Code Name: EVE

A/N: Oops, forget that one note about the missing review that was here before, I got confused about which fic it was on.

Things that aren’t clear in this chapter will be explained in the next chapter. LeonxHunnigan mentioned, but not explored, so there’s no official story tag for it. No sex in this chapter because we’re getting into the part that actually has a real plot and action. Again, you’ll have to wait another chapter for more of that.

I’m having trouble with Leon’s character, I think, but I don’t know what else to do with it, so I’m open to pointers in that regard.



Plaga Colony Structure



Though all members share a deep bond, the colony is held together by a single matriarch. This matriarch can have several mates—often claimed from disbanded colonies—and many more offspring. Male offspring are bonded to their matriarch from birth. When the matriarch dies, these offspring are open to be claimed by matriarchs from other colonies. The matriarch controls the colony via a combination of the olfactory and auditory senses.



The auditory control appears to be the easiest to exploit in the males, though the females have proven to be extremely resistant to all attempts at artificial control. Only one out of several hundred plagas born is female, but to be safe we shouldn’t take any chances. All eggs will be genetically engineered and artificially inserted in hosts. We’re still working on tricking plagas engineered from different matriarchs into believing they have been claimed by the artificial matriarch (Master Plaga). Thus far, there has only been a 60% success rate.



No one had worse luck than him, Leon was certain of that. His first day on the force, the city got attacked by zombies. His first day as Ashley’s body guard, she’d been abducted. Worse than that, he’d failed the rescue mission. Whether Ashley was alive or dead somewhere—it’s been almost two years, I should’ve heard something—he’d failed to bring her home. Breaking the news to her father had sucked so horribly, words couldn’t describe it. He even preferred the following two years of being poked and prodded by scientists to the expressions on her parents’ faces. Even though all of that poking and prodding had led them nowhere. If Ingrid hadn’t been there to hold his hand through most of it, he might have snapped a long time ago. At the same time, if he hadn’t gotten Ingrid in the first place, he wouldn’t have lost her, which might have made his current predicament easier to handle.



Of course he didn’t expect anyone in the party to be plaga friendly, exactly. With the sounds he heard every night agitating the little bug so much he could even understand them taking precautions in the event that he became violent. Seriously, though, did their commander have to be such a stone cold, plaga hating, bastard about all of this? They made it clear that anything less than subservience would be taken as an act of aggression, and they would react accordingly. With every swallow reminding him that there was a shock collar around his neck, Leon could only comply.



Pins and needles in his fingers made him twist his hands in the cuffs. They were holed up in the lobby of an apartment building, where they’d found a couple of survivors. In the morning, a jeep would take them out of the city, to a private hospital where they would determine whether or not they’d been infested. The place where he’d spent the vast majority of his time since returning. There were two watchmen posted at the door of the apartment building, and there were more soldiers upstairs. Leon was handcuffed in the stairwell between them. He could escape if he had to—if they were attacked for instance—but he had to be careful about trying their trust. One of the only reasons they had him along was to warn them when other plagas were in the vicinity, and the other was probably just because he’d dealt with something like this before. Maybe they also thought that the others would stay away if they sensed him, but Leon wasn’t so sure about that. At times it seemed like he was actually attracting them, but he never told their commander that. No telling what he’d do.



God, his butt was falling asleep, too. Wincing, he shifted sideways and tucked one leg under him. His plaga was restless, that noise was deafening in his head, and he couldn’t stay in any position for too long without something going numb. He doubted he’d sleep tonight either. Staying awake was good, though. If he was awake, he could keep his plaga from tearing free and running away.



XXX



About a dozen miles away, a black-clad figure stalked through the remains of a pharmacy, sweeping a small, clip on flashlight over the shelves. Finally, she grabbed four bottles of Centrum and returned to the back of the store, where three other black-clad figures hunched around a map with a second flashlight.



Plagas could see shapes in the dark, but they couldn’t see colors or printed ink. Jack took one of the bottles from Heather, opened it, and absentmindedly popped a vitamin into his mouth. “So, we know that he’s somewhere in this area, but it’s still a lot of ground to cover.” He popped a second vitamin and put the lid back on the bottle. “Ashley and I’ll head north, and you two-”



“Oh, please. You two go off alone, you’ll be making out in an alley before an hour’s up,” Heather smirked.



“They wouldn’t wait to be alone,” Ari added.



Ashley blushed. “We’re not that bad, are we?”



“Fine, Ari and I’ll go north,” Jack ceded, his expression amused. “We’ll all work our way west across the city, but,” he looked up and around the circle, “do not leave the range of communication. Follow?” When everyone gave him an affirmative, he pulled a duffle bag into the middle of the circle and began distributing weapons. He still had the broken butterfly with seven bullets, and he swore to himself that all seven of them were going straight into Wesker. Other than that, he was confident that his knife and his plaga would be sufficient.



