Magnificent Evil REdux

September 24, 1998

Raccoon City, Missouri

2347 Hrs

39 hours after initial infection

42 hours after contact lost with HUNK and Delta team

  On the empty and dark streets of Raccoon City an all black Cadillac Gage Peacekeeper can be seen, heading to city hall. Inside it eight figures can be seen. The first is James Harris or by his fieldname Sarge, is sitting right next to the rear doors, standing at six foot three, he is the tallest of the seven person team. He’s dressed with the standard U.S.S. battledress, full black BDU top and pants, with a black ballistic vest and an M40 gas mask with a black PASGT helmet. In his arms is a M4A1 with a foregrip mounted flashlight and a red dot sight. On his thigh was a Beretta 92fs Inox, fitted with a sound suppressor, along with an eighteen round extended magazine. He is team's leader and close quarters combat expert.

Across from him sat Jeff Gunderson or Anonymous as he is called, has the look of a golem or a juggernaut, standing at six feet even he is covered head to toe in heavy ballistic armor, and a fully encapsulating gas mask and helmet combination. Along his waist and front of his armor are rows upon rows of varying grenades most are fragmentation or incendiary with a few stun. In his hands is a M16A2, on his thigh is a M1911 and finally on his back rests a M72 Light Anti-Armor Weapon most commonly known as the LAW. With his explosives and armor he’s the team’s demo man and walking tank.

To his left sits the team’s youngest member, Leonas Augustus or Lucky as she prefers, she is tall yet lithe, she stands at five foot ten, she’s wearing a tight black bodysuit designed by Umbrella to protect against bites and scratches, bullets however are a different story, anything bigger than a 9mm and she might as well be wearing nothing. She has a half rebreather mask in place of a full gas mask, it shows off her angular and soft face, long black hair that is tied off in a pony tail, along with her dark blue eyes. in place of a vest she has a bandoleer. On it she has several smoke and frag grenades, a small medikit and a radio in case main comms fail. On her laps rests her Steyr Aug with a four times magnification sight in place of the standard one and a half times sight, on the barrell is a sound suppressor and instead of the standard thirty round magazines, she uses the forty-two round support weapon magazines. On her thigh rests the monstrous IMI Desert Eagle semi-automatic magnum chambered for the .50AE, with the nine round magazines in place of the factory standard seven round magazines. She is the team’s chemical weapons expert and second in command.

Across from her is Dan Grayson or Kestrel as he’s known as, he stands at an average five foot ten, he’s wearing an all black hooded recon top with black BDU pants developed by Umbrella to protect from fire and small arms, he has a lightweight commando vest, which is meant for equipment load bearing more than ballistic protection, he’s wearing the British SF10 gas mask. Resting in his hands is a MP5/10 a 10mm variation of the classic MP5 designed for the FBI, on the handguard was a laser aiming module and on the barrel was a sound suppressor. On his thigh was an H&K USP Match chambered in 9mm with a sound suppressor in place of the standard compensator. He also carried several M67 frag grenades, a thermal imaging monocular and a ground motion sensor. He was the team’s reconnaissance and surveillance expert.

On his right was Vasily Degtyaryov aka Red, standing at six foot one, he wore a dark grey jacket and pants with a with a black ballistic vest, over his face he had the PRWU gas mask, which when compared to the rest of the team’s, looked old, outdated and cheap, but it worked. Standing between his legs was the massive OSV-96 sniper rifle, firing the massive 12.7x108mm round, the rifle itself was nearly six feet in length. On his hip in it’s wooden holster was a Stechkin APS, an automatic handgun whose wooden holster can double as a stock. He was the team’s sniper.

Across from him was the team’s last female, Patricia Danglars aka Marseille, she was the smallest member of the team standing at five foot four. She wore the same bodysuit as Lucky, except for a backpack that contained her ‘research’ supplies along with a battle belt instead of a bandoleer, she also has Umbrella latest and greatest technology a wrist mounted touch screen computer, decades ahead of the world. She wore a half rebreather mask, that showed off her pale skin, brown eyes and short black hair. in her hands was the experimental XM 42 handheld flamethrower developed by Umbrella’s camping division. On her thigh was a Browning BDM, in which she plans to use as a primary. She was the team’s Virology expert and field scientist.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the Peacekeeper was Aiden Knight, or simply Fox, he stood at five foot eleven, and unlike the rest of the team he wore a large leather jacket and a grey long shirt underneath that and blue jeans with black running shoes, in place of a gas mask was simply a cloth covering his lower face and a dark grey ball cap. He had with him a small laptop and several twenty gigabyte hard disk drives along with cables to hack with. He carried a Calico M960, and inside his jacket a Kahr K9 elite, and instead of a blade like the rest he carried a collapsible baton. He was the team’s electronic, security expert and hacker.

