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mychoombatheroomba · 4 days ago

Text

Prey

Disavowed (Krauser x GN! Reader/Krauser x Leon) - Chapter 7

2002

Krauser and Leon reach the village and find all that remains of it and the people there.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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TW for gore, (mutated) animal death and human death. And big-ass spiders.

I continue to not give these two a moment to breathe. Dialogue that's fully italicized (in the 2002 sections) will be my indicator that it's spoken in Portuguese! More on that at the end of the chapter!

June 29th, 2002

17:03

Mixcóatl, Amazon Rainforest

The first thing that hit him - both of them - was the smell. Blood and sweat, a foulness that was unmistakable. Inescapable. Even from the outskirts of the village, as Krauser and Leon stepped into the shadows of the buildings, they could smell that rot in the air. It smelled like a battlefield. Like death.

And it would, given that the last time Krauser saw these buildings they passed now, he’d been ordering his men to retreat. When he’d realized too late that the mission they’d been sent on was not so simple as killing Hidalgo or even fighting his hired guns. The Major had led his team away from the reanimated corpses, winding between the buildings and into the jungle instead. The light at the end of that tunnel had proved only to be an oncoming train. Now here he was, leading Leon Kennedy right back to where it all went wrong.

No use hoping to God that this would be any different - that bastard wasn’t listening. Krauser wouldn’t put stock in hope anymore. Instead, he took point, pressing on with what knowledge of the town he possessed.

“We meant to steer clear of the town,” Krauser had explained to Leon, when they’d been trekking through the forest. “Too many eyes.” But that hadn’t stopped them from moving in anyway when a bloodied man had stumbled upon his unit, desperately telling them that the dead had come for them all.

It hadn’t taken Krauser’s squad long to confirm the presence of those bioweapons, and he didn’t expect it to take them long to find them now.

Even if they were lucky enough to be met with an empty courtyard when they first stepped into village bounds, he could hear the distant, droning moans. The shuffling of feet against dirt.

They wouldn’t be alone for long. He and Leon both knew it, if the jungle had been any indication. So, the Major had come up with a plan on the way.

“We get to the docks, and we get a boat.” It was their best bet, in Krauser’s mind.

“And what if it’s in the water, too?” Leon’s question was one that the Major would rather not consider. The forest was already beginning to be poisoned, it would stand to reason the water was too. The implications of what that would mean were not lost on him. But if the water was contaminated, too, then they and every living being in the most densely populated forest on the planet would be well and truly doomed.

That wasn’t a problem Krauser could even fathom fixing. What he could handle was how to get himself and Leon out of here.

“If there’s something there with a motor, we’ll move faster with that than we will on foot. We stand a better chance of outrunning these things than fighting every single one of them.” And so they’d gone forward, like the training exercises the Major had put Leon through years ago. Alert and ready, because even if there were no animated corpses lunging for them, the blood and viscera soaking into the dirt made it all too apparent that danger was present and real.

They moved alongside a ramshackle fence, their backs to something at least somewhat solid. One less side they would need to protect. One less angle that danger could come from. A good thing too, because Leon’s focus seemed split, his eyes catching on the worn papers decorating the fence itself. The papers and the pictures printed on their surfaces.

Dozens of faces, each of them pictures of young girls smiling. Some papers only had descriptions, with no photos to accompany them. All of them had one thing in common, though; the same word written across the top of each and every page.

Desaparecida.

Missing.

Krauser had seen them on the way into town the first time. They’d been here long before the outbreak. Were their parents even still alive to see the pictures? To wonder where their daughters were? Or were the families somewhere up ahead in the village, their missing daughters forgotten in favor of all-consuming hunger?

More dead. More unmarked graves. Soldier or civilian, it didn’t matter.

It never did.

Krauser caught Leon’s eye, and the older man shook his head, a silent signal to stay focused. To Leon’s credit, he did so, even if it was with a frown. The tragedies of the old world had to wait in favor of the fabulous new, after all.