Heather happily accepted the shotgun. Ashley and Ari had trouble with the weight and the kick. In fact, Ari was barely comfortable handling a gun at all. It was better for the shotgun to be in the hands of someone who wouldn’t hesitate to fire it.



Ashley was also cradling her weapon nervously, trying to remember everything she and Jack had talked about. It was one thing to fire at stationary objects in the middle of quiet, harmless woods. To shoot at something alive, in the middle of what was sure to be chaos?



“You’ll be fine,” Jack assured, knowing well enough by now how to tell when she was nervous, with or without the colony connection. “Just point and shoot. If you think you’ll miss their heads, hit them a couple times in the torso.”



“What if it’s something without a distinct torso?”



“I’ll blow its brains out for you,” Heather smiled, patting Ashley on the back. “And you,” she turned to Ari and brushed a strand of hair out of his face, “don’t worry. I’m sure Jack’ll take good care of you.”



Jack tilted Ashley’s face up and kissed her. “If we catch wind of any trouble, we’ll come running.” He waited while Heather kissed Ari, and then they split up to go their separate ways.



XXX



Leon’s head jerked up and his muscles went rigid. He heard something, felt it in the ground, big things. He’d actually seen them before, impossibly hulking things striding along on four legs thrashing their tails. They traveled in groups of three or more. No one could tell what they had been before—possibly rhinos—but it was generally assumed that the plagas had gotten into the zoo. “Something’s coming,” he hissed to the guards at the door, gripping the railing to resist the plaga’s urge to break out of the cuffs.



The guards raised their weapons and peered into the darkness beyond the glass. Indeed, quite large, spiny silhouettes wove through the cars stalled along the sides of the street. Once in a while, violet-red eyes would flash as they glanced toward the building. It was safer to assume that they could read the sound waves through the glass, or at least only hear them whispering. One soldier jerked his head at his buddy, who moved swiftly but quietly upstairs to inform the rest of the men.



Leon waited tensely for someone to let him out, but the troop ignored him as they came down and took up a formation along the front wall. Still another stayed standing over Leon, keeping an eye on him. Leon gritted his teeth. While he’d only seen maybe four different tails, he didn’t like how they were hanging back. They should’ve attacked while there was only one man standing at the door.



Glass shattered upstairs and screams erupted. The soldiers closest to the stairs took off up them, barely paying Leon enough mind to avoid tripping on him. When the gunfire started up there, the creatures in the street charged the glass. The remaining group backed up several steps as the glass starred around the impact of a horn. When two more followed suite, somebody lost it and opened fire. With the glass barrier failing quickly, the last three started shooting too. It barely affected the beasts’ thick hides, however.



The lead creature lowered its head and jammed the boney spear on its forehead right through the gut of the closest gunman. The momentum sent them both crashing into the banister, and Leon scrambled as much out of the way as he could. It tossed its head, flinging the still kicking body against the wall. It hit with a splat of internal organs, spasmed, and lay still. Then the creature’s eyes were on Leon. The little bug inside of him couldn’t sit still any longer, and the other three soldiers were clearly too distracted to care. The ex-agent kicked frantically at the banister as the animal lowered its head and charged. The damn thing was metal, and the creature was getting closer and closer and… The creature grazed Leon’s shin with its horn as he threw himself over the railing. He swung up hard against the bars and slid until the chain between his wrists caught the next bar down, but it was better than a horn in the abdomen. Oh, fuck, it’s going upstairs! Leon got one foot on the stairs and pushed himself up, so that he stood on the outside of the banister. As he was about to try freeing himself from the cuffs again, he felt something whip-like lash out and twine around his ankle. More joined it and jerked on him suddenly, causing him to lose his footing. Looking down, he locked eyes with the horned creature below. Tentacles had sprung from its throat, and now they were trying to pull him down.



XXX



Something was following them. Ashley and Heather could both sense it, danger watching them from the windows. Unfortunately, the windows were dark, and the plagas couldn’t seem to see through the glass with any decent clarity. The blonde walked with her gun drawn, holding it up near her shoulder the way she’d seen Leon do it.



They both heard the gunshots at the same time. Heather jerked the shotgun up and looked around. The sounds were still relatively far away, but- Her line of thought was cut off by a gunshot right next to her. She whipped around again, aiming the shotgun the same direction Ashley was aiming, but she couldn’t tell what had set her off, and her plaga had been in the same state of unease since they entered the city. “What?”



“Something moved,” Ashley hissed, her voice strained.



