.R.S. agent's discomfort. She looked at John, who was walking a few steps ahead, scanning the rooftops, oblivious or indifferent to their little duel. Then she looked back at Jill with a mischievous smile, her lethal beauty shining in the gloom.
"John? Oh, John, yes. We are…" Ada paused dramatically, touching her chin with a finger, as if considering the perfect title to annoy Jill. "Work friends," she said, the emphasis on 'friends' clearly implying something deeper and more personal. "With a history, of course. He has a plan that interests me, and I have… a lot of curiosity. You know how these things go, Valentine. We help each other."
"I'm surprised that a 'work friend' in Raccoon City chooses a silk dress for an operation in this infested city," Jill retorted, her eyes scrutinizing the red fabric with professional coldness. "A field operation like this requires more than glamour, if you really are a professional. Who sent you?"
Ada smiled, tilting her head slightly. Her tone became philosophical, as if she were debating expensive wines, not imminent death.
"Style doesn't have to be antithetical to efficiency, Valentine. And as for my wardrobe choice…" Ada stroked the fabric with her fingertip, with a gesture full of vanity and danger. "Consider this: uniforms are for people who follow rules. I don't follow rules, Jill. My efficiency, like my dress, is obvious.
"It's a mockery of the situation," Jill hissed, slowing down to keep pace with Ada, their bodies almost brushing. The height difference forced Jill to look slightly up, a position she hated. "To see a civilian with that level of audacity in the middle of an extermination order can only mean two things: either you have blind faith in your tailor... or whoever sent you has a very, very murky interest in the outcome of tonight."
Ada stopped walking and turned completely toward Jill, forcing her to stop too. The smile disappeared. Her face hardened, her lethal beauty no longer playful, but icy.
"Blind faith in my tailor?" Ada made a sound that was half laugh, half scoff. "I assure you, my audacity is not that of a disoriented civilian, Jill. It's the confidence of someone who knows that those who dress for the mud are the ones who get stuck in it. This massacre is a game of strategy, and I play chess, not pawns on the board. And if you're interested, my 'murky plan' is the only thing keeping your… partner alive right now."
John, walking a few steps ahead, stopped abruptly at the corner of an alley and turned his head, his firm voice cutting through the charged atmosphere.
"Less chatter," John growled, his voice firm and emotionless, ignoring the tension between the two women and pointing toward the immense structure of the Power Station in the distance. "We're close. Focus. The monster won't take long to recover, and when it does, it will be angrier than ever."
Jill shot Ada one last warning glance, a silent promise that this conversation was not over. Ada simply smiled back, an elegantly wrapped challenge.
The two followed John, Jill's tactical professionalism competing with the urgent need to discover the truth behind John's beautiful and dangerous "work friend."
Author's Note: Thank you so much for your support, and I would appreciate it if you would leave your reviews so the story can reach more people. As always, thanks to Diptson_Estrada for the power stones and Serarise_11 for leaving a positive review of the story.