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I
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The boardroom door opened, and the man clad all in black stood from where he’d been seated at the head of the table, and smiled thinly.
“Miss Natla. We meet at last.”
Natla, tall and thin with a perfect platinum bob and business attire regarded the man with a smirk. “I had wondered who’d have the gall to infiltrate my offices – although you aren’t quite who I had hoped for. Mr Wesker.”
Albert Wesker tilted his head in apology, and shook the woman’s hand as she reached him.
“I’ve come with a business proposal,” Wesker explained coolly, “something I think you’ll find very interesting. If my sources are correct.” He watched her equally thin smile, perhaps waiting for a crack. None came. “I’ve located an island,” Wesker continued, “it sprung up in the Pacific some months ago, crawling with an evolutionary goldmine the likes of which challenge my own work in quality.”
Natla’s eyes narrowed, flashing. “I thank you,” she said, colder. “I trust you’re not here to try and sell my own work back to me, Wesker?”
Wesker smirked, readjusting his shades. “I have a far better deal. Something you’ll find will get us both exactly what we want.”
“Hah!” Natla bared her teeth in a grin. “You’ve got balls for a human. Or demi-god, whatever you identify as on LinkedIn.” She gestured for them to sit, and laced her strangely long, pointed fingers together. “Please, tell me more.”
“With pleasure .”
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II
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The mission briefing concluded, a typical job. Strange new island pops up in the Pacific crawling with prehistoric bioweapons unlike anything seen before? Chris Redfield had done three identical jobs in the past year . Only this time, he was absolutely certain of the culprit behind it all.
This island had Albert Wesker written all over it. After tracking him for so long without so much as a solid lead, he was ready to finally face his old nemesis. And hopefully, this time, be the one in control of the narrative.
He bumped into a new face at the BSAA HQ’s cafe. A tall, athletic woman with her long brown hair in a neat plait down her back. She was dressed in non regulation camo booty shorts and a black ribbed vest top.
“Is that the BSAA Summer uniform?” He smiled, stepping in beside her to read the menu above the counter. “You’re the archaeologist, right? The one I was warned about? Err– Croft, was it?”
“Lara is fine,” the woman returned, her accent a posh British unlike anything Chris had come across. She shook his hand with a surprising firmness, before turning back to the menu. “I’d just like a cup of tea, will I get that here?”
“Err–” Chris flagged down the barista. “What teas have you guys got?”
“Iced, Captain, or we’ve got raspberry, apple, chamomile…”
Lara cut in; “just a black tea?” Almost with desperation.
“We have black coffee?”
“Oh, fine then.”
Chris ordered too, and went to join Lara at her table.
“The Director tells me this isn’t your first rodeo with bioweapons?” He asked lightly, testing the waters. He’d heard enough about the woman in shooting magazines and word-of-mouth, but for as posh and normal as she was, it was difficult to imagine her battling tyrants with little more than her famous dual pistols.
“This won’t be my first ancient Island either,” she said coyly, “i’m the world’s leading expert in Pre-Human Cultures. If my information is correct, it sounds as if this might be yet another resurfaced fragment of Atlantis. I was warned once there would be many more since I may have, sort of, blown up the first.”
Chris nodded interestedly, stirring sugar into his espresso. “Does that pay well? Freelance in that department, I mean.”
“Oh, this is my Summer holiday,” Lara laughed. “I research for the University College in London these days. But when the job is interesting enough, money isn’t what I like to be paid in.”
“So, is this place going to be dangerous?”
“I hope so. Generally i’m bored to death of libraries and nice, quiet Egyptian tombs. What does a girl have to do for a few boulder traps?”
Chris grinned. “Tell me about it. What else can you tell me about Atlantis?”
“First time I was contracted by a certain CEO of a huge technology company,” Lara rolled her eyes, “but after a rather embarrassing defamation lawsuit, i’m legally not allowed to disclose their name. Eitherway, they were developing bioweapons around the same time as Umbrella on this island. Hoping to bring in something called ‘the seventh age’.”