“Where?”



“Behind the sewer grate.”



Either it was nothing, or Ashley had chased it off. Just in case, it was probably better to conserve ammo for now. “Let’s just get out of here.”



No problem with that at all. Her gun stayed trained on the dark hole in the gutter until her and Heather were a safe distance away. As they turned to move on hastily, the street cracked and bulged under them. Only the grace of the plagas kept them from falling on their asses. Sandwiched between the sounds of gunfire at one end of the street and the spreading cracks at the other, Ashley grabbed Heather’s arm and stumbled into a run for the nearest alleyway, hoping to cut over a street. However, before they even set foot on the opposite sidewalk, something exploded out of the gutter in front of them.



Heather skidded to a stop. She’d come in expecting to see weird things, but it was still surprising. It was five feet long, at least the part that stuck out of the ground, and tube shaped. Row and rows of teeth ringed its mouth, descending into its throat for as far as she could glimpse. They changed direction, but the things kept cutting them off, until they were surrounded. She and Ashley stood back to back, and she could feel the younger blonde trembling. “Oh, fuck it.” Heather pumped the shotgun, done trying to avoid a conflict, and fired as the worm closest to her struck. Its head, if it could be called that, splattered as the shot flew into its mouth. The next closest one tried to take a bite out of her as well, but Heather kicked it away. The two girls dodged through the temporary gap, jumping over the still twitching carcass of the first attacker.



This time, when the pavement exploded before her, Ashley squeezed off a few shots as she ran. The thing screeched and recoiled as she elbowed it out of the way. This wasn’t so hard. In fact, as she fell into the adrenaline fueled rhythm of fight then flight, it started to turn into a kind of game. Her plaga certainly seemed to be having a blast. She even found that she didn’t mind as much running toward the gunshots. Gunshots meant people, and people might mean her parents, or people who know the whereabouts of her parents.



Getting off street level for a while should shake off those damn worms. If she had to fight someone off, fine, but there was also the chance that having Ashley Graham on her side would prevent something like that. When Ashley hesitated at curb, Heather grabbed her arm and hauled her into the building. Her eyes promptly fell on what had given the other girl pause. Oh, Goddammit. Even though the plaga threat signals didn’t always indicate what type of outsider was in the vicinity, they could quite often give the basic direction of that outsider. If the host knew how to listen. Heather hadn’t quite mastered that last part. A glance back proved that the street outside was crawling with those worm things, so they couldn’t go back. The monster Ashley had apparently sensed was already occupied with another victim, anyway, trying to haul it off the stairs with a multitude of small but powerful tentacles. Its prey had a human form, but it registered as merely another outsider, so it wouldn’t really matter if they used the opportunity to sneak-



Ashley’s jaw dropped. Her eyes darted around for a more useful weapon than her handgun, and fell on a gutted corpse still clutching a TMP. Without really thinking, she ripped it out of the stiff fingers and let loose a stream of bullets into the spiny creature’s face and mouth. It roared and the tentacles released Leon, lashing out at her instead. Ashley tried to shoot it again, but the gun was out of ammo. Cursing her lack of foresight, she ducked and rolled instead. With a wet slap, a tentacle struck the floor where she’d been a second before. At least the thing was already injured, but she had no desire to end up like the people around her.



As Leon tumbled over the side of the railing and landed on the stairs, he glanced up to assess the new danger. The brunette, he didn’t recognize, but the blonde… It can’t be… But it was. Her hair was a little longer, pulled back in a ponytail, and she was splattered with gray-green plaga gore, but there was no denying who he was looking at. “Ashley?!”



“Yep,” she grinned at Leon.



“Ash!” Heather interrupted.



The blonde turned toward Heather, and then gasped and bent backwards to duck another one of the slimy whips. From her new crouched position on the floor, Ashley whipped out the handgun, as pathetic as it was against a thing like this, and emptied half of a clip into its side before she had to roll away again. “Where the hell is Jack?”



This entire situation was surreal, but Leon wasn’t going to watch them fall to that thing, too. “Shoot it in the stomach!” He called, his voice strained with the effort of pulling at the cuffs.



Heather leaped to one side as it charged and tried to stay to one side of it, noting that it was rather slow at turning. “And how am I supposed to do that?”



Leon finally managed to snap one of the links. Unhindered, he jumped back over the railing and hastily checked a corpse’s pockets for ammo. “Think of something!”



