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rallamajoop · 8 months

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Resident Evil 6: When a franchise has an identity crisis

I can’t tell you RE6 is a better game than RE5, but if nothing else, it’s a far more interesting failure.

RE6 is famously the game that tried so hard to appeal to everyone that it wound up appealing to no-one: overlong, overproduced and utterly OTT. RE5 left the franchise at a crossroads: the previous two games were huge successes, but drew criticism for straying from the series’ horror roots. Faced with the choice of doubling down on the new direction or diverting back towards something more survival horror, Capcom attempted to do both, at once, and then some.

The new RE6 would have three different main campaigns (Chris & Piers, Leon & Helena, and Jake & Sherry), all aimed at different markets, plus a fourth which would unlock only after the previous three were completed, which was to be different again. It would have something for everyone! Provided ‘everyone’ wanted a co-op shooter experience with ALL the explosions, or was prepared to play through three different extended co-op experiences just to unlock the one that was kinda more designed to be played solo. Completing that fourth campaign would also be essential to ever finding out what the fuck was going on during those first three. How could that go wrong?

RE6 is, in other words, exactly what happens when a franchise has an identity crisis.

Experienced purely on the level of plot and cutscenes, RE6 remains hard to rate overall because while there are parts of this game I genuinely enjoyed in a way nothing in RE5 could boast, so many other parts of were legitimately uncomfortable to sit through, and in ways owing less to effective horror than to gratuitous, ugly misery porn.

Watch, as these bit characters you barely know die in horrible, gruesome ways in front of people who care about them! Watch! As Helena is finally reunited with the infected sister she committed treason to save, just in time to watch her beloved Deborah transform into a horrific butt-naked-lady monster who will spend the ensuing boss fight posing sexily while her tits show off their jiggle physics! It’s so traumatic for poor Helena, you have no idea!

Watch! As Chris reaches desperately for the outstretched fingers of StarryEyed McNewKid in the final seconds before his body erupts into a monster cocoon! Chris, dude, how long have you been in this business? He’s not falling off a rooftop, Chris! Grabbing his hand is not going to help!

It would all be hilarious if it wasn’t also all so skin-crawlingly unpleasant. There’s something uniquely gross about how these scenes play out, and largely not in the fun way.

With all four campaigns down, the big secret behind devastating bio-terror outbreaks in three different locations around the world turns out to be that some member of the Actual Illuminati gets Big Mad that Ada Wong won’t put out, and converts a loyal scientist (Carla) into an Ada-clone, who promptly sets out to end the world in a fit of clone-angst. There’s a bit more going on in some of the individual campaigns – Illuminati Dude also sets up a plot to kill the US president so he can’t reveal the truth about Raccoon City (whatever that means), then frames Leon and Helena for it. He’s also sent Sherry out to find Wesker’s son, whose blood may be the one cure for their latest alphabet-virus, Sherry little realising who she’s really working for. And the real Ada’s around too – you can tell her apart by how the clone doesn’t wear enough red to be the real deal.

Among the many problems with this game are that Illuminati Dude and clone!Ada are our only real villains, and neither are up to the franchise standard. Ada is just too well-established a character to work as the kind of villain who just wants-to-watch-the-world-burn – you can see the twist coming long, tiring hours before it hits. And Simmons (Illuminati Dude) just does not have any of the personality that makes people remember villains like Wesker or Salazar. There is some impressive creature design in this game – some of the boss monsters are far more memorable than the villains. But by this stage of franchise-transformation, your base level infected-enemy is just a generic guy with a machine gun and maybe an extra couple of eyes up close. It's a military shooter with occasional monsters, expecting you to mow down mooks without stopping for breath.

Speaking of military shooters, Chris has a campaign too, but for the life of me I could not tell you anything in it that matters to anyone else. He runs around a few locations, he fights a lot of monsters, completely fails to stop a missile launch, and loses people in the field. In the wake of RE5, the new game has honed in on the one defining feature of Chris’ character, Man With Lots Of Feelings About Losing People In The Field, and doubled down. Chris loses a lot of people in the field in this game.

The four campaigns in this game are separate enough that I’m going to talk about them that way, so let’s start with Chris.

Chris and Piers

Like the franchise as a whole, Chris is in the midst of his own identity crisis. Is running from place to place, fighting monsters and losing so many people in the field really his whole life now? Yes, Chris. Yes, it is. I don’t know what else to tell you.

As much shade as this game gets for not being proper horror, there’s a case to be made that Chris’ campaign is absolutely a horror story, just one about the specific horrors of toxic masculinity. Aww, Chris, are you having an alcohol-fuelled, amnesic breakdown after traumatically losing your whole team in the field? You think maybe you could use some therapy, some downtime? Well fuck you, Chris, what you need is for the one survivor of your big fuck-up to come yell at you, drag your amnesic ass back to base and give you a whole new team. Then you can go lose them all in the field again, this time down to the very last man, so you can learn how to be a fucking man about it! MEN DON’T GET TO HAVE FEELINGS!!

Chris persists in having feelings nonetheless, mostly rage and denial. By the end game, poor Chris is about half a breakdown away from the point where he could see his whole team smeared into a bloody pulp, and would still have to be dragged away screaming “noooooo we can still save them!!!” The sheer hilarity can only temper the misery so far.

