I could vaguely hear the older Leon's voice behind me as I left the building. He seemed to have gotten back in contact with someone through his communicator, and when I listened a little more closely, I quickly recognized Sherry's name.
I didn't bother listening any further.
Whatever he intended to tell Sherry or his organization wasn't really my concern at the moment. I'd warned Leon about the existence of The Connections and had even given him Simmons as a lead. He could do whatever he wanted with that information now.
As for me, I still had a reservoir of blood to retrieve.
The four modified men were still waiting quietly on the front steps of Rhodes Hill, exactly as I'd ordered. They stood up as soon as they saw me come outside.
"You four, with me."
They nodded and followed without asking any questions.
We made our way around the building toward the helipad. The area was surprisingly quiet compared to the chaos that still lingered throughout certain parts of the facility.
There was indeed a helicopter waiting for us on the landing pad.
And, to my surprise, it wasn't empty.
A man was sitting inside.
The moment he saw me approaching with four individuals whose appearance certainly couldn't be described as perfectly human, he immediately tensed.
I raised one hand.
"Relax. They're with me."
The man looked at me, then studied my four guards with perfectly understandable suspicion.
"Harry Reed," he finally introduced himself.
I nodded.
"Gerald King."
He glanced around before gesturing toward the instrument panel.
"If you're planning to leave with this aircraft, there's a problem. The key isn't here."
I frowned.
"Where is it?"
"In the house."
I sighed before looking toward the younger Leon.
"I'm going to get the key."
He nodded.
I then gestured toward Harry and the helicopter.
"Leon, stay with him and protect the aircraft. I don't know how to fly this thing, and I don't think you do either."
My Leon studied the cockpit.
"I could probably learn."
"Probably isn't the word I want to hear from the guy responsible for keeping us from crashing."
He gave me a small smile.
"Fair point."
I turned toward my four guards.
"You four, with me."
We headed back inside.
Thanks to Gideon's memories, finding my way around was no longer much of a problem.
I now knew the corridors, the elevators, the secured access points, and, most importantly, the hidden facilities beneath Rhodes Hill.
So we quickly made our way down toward the underground complex beneath the helipad.
A few infected were still wandering through the corridors.
They didn't pose any serious threat.
My four guards neutralized the first ones while I captured the others as we continued forward.
After all the cleaning we'd already done, there wasn't much left in the facility capable of putting up any real resistance anyway.
Then I finally reached what I was looking for.
The reservoir.
I stopped.
"Ah."
Even knowing from Gideon's memories that it was enormous, actually seeing it was something else entirely.
A massive structure occupied a considerable portion of the underground facility. Thick pipes converged toward it, and behind its reinforced walls lay an absolutely monstrous quantity of contaminated blood accumulated over the course of Rhodes Hill's experiments.
I placed a hand against the structure.
"Let's see if this works."
I tried sending it into my Factory.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a notification appeared.
[Facility detected.]
I raised an eyebrow.
A second notification followed almost immediately.
[Exceptional quantity of contaminated biological matter detected.]
"Yeah, I noticed."
[Compatibility with Blood Collector confirmed.]
Then the next message made me smile.
[Exceptional assistance granted.]
"Oh?"
The entire reservoir disappeared.
Not just its contents.
The whole structure was absorbed into my Factory at once, leaving behind a gigantic empty space filled with pipes that had been abruptly severed.
I remained silent for a few seconds.
"Well... thank you."
One final notification appeared.
[The reservoir will be transferred to the Raccoon City Factory once your presence in this world has ended.]
My smile widened.
Excellent.
That meant I wouldn't even need to find a way to transport or store several thousand liters of contaminated biological material.
And with the Blood Collector...
I'd potentially just acquired an industrial-scale supply of raw materials.
"Pretty good day after all."
One of my guards looked at me.
I patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't try to understand."
He calmly nodded.
We then made our way back upstairs.
I took a detour through Gideon's office and finally retrieved the helicopter keys.
All that remained was to rejoin Leon and Harry.
At least, that was the plan.
Because as I stepped into one of the corridors leading outside, I abruptly stopped.
Someone was standing in front of us.
Tall.
Blond.
Dark sunglasses covering his eyes.
His posture perfectly relaxed.
For a fraction of a second, my brain immediately associated the silhouette with someone I knew extremely well.
Wesker.
But it wasn't him.
The memories and information I possessed quickly allowed me to place the face.
Zeno.
A member of The Connections.
And, more importantly, someone I had absolutely no desire to fight in my current condition.
I had a rough idea of what he was capable of.
His speed was comparable to that of the original Wesker.