“You think there might’ve been a connection?” Chris frowned, leaning forward slightly. “Is Atlantis the origin of the t-virus?” It all sounded eerily similar to Albert Wesker’s supposed leaked plans for whatever UROBOROS was going to be.
“Perhaps.” Lara sipped her coffee and grimaced before quickly setting it back down. “What is the BSAA hoping to find?”
“Albert Wesker.” Chris grit his teeth. “This has his face written all over it. Probably some kind of trap.”
“Brilliant,” Lara looked briefly delighted at the prospect. “Seems we both have had our share of chasing gods, Captain Redfield.”
“Chris is fine.” Chris tipped back his espresso and stood. “I look forward to working with you. I’ll see you on the boat– and, er… are you sure you wouldn’t like some BSAA issue body armour?”
Lara frowned, looking down at her cleavage practically erupting from the tiny vest. “Why, is something wrong?”
“I mean– ah… well, it probably is going to be pretty warm. Lava and all… well,” he coughed, and repeated his earlier sentiment. “I’ll see you on the boat.”
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III
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“Lieutenant Nivans, secure the perimeter and set up base,” Chris commanded as the last of the BSAA team finished unloading crates from the boat onto the rocky shore of the island. “Croft and I will make a brief investigation of the entrance and plot the appropriate route.”
“Yes, sir!” Nivans saluted, and turned to shout at the soldiers slumping against crates under the burning hot Pacific sun.
Lara was already knelt over by the cave-like ‘doorway’ into the hulk of blackish volcanic rock. From a pouch beside her right pistol she’d drawn out a brush and was dusting off some grooves in the rock with interest.
“Found something?” Chris knelt down beside her, and squinted uselessly at the rock.
“Atlantean script,” she murmured, drawing out a small portable camera to take a quick picture. “Oh Alister is going to have a field day with this,” she was almost breathless.
“So, this is the right way in then, huh?” Chris glanced into the frighteningly dark cavernous descent.
“These Atlantean strongholds are fairly linear.” She stood and turned on her flashlight (Chris followed suit). “The Atlantean warriors however are far too genetically mutated from the original ancient form.” She led Chris down until the cavern opened out into a wider area with a central pool.
Chris wondered aloud. “So they’re not zombies, then?”
“No,” Lara shone her torch over some discarded crates along a far wall of the cave. Highlighting worn down letters; N##LA T###NOL##OG#ES. “These ones don’t come back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Fairly sure. The explosive end tends to make certain of that. Hold my flashlight for a moment, would you?”
Chris wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, and stood frowning as Lara scrambled onto the boxes and disappeared into the shadow.
“Aha!” She scrambled back down, clutching what appeared to be a soggy box of shotgun rounds which she stowed away in her pack before taking the flashlight back. “Now then, how good are you at swimming?”
They emerged into a flooded passage, but didn’t stay wet for long. The air was dry heat, and Chris could feel the vibrations and warmth from the rock all around them. And in the distance, a soft thud. Almost like a heartbeat.
“Do you hear that?” Chris murmured into the gloom as they breached the next cavernous chamber. This one so tall his flashlight didn’t pierce even as far as the ceiling. At the far end was a closed door inscribed in squiggly symbols. But Lara ignored him, far too involved in investigating the door and fiddling with her camera. Each flash lighting up the cave brilliantly as Chris stood guard, holding the flashlight. “Kinda sounds like… I dunno.”
BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP
“Chris, flashlight please,” Lara muttered, scribbling furiously into her notebook. “The Bembridge Scholars are going to eat their words…”
But Chris had turned around now, and locked the light onto something that had his adrenaline spike.
Clinging to the wall via slowly writhing fleshy tendrils just above the way they had come in was a huge, yellowish grey sphere.
“What the fuck…” Chris breathed, instinctively reaching for his rifle and clipping the light to it before pointing up again. “Is that a fucking egg?”