Watch as Chris solemnly retrieves the C4 cartridge that is all that was left of the last (non-playable) survivor of the second team he’s lost this game, which game text will dutifully label as Marco’s C4. Watch the sadness in Chris’ eyes as he slaps it onto a door and blows it open! (That was Marco’s C4, Piers! He loved that C4! He took it everywhere with him! Now it’s as burned and blackened as he is!)

If you’re here for testosterone poisoning, Chris and Piers’ campaign is here for you. Up to this point in the series, one of Chris’ few vaguely-distinguishing features was how many women there were in his life, and how he generally managed not to be weird about that – Jill, Claire, Sheva, even Rebecca. In RE6, Chris is a man’s man in a man’s world, full of men – no lady partners around to slow down this Redfield!

Chris interacts with all of three women in the whole game, and is one of those is him telling a barmaid ‘Listen, sweetheart, you’re here to pour drinks and look pretty’ when she tries to cut him off during his drunken-amnesic opening sequence. Chris spends the rest of the game hunting clone!Ada after she gruesomely murders his first team in front of him. He never gets his final showdown with her. He never finds out she’s a clone. But he sure does get into a big punch-up with Leon when Leon has the gall to suggest they need to bring “Ada” in alive, not in a body bag (the clone herself slips away while they’re still arguing).

Chris does manage to be nicer to Sherry, at least, but his biggest interaction with Jake is similarly testosterone-laden. If you play these campaigns in their intended order, you’ll have the big Wesker-junior-reveal exposed for you in other people’s dialogue long before you’ll ever see Jake find out for himself. Chris decides this means he absolutely has to let Jake know that I Killed Your Father at the first possible opportunity, never mind that the lives of millions could hang on whether he and Jake can get on long enough to get out alive. He and Jake very nearly come to blows over it.

It’s all so ridiculous that even Piers calls him out on it; Chris simply insists that Jake “had a right to know.” Sure, but why now? For which matter, why would Jake suddenly care about the death of the evil, asshole deadbeat he hates so much? Oh, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s all because the writers wanted their big, tense, manly, “I killed your daddy!”-confrontation, and were going to shoehorn it in at any cost.

And yet, for all the bullshit that is Chris’ manly, manly campaign, I can’t completely hate it, because there’s this one bit at the end where Piers injects himself with a virus in a desperate moment, and promptly grows a giant mutant arm that shoots lightning. Like, if you are playing as Piers, you get to wield his mutant lightning arm through the remaining combat scenes.

The game even throws up a bunch of lightning-destructible barriers after the big boss battle just to give you more to do with it. I mean, how can you not love a thing like that? It’s amazing.

More importantly, why the fuck is there not more use of Piers’ horrifying lightning-shooting monster-arm in Chris/Piers fanfic? Do you all not see how 100% DTF Chris would be if he thought it had even a chance of helping convince Piers his monster-arm wasn’t so bad and he didn’t need to nobly stay behind to die? You can’t experience this game and tell me this isn’t the moment Chris has been building up for the whole damn campaign! Am I going to have to write monster-fucker!Chris myself?

Ahem.

Leon and Helena

Leon’s campaign does not start in a bar, comfortably far from the action. It starts in a presidential office, where Leon is already pointing a gun at the zombified PotUS, who is even now eating another victim.

“Don’t make me do this!” Leon begs, demonstrating that Chris has absolutely set the standard for seasoned-pros-still-living-in-absurd-denial that we can expect from everyone in this mad game. Leon, c’mon – wake up and smell the decomposition! Fuck, your boss is so far gone already they can probably smell him from the building next door!

Leon seems to be working presidential security, but he can’t be doing a very good job, considering that not only has the president been zombified on his watch, there’s a woman with a drawn firearm standing next to him in the president’s presence, and (in one of many record-scratch moments) we’re about to find out Leon hasn’t a clue who she is. Other games might have spent some time leading up to this moment, establishing how Leon, Helena and the ex-pres all got into this position. They might even have given us a scene or two to set up Leon’s relationship with said president, a man whose death has apparently been so traumatic that Leon’s forgotten everything he ever knew about zombies (and take note that this isn’t even Ashley’s-dad-the-president, it’s apparently some completely new guy, so even franchise vets are coming in blind). But not RE6! RE6 gives us a few seconds of flashback-montage right before Leon pulls the trigger, and gets right back to its regular schedule of misery porn.

Helena mutters, “It’s all my fault!” but refuses to elaborate in any way until they reach this cathedral on the other side of town (naturally hiding some kind of biotech lab facility) where it will all become clear. It takes a long time to get to the cathedral, however, because there’s a zombie outbreak in progress, and Leon and Helena keep stopping to watch people die.

There’s a man who wants help looking for his daughter! “We don’t have time!” says Helena. “We’ll make time!” says Leon. Well, they sure do make time to watch that newly-zombified daughter eat her father in a horrific scene. Yay! Later, they find a security feed showing a couple of helpless civilians desperately waving “HELP” signs at a security camera, like there’s going to be anyone checking security feeds in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. Leon watches the feed. The civilians persist in waving signs in one of those awkward video-game animation cycles. Leon watches some more. The signs wave some more. Finally, “we should go help them!” says Leon, as zombies show up to eat everyone present. Helena points out it may be a little late. It’s all so hilarible it hurts.