The last person in the Peacekeeper was the driver a man simply known as Jihadi John, he was covered in blinking red christmas light, but was convinced they were explosives, so he may as he put it “Slay as many of the putrid infidels as possible”, to be honest the man was crazy, he kept insisting he was Arab, but the Texas accent and pale as the moon skin ruled that out. The only reason anyone could assume he was hired was because of his driving skills.

As they drove through the streets, all they saw was chaos; dried blood, wrecked and flaming cars, discarded and empty guns. The sounds of distant screams and emergency sirens was only overpowered by the hungry growls and moans of the dead. As they were waiting for the drive to end, their radios squawked to life. “Omega team, respond.” a raspy voice called out.

“Omega team here, command.” Sarge quickly answered in an attempt to avoid command’s wraith.

“Omega, your objectives are as follows, erase any and all digital evidence of Umbrella's involvement, destroy any and all physical evidence of Umbrella facilities in the area and of what has happened in the Arklay Mountains, afterwards check in for further objectives, understood!” Command quickly and harshly ordered over the radio, yet before Omega team could respond they terminated the transmission.

Omega team could feel the weight of the importance of the mission, should they fail, well they didn’t want to think of that possibility. The Peacekeeper lurched to a stop, next to an underground exit for city hall.

“Here we are, now get out you filthy infidels.” the driver responded. Omega wasted no time exiting the vehicle whose driver was more than likely clinically insane. As they exited the Peacekeeper quickly drove off, with an unknown destination.

“Ain’t gettin in this way.” Sarge said as he examined the door and found it was both locked and chained on the inside, he could see claw marks on the door and assumed some survivors locked the door to escape the dead.

“Not necessarily sir.” Anonymous said as he prepared a MK3A2 concussion grenade, “I could have this door open in a jiffy,we just need to all back away and let me work some magic.”

As this was said everyone backed away from the door, Anonymous wedged the grenade by lock and quickly pulled the pin and ran. Five seconds later the grenade went off and forced the door to concave, Anonymous quickly kicked the door in and it fell right off it’s hinges with a loud thud. Growls and moans could be heard approaching quickly.

“In now!” Kestrel yelled as they entered with haste. Once they were all in Anonymous and Kestrel wedged the door and shoved a broken vending machine behind it, in an attempt to prevent the dead from reaching them. Once inside they noticed the remains of what looked like an UBCS soldier strewn across the floor. “Poor bastard became a human happy meal.” Kestrel morbidly said with a chuckle.

“Really of all the times and topics you make a joke on that?” Red berated with disdain in his voice.

“Not a joke, just an observation.” Kestrel replied with a distinct lack care in his voice.

Before Red could respond, Sarge spoke up “Lock it down both of you, we have a job to do.” with a quick glare pointed at Kestrel for his lack of professionalism.

As that was said Marseille stopped herself from collecting samples, reassuring herself that there will be time later for research and possible testing. Before anything else could happen the door in front of the burst open, the team leveled their weapons at the man who entered, he also leveled his G36 at the team as well.

“Hold your fire he’s UBCS.” Sarge called out, the weapons were lowered and the grey haired man noticed that they were U.S.S. by their clothing and weapons.

“Nikolai Zinoviev, UBCS delta platoon, we were sent to rescue citizens but, that has failed, I’m trying to find a safe zone.” he supplied without question hoping they simply pass him along. “Your U.S.S., corporate must really be in panic.”

Kestrel walked up and looked towards Sarge, “Sir, loose thread?” he asked while he looked back at Nikolai and shouldered his MP5/10.

Sarge nodded and said “Tie it off.” As this was said the team walked through the door Nikolai just came through, without saying anything Kestrel put two bullets in Nikolai’s head, ending the UBCS sergeant’s life, with little care Kestrel stepped over Nikolai's body and rejoined his team. Once inside the city hall itself the team started moving towards the security room so they can quickly access the security cameras feed and get a heads up on what they might face, and it also helps that the server room was right next to the security room.

As they crossed the atrium, they began to notice more and more empty casings and magazines littered across the floor. While they were moving Sarge took note of Fox’s apparel and decided to question him on it.

“Fox, why are wearing civis and a bandana instead of the standard and gas mask?” Sarge questioned hoping for a good explanation for Fox’s odd choice in operation apparel.

“Simple, need to know, and if you needed to know you would know.” Fox answered calmly not wanting to explain himself or his position.

Sarge grimaced under his mask and let it go, he didn’t want to cause a stirrup in the team while on operations.

While that was happening the team’s resident second in command Lucky was talking with Marseille.