“Atlantean birthing pod, yes…” Lara clicked her tongue. “So long as we don’t activate it, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Worked out how to open that door yet, then?”
“No… there must be some kind of switch around here…” her own flashlight trailed up to the egg, then along, and she sighed. “Of course.” In the corner closest to the egg was an elevated ledge and an ornate lever.
“Are you sure?” Chris frowned, “isn’t it a bit inconvenient if one of them needed to use it? Hey– wait–” but Lara was already vaulting rocks and climbing elegantly up to the ledge. “Fucking archaeologists,” Chris muttered, deciding to let her have her moment, and focusing his rifle back on the vicerally pulsating egg. He’d seen bioweapons use them before of course, but something about how alive even the egg itself seemed was enough to turn his stomach.
“What i’d do to tease the British Museum with one of these contraptions,” Lara mused as she took a photo of the lever. “Ever been to London, Chris?”
“A few times, we have an HQ there.” He darkly remembered the last time he’d been. “I was forced into the Natural History Museum and the Ballet.” He shuddered, feeling sick at the memory. “I was practically held at gunpoint around some big fancy tea shop.”
“Fortnum and Mason? Lovely. Special occasion?”
“Anniversary,” Chris grunted, “I think it was my own punishment for forgetting.”
Lara laughed. “Not quite your scene then?”
“I’d take a horde of zombies in an isolated mansion any day of the year. Hell, this place is more my scene. Hey… are you sure that lever won’t just activate whatever’s in that fuckin’ egg?”
“Only one way to find out.”
The lever was pulled. And before Lara had a chance to scramble back down to Chris, the egg burst, spraying them both with filmy mucus and shell. The creature slapped to the cave floor like a bag of wet meat and screeched, launching itself catlike at Chris.
“Fuck!” His spray of bullets threw it off course as it leaped over him, bouncing off the walls and screeching as he quickly readjusted and made a second quickfire on its sinewy undeveloped skin barely coating the raw muscle.
Lara was firing too from the other side, twisting through the air as she gracefully dodged the creature’s attacks, relentlessly unloading her seemingly never ending pistol rounds in tandem with Chris.
“Nice moves!” Chris yelled above the chaos.
“Thanks!” Lara laughed back, rolling to evade the creature’s swipe.
Chris kept his target locked, following the creature as Lara distracted it from him. “Jesus– how much lead can this thing take?” But as soon as he said it, there was an almighty BOOM! And the creature burst into flaming limbs and skin as it exploded midair above him. “Eugh–” gore and mucus rained down on him. “You weren’t lying, that was an explosive end.”
“Thanks for that,” Lara teased, “I didn’t fancy going for another shower just yet.” She patted Chris’ gory shoulder and passed by him to walk through the now open door.
Chris took a moment to hopelessly try and shift some of the gunk, but realised it was futile, and quickly hurried after the woman.
“Those are some awesome moves,” he said, deeply impressed, “you said you’re an archaeologist?”
“Part time.”
“Ever considered joining the BSAA? We could do with more people like you.”
“I’m not a soldier,” Lara shrugged, “i’ll leave that to the people like you, Chris. Have you always been in this line of work?”
“Sort of.” They stopped as they rounded the corridor to face a long ascending slope into blackness. “In truth this wasn’t much of a choice – wrong place wrong time… guess i’ve got some personal vendettas to settle first.”
“Yes, I quite understand… Wesker, was it? I believe I read about him in the case file. You used to be colleagues?”
“A long time ago.” Chris shrugged. “The nature of that has… evolved somewhat.”
The conversation was cut short as a soft rumbling began to quiver the walls and floor. It seemed to be coming from the darkness up ahead.
“I think we’d better find another way,” Chris decided firmly, turning and starting to run. Lara kept pace, the two of them sprinting down the long narrow corridor as the rumbling grew louder and closer. “This way!” Chris yelled, grabbing Lara and swinging her into the crevice on the wall just in time as the boulder rolled past.
“I didn’t think traps like that really happened,” Chris panted, wiping the sweat from his brow. “This usual in your line of work?”