There’s no good reason why Helena can’t explain anything until they get to the cathedral. All she needs to say is that she’s a federal agent whose sister was taken hostage to force her to cooperate with the villains responsible for the president’s death, and who've been making bioweapons in a secret lab under the cathedral. You could question why a major bio-terror outbreak was necessary for one little act of political assassination, but because this is the Resident Evil universe, any evil worth doing is worth doing with zombies.

You could question exactly what Helena was forced to do, but the game isn’t interested in any of that logical plot stuff. You could question exactly why whatever the president was about to reveal about Raccoon City was worth a political assassination, but the game isn’t interested in politics either. We’re going to the cathedral! It’ll all be much easier to explain there! (It won’t be, we’re not here to explain anything.)

It doesn’t really get better from here. Leon’s campaign is, in short, an epic mess. But I can’t completely hate it, because despite all the bullshit material he’s working with, I am kind of into this take on Leon. This is a Leon who’s older, cooler and more sophisticated, and it just gets me something ridiculous. I’ve seen complaints from fans of the original RE4 who weren’t happy he’s more serious and has less goofy one-liners, which is probably fair – Leon still gets some good ones in, but Jake is hoarding most of the real one-liners in this game, and Leon does come across kind of absurdly over-earnest in a lot of early scenes. He's not going to be to everyone's taste.

But frankly, I’ll take this Leon over RE4’s any day. He feels so much closer to the version in the new games I fell for so hard (and not just because he can actually work with women without being weird about it). He also looks amazing in a suit and still has great chemistry with (real) Ada, and good god, they should just run away together already, those combined genetics would produce the coolest babies imaginable, you just try and tell me they wouldn’t!

And, y'know, sue me, but I kinda liked Helena too. I could do without the police-brutality backstory that she gets in documents, but she's a woman who has fucked up big time, who knows it, and is trying to make up for it, and that kind of complicated tends to be what gives me most of my female faves in this franchise.

Jake & Sherry

Much as I enjoyed Leon and Helena though, their campaign at large is still a pretty miserable slog. And having already sat through two long campaigns of indifferent misery porn, I can’t tell you what a breath of fresh air it was it reach Jake and Sherry’s story and realise, oh my god, I’m actually having a good time! They’re actually having some fun together! They have such great chemistry! Jake even has an actual character arc where he looks back on his life with new eyes and real drive to become a better person! Did I accidentally switch to a whole different game?

Jake (aka Wesker Junior) is the kind of character who shouldn’t work: an above-it-all edgelord mercenary asshole who sounds like everything wrong with this game in a nutshell. His reaction to discovering he might be carrying the cure to a zombie plague is to cheerfully put a price on his own blood in the millions. And yet, he’s refreshingly not awful to Sherry, quickly get attached to her and develops a great dynamic, and he’s young enough that he’s out of his depth a lot in the world of bio-terrorism, and not too uptight to admit it.

Finding out his father was none other than Wesker prompts some serious self-reflection, but we’re not going to watch him spend the rest of the game angsting over it, and even through all the horror he mostly seems to be having a good time. Jake’s great.

My only serious complaint about this campaign is that it’d be nice if they’d given Sherry a little more personality beyond being Jake’s no-nonsense handler. I like that she’s grown up from rescued-little-damsel into trusted agent, that she’s competent and comfortable enough with the world of bio-terror that nothing really fazes her (even if the game does get a little patronising about having Jake tackle her out of danger repeatedly), but she’s stuck being the straight-man to Jake’s wilder personality, and that’s just a bit disappointing.

For someone whose parents were neglectful Umbrella scientists responsible for throwing her into a world of horrific childhood trauma, Sherry comes across like she’s never questioned an authority figure in her life since, and that just doesn’t ring true to me. But at least she and Jake get to have friendly interactions with Leon and Helena, because god knows Chris and Piers can't ever be invited to a group cutscene without one of them having to hold the other back.

I can’t say whether I’d have enjoyed Jake’s storyline nearly so much had I not suffered through Chris and Leon’s first, but Jake’s feels like a far more complete story than either of the previous – and there’s a refreshing lack of stopping-to-watch-people-die-horribly. I don’t feel like I’m missing a preceding act’s worth of set-up, and clone!Ada has a smaller role, so the fact Sherry and Jake never find out what her deal is doesn’t feel like it leaves their story critically unfinished.

Which brings us to Ada’s campaign.

Ada

So here’s where we learn that the Ada in the purple dress is a clone created by that one Illuminati Dude she ghosted after he got too clingy. And by ‘we learn’ I mean ‘just the real Ada learns’, because god knows Chris and Leon never find out – and one can only imagine the kind of furious arguments they’re going to have over Ada’s character, motives, and whether she’s even alive or not after the events of the game. Even Ada only finds out her clone exists because the clone insists on trying to best her original, in that classic clone-angst way.

I have such conflicted feelings about Ada’s portrayal in this game. I’d like to be able to enjoy how unflappably cool she is, even when faced with evidence that the Literal Illuminati may be trying to make her the scapegoat for the apocalypse. But the reality is that Ada flaps so little she’s utterly one-note here – like, if you thought the RE4 remake Ada was a little limited in range, RE6 is exactly that, only more so, for much longer. Surely she should at least be annoyed that someone with Chris’ connections thinks she’s directly responsible for major bio-terror outbreaks in multiple countries? A little flap or two would go an awful long way here.