“So, you’re saying that when we reach a point where we get a breather you want to find a zombie and take some samples and run some tests?” Lucky questioned the sadistic virology expert.

“Yes, it could lead to some major breakthroughs no one's even thought of yet, not to mention a possible antivirus,eh.” Marseille passionately explained hoping that if she could convince the second in command, she could overrule Sarge if he declines her chance to study, or if Sarge were to have an accident, and say get infected she could have a live subject to study and test, the mere thought of studying the virus from initial infection to it’s end phase of turning the host into a flesh eating animalistic monster was getting her giddy.

Lucky was thinking of who in the team she could manipulate to follow her, should something happen. She quickly ruled out Sarge as he was a team player and prefer that nobody dies if it can be helped. Next she thought of Red, but felt that the Russian would be more of a detriment to her survival with his large rifle and quiet personality. Anonymous could be useful with all his explosives and heavy armor if they encounter large numbers and barricades. Fox on the other was a mystery, she could easily tell he had some form of ulterior motives, but what they were was beyond her, her first thought was that he was working for corporate’s upper management, but she figured she’d deal with it when the time comes. Marseille could easily be convinced as long as she let her poke and prod what she wanted. That left Kestrel, the team’s U.S.S. veteran and overall mystery, if you asked about him, people would look around for him. Whether that was because of a reputation he made or because he trained personally under HUNK and along side Vector the other two legends of the U.S.S. Mr. Death and the ghost. She felt if need be she could sway him, after all he his a man and all men have the same weakness.

In the front Kestrel had the odd feeling someone was thinking of him, he quickly shook it off and went back to his train of thought. Currently he was mentally bitching about being stuck with the misfit squad, really he couldn’t understand why, did it have something to do with the company party he teargassed, if it did then corporate couldn’t take a joke. His mind began to wander to what happened to Delta team and his lehrer, he hoped that they at least put a fight against whatever had killed them.

 As Kestrel finished his thoughts he saw the security room up ahead, he motioned for them stop and waved Sarge up to him.

“What’s the news Kestrel, something ahead.” Sarge asked

“Security room’s ahead, just thought I’d let you know that we should be ready for possible infected or survivors.” Kestrel answered with taking his eyes off the slightly ajar door leading to the security room.

With that said the team stacked up and proceeded to the door, with a simple nod Anonymous opened the door, Sarge and Kestrel filed in and saw several infected milling about the room, with a nod they began to engage the infected. Sarge was putting two rounds in the infected’s chest and one in the head, while Kestrel was shooting each in the head once. After they had finished they counted eight infected dead, the rest of the team entered and began spreading out.

Fox, moved to the security terminal and set up his laptop, and began sifting through data and footage. While he worked Marseille asked if she may gather samples from the dead infected.

“Sir, I feel that if I were to gather samples and test them, I could develop an antivirus.” Marseille said stating her case, hoping for a yes.

Sarge thought this over and right as he was about to answer his second in command spoke up.

“Yes, start collecting your samples.” Lucky said, completely taking the wind out of Sarge’s sails for the no he was about say. With that everyone except for Fox, cast a look over towards Lucky wondering why she had subverted Sarge.

Sarge was about to lay into Lucky for taking the command out of his hands when he heard Fox call out.

“Guys, take a look at this.” Fox called as he pulled a video feed from earlier. As everyone crowded around they saw, Nikolai shoot one of his team and locked the door behind him as two others ran into frame, they could hear moans and growls through the video. What they saw shocked them, the infected ran up and started to viciously tear through the UBCS soldiers with their teeth, as they ate them, the team could hear the screaming of the men as they were slowly eaten alive.

“Good thing I killed him then.” Kestrel said with a shrug as he went back to standing by the door that lead to the server room.   The team began to go back to what they were doing, Sarge had decided to not argue with Lucky, after what he saw, he began to wonder what really happened in this city.

As fox packed up they quickly moved down another bloody yet empty hall towards the server room, once inside Sarge began issuing commands.

“Fox, delete anything on those servers that might be connected to Umbrella. Anonymous, Kestrel start setting up explosives along the servers we should blow them just incase something slips by Fox.” Sarge ordered without hesitation.

Kestrel and Anonymous began placing MK3A2 concussion and Thermate-TH3 grenades all along the sever towers. It took about five minutes but they had successfully wired everything up, Anonymous faked crying stating that it was just too beautiful.

“Fox, you finished yet.” Sarge asked impatiently.

“Just finished.” Fox said as he began to pack up his laptop, wires and hard disk drives.

With that they left the room, Anonymous pulled a string that connected all the grenades pins together and ran while quietly chuckling to himself as the room went up in explosions and flames.

“Next we head to the records room and destroy all the physical evidence, let’s go team.” Sarge said as they began moving down the stairwell.