Under normal circumstances, that wouldn't have been an insurmountable problem.
Right now?
That was different.
My regeneration meant he would probably have an extremely difficult time killing me permanently.
But there was a considerable difference between "not dying" and "being able to win."
And against someone capable of moving at that kind of speed, I was currently far too easy a target.
So I immediately raised one hand to stop my four guards from moving forward.
"Don't move."
They froze.
Zeno watched us.
I decided to smile.
"Mr. Zeno. A pleasure to meet you."
He tilted his head slightly.
One hand calmly rose to his sunglasses, adjusting them with a single finger.
"I'm afraid I don't have the pleasure of knowing you."
"That's normal."
I kept my tone perfectly polite.
"Gideon hired me recently."
There was no visible reaction.
But his attention immediately sharpened.
"For what?"
"Some of his research."
I deliberately paused for a moment.
Then I added:
"And I managed to decode the password required to reach Elpis."
This time, there was a reaction.
Tiny.
But noticeable.
His gaze focused more intently on me.
"The password?"
"Exactly."
Silence settled between us.
Then Zeno simply held out one hand.
"Give it to me."
I smiled.
"No."
His hand stopped.
The atmosphere changed instantly.
I slowly extended the four vines from my back.
They emerged from my back with a faint organic sound before spreading out around me, their tips rising threateningly enough to make my refusal perfectly clear.
I had absolutely no intention of attacking him.
But he didn't need to know that.
"I don't think that would be in my best interest."
Zeno studied me from behind his sunglasses.
"And yet you just admitted that you know who I am."
"Exactly."
I kept smiling.
"Which means I also know it would be stupid to simply hand you the only thing that makes my presence useful."
I took a step forward.
"I'm going to the Ark with you."
His eyes followed my movement.
"Once we're there, I'll unlock the security system that allows access to Elpis."
I raised one finger.
"In exchange, I want one dose for myself. Just one."
Zeno remained perfectly still.
Then his hand moved.
Fast.
The revolver appeared almost instantly.
BANG!
I didn't even have time to properly follow the movement.
The bullet struck one of my guards directly in the chest.
His body jerked backward from the impact.
But he didn't fall.
His skin had changed at the last possible moment.
The tissue around the impact point had suddenly grown denser and harder, transforming his torso into organic armor tough enough to prevent the specialized projectile from penetrating deeply.
The guard slowly looked down at his chest.
Then raised his head.
The other three reacted immediately.
Their muscles contracted.
Their skin hardened in turn.
Their bodies became slightly bulkier as their biological modifications instinctively prepared them for combat.
I immediately raised one of my vines in front of them.
"I said don't move."
They stopped.
Zeno, meanwhile, was staring at the first guard.
Then at his weapon.
An expression of genuine interest appeared on his face.
And finally...
He smiled.
"Interesting."
I said nothing.
He studied my vines.
Then the four men behind me.
Finally, his gaze returned to my face.
"Now that I know we've both undergone certain... modifications, I'm much less concerned that you're simply a government agent sent to interfere with us."
I allowed my vines to relax slightly.
"I suppose that's a compliment."
"Take it however you like."
Zeno lowered his revolver.
Then calmly holstered it.
"If you truly have access to Elpis, and Gideon trusted you enough to let you work on his research..."
He adjusted his sunglasses one last time.
"Then I welcome you."
I slowly retracted the vines into my back.
"Now that's a much more reasonable conversation."
Zeno gave me a faint smile.
The tension hanging over the corridor seemed to ease as he took a few steps closer. He fully holstered his revolver before extending his hand toward me with almost professional calm.
"Zeno. Supervisor of the Ark."
I lowered my eyes toward his hand.
Perfect.
"Gerald King."
I took his hand and shook it.
The contact lasted only a second.
Zeno had a firm grip and seemed perfectly relaxed, but I already knew that a man like him hadn't become the supervisor of a facility like the Ark by trusting the first mutant who showed up claiming to have worked for Gideon.
And sure enough, he made his move.
Brutally.
His hand vanished from mine.
I caught a glimpse of movement.
Then his fingers closed around my throat.
"Gh—"
My body was lifted almost instantly.
My feet left the floor as Zeno pulled me against him, using my own body as a shield against the four guards standing behind me.
They reacted immediately.
Their muscles contracted, and their tissues began to harden.
"Don't... move..."
They froze.
Zeno tightened his grip slightly.
"Very reasonable," he murmured near my ear.
I instinctively brought both hands up toward his arm.
At least, that was what he was supposed to think.
Because on the inside...
I was smiling.