Even those could be avoided for a bit longer, and a ladder leaned up against one of the houses, Krauser hoped, could help. At least the zombies couldn’t climb, last he checked. That would account for one less variable, at least, though the Major knew before that snake tried to swallow them that humans weren’t the only thing turned into monsters.

Leon knew it too, so he was as quiet as possible as he climbed up to Krauser’s side, the two of them hauling the ladder up with them as they crouched on that roof.

The view might have been beautiful, if it were seen under different circumstances. Verdant green stretched out before them, unending and surrounding the buildings of the village. With that and some short cliffs on the far end . . . it was a spot Krauser would have envied; out of the way, quiet and so, so green. Now, all he cared about was the shapes of once-people moving on the streets below, the docks in the distance and the glittering river beyond. His teeth ground together as he realized he couldn’t see any boats, least not from this angle.

There are buildings in the way, he tried to remind himself. Just because I can’t see them now doesn’t mean they’re not there. Didn’t mean they were, either. All they could do was hope that the people who lived here hadn’t taken all of them in a hurry to leave.

What he could see, though, he sorely wished he couldn’t.

Just below them, close enough to hear the tearing of sinew and the ripping of flesh, a group of undead huddled over what had once been a body. Now, it was simply pieces of one. A body Krauser recognized, even if the tattoos he recognized her by were in tatters across torn skin.

Rhodes.

It wasn’t the human undead that had doomed her, but a mangy mutt that had run her down, not too different from the one Rhodes kept back home. Not too different save for the fact that it had white eyes and the flesh along its mouth and the joints of its legs had been rotting away. One bite, as ever, and the doomed Rhodes had taken it upon herself to cover everyone else as they escaped the village. She’d given Krauser a salute as he went.

A hero, as far as the Major was concerned, and this was her reward. A feast for the husks of the people who once lived here.

Jack wanted to scream.

He wanted to leap down from the roof, to unsheathe his knife and cut away at the rot now tearing Rhodes’ corpse apart.

He wanted to save what he could of a woman who deserved better.

Instead he moved on, not bothering to acknowledge the hand that Leon nearly placed on his shoulder.

Using the ladder they’d collected as a bridge, the two soldiers moved across the rooftops, as quiet as they could manage. Krauser always went first, the wood creaking beneath his weight. Threatening to buckle. He made it across that first chasm all the same, breathing through flared nostrils as he then turned back, holding the ladder down as Leon made his way across. One rooftop to another they went, bridging the short distance towards the docks.

A snarling bark nearly made Krauser jump, his gaze swinging down to a rotting dog that caught their scent. Maybe the same one who had doomed a good woman. It jumped up against the wall of the house beneath them, claws scraping at wood, but never reaching them.

The shambling corpses of men and women shuffled along the paths they crossed over, but none were able to touch them.

That didn’t stop the Major from feeling dread pitting into him. Not when he saw evidence of something worse along the rooftops.

It was hard to mistake webbing, even if it was far beyond the size of any that Krauser had ever seen. The material was plain enough to see, strung between buildings and along rooftops. There were even a few bodies strung up, bound and unmoving. Always a new horror. One that, as he looked back, Krauser realized Leon had spotted too.

The Major should have known better than to expect fear from the younger man, he supposed. Years in the field would do that to a person. Or a night spent in Hell on Earth. Leon Kennedy had experienced both, so instead of fear he just gave Krauser a hardened nod. His eyes betrayed no uncertainty of what they must do; move forward.

But as Krauser turned away, as he began to move across their makeshift bridge, it wasn’t the hardened determination of Leon’s eyes that stopped him.

Rather, it was the eight eyes that appeared on the roof he was headed towards, crawling over the edge and standing directly where Krauser wanted to be. Eight eyes, the largest in front that were easily as big as Jack’s fists. The rest of the creature was big enough to match the rabid dogs in the village below in size. Any more than that, the Major was unable to see as the spider moved and something was shot out towards him.

Krauser reached one hand for his pistol, Leon’s gun went off behind him, and the fate of the bioweapon was lost in a blur as the Major, exhausted and unbalanced, felt something hit him. Bind him. And then he was tumbling off the ladder, his arms stuck to his chest, unable to help him brace his fall. Twisting his body was the best he could hope for. His shoulder collided hard with the dirt pathway beneath him, forcing a grunt from his gritted teeth.