The most memorable part of Ada’s campaign is her final showdown with Carla, her clone – who mutates into a monster so huge and horrific that she basically becomes the whole battle stage, and it’s fantastically creepy and fucked-up (in a way I can actually enjoy, for a change). But most of the rest of Ada’s campaign is her wandering through her scheduled appearances in other characters’ stories, and there’s just not much of interest going on there. Time to fight all those same bosses that keep coming back over and over again!

A lot of what makes RE6 ultimately so unsatisfying is that in the end, thousands or millions of people have died around the world because of what amounts to bullshit illuminati infighting, well beyond the ken of any of the heroes running around the edges doing damage control. Even when Chris finally catches up with the Ada clone, it’s only to see her shot down by mysterious men in a black helicopter who just fly away out of the story again as inexplicably as they entered.

The clone’s not dead, of course – she gets right back up again in time for her boss fight with Ada. There’s no need for the helicopter in this scene at all – letting the Ada clone throw herself off the rooftop without being shot would have served the same narrative purpose. But throwing in an Illuminati drive-by shooting sure does underline how little real agency any of the heroes really have, when the world can be brought to the brink of a bio-terror apocalypse because one rich, white man couldn’t deal with the fact a woman said no to him.

No-one other than Ada even seems interested in the real truth: no-one asks who was flying the helicopter, or ends their campaign with any ‘time to get the rest of those Illuminati bastards’-declaration. Had RE6 been a smash-hit success, I don’t doubt that some kind of get-the-Illuminati plot would have come up in the sequel, but as it stands, Chris and Leon seem unbothered by being mere pawns in the schemes of the unknowably powerful. That’s not much of a happy note to end on.

In the end, the best thing about RE6 is that its reception was so tepid that it led directly to the IP being almost completely reinvented for RE7. And without a trainwreck on the scale of RE6, that might not have happened.

For all the parts of this story I like enough to wish they’d appeared in a better game, it’s hard to call RE6 any kind of success. But it’s at least an interesting failure – a fascinatingly awful trainwreck of an experience – and that’s at least something worth talking about.

#Resident Evil 6 #Chris Redfield #Leon Kennedy #Jake Muller #Sherry Birkin #Helena Harper #Piers Nivans #RE reviews #Resident Evil

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ashiemochi · 2 years

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pussidon - ACT II | vii

✠ Pussidon ↳ sounds like trouble ↳↳ can we eat it?

➶ pairing: OC x Leon S(exy) Kennedy. ➶ genre: fluff, angst, gore, smut/suggestive themes ➶ word count: no

NOTE: ✠ = time skip ✠✠ = switching povs/characters

prev -> next

The underground lab smelled ugly. And she thought the sewers were bad.

It took them a while to figure out some codes to open doors and So Ah was in charge of that once. All it took was one try when she decided to punch in the numbers whilst Helena and Leon were waiting by the targeted door.

“Oh?” So Ah looked up at the door she opened and Helena’s eyes widened, pulling out her shotgun and instantly began letting loose.

The dying shrieker let out one last raspy moan before dropping to the floor and both the two agents gave her an incredulous look. She exhaled nervously, giving them a small apologetic smile.

“Oops?”

“Get your ass away from that panel, sweetheart.”

"It was one time." She pouted, crossing her arms before slouching onto the stairs as Leon walked past her.

She didn’t miss his chuckle though.

✠

Having gone through that in a few minutes, they reached a vacant room with a dangling light, two chairs – one of which was tipped over – and a door leading out of the room. Helena slowed down, kneeling next to the standing chair with a hopeful but apprehensive gaze.

“Wait, I remember this place,” Helena spoke before eyeing the door, “Deborah must be close.”

So Ah blinked, scrunching up her nose at this, “... Who?”

Then she dipped out, leaving both DSO agents standing there confused for a moment before So Ah gave him a dead-pan look. She knew they were going to be chasing after her now with her acting all mysterious.

She opened her mouth.

“Not a word.” Leon said.

She closed her mouth.

✠

Zooming here and there, slamming doors left and right, So Ah was getting exhausted. Not physically, but at Helena’s current habit of waking up every zombie on her way as she’d just run out of the room, pleading ‘Deborah’ to give her a sign that she’s alright.

So Ah huffed after shaking off another zombie before yanking the axe from its body only to slam it back down onto its head with all her strength. Helena was still so far ahead and Leon was nearby.

And So Ah now knew what Chris and Piers felt like back in California. She’ll admit – she deserved those ruthless training sessions with Piers. After going after Harper and killing each zombie she triggers, she had no choice but to feel as if she needs to apologize to the BSAA’s soldiers for what she’s done.

But then again, she had to stifle back a giggle at the memory.

They looked so stupid.

Then it hit her; she and Leon look stupid right now.

That was enough to drop her smile into a bothered frown. This better be worth it.

✠

The next room they entered had large human tubes that contained the chrysalids she had seen on the way here. So Ah slowed down, lowering her gun as she kept her guard up. Helena was quiet so Leon questioned, voice gruff.

“What the hell is all this?”

“None of these were here three days ago…” Helena spoke in a near whisper as if recalling a memory.

So Ah was ahead, glancing behind her at the agent and then forward. A familiar name on the tape lying on the table caught her eye and she blinked, returning her gun into its holster. She picked up the tape, reading the title before turning to face Leon who was already walking up to her, noting her rush.

“Leon, look…” She showed him the tape and his eyes widened softly at the name.

Happy Birthday, Ada Wong.

“... Ada?” Leon muttered then hastily took it and inserted the tape to play.

