Resident Evil Rebirth Ch. 01

It happened so fast not a soul on the surface could have run. An explosion the colour of the sun ripped up from beneath the painted concrete of Shibuya square and painted the night sky in a furious orange and yellow light. Watching the scene on the monitor, Wesker felt the hint of a smile grace his lips up as a second and a third then reached up into the sky with the same devastating force. Then the picture suddenly died as the surface camera was disintegrated in a fourth blast.

Smug in his confidence, Wesker waited for the technicians to update him on the situation. It would take a few minutes; the heat from the blast would distort the satellite signal and render thermal scans useless. He could afford to wait, nothing on earth, biological or otherwise, could have survived that.

"Movement!" A technician suddenly cried, causing Wesker's smile to vanish as he turned to face the man who'd spoken. "Eh...Multiple targets."

"How many?" Wesker demanded before storming over to stand over the beeping workstation and its bewildered operator. To his dismay, the screen showed multiple figures emerging from the burnt out wrecks of Shibuya Buildings

"Twenty...no thirty... no..." The man couldn't keep count as more and more of the hostile force emerged from their shelters and advanced towards the main Gate.

"They are heading for the entrance; I want three security teams at that elevator. Now!"

****************

The entrance hall of the Tokyo Facility was a towering chamber made of steel and concrete. Its walls were bare except for the red and white heptagon of Umbrella and rows of heavily armoured vehicles were lined up along them like soldiers waiting deployment. The main elevator shaft from the surface led down to here, hidden from sight in a concealed corner and covered by a reinforced blast door, it should have been impregnable.

Chairman Wesker's order had completely circled the facility in seconds and security teams had been in the hall moments after the command sounded. Carrying heavy bullet proof shields and armed to the teeth with great Howa-89 Machine guns, they stormed into the entrance chamber in their dozens. Taking up position at the mouth of the corner, they locked their defences together to form a shield wall that surrounded the blast door as the screech of the descending elevator punctured the tense silence.

For many of the Umbrella Soldiers, it was the longest couple of seconds of their lives. Few of their number knew the true nature of what had happened on the surface level and those that did didn't believe it. It was just too impossible to be true.

There was a rustle of metal as a figure slipped almost silently from an air shaft and dropped behind the Umbrella Troops; however they didn't hear it over the sound of their own drumming hearts. The Elevator was stopping; the only thing standing between them and its murderous occupants was a steel door that happened to be more than 10-inches thick. With a hiss of exchanging air, the blast door began to slide open. It was empty.

For a moment, the mercenaries could only look at each other, confused and unsure of what to do next. Then they heard it, a light patting, a sound that was almost too soft for them to hear, and so erratic it resembled the pita-patta of a running mouse, or a stalking feline. It was only by chance that one of them happened to glance back and see the figure all dressed in black coming at them. Startled, he ushered in a breath to shout the alarm but all that came out was chocked gasp and a spray of blood as a Shuriken Star became lodged deep in his throat. He fell back dead just as two other projectiles felled his mercenary brothers.

The surprise attack threw the Umbrella soldiers into a state of chaos and as they struggled to turn about with the heavy gear encumbering them, Alice barrelled into them. In one fluid motion, she drew the two Katanas that were scabbarded across her back and attacked with a lightning sweep that carved into the first two guards, the razor sharp blades cleaving through Kevlar like it was paper and disembowelling them both. Carrying the motion through, she brought the swords up and used backhanded swings to foul the ones behind, chopping into their ribs and sending up a shower of blood and gore from the ruptured cavities.

The Umbrella Soldiers fell before her like threshed wheat and spinning on her heel, she ran up one of the shields and jumped over the heads of the remaining men in the barricade. With the swords out stretched, she twisted her body around in mid-flight and carved a hole in the tightly packed mercenaries before landing gently on her feet. Two of the soldiers were already coming at her however, yet she didn't so much as bat an eye lash before jumping forward to meet them, ducking beneath a clumsy punch before lancing the gore splattered long swords forward and impaling both men on the finely honed steel.