Even with his head spinning a bit, it was easy to make out the shapes on either side of him, all bloodied mouths and dead eyes. Stumbling closer. Ready to descend on him. He was about to have to fight for his life and both of Krauser’s arms were now webbed to his chest. His legs were free, though. Enough for him to roll, getting his knees beneath him so he could push up, just in time to land a kick to the chest of a zombie that advanced on him. It groaned as it fell backwards, crashing into two of its fellows. The Major pulled on his new bindings, all his strength going into breaking the material around him as he turned to face the other end of the pathway.

The webbing stretched as he swung his leg up, the roundhouse cracking into the head of the nearest enemy, sending it into the wall that enclosed them. More gunfire echoed overhead, along with a chittering that had to belong to the spider.

Leon would deal with that. Krauser would deal with what was in front of him.

His left arm was pinned closer to his knife. If he could just-

He had to weave under the arms of an approaching zombie, pressing his shoulder hard into its chest. Launching it backwards. The second one he’d downed crawled forward, grasping at his ankle. Pulling, but not pulling hard enough. He leaned his weight, kicking the foot being pulled forward, steel-toed boots knocking into the zombie’s teeth.

The Major strained a little harder, grunting as the webbing began to tear, digging into his arm, scraping off the mud he’d used as camouflage-

His heel swung up and down in an axe kick, crushing into the skull of the zombie that had grabbed at him.

His hand could move just enough-

Other hands grasped his shoulders, pulling him in. He snapped his head back, ignoring the pain of skull meeting skull. The grip loosened.

His fingers closed around the knife-

He spun low, knocking the legs out from one as he went, his arm working hard against the restraints around him-

Metal sliced clean through web, just as the weight of a zombie crashed over the top of him, pinning him down.

Or trying to. If it had been a second faster, or smarter, it would have had him. It had been close, so close to sinking its teeth into him.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

The Major kept his mouth closed as his knife arced up. He’d learned that early in this new kind of warfare; if these viruses and diseases were transmitted through blood and saliva, swallowing any of it was a death sentence. So, he looked away as the splatter came down on him, painting his jaw and neck, adding to the mud he’d smeared there. And a good thing there was any barrier there at all, because Krauser swore that he felt the blood burn as it hit him. Much like the snake’s had.

He had little time to think of it, though, as he dug his knife deeper. The creature atop him sputtered and groaned, before going silent as the blade in the Major’s hand wedged between vertebrae and the zombie went limp.

Its body stuck to the webbing still on Krauser’s chest as he rolled, so a back kick was the best he could do to defend against the final assailant close to him.

A back kick that was followed up quickly by a burst of blood as bullets found their way into the shambler’s head.

“Krauser!” Leon’s voice. It sounded from overhead just as the Major pulled his body and his blade away from the creature that was nearly his end. When he was sure he wouldn’t die for it, Krauser looked up, seeing the rookie standing on the rooftop, gun in hand and eyes wide with concern. The spider must have been dead, then. “Are you-”

“I’m fine!” the Major called back, his voice full of grit and gall in equal parts. One hand came up, and he made sure to use the material of his gloves to wipe his face clean of the blood that had been spilled. As he did, he saw more corpses stumbling his way. The solution to that equation was easy enough for him to come to. “We’re pushing for the docks. You stay up there and keep my ass covered, got it?” Spiders or no, it was still likely safer for Leon up there than it was on the ground.

That became all too clear when one of those dogs came running through the incoming crowd.

Krauser’s right arm was still webbed partially to his side; his gun still stuck half-holstered. Fortunately, the one thing Krauser hadn’t needed to teach Leon was marksmanship.

Well, not from the ground up, anyway.

The dog was struck down before it reached Krauser, bullets making it tumble over itself and fall to the bloodied mud below. It gave Krauser just enough time to cut his other arm loose, and then he was dashing forward.