“In my experience,” Lara laughed, also slightly breathless. “But look, this seems to lead down… it’s a bit of a drop.” She pulled out a grapple from her pack and jammed it into the rock. “I think we ought to take a quick look.”
Chris rappelled down after her, landing on a surface that was strangely squishy and seemed to pulse beneath his boots.
“Eugh… what is this?” He scowled, quickly stepping away from the fleshy wall.
“An interesting aspect of Atlantean biology, it often serves as architecture too. I suppose it’s an optimal climate for developing soldiers. Think of it as a huge womb with a brain.”
“That does not make me feel much better. I’m just glad we’re evolved from apes rather than this shit. But this must out-date the Anthropocene by a good couple million years, right?”
Lara smiled over her shoulder at him. “I didn’t take you for much of an anthropologist, Chris.”
Chris was glad it was dark enough for her not to see him blush. “Ah.. my partner’s… erm, line of work. I picked up a couple things over the years.” He cleared his throat. “And you, why’d you focus on Atlantis? Out of everything you’ve ever seen?”
“Oh quite similar to you in fact. An ex..” Lara scoffed, “well, let’s say they had some personal reasons.”
Finally the fleshy corridor opened out, and for a moment they stood on a narrow precipice. Down below was a platform with several dozen eggs. Some crumpled and moulded, as though already dead. The platform was illuminated by a circuit of frothing lava, spitting and hissing down below. To make matters worse, several dangling, swinging rusted blades were hanging over the steep slope down toward the platform where a line of sharp spikes were waiting for the unfortunate victim.
“At last,” Lara said with delight.
Chris gave her a concerned look. “I really think we ought to head back.”
“And miss out on all the fun?” Lara challenged him, already reloading her pistols. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Chris?” Her eyes glittered in a semi-mad way Chris presumed was normal for British aristocracy, and without a second delay, she’d dropped onto the slope and made a graceful dodge beneath the swinging blade, and launched into a gun-toting swan dive over the spikes. She landed into a neat roll, guns aloft, a smile on her face.
“God damn it,” Chris sighed. He tapped into his headset. “Piers? If you can hear me, you may as well head down. Croft and I are going to clear a spot inside for a checkpoint. Piers?” But his radio crackled, and his Lieutenant did not reply. “Shit…” he frowned, trying again and again. Going through but receiving nothing but static in reply. “Fucksake Piers… where are you?”
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IV
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“They’re doing well,” Wesker observed, sat back calmly before his set-up of screens, watching with interest as Redfield and Croft tried to solve a puzzle comprised of moving blocks and reflective light. “Croft is as you say, quite daring.”
Natla said nothing at first, stood poised on the parapet of her black rock overlook. From her back sprouted huge velvety bat-like wings. She seemed to be impatient, glaring down at the double doors down below that opened out into a circular lava-surrounded arena lined with unfinished columns decorated in Atlantean script.
“I must say however – was it a design flaw that the bioweapons explode at the point of death?”
“Primarily out of spite,” Natla finally answered, sounding distracted.
“Hmm… generally a little harder to have a glitch like that in anthro-based mutations…” Wesker made a note on his second screen, frowning slightly.
“Where are they now?”
Wesker checked. “They’ve just finished the second puzzle room. Only the flame gauntlet and a final combat exam before they should reach the gladiatorial chamber. The block pushing puzzle certainly slowed them down. Truly sadistic. I shall have to remember that one.”
Natla gave a sharp; “Hah!” And finally turned back to face him, smiling wickedly. “Lara will stop at nothing to try and find the truth. She still thinks she can find closure. It’s all too easy drawing in self-serving freelancers.”
Wesker leaned back from the stone table, also smiling. “Christopher is quite the same. He’ll self-sacrifice for whoever he can, whenever he can. Equally so, it makes him quite easily manipulatable. It seems he and Miss Croft make quite the self-destructive force.”
“Is he…” she shrugged, “he’s a little too strong for just a human. Even Lara is yet to punch one of my centaurs to explosion.”