It wasn't over however, all around her the Umbrella troopers were coming back to their senses and she only had time to pull one of the swords from the limp corpse before every gun in the hall was trained on her. Not bothering to wait for a command, the soldiers unleashed a salvo of hot lead at the woman, the billowing resonance echoing cacophonously around the subterranean hall as heavy shells slammed into the walls and spat great chunks of concrete across the floor. With no chance to attack, Alice was forced to run and wheeled around before taking flight.

Unable to get a clear shot at her, the mercenaries kept firing, the spent cartridges clattering to the tiled floor in their hundreds as the glowing rounds ricocheted in every direction. Powdered stone and splintered metal fell in thick clouds as the bullets sought out fleeing Alice, only she was too fast and one fell short before she suddenly dived under the cover of a wall. Recognising this as this their first real chance of cornering the agile woman, they turned all their attentions on the wall and began firing their weapons in earnest, chipping away the wall piece by piece until there wasn't a stone untouched by the lead.

Stopping their salvo only when their guns were on the verge of overheating, the soldiers gave it a moment before signalling one to go check it out. Understandably he hesitated, obviously still able to recall the fate of the last men to try and take the woman at close range. There was no room in Umbrella for cowardice however, and after a moment he took a cautious step forward. Making sure to keep a ready finger on the still smoking gun's trigger, he edged closer and closer to the stone before suddenly jumping around the bend, gun poised and ready.

The sword was rammed through his heart before he could even utter a word of surprise and Alice grabbed both him and his gun anyone could realise what had just transpired. Pushing the body round the bend, she turned the weapon on the soldiers and opened fire with the remaining rounds in a dreadful cascade of death.

Caught off guard once again by the woman's cunning, the soldiers tried to return fire but Alice was using the man's body as a human shield and not one shot came close to hitting her as the deadly hail cut down everything in her way. Impatiently squeezing the trigger until every one of the Kevlar clad bodies dropped to the bloody ground and lay at her feet. Looking down on the bullet ridden bodies, she couldn't help but smile lazily. Umbrella's pawns were always too easy...

"Don't move!" A voice suddenly demanded, making her look up in mild amusement as a fresh squad of security operatives lined up behind her, their heavy shields locking together as every weapon they had fixed on her and left no avenue for her escape. With a shrug she dropped the empty Howa-89 and the corpse it was attached to before turning to face the shield wall, anticipating an attack, the soldiers primed their firearms. Obviously they weren't planning on taking her alive so she left her sword embedded in the corpse's ribcage and took in a deep, steadying breath before pushing all the stress from as she tried hard to focus on a single memory. A memory of piece and warmth, of tranquillity and ease, a false memory designed to lull her into a serene calm as she reached deep within herself.

She blinked, causing her irises to dilate and the walls around her to shake as an invisible force suddenly began rocking the hall like a rumble of thunder. Panicking, the shield wall opened fire and Alice answered the challenge by sending out a psychic blast. Like a tsunami, the energy wave ripped across the hall and destroyed everything in its path, ploughing up the heavy stone flooring and crumbling the walls before slamming into the shield wall. The men cried in agony as the blast threw them off their feet and hurled them in every direction, the awful debris snapping their bones and shredding their bodies.

Only when every last one of the troopers was dead did the dust start to settle, the ravaged bodies of the dead falling in bloody heaps atop the rubble as Alice walked forward he dazedly. The chamber was a wreck in the blast's aftermath and she stumbled almost blindly over the mix of twisted metal and gore splattered stone until the rustle of approaching footsteps brought her back from the world of dreams. More Umbrella soldiers were coming; she could already hear the officers barking orders to shoot to kill...

A bullet suddenly slammed into her back, hot as the sun it tore through her Lycra body suit and blew away her heart in a fountain of gore. Throwing back her head, she tried to cry out in agony but two more shots silenced her death cry. Her strength vanished as the gore flowed from her ruined torso and she fell heavily to the floor, what remained of her life's blood pooling all around her.

The security reinforcements burst into the chamber to find the intruder dead on the floor, a lone survivor standing over her body. Not sure what to make if this startling revelation, the soldier's exchanged smug looks before coming to stand round the body.