Bladework was a dance to him. One that he knew all the steps to. Even when Umbrella had introduced their new horrors, the tune had stayed mostly the same. With both of his arms now free, with Leon raining down fire from above, Krauser pushed his way through the horde.

He battled down the streets, gun in one hand, knife in the other, firing only when he needed to. He knew that his bullets were not to be wasted. Not if he could help it. They needed to be saved for Javier.

Then again, perhaps a blade would handle that particular job better.

Either way, he had to live that long first. A task that, somehow, seemed within reach as the two of them worked together. Leon leapt between buildings for as long as he could, providing support while Jack pushed through towards the river. They were doing well, all things considered.

Which, in his experience, meant that some new kind of horror was on its way.

They made it to the river when they found it. The wooden boards of the docks thumped and groaned a bit as Leon ran out of buildings he could reach to move across. He leapt down, rolling out of his fall and getting to his feet in an instant, moving with the speed that Krauser taught him.

The Major’s attention was split as they dashed down towards the water. There were still some buildings there, more spaced out, built atop stilts that were barely out of the water. Smaller docks and pathways connected them, leaving Krauser’s eyes searching for new enemies as much as he was searching for a boat. For a way out.

And there, by some mercy, such a boat sat. It was a good hundred feet away, down at what looked to be the last dock, past the buildings. Even so, Jack could make out the shape of a motor on the end of it. Water, rushing and angry, crashed against the docks, some of it higher than it should have been as it washed over the top of some of the boards. Even the river itself looked sick. Still, with the entire village on their asses, they had few places to go but forward, splashing through the water that had risen higher than it should have.

Only to sorely wish that they hadn’t.

There was a splash, then the sound of wood breaking, and Krauser was nearly thrown off his feet and into the water as something clambered onto the boardwalk behind them. Leon was no better, his eyes going wide as he nearly fell back, until Krauser took hold of him and the two men hauled each other forward.

As they did, Krauser caught sight of what it was that was pursuing them; a great, lumbering mass of grey, blemished flesh. Two legs carried its hideous body onto the dock with them, easily as big as the two men combined. A body that seemed more mouth than anything else - a statement that was made all the truer as it approached, and the already huge maw parted wider . . .

And four squirming, toothed mandibles pushed out towards them.

“Oh, fuck that.” Leon vocalized the words that crossed Krauser’s mind, but the older man had no time to consider the humor. Not when the creature in front of them lunged forward.

Krauser didn’t have many bullets left, and for this thing? He wouldn’t spare any if he could help it.

“Come on!” he ordered, and Leon fell in, the two of them turning, dashing to leave the creature behind. He could hear the wood creaking against the thing's weight as it trudged forward. The sound of those who had once been villagers, groaning. The splashing of the river and-

“Help us!”

A voice, the words spoken in Portuguese. Krauser nearly stopped in his tracks, his head snapping to the side.

“Please!”

The boat was ahead. Only a few feet. But there was a path that led opposite. One that curved off the boardwalk, heading towards the cliffs.

A cove sat there, if cove was the right word. Sunlight poured in from the roof of it, shining off the water that filled it. Sunlight that bathed a lone structure sitting on the waterline. A small church. One that might have been a picture of serenity, were it not for the bodies outside, both human and monster.

And there, at the doors, stood a lone man, armed with nothing but a machete, facing down a creature identical to the one chasing after Leon and Krauser now.

Not one of his men. Not that he would expect to see any of them.

Not his man. Not his responsibility. Not when the boat was so close. Not when he was already so . . . so tired. Was there sense in saving those who were as good as dead anyway?

As far as Jack Krauser was concerned, he was growing less and less sure.

But for Leon Kennedy . . . to think that Krauser had almost forgotten his bleeding heart.

“Major!” Leon shouted, already beginning to veer off that way. “By the church-”

“I see him!”

“We have to-” save him. Of course Leon would want that. Of course he would want to help and likely get himself killed doing it.

And Jack was going along with it. He didn’t dare to ask himself why, instead just nodding with a grunt. “Stay behind me!” With that command, the two of them were running off towards the church, guns pointed at the back of the creature the man faced.