With a guilty show of his palms in almost a sheepish manner, Wesker chuckled. “Well, perhaps i’ve given him a few little boosters along the way. Poor man thinks it’s just steroids that have been pumping him up like that.”
“Nefarious.”
“Why, thank you. Doesn’t it suit him?”
Natla rolled her eyes and finally paid attention to the screen. “Hardly a martyr, and yet always thinking they can save the world,” she murmured, her claw-like nails digging into the stone. “She makes it so very difficult. I offered her to share my power, once. Now look at the stupid things she makes me do.”
Wesker hummed his ascent. “I know he won’t take it when it comes. I never once thought i’d have much time for heroes… all those times I tried to kill him…” he sighed, almost dreamily, “but doesn’t that just excite you like evolution could never?”
“Seems your little evolution on steroids is all you want out of this deal,” Natla accused with a wry smile.
The blond man turned slightly pink and coughed.
Down below, the huge stone doors CRACKED and began to roll open.
“Oh, excellent,” Natla clapped her hands, “the party guests have arrived. Shall we go greet them? I expect they’ll be thirsty.”
“A little early for champagne,” Wesker mused, still eyeing Chris and Lara battling Atlanteans on the screen. “But i’ve brought some dregs from Umbrella Corporation’s finest… i’m certain they can whip up something stimulating for our guests until our heroes arrive to save the day.”
Both of them stood on the ledge, and peered down at the BSAA soldiers being wrangled into the arena by Atlantean soldiers. Not a single one had any clue just what they were in for…
-
V
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Three trap rooms, several mutant centaurs and a tricky jump later, (slightly scorched) Chris and Lara progressed down the suspiciously ornamental hallway towards two gigantic rune-carved doors.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit too convenient?” Chris asked as Lara dropped to pick up some more discarded ammunition from the floor. “What would this ammunition be doing here? It’s not like the Atlanteans need it.”
“You know,” Lara paused, loading up the shotgun she’d found lying under a breakaway platform in the last room, “I’ve never stopped to think about it.”
“It’s like breadcrumbs…” Chris mused, “and we’re the dumbass birds hopping to the next one, all the way to the cat’s mouth.”
“You weren’t complaining when I gave you those magnum pistols I found.”
“Well–” Chris said defensively, his hand going to the pistols he’d gratefully stowed at his hips. “They’re one of a kind, dual 50 Calibre magnum pistols, developed for a brief window in 1996 by Natla Technologies.” He could still fondly remember the very magazine issue of Gun Gal Weekly he’d stash in his desk at the RPD.
Lara gave him a teasing smile. “You’d better not forget about getting me one of those classic custom Samurai Edges you were promising earlier then.”
“Kendo was a great guy…” Chris sighed, “I think Wesker might still have his. If we get to beat his ass today you can take them yourself. Bastard doesn’t deserve to keep them after what he did.”
“Something tells me we’re rather close to finding out whether he’s here or not,” Lara murmured as they stopped just before the door, and both peered up to admire it’s incredible height. “Does this look like a final boss door to you?”
Chris laughed, then shuddered. He was drenched in sweat and gore by this point (while Lara still seemed fairly unbothered), and the prospect of something much larger and much more liquidous was starting to turn his stomach. Not to mention the little jitters he always got when he sensed that Wesker was nearby.
He was about to ask whether they should split up to locate a switch when the doors began to open on their own. A slow, grinding roll, taking them out onto a wide area ringed in spitting lava. Two lines of columns like a hypostyle hall showing the route to the set of doors on the other side. Up above in the gloom appeared to be what Chris could only equate to a cut rock observation box.
“Something tells me the rulers of Atlantis didn’t watch much football,” he muttered, gripping his rifle tight and scouring the walls above for any sign of eggs. His eyes followed the columns up into the gloom – they must’ve reached the ceiling of the cavern, and even in the darkness the runes glowed magma orange. “You see anything?”