"Now Boys..." The voice made the trooper's look up in surprise, their heads shooting round to where three identical copies of the woman were stood. "is that any way to treat a lady?" Terror gripped the Soldier's in its cold fist and they were unable to move as the ones on the right and left stepped forward. While the Alice in the centre was armed with another pair of Katanas, these two were armed with TMP sub-machine guns and they raised the weapons with a cool efficiency before pulling the triggers and emptying the magazines into the still clueless soldiers.

****************

"Dammit!" Wesker cursed, losing his composure for a moment as he watched the facility's security force get annihilated by the women. He'd underestimated these creatures, they were clearly more persistent then Isaacs had led him to believe. He'd sent in his best men and hoped to get the better of the Alice's with a numerical advantage, only they'd been cut to ribbons and now more of the bitches were appearing.

On every monitor, he watched as the Alice clones dispatched what remained of his security force, their superior agility allowing them to get around the troopers' arsenal and stay one step ahead in the fight. Suddenly, some of the monitors turned to static and Weskler's eyes darted from screen to screen until finally he found the problem; one of the Alices was shooting the hidden cameras. Cursing again, he was about to give the technicians new orders when an explosion rocked the atrium and caused many of the operators to bolt from their seats in fright.

"Stay at your stations!" He demanded, irritated by their cowardice and the apparent lack of efficiency from the top-price mercenaries he'd employed; an army of cooks could have put up a better fight. "Flood the entrance level with nerve gas." Too afraid of the chairman to argue, they hastily began typing the orders but it wasn't enough.

"I'm verifying intruders in sections one through five, seven and eight." Said A tech, his voice shaking slightly as he felt the chairman's cold gaze set on him. "Also there are reports of gunfire in ten and eleven."

"I want all security protocols to be put in full effect. Lockdown all elevators immediately, seal the internal blast doors and activate security turrets... and I want damage reports."

****************

The security here was better than at the others. The Alice clones had thought their way through dozens of these Umbrella facilities but this was the first time they had found themselves halted half way through. Despite the weight of their assault, the few surviving members of the security force had regrouped in several easy to defend locations and were now taking the fight back.

Furiously squeezing the triggers of her TMPs as she ran, Alice clone Gama worked desperately to dismantle one of the barricades. She was in an office of some sort, deserted computer stations and rumpled desks were scattered everywhere she looked and the Umbrella troopers had formed a blockade in its centre. Explosive flashes burst from every part of the embattled defender's barrier as they tried to pin her down with surprising fields of fire but like her sister in the Entrance chamber, Gama was too fast for their bullets to hit. But neither could she hit them...

Unable to aim, she blasted off rounds that harmlessly bounced off the Kevlar armour. Occasionally she got lucky and one of the rounds would hit a soft mark but they were few and far between. Too make matters worse, her extended magazine had almost run dry.

Needing cover to reload, she dived behind a stone column, pressing herself flat against it as thunderous salvo of lead slammed into the other side. Ejecting both spent clips; she rammed a fresh pair inside the guns and was about to return fire when she suddenly noticed that another one of her sisters was pinned behind another column. Good, she could do with the extra help. Judging by the distasteful look on her face, her sister had come to the same conclusion and they tipped their heads in mutual readiness before stepping out of cover and opening up a barrage of fire on the barricade.

Caught by the duo's attack, some of the Umbrella troopers were cut down but many managed to withstand the blow and returned fire with such ferocity that Gama and her sister were abruptly forced back under cover.

"Fuck!" Gama cursed as a stray bullet narrowly missed blowing her skull apart. Casting her eyes around, she suddenly noticed something strange about the wall facing her and her sister, it appeared to be breaking under the deadly hail of bullets. 'No not breaking... shattering!' It was a tinted window which had resembled stone in the low light, but now its true nature was for all to see and it gave her an idea.

Shooting a glance at her sister, she holstered one of her guns before withdrawing a small incendiary grenade and holding it out for her to see before nodding at the window. Getting the idea, she withdrew her on grenade and on the count of three, they stepped out and hurled the bombs at the still firing soldiers. Taken aback, the mercenaries stopped their onslaught for a moment as they peer down dumbly at the grenades. It gave the Alices their chance and with a yell they burst out of hiding and made for the window, their TMPs flashing as a blistering hail of bullets exploded from the muzzles.