That was not Ada. So Ah had a gut feeling that that was not Ada. Wong wasn’t born out of a cocoon, that wouldn’t make sense. Unless cloning was a thing mad scientists can do now…

Then fuck.

So Ah didn’t have any negative thoughts toward Ada; it was actually nice seeing her from time to time. Ada was a busy woman and So Ah knew that very well. She did feel a bit intimidated at first because of her history with Leon back in Raccoon but that was all dispersed when Leon had admitted that she helped him pick out the ring.

Ada knew not to get too attached or form any attachment, so So Ah resorted to counting the time she lingers around before she’s gone onto another secret operation.

Ada had spent exactly forty-five seconds at So Ah’s birthday – and that’s a personal best.

The tape rolled out once it stopped playing, white noise replacing whatever the hell they had just watched. Helena had a look of horror and disgust on her face – wouldn’t blame her because it was pretty revolting seeing a slimy version of Ada pop out of that cocoon.

Leon however…

“Is this what you wanted to show us?”

He was unnerved.

Helena was quick to shake her head, “No! I thought…”

The trio looked at the similar cocoons in the tubes; any of them could break but they seemed to be idle for now.

“Ada’s not gonna like this…” So Ah muttered, shivering at the scene repeating in her head and Leon huffed, nodding.

“So this woman or whatever…” Helena began as So Ah rounded the corner to see a locked door along with a number on top; 201.

“You know her?” Helena finished and Leon tilted his head to the side with an ‘ehh’ look on his face.

“Kind of, yeah…”

So Ah silently made her way to the code pad and began entering the number. The door let out a pleasing ring, getting the two agents’ attention on her. She looked at them, finding them silent as if waiting for a shrieker or a monster to pop up.

She frowned, “I just opened the door!”

Helena shook her head and looked out of the room with her gun up in an alarmed fashion. Leon walked up to So Ah with a gentle but uneasy look and she eyed him, growing a bit nervous under his gaze.

“What is it?” She asked, deeply hoping he wouldn’t bring up any of their arguments.

Leon’s voice dropped to a murmur, hand holding onto her arm but in a loving way, “I need you to stay close, okay? I have a bad feeling about this…”

She gave him a gentle but slightly playful look, glancing at Helena who was probably scanning the area outside then back at him, “You’ve been having a bad feeling about a lot of things lately.”

His eyes sharpened, tone stern, “So Ah…”

“Kidding, kidding…” Her lips dropped the soft smile she had at the concerned look on his face then sighed, reaching her hand up to his cheek. It nearly surprised her when Leon held it there with his free hand to keep it there, leaning into her touch.

“Leon…” She whispered, feeling bad about being so distant with him lately, “We’ll be fine – okay?”

Despite the years passing by, the only thing that aged was his face, but his eyes stayed the same. Those simple icy blues still held so much trauma and yearned for love; for her. Leon wanted her safe – it’s all he had wished for since that sunny day in August. And now here she was, on a somewhat mission with him, being constantly hurt.

Leon didn’t know when the next hit would be fatal and dear god, did he not want to even think about it.

Leon gazed down at her in a needy frustration, “Why won’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

“Leon –”

“C’mon, buttercup…” Leon pushed on, taking one step close but that was more than enough to have his chest nearly pressed against hers, indirectly making her feel his pounding heart, “What is it?”

Every single thought she had and actions she had done all in the name of keeping Minji safe to her jealousy and back to her self-destructive tendencies were now clouding her mind even more. She wanted to spill everything, punch the walls, cry into his arms in self-pity, but she can’t.

Not the right time, her pride reminded her, he’ll forget about it.

But will he? Will he really?

Leon’s eyes noticed her bottom lip trembling just a little before she shook her head, trailing her eyes down as her hand slipped from his face. She refused to look at the deflated look he had, shoulders dropping slightly.

“Not now, Leon…”

Leon went quiet, staring her down apprehensively before scoffing, and stepping away from her. She nearly wanted to curl into a ball and roll out at the evident disappointment on his face; she felt bad.

Not only was Helena stringing them along, but now his own fiancee was shutting him out.

“You’re right. Let’s keep moving.”

Even his voice was firm, dripping with frustration.

‘Look at you go, destroying your own relationship.’

✠

Sliding down the garbage chute was nostalgic, mimicking the suspense of ‘where-is-this-taking-me’ and ‘hopefully-not-a-pool-of-acid’ from years ago. So Ah stumbled forward a bit when she landed first, giving a quick scan of the area with her gun before Helena joined her, then Leon.

She glanced over at Leon but he didn’t even spare her one in return – not even to check on her.

‘How’s that for heartache,’

Without even thinking about it, So Ah lingered behind as they moved ahead. Her sad cinnamons stayed on him and then trailed down at the water walkway. She failed to notice Leon’s eyes looking over his shoulder every now and then just to make sure.

She licked her bottom lip lightly before speaking out to Helena, “Why can’t you tell us anything yet? I mean… Do you know where we’re even going?”

“Because you probably wouldn’t believe me,” Helena answered, looking at So Ah for a moment and then back ahead, “That’s why I want to show you. And to be honest, this place is familiar…”

So Ah stayed quiet at this as they reached a dry walkway and she inwardly thanked the Gods because her boots were not waterproof. Eventually, the room widened enough so that So Ah was walking right next to Helena, if not a bit behind.