“No.” Lara was turning slowly, holding the shotgun close. “But I hear it .”
BA-BUM, BA-BUM, BA-BUM
It was louder than the others. Simultaneous with the low liquidous burbling growling of organs working. Pumping the bloodless gore that powered the Atlantean mutants.
A sudden CRACK so loud it shivered the columns.
“Move!” Chris commanded, and they split, sprinting away from the centre of the arena as a gargantuan ball of flesh plummeted out of the gloom and hit the rock with a terrible screeching roar of fury and pain. Half finished, the sinewy torso creature, blind and toothless swung out its arms, clawing for the offending humans, knocking down two of the pillars in its rage.
“You know this guy!?” Chris yelled across as he began shooting as he ran, only just outpacing the swipe of the creature’s arms.
Lara, who was mirroring his action on the other side shouted back; “old friends you could say!”
“Any hints!?”
“Keep shooting!”
Chris could almost laugh. He dodged through the pillars, sliding out of reach of the hands, forcing the creature to drag itself slimily across the rock as he sped down toward the other end of the arena. He paused to observe it through his scope, firing sprays of bullets at its head.
“Looks like the skull isn’t fully formed! Could be a weak spot?”
Lara, who was diving and weaving through the creature’s arms as if it were a game flipped backwards some ways and concurred. “I’ll keep our friend busy,” she said, “can you think of a plan?”
Chris sucked his teeth, still firing on the torso giant as it scraped its way down the arena toward the two of them. And his eyes trailed up to the few standing pillars that hadn’t yet crashed to the ground.
“I have an idea, keep him occupied - I don’t know if this is gonna work.”
“Then get to it,” Lara shot him a sincere, strangely badass smile. “Don’t disappoint me now, Chris.”
She flipped back into action as the creature roared and swung, firing round after round from her shotgun as she hopped and flipped in ways that’d make even Albert Wesker impressed.
But he didn’t have time to admire his partner now. Chris slung his rifle over his shoulder and bouldered his way to the nearest gargantuan column. About the diameter of a small car, he might’ve given up the idea wholly as impossible if it weren’t for the few hairline cracks beginning to form from the creature bashing its huge hands down on the arena platform, causing it to quake and splinter the rock alarmingly.
“Here fuckin’ goes,” Chris breathed, and he brought back his right hand and delivered the first powerful skull-exploding punch. Strike after strike, cracks grew deeper and the column groaned, spitting fire from the runes. “Come! On!” He yelled, adrenaline and determination firing him up to an insane degree as he launched his fist into the rock over and over, sweat pouring down his body (envious now of Lara’s booty shorts and vest).
CRACK!!! A huge, deep crevasse had formed but it wasn’t enough. And with all the strength he could muster, hearing Lara’s pistols blazing now as she’d run out of ammo, he hugged the splintering column, set his feet on the rock, tightened his buttocks, and pushed ! He pushed hard, grunting as he shoved and shoved, hearing the rock crack and shudder until at last it SNAPPED .
“LARA!” He warned, stumbling back as the enormous pillar came crashing down onto the creature’s soft head, and crushed it like a maggot into the rock floor. Its screeching ceased, and the resoundant string of explosions sprayed the walls with gore and guts and fire. Until there was only a pile of smoking, scorched gore and mucus left beneath the bleeding pillar.
“Oh– shit… Lara!” Chris rushed forward, wading into the goop to search for the archaeologist he was supposed to have been protecting. “Fuck!” But before he could even attempt to try and lift the pillar, a voice called from up above.
“Missing someone?”
With her grapple, she’d scaled the adjacent column and now hung several feet up in the air, looking no worse for wear.
Chris breathed a sigh of relief as the acrobat easily lowered herself back to the ground. Once again mostly free of the gore that had smothered him head to foot.
“Good work,” she applauded, tossing him a medical kit, “i’ve never seen anyone punch a column to death before.”
“I’ve had a fair few rocky run-ins by this point.” Chris grinned gratefully as he awkwardly applied some healing gel to his bruised knuckles (which surprisingly didn’t hurt too much). “So, now what?”