Hesitating for a moment, Ashley snatched a tentacle as it whipped past her. Swinging to another one, and then kicking off still another, she landed on the creature’s back. Bad idea. Because her plaga had made her more flexible than strong, and because it could recover from all kinds of injuries fairly quickly, she’d opted for ease of movement rather than protective when choosing her clothing. The spiny armor on this monster’s skin dug right through the cloth and into her legs, like thousands of needles. Gritting her teeth, Ashley forced herself to clamp down with her thighs as she grabbed for the horn on its head and pulled back. It bellowed and slapped at her with the tentacles, trying to dislodge her.



At least the distraction gave him more time to find and reload a weapon, but what the hell did she think she was doing? “Ashley, get away from there!”



She wasn’t listening to anything else, too focused on maintaining her grip. When nothing else worked, the creature reared up on its back legs and slammed back down. The impact jostled her, scratching her legs. “Shoot it!” She screamed before it reared up again. She didn’t know how many more of the impacts she could withstand. Fortunately, Leon and Heather were on top of it this time. Bullets ripped through the creature’s exposed belly, splattering sludge-colored blood all over the floor. It roared and crashed back down, finally throwing Ashley off.



Leon grabbed Ashley’s arms and dragged her away as the thing narrowly avoided stumbling on top of her. It wobbled, tripped, and toppled over sideways. “What are you doing here?”



“I heard about my parents on the news and thought I’d come back to help…”



“You were missing for two years! I thought you were dead!”



Ashley gave him a sheepish look. “Well… Jack and I kind of got stuck in Spain, and… It’s a long story…”



Twice now, with that name. After all the shit Krauser had put him through, Leon would have been happy never to hear of him again. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, and no time for them now. “We’ll talk later, there are more people upstairs.”



Whether they were actively working together or not, the human hosts had used the distraction downstairs to take on the outsiders upstairs, using fire escapes and windows. A lot of those outsiders weren’t even plagas, but they were resisting the plagas, so that was a good enough reason. Personally, Ashley was willing to help innocent civilians or even the soldiers as long as they were going after the offensive colony. Leon was a different outsider all together, and the blonde could tell that her companion was only tolerating him because of Ashley’s human ties. It was already a massacre upstairs, soldiers and civilians alike. They followed Leon from apartment to apartment, quickly checking the place over. The elevator was out, so anyone they found was escorted to the stairwell where two remaining soldiers waited.



Leon didn’t like the looks the commander kept giving him, but they didn’t have time to discuss his breaking out. There were people that needed to be evacuated, and two of those mutants were still stalking about the building somewhere. It was unlikely that they’d be able to get into the stairwell, so the civilians were safe in there under guard, but they didn’t know for how long. The three were searching their last apartments, seeking a missing ten-year-old whose dad was already waiting anxiously with the others. Finally, Heather found her in a closet. Ashley scooped her up and they were about thirty feet from the stairwell door when Leon felt the vibrations in the floor. He risked a glance back, hoping he was wrong, only to see a tank of a creature come lumbering around a corner. It was bloody and stumbling, but as soon as it spied them life sprang back into its eyes. “Shit…” Watching it over his shoulder, Leon turned and nudged the girls toward the door. “Go, go, go!”



They started running just as it started running, but the distance closed rapidly. It was only two yards away when they passed the perpendicular hall. Heather was getting ready to turn and defend Ashley when the blur came charging out and collided with the animal. It stumbled sideways into the wall just as another, smaller and slightly slower individual followed. It was Ari, and he grabbed Heather’s arm to get her moving again.



“Jack!” Ashley screamed.



That name made Leon glance back again. Sure enough, his eyes fell on the back of the muscular blond, claw shield extended, standing between them and the rapidly recovering creature. So Krauser really was back from the dead. Again.



“I’ll catch up with you,” he answered without turning around.



When Ashley still hesitated, Leon grabbed her arm. “He can take care of himself. Get the kid out of here.” Granted, it would only take one or two of them to get the kid out, but he wasn’t going to leave Ashley behind. This time when he pulled, she followed. They made it to the stairs and back outside without incident. However, as they were piling the survivors into two jeeps, the street began to crack and rumble again. A much larger worm popped out, surrounded by the smaller ones.



Gunfire once more echoed through the streets as the jeeps tried to speed off in two different directions. Screeching, the worm reared back and crashed down so close that Ashley could see the texture of it skin. A rift opened in the street, revealing the subway tunnels the worms must have been using to get around. Ashley grabbed for Ari and Leon, as though holding on to them would keep her from going over the edge. But they were slipping, too, because the whole car was slipping. She couldn’t help a scream when she felt gravity take them, a sound swallowed by the crunch of metal and concrete. Her vision swam temporarily from the impact, blurry and confused. She didn’t even question when she felt two strong arms pulling her from the wreckage and then two more urging her into a run. Not that she needed the urging. She could still sense the danger all around. The reek of outsiders dripped from the walls.