Realising the danger, the troopers tried to flee but most were cut down as the sisters made the dash to the window. Weakened by the barrage, the tinted glass shattered beneath their charge and gravity seized them in its clutches and pulled them down. Caught in free fall, Gama used her free hand to reach inside her gear and pull free a small pod that was teethed to her belt by a retractable cord. In a practised move, she whirled her body around and threw the pod skyward; its miniature body opening into a grappling hook as the internal sensors locked onto a bean and pulled it to it. Grabbing the pole like a striking viper, the pod locked tight and wouldn't budge.

A glance told Gama her sister had done the same so without fear, they let the fall take them as the cord began to slow their descent. It was a long drop, stretching out for over half a mile, yet strangely she felt no fear. Fear was not a word she had any meaning for. There was only the mission, the mission to destroy Umbrella and now she had them clear in her sights. Over the roar of the whipping wind, she heard the grenades go off and then felt the wash of hot air on her back when a great cloud of choking black smoke enveloped everything in her and her sister's wake. There was fire up their too, but Gama didn't worry, they were too far ahead of the blast to have any fear of getting burned.

Far below she could make out the communications centre, a collection of small peapod like hubs that were all gathered together around one master station. That was her target. The only problem was a small army of men, no bigger than ants to her now, happened to be swarming all over it.

Snatching up her second gun even as the whipping wind blew full force against her, she opened up a furious stream of fire that rained down on the unsuspecting spectators below like a deadly lead hailstorm. The howling winds silencing the TMPs' clamorous retort along with the screams of the dying as she and her sister dropped through the Atrium like a pair of latex garbed raptors on the hunt.

Grabbing whatever weapons they could find, the technicians that were still able to move started to return fire; however Gama and her sister were descending too fast for their eyes to focus and the bullets flew buy the clones harmlessly. The technicians' poor shooting made Gama want to laugh, this was going to be easier than shooting fish in a barrel.

Her guns ran dry the moment before the tether pulled tight and she twisted her body over to break the quick release before free falling for the last few metres. By all rights the death-defying fall should have killed her and left her body as nothing more than gore splattered ruin, but when she landed in the command centre's master hub, it was with all the nimble grace and ease of a panther. All eyes were on her in an instant and taking advantage of the techs' stunned disbelief, she rammed her last two clips into thee TMPs before turning them on...

Her eyes widened as she saw the immense figure all dressed in black and wearing shades. There was no mistaking that dark, fearsome exterior and her heart suddenly burned with renewed hatred as she recognised him as being Albert Wesker, her primary target and eternal nemesis.

She would have shot the Umbrella CEO right then and their but he showed remarkable speed for a man who appeared to be made up almost entirely of muscle and dived behind a desk before her sub-machine guns could draw level. However before she could go after him, a firestorm erupted all around her as the technicians came to their senses and opened fire on Gama. They may have been bad shots, but in this tight a quarter, skill didn't matter. Even if they couldn't hit her, a ricocheting bullet could kill her just as easily as a true one.

Moving faster than any human imagine, she whirled around and began firing manically at the nearest targets, taking them out in the blink of an eye before turning on the next. They may have had her outnumbered, but Gama was the faster and she delighted in showcasing that fact by mercilessly slaughtering the Umbrella staff as if she were an unstoppable killing machine. With every hit, a fresh spray of gore splattered across the procaine white floor of the central Hub and it wasn't long before a mass of bullet riddled bodies lay crumpled and twisted at her feet, their death cries still echoing around the atrium as smoky tentacles floated up from her guns.

Breathing a little harder than she had been before the massacre, Gama surveyed her work fondly until a figure suddenly lunged up from the shadows. It was Wesker, and he was armed. Recognising the danger posed by his two gleaming Desert Eagle Magnums, she spun on her hip, trying to escape the weapon's range as she brought her TMPs up to bear and fired. Her heart seeming to die the instant the machine guns kicked back with a dull 'click'. The magazines were empty.