A slow clap from far above had them both turn and squint up at the observation box cut into the rock. This time, two figures were standing, watching. One in black, one in white.
“Wesker.”
“Natla!?”
“You never disappoint me, Lara,” Natla applauded cooly from her perch, sly and haughty, “I knew this would be only too tempting for you.”
“Is this a trap?” Chris barked, starting to reach for his rifle. “I knew it’d be you,” he cursed up at Albert Wesker, “so what, you’ve teamed up with another megalomaniac with a god-complex? Do you really want to destroy mankind that badly?”
Wesker chuckled darkly, clutching a glass elegantly in one hand. “Not at all. I’m merely here to witness such a splendid performance. I do miss seeing you tussle, Christopher.”
Chris prickled, his eyes moving to the glass. “What is this, champagne exes-torture night? Or are we being utilised in some stupid plan to activate this new age bullshit?”
“This…” Wesker frowned, “is a mimosa, you ignorant–” he cleared his throat. “And no, you and Miss Croft have been lured here under far more important circumstance.”
“Explain right this second or i’ll make the most of my final clip,” Lara warned hands already at her pistols, her face creased with spite. “You know that has been enough before, Natla.”
Natla leaned forward and smirked. “No need, Lara. The fighting is done. You wanna find out so bad why it is you’ve come all this way? Well, you’re just gonna have to come on up and join the party .”
Lara and Chris stepped back in alarm as the final set of doors below the box rumbled open, revealing a gilded staircase cut into the rock, illuminated with carefully directed lava streams.
“I’m guessing that’s your ex?” Chris asked Lara as they exchanged a tired look.
“I wouldn’t have guessed he was your type,” Lara poised back with an attempt at a tease.
“Suppose we’d better get this over with.”
“After you, Mr Redfield.”
With trepidation, and a feeling of certain doom, the heroes made their final ascent to face the gods they were destined to.
-
VI
-
“SURPRISE!!”
The great hall burst into light and a dozen explosions of confetti bombarded Lara and Chris as they reached the top of the stairs.
“What the–”
Chris blinked in horror as he looked around at the mix of BSAA soldiers and scholarly looking types wearing party hats and grinning stupidly. Balloons were raining down from the sky, drawing his attention up to the two huge banners strung up between the pillars.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARA!” and the chilling “HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!” that Chris realised in an instant was for him.
“Oh god… I forgot…” Lara looked flummoxed, standing still in shock as a few people who must’ve been personal friends crowded her with colourfully wrapped gifts and tried to hug her.
“Valentines Day,” Chris said grimly, pushing through the BSAA members trying to pat him on the shoulder and congratulate him. “Piers– Piers, what’s going on-?” He tried to confront his Lieutenant.
“Happy Anniversary Captain!” Piers said cheerfully, slurring slightly, his eyes misty, as though he were already absolutely coathangered out of his bonce.
The two menaces to blame for the whole nightmare were joining the fray now, and Chris marched right up to Wesker without even reaching for his rifle. Instead he grabbed the lapels of his shirt and spat; “the fuck did you do this time, you goddamn bastard? This is too goddamn far, even for you–”
“I thought you’d be happy,” Wesker frowned, “surprise parties are always fun.” His eyes trailed back to the BSAA who’d broken out into a drunken rendition of ‘Sweet Caroline’. “Don’t worry about your men,” he smiled thinly, “just a little hallucinatory drug and some experimental doping. They’ll be quite alright tomorrow morning.”
“Happy—!?” Chris smacked his forehead. “Fucking hell… don’t you remember what I told you last time!? You don’t have to trick me for these things. I’d rather you just asked !”
Wesker looked bemused. “I thought you’d find the gauntlet we arranged quite stimulating. Wonderful display with the column too. You really do know how to get me going, Christopher.”