A man who put up a valiant fight, despite it all.

The creature - almost frog-like and vaguely familiar, now that Jack had a better view of it - lunged forward, its mandibles spitting outwards and grabbing at the man. He moved to the side, machete blade hacking downwards at the thing. It made no sound of pain, not as the blade sliced into its flesh, or as Krauser and Leon’s bullets hit its back. It simply moved, in time with the one that had been chasing Leon and Krauser.

“It’s charging!” Leon gave the warning, making Krauser whirl around-

And sure enough, the hideous beast behind them advanced, moving faster than it had a right to. Seeking the food that awaited it just down the boardwalk.

A boardwalk that offered them precious few places to move to.

Running was their only option, and both men came to that conclusion independently. They took off down the planks, running as fast as they could manage as the creature chased clumsily after them. Jack could practically feel its mandibles snapping at his back as they reached the fork in the road, and he hoped the thing was dumb enough not to realize its path was ending.

As he and Leon dove towards the church path, the creature shook the ramshackle platform with its steps. It snapped at where the two men had been, and then a great wave of water let Krauser know that the ploy had worked. That their attacker had overshot and ended up back in the river.

The man they aimed to save, though, wasn’t so lucky. Krauser was sure of that when he heard the scream of agony from up ahead.

He couldn’t make out exactly what was happening from behind the bulk of the creature. Only that its body was moving, and the man’s feet were being pulled off the ground.

Krauser raised his weapon, firing again, hoping to hurt the creature. To keep it from swallowing the man whole. He grit his teeth, moving closer, he and Leon both rushing to help. Gunshots echoed off the rock walls of the cove, blood burst from the massive creature’s back-

And then came a shape from out of the water, rocking the entire platform that the boardwalk and the church rested on. Krauser nearly had to drop to a knee as it all moved, his eyes widening as he saw something emerge from beneath the water’s murky surface.

It was quick enough that he could only make out a long neck and a massive, underbite jaw unhinging. In the heat of the moment, the Major couldn’t even place what animal it had been once. If it had been an animal at all. It clamped down on the creature on the platform, more blood spilling forth as the somehow smaller monster emitted a gurgling scream. The man that had been held there fell to the planks, and Krauser saw the leviathan bite its prey nearly in half before both creatures disappeared back into the water.

“Jesus Christ-” Leon murmured, rising to stand fully again, a newfound fear in his voice. The Major couldn’t fault him for that, because whatever the hell that thing was, he had never seen anything like it. There was no bioweapon that he knew that matched whatever this thing was. Another, new kind of horror, and it had just eaten something bigger than Krauser and Leon combined.

And it was swimming right beneath their feet, marked now by the patch of red coloring the water.

Krauser wasn’t sure if it was that or the now-bloodied man that made them move so quickly towards the church. Either way, both soldiers were breathing hard as they approached the body, eyes wide and weapons at the ready.

Leon knelt at the man’s side, all while the Major took up a watch, keeping his eyes trained on the waterline. It felt like the easier of the two jobs, when he caught a glimpse of the man’s wounds; of torn flesh and bone jutting where it shouldn’t. It would have been bad enough on its own, but it was made worse as the man cried out, his breathing fast and labored and wet-sounding, his gaze full of terror as it fixed on Leon.

“Please!” The man could be begging Leon or some higher power, Krauser didn’t know. He was only certain that neither could help. Not anymore. “Please, I-” even as the Major kept his eyes on the water’s surface, he could hear the man coughing up blood. The weakness in his words. The futility of it all. “Help me . . . I . . .”

“Hold still,” came Leon’s reply, speaking an unrefined Portuguese back at the man. He was trying to soothe him, Krauser could tell. Because that was all he could do.

Krauser saw Leon’s hand reach for the man’s own out of the corner of his eye, just as he swore he saw a shadow beneath the surface.

“Rookie-”

“Is anyone with you?” Leon went on, even as Krauser watched the shadow disappear under the platform they stood on.