“So back at that lab…” Leon started, looking over at Helena and his eyes fell on his fiancee for just a split second then back at Harper, “That tape…”

Helena's brows furrowed a bit in confusion, “With your friend in it? What’s the story on her, anyway?”

“Look, if you want answers, you should be prepared to give a couple yourself.” His tone was snappy, scolding even and Helena sighed, gazing down at the ground.

“You’re right,” She tilted her head to the side once, “That’s only fair, I guess.”

✠

“Deborah!”

There she goes again, jumping down onto the wooden path and running towards the girl’s body lying on the floor. The DSO agents ran up to them, keeping their guns low.

“... Helena?” The woman, Deborah, stirred awake, visibly fatigued as she reached up for Helena who instantly embraced her.

So Ah glanced at Leon who, actually, returned the shared uneasy look. Even if it was for just a moment, she hoped Leon wasn’t truly mad at her. Maybe he was just checking to see if she was just as confused and he wasn’t alone in this.

But it was quick and dry.

Fuck.

“Okay, enough with the mystery.” Leon broke the silence when Deborah seemed to keel over, hand going up to her head in pain as she whimpered.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Let’s just get her out of here, then I’ll tell you everything.” Helena’s voice was on a softer but concerned tone, relieved even as she helped the woman up, “I promise.”

A rumble shook the spacious primitive altar and So Ah looked around at the source as Helena got Deborah on her back like a piggy-back ride, hooking her elbows around Deborah’s legs. She really wondered who this woman was –

“Hang in there, sis.”

Oh.

‘Hurts doesn’t it? She was looking for her sister from the start. Where’s your sister, Han?’

‘She’s… She’s safe.’

‘From the outbreak or from you?’

“You take care of her,” Leon ordered gently, rechecking his ammo, “Leave any hostiles to us.”

“We’ll get you two to safety.” So Ah said softly, giving Helena a kind look who returned a grateful one.

It was almost deja vu for a moment there with So Ah seeing Helena keeping her little sister, Deborah, on her back as she and Leon cleared the way for them. They were trying to find a way out as soon as possible, picking up on Deborah’s groans and sighs of pain.

Along the way, Helena kept checking up on her sister, reassuring her that she was going to be alright and head home. It ached to see how Helena was caring towards Deborah – something So Ah wanted.

Something she used to have before she…

I’m not your little sister anymore – so stop treating me like one!

She didn’t even want to think about it. The hurt glow in her eldest sister’s eyes, the parted lips that revealed no words just pained silence, the held-back tears in those chocolate orbs; none of it. It wasn’t the right time.

It was never the right time.

At some point, Hunnigan tried to check in on them but So Ah guessed they were deep underground for the signal to reach them. Whilst Leon was grunting and pushing away a heavy crate from their way, she took over the shooting, taking care of the distant zombified skeletons coming their way with her sniper rifle.

She’d pick up on the reassurance coming from Helena towards Deborah and it sparked a different type of jealousy.

Envy.

Memories of Minji complimenting So Ah back in the sewers rolled around her head. Her sister had noticed So Ah feeling neglected by Leon’s praises as he and Helena cleared the zombies together – so she resorted to praising her herself.

“You’re doing so well, Soo.”

“Great move!”

“You got this, Soo!”

So Ah got this fucking guilt burning her heart along with the thought of Leon’s disappointment towards her. It was getting too much, in all honesty, but So Ah knew it wasn’t the right moment.

Deborah unexpectedly fell to the ground, crying out in pain.

‘Not the right time. We get it.’

✠

“No… No, this can’t be happening…” Helena whimpered, hand rubbing the chrysalid form that was similar to that tape they saw.

It was almost painful to see and hear Helena’s feeble begs and cries for her little sister to just hang on a little longer. Leon had held Helena back the moment Deborah had burst into flames, her body becoming gooey and the ugly colour of dead green.

So Ah pressed her lips into a thin line, tearing her eyes to the ground at Helena’s disheartening sounds. Then the cocoon began cracking, silencing her cries, as a slimy form began emerging. Both DSO agents took out their guns almost simultaneously, keeping their focus on the body. Somehow, they deeply knew whatever was going to pop out of there wasn’t going to be pretty.

It wasn’t going to be like “Ada’s”.

The form reached out for Helena who hesitated before something brushed past So Ah’s cheek, quickly but with such precision, and sunk into Deborah’s head. The arrow sent her whole body flying into the distance, tumbling onto the floor with a muffled cry of pain. Helena gasped and ran towards her little sister, confused and scared.

So Ah blinked then turned to face the sounds of heel steps behind her. Only one person pops up in her head to the sound of heels in a place like this.

“Ada,” She muttered, a smile teasing her lips as the mercenary stood there with her crossbow and that coy smile of hers.

“If it isn’t my two favourite agents,” Ada said, tilting her head to the side at them, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Then a gun clicked.

Helena was aiming at the lady in red, breaths whimpering but her aim was steady. It was only fair; she shot her sister – or whatever was going to pop out of that bubble. Leon looked at Helena before setting his hand over her gun and she looked at him, tears filling up her eyes then she slowly dropped to her knees, quietly crying.

So Ah knelt down beside her with a frown, setting her hand on her shoulder as Leon turned to Ada.

“Ada, what the hell is going on here?”

Because honestly, why does nearly every mission regarding a viral virus has got to include this mercenary? Maybe she would actually give straight answers as she did announce her appearance with guns (arrows?) blazing.