“That was supposed to be fun ?” Chris asked weakly, falling back and leaning against the refreshment table. “That was one of the most terrifying work days of my life. And that’s saying something . How am I supposed to take you seriously, Wesker? You show up once a year and kidnap me on a date, we’re getting too old for this bullshit!”
The man in black looked cold now, clutching his mimosa so tight the glass threatened to break. “You know i’m not good at these things,” Wesker hissed, “I never hear you inviting me out, Christopher.”
“You won’t even give me your number!”
Wesker pondered. “You follow me on LinkedIn, don’t you?”
“That is not the same.” Chris exhaled heavily, and glanced blearily around to see the BSAA lining up for drinks from the suspiciously Umbrella-uniformed scientists shaking up cocktails behind the stone runic bar. “Seriously man, what the fuck?”
“Chris–” it was Lara, walking slightly more relaxed with a smiling Jacqueline Natla in tow. “This is the bitch who blackmailed me out of my lawsuit,” she explained almost pleasantly. “You don’t mind if we slip out for a moment? Natla’s kindly prepared some Atlantean pottery for me to inspect.”
“Pottery?” Chris replied weakly.
“Antiquities this rare will be the evidence I need to prove my theories,” Lara explained, slightly more passionately, “with these, the Bembridge Scholars will have no choice but to publish my works.”
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Chris asked, feeling as though he shouldn’t let his charge disappear into the gloom with the frightening winged bat-woman behind her. “I can come with you–”
“No need,” Jacqueline Natla said curtly, gripping Lara’s shoulder almost possessively, “I’m going to show Lara some fertility rituals she’ll find quite fascinating . You’d find them very dull, Mr Redfield.”
“Right.”
“Ritual culture really is something best experienced!” Lara agreed, “this really has been a fantastic birthday so far.”
“If boulder traps and primordial fertility rituals are your thing,” Chris tried to sound supportive.
As Lara Croft and her pet Atlantean God Natla disappeared discussing avidly about sacred bio-landscapes, Chris turned back to Wesker and gave a heavy sigh.
“This might be one of your worst attempts to woo me yet, Wesker. I think I preferred the ballet-at-gunpoint from a couple of years back.” He cringed as Piers’ drunken singing resulted in more cheers from his drugged up soldiers. “Is there anywhere we can talk in private?”
“Of course.” Wesker held out his hand, and with a deeply reluctant grunt, Chris took it, and allowed himself to be led up into the privacy of the observation box overlooking the arena.
From up here, the lava lake glowed quite beautifully. The ancient Atlantean architecture fine and fantastic.
“Just for once, it’d be nice for us to go on a normal date,” Chris said at last, turning to look at his own semi-tamed idiot god partner. “And a bit of notice again, too. I left your present at home this year, again .”
Wesker chuckled, and kissed Chris’ bruised knuckles. “I can’t help myself. You’re the most beautiful in mortal peril, Christopher. My love for you does make me do silly things.”
“Yes,” Chris agreed distastefully. “I’m covered in gore and confetti right now, Wesker, I can’t say i’m feeling very romantic right now.”
“You look stunning, my love,” and Wesker swept in to kiss him. And Chris kissed back, having long since given up on trying to teach him appropriate romantic timing. Wesker really was trying his best. As terrible as it was.
“Do your evil plans always make you this horny?” Chris asked pointedly, eyebrow raised, as he felt something stiff against his crotch.
“If you’d prefer, we can go back down to the party,” Wesker chuckled, “I’ve got my finest scientists making fireballs for your men right now.”
Chris shuddered. “Hell no, i’ve seen enough fireballs already today. And you’re enough of a fireball yourself, old man. I’d say my hands are already pretty full.”
Wesker smirked, and removed his glasses to toss aside before drawing Chris’ body up close once more. “That’s a good man,” he murmured, eyes glinting gold in the firelight, “got any fight left in you for me, Chris?”
Chris Redfield rolled his eyes, grinning despite himself. “Yeah yeah. Happy anniversary, you difficult old sleazebag.” And he held the back of Wesker’s head, and leaned up to kiss him firmly on the lips.