“We need to move-”

The wounded man struggled to form a word, and whatever was spoken, Krauser couldn’t make out. Not with all his focus shifted towards the boards beneath their feet, and wondering if it would crash through the planks and end this all right then.

Instead, other than the now-distant groans of the villagers who’d turned, and the few final exhales of the man they’d been too late to save, the cove went quiet.

Krauser and Leon exchanged a look, expressions of grave worry reflected in each other. And the Major saw more and more, that the light that had once been in the rookie’s eyes, was dim. Rather than speaking, Leon made a signal towards the church. Krauser almost protested. He very nearly argued that they should cut their losses and make for the boat while they could . . . but would that even be safe, with that thing in the water?

He didn’t know. They were fucked either way. Maybe the church would offer some cover while they thought out their next move, if nothing else.

So the two of them crept forward, and each step felt like a beat of a drum, like it might alert the creature in the water to their presence. It made the walk a slow agony, and opening the door even more so.

Leon didn’t have to be told how to handle the entry; he’d trained long enough to know. He waited, pressed against the wall of the church as Krauser loaded one of his remaining two magazines into his pistol. He hoped that the bullets in it would make whatever was up ahead survivable. And with that hope, he opened the door.

Nothing lunged at him as he peered inside, checking the corner. Nothing moved to attack as Leon followed him in, covering him as the two swept their gazes over the ruin where people had no doubt gathered.

The floor was broken in places, pushed up with wood debris floating in the water below. Some of the benches inside were half-drowned, others remained pushed to the side. Sunlight shined through several windows, and . . .

Was that singing?

Krauser wasn’t sure he’d actually heard it, at first, it was so faint. One look from Leon, though, and it was clear. It had been there.

As the Major looked over the room, trying to find the source, he nearly froze as his gaze caught on something in the water. It looked almost to be a stone, save for the twisted part on top of it that resembled an open wound. It lurked just above the surface of the water, facing sideways from the two soldiers. The same dark shape that had taken the creature outside. Krauser could see, at the end of its head, a section of almost translucent skin and flesh, with what looked like bone visible underneath. Its focus was on the far side of the room, and as Jack moved as quietly as he dared, he saw what its quarry was.

She was huddled in the corner, hidden mostly out of view behind a bookshelf. Krauser might have missed her, but for the white of the dress she wore, even if it was torn and muddy. Her legs were hugged tight to her chest, her forehead pressed to her knees and her hands clenched into fists. He could hear her breathing, the sound shaky and terrified, cutting her song into pieces.

Krauser had no time to wonder how the hell a young girl had survived all this.

Not when she looked up, her eyes widening as she caught sight of them.

Not when the creature, because fate had chosen him to be its dog toy, did the same.

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A/N: The Resident Evil Daughter Distribution system is alive and well, congrats Leon, you've found another one!

So, a quick dissertation on why I'm going with Portuguese instead of Spanish; Capcom once again hit us with a "this story takes place in this vague region". I added a little note on the first chapter about all that, if you're interested in more of that in particular, but basically my best guess is that this story would take place somewhere in/around Brazil, given that they were clear it's happening in the Amazon Rainforest. By my understanding (which is admittedly all research based, as I've never been to Brazil) Portuguese is the most common language there, followed by Spanish. Felt like the safest, most realistic bet.

The downside to that though is that I don't know anyone fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, and I don't want to get things wrong with the translations, so I will just keep those sections when characters speak Portuguese in italics. I imagine Leon and Krauser are maybe conversational but not outright fluent in it, so there may end up being pieces that they don't fully understand in the future!

What I DO have first-hand experience with is the actual game now, I bought myself a copy and played through the whole campaign with a friend on my Wii. We were drunk, it was a wonderful time. So again, some things may be familiar for all 20 people who've played that game, but I will likely put my own spin on just about everything, and add some new things as well!

Thank you again for reading (and for those who read this mini essay), I'll see you in the next update!

#jack krauser #jack krauser x reader #metaltango #jack krauser x leon kennedy #angst #resident evil #gender neutral reader #operation javier #between the bones #disavowed #manuela hidalgo

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