“It’s complicated.”

Or not.

The rumbling increased, alerting them and So Ah stood up, gently pulling Helena up onto her feet. Crushed rocks and dirt began falling bit by bit. A piece of rock nearly fell on So Ah’s head if it weren’t for Leon’s hand to instinctively shoot out and pull her to his safer side.

So Ah’s eyes widened a little, feeling her back pressed to his chest and she dared to look up at him, heart pounding. Leon’s azures gave her a quick glance and a long knowing look which she understood as ‘be careful’. Despite the growing issue between them, Leon still cared.

And it made her heart clench around nothing. She truly didn’t deserve him.

“But this isn’t the time or the place.” Ada continued, eyeing up at the trembling boulders, “These walkways won’t hold. We need to get to the lower levels.”

Good thing too because mutated Deborah did get them there by slicing one of the already wobbling pillars with her gigantic pincers. She had three of them, each holding onto a golden crystal just above the pointy tip. Also, she was naked but had little to no body features which made this whole thing just awful.

So Ah’s body ached terribly and Leon groaned right next to her. The floors did crumble, separating them into two. So Ah with Leon and Ada on the other side and Helena on her own, having been the furthest one from them. The Han girl held onto her side as she pulled herself up to her feet, eyes straining in the dim lighting of the lanterns.

Leon was alright. Same with Ada.

“Deborah, where are you?!” Helena called out, looking around the massive area and So Ah only frowned, returning her hand to grip her gun. The walkways beneath them trembled, reminding them of Ada’s warning.

They made their way down the path, trying to get to the lowest platform as quickly as possible. Ada would occasionally glance at the Han girl who would switch to her sniper to help Helena out with the zombies from the distance. She noticed the unreadable look on the Wong lady’s face as she switched back to her handgun.

“... What?”

Ada gestured to Leon who was already ahead then looked back at So Ah with a raised brow. It was clear she had sensed the tension between the couple and So Ah shook her head with a small frown; a little ‘I don’t wanna talk about it.’

They reached a dead end with a wooden log dangling in front of them but the walkways continued on the other side of it. Leon put his guns into their holsters before bending down a little, interlocking his hands together. So Ah hesitated to take the first step so Ada saved her from it.

“Up and over.” Leon huffed, boosting Ada over to the wooden log, sending it swinging before she jumped to the other side.

Leon turned to face So Ah, staying in the same position but his eyes were sharper than ever. She didn’t notice the distant hurt lingering behind those ocean blues as she took a couple of steps back.

“Watch your step.” Leon reminded, gazing into her eyes and her serious demeanour faltered a second. Instead, she chose to stay quiet and ran towards him, setting her boot onto his hand and Leon boosted her to the swinging log.

She held onto the rope, pushing her body to let it swing backwards towards Leon and he jumped. The force swung the log forward and they leapt to the walkway where Ada waited.

“Here,” Ada tossed So Ah a ring who caught it with both hands, knowing she sucked ass at toss and catch.

So Ah tilted her head at the accessory and light-heartedly giggled, “Sorry, I’m already spoken for.”

Leon’s lips subtly twitched at her words and Ada huffed though a smile teased her red lips, rolling her eyes, “Don’t get the wrong idea – it’ll make sense later.”

So Ah put the ring into her hip pouch, closing it tight and they proceeded. Reaching yet another blocked walkway, Helena moved the lever which in return caused the crate to roll upwards. Another dangling wooden log, another ‘up and over’.

Leon resumed his previous spot and Ada went first. So Ah went second, holding onto the rope to swing it back to Leon. Just moments after he jumped, So Ah’s attention snapped upward to Deborah launching herself at them.

“Wait, Le – !”

The collision sent them to the ground, emitting a yelp from the girl and a grunt from the man. The world swayed around her as she coughed out at the ache in her ribs, clutching them as she shook her head at her blurred vision. Leon was already up on his feet but she noticed him wincing whenever he’d aim up his gun.

His shoulder must be acting up again.

“Watch out, she’s strong!” Leon called out to the girls, hissing through his teeth when the gun’s recoil shoved his shoulder back.

Anger bubbled up beneath her skin at seeing his pain caused by someone as appalling as her. If it was really Deborah like Helena proclaimed, then she would still be groaning in pain. So Ah hated seeing Leon hurt – even though this was probably a normal evening for him. Their lives are at stake every single week but still, she couldn’t stand seeing Leon hurt.

If anything, she’d use her loathed healing ability to take his hits for him.

So Ah squeezed her eyes shut, pulling herself up to her feet then snapped them open at Deborah’s giggles. So Ah’s lively cinnamons glared at her.

Okay.

Fuck Deborah.

Switching to her sniper, she aimed at one of the crystals in her pincers with precision. Then she took the shot. Deborah screamed out before falling down to the ground, covering her head just like when she was human. The Han girl immediately went to shoot her again but Helena intervened.

“Deborah!”

Deborah, just like before, shoved her eldest sister away and jumped onto the high walkways.

“You should put her down if you have any sympathy for her.” Ada stated as if this was an inconvenience to whatever mission she had. Helena only whimpered, muttering about how this was a nightmare.

Deborah snarled at Leon who was shooting the zombified skeletons to keep them at bay and prepared to jump but So Ah interrupted, focusing on the conveniently placed fire barrel underneath her.

“Oh, no, you don’t.”

The barrel exploded at the bullet hitting it, engulfing and covering Deborah in flames. Helena gave So Ah a horrified look, noticing how the girl didn’t have an ounce of hesitance. Pure and utter concentration was in her provoked ambers, especially when she readied her sniper once more. Three more bullets were all it took to defeat the creature once and for all.

How could she do this…

Doesn’t she too have her own sister? How could she be so… So emotionless?

It was clear from the start that the argument with Minji was what made her all snappy – did she not care?

Shoot.

“So Ah, please! Stop!” Helena began rushing toward the Han girl who didn’t budge.

Shoot.

“So Ah!”

Sho –

So Ah stumbled back when Helena gripped her sniper and pushed it down, receiving a gasp when she was forced out of her concentration. She snapped her eyes down at Helena, growing harshly by the second they wasted. Deborah only had one last live pincer left, writhing on the ground and groaning.

Ada and Leon were busy with the skeletal creatures. They seemed to become more rabid, increasing in numbers the more Deborah lingered around. But Leon did not once stop glancing over at his fiancee, knowing she was taking care of the she-monster at hand.

“Helena, this is our only chan –”

“Please – just stop hurting her!” Helena’s eyes were tearing up once more, for once begging So Ah to listen to her.

“Are you kidding me?!” Her eyes widened, brows furrowing, “She’s literally trying to kill you!”

Helena was rendered silent, bottom lip trembling as she refused to let So Ah raise her gun. She fought off the urge to shove her back as she didn’t want to hurt her.

“Helena, let go of me!”

“She’s my sister! I promised to get her out of here safe!” Helena’s shout silenced So Ah, making her freeze up at the deja vu.

Deborah took this as a chance when she recovered, breaking the wooden floors, and sending all three agents and the mercenary to the lower level.

A hitched ‘ack!’ escaped So Ah’s lips when her body collided with another wooden walkway along with Helena and Ada. Every muscle and nerve were buzzing at the constant bruises and cuts being healed simultaneously. Groaning, her cinnamons looked around, heart pounding in her ears as she tried to locate Leon.

He was alone on the opposite side of them – okay, he was still fine. Good.

Ada could sense the darkened aura around So Ah as she glared harshly at Helena and stood up. Instead of doing anything though, she stood back to let the tension ease up. Ada was never good at breaking off arguments and it wasn’t like it was a part of her current schedule.

Besides, So Ah was mad due to other unspoken reasons.

“What the hell was that for?!” So Ah snapped at Helena with narrowed eyes, “You almost got us killed!”

Helena let her emotions take hold of her, glaring back at the girl just as harshly, “She’s my sister. I’m not letting you take your personal vendetta out on her!”

“Personal vendetta –” So Ah rubbed her face in frustration before jabbing her shoulder with her pointer finger, “Are you that blind enough to not notice she’s trying to kill you too?! What; do you always treat your family this way?”

“Girls! A little help here!” Leon called out for them, rushing down the shaking wooden path.

Despite the crumbling altar and Leon literally fighting for his life, her impulsive thoughts were skyrocketing. Every single one from the start; the promise to keep her sister safe only to hurt her with her own words, the horrible pathogen running through her veins to heal up her open wounds, the hurt look Leon had when she kept shutting him out for the sake of her unreliable pride, everything.

It all clouded her mind to the hilt, taking hold of her words and actions. She involuntarily let her inner voice speak through her tongue. It was unlike her – Ada knew that.

Helena shook with her own thoughts, eyes tearing up once more at her harsh words, “Shut the hell up – you know nothing about me. I am saving my sister.”

A scoff left So Ah’s red lips, crossing her arms as if challenging her; mocking her.

“Sister or not – that bitch is going to kill you without hesitation.”

Adrenaline took over Helena, glistening browns narrowed to slits and suddenly, So Ah was sent to the ground. It was quiet, minus the noisy breaking walkways, as the girl on the floor was frozen. Her eyes not blinking, boring holes into the ground with her lips parted softly. Her cheek stung greatly and her hovering hand felt the heat of it.

Talk about smacking senses into her.

Helena lowered her arm, hand burning at the hit, with a pained but sharp glower, “... Minji would’ve been so disappointed in you if she were to see you – too bad she’s not here to witness you being this fucking insensitive.”

For the first time in this long-ass night, So Ah’s mean inner voice was silenced. It was as if someone pressed the mute button because everything was dispersed.

And like a waterfall, all her emotions came crashing at once. Her anger, jealousy, peace, adrenaline, fear, disappointment, bitterness, and sorrow; all covered her up in their intensity.

One thing she remembers for sure from her therapy sessions is that her emotional state will break at some point. No matter how hard she tries to conceal the tsunami behind weak cemented brick walls, the wave will seep through and bring her whole walls in.

Ada stepped forward a bit.

“Hey, are you…”

So Ah was crying a lot; if not, silently. Weakly. Her made-up pride was the worst. All she wanted was to keep Leon, Minji and Jiwoo safe, but all she did in return was hurt them even more and what’s worse; she pushed them away.

Helena jumped into the wide cart, not sparing the girl a single glance and brought up her gun to help Leon from the distance. Ada’s red-tinted lips curled downwards then held her arm, encouraging her to keep moving before the cart was far out of reach.

“C’mon, hun.”

Genuine concern was in her tone as she urged her to move.

“Leon needs us.”

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