Exactly what I wanted.
I could have tried to fight him directly.
That would have been stupid.
In my current condition, my strength—and especially my speed—were far below what they normally should have been. Zeno possessed abilities close enough to Wesker's to turn a head-on fight into a particularly unpleasant problem.
I could probably survive.
But defeating him cleanly was another matter entirely.
Fortunately, I'd never needed to defeat him in the first place.
I only needed to touch him.
More specifically...
His skin.
And unlike me, Zeno had absolutely no idea that rule existed.
I suddenly closed my hand around his wrist.
Skin against skin.
I immediately felt the connection with my Factory establish itself.
Zeno barely had time to look down.
"What the—"
I activated my power.
He disappeared.
Instantly.
The pressure around my throat vanished, and I dropped heavily back onto my feet.
The corridor fell completely silent.
I calmly straightened while rubbing my throat.
"Easy."
A satisfied smile appeared on my face.
A notification almost immediately confirmed what I'd already figured out.
In the end, there was nothing truly unique about Zeno.
Biologically, he was essentially a copy possessing the same fundamental abilities as the Wesker clone I'd already fought and recorded long ago.
His speed was impressive.
So was his strength.
But as far as my Factory was concerned, his biological template wasn't different enough from something I already possessed to cause any particular difficulty.
And more importantly, Zeno had made exactly the same mistake as many people before him.
He'd assumed that grabbing me meant immobilizing me.
When, in my case...
Physical contact was often the worst thing an opponent could willingly give me.
I looked at the spot where he'd been standing only a second earlier.
"Supervisor of the Ark..."
My smile widened.
"That should be useful."
And it turned out to be far more useful than I'd expected.
I made my way back to the helipad without encountering any other problems and handed the keys to Harry, who took them with obvious relief before settling into the pilot's seat. My Leon gave me a questioning look when he noticed the absence of my four guards, but I simply motioned for him to get aboard.
"I'll explain on the way. I had an interesting encounter."
A few minutes later, the helicopter blades began to spin, and we left Rhodes Hill behind for good, heading toward the ruins of Raccoon City.
I quickly explained my encounter with Zeno to Leon, including his rather stupid attempt to take me hostage by placing his hand directly around my throat.
My Leon remained silent for a few seconds as he immediately understood what had happened next.
"He touched you directly?"
"Yes."
"Rookie mistake."
"Exactly."
From that point on, the rest of the adventure became almost embarrassingly easy.
With Gideon and Zeno inside my Factory, I now had access to their memories and an absurd amount of information about the Ark, its security systems, laboratories, hidden passages, and the various biological weapons stored inside.
So I had absolutely no reason to politely follow the intended route.
Locked doors were no longer a problem because I knew the codes, security systems could be bypassed, and I generally knew what creatures were waiting behind a door before I even opened it.
The Ark had lost its greatest advantage.
Its secrets.
Naturally, I took the opportunity to methodically clean out the facility and recover anything that might be even remotely useful.
Scientific data, biological samples, and the various bioweapons gradually disappeared into my Factory, where Marcus, Alexia, and the others would be able to study them at their leisure once my return was confirmed.
I also recovered three Tyrants that probably would have been terrifying opponents for ordinary soldiers.
Unfortunately for them, they were barely comparable to Mister X, and I'd possessed far more dangerous models for a very long time, so capturing them required practically no effort.
"Did you seriously just call three Tyrants weak?" Leon asked.
"I have Tintin."
He thought about it for a second before nodding.
"Okay. Fair argument."
The rest of the exploration continued in much the same way, and I eventually reached the area where Elpis was being kept.
After everything that had happened since my arrival in this reality, I almost expected to have to carefully extract the serum or figure out how the device worked so I could recover a dose without damaging it.
I had just begun examining the equipment when the sound of footsteps coming from the corridor interrupted my thoughts.
I turned my head, vaguely expecting some new creature that had miraculously escaped my cleanup, but I immediately recognized the older Leon when he stepped through the doorway.
He wasn't alone anymore, however.
Three women accompanied him, and thanks to the memories I'd recovered, along with everything my own Leon had told me, it didn't take long for me to recognize Sherry Birkin, Claire Redfield, and Ada Wong.
Sherry had to be in her thirties by now and obviously looked nothing like the little girl I'd saved in my own world.
Still, seeing her as an adult gave me a strange feeling, especially when I remembered that my Sherry was currently waiting for me in a reality where she had become my adopted daughter.
Claire had changed as well.
She was still perfectly recognizable, but the years and everything she'd endured had left their mark on her face and in her eyes. She had that particular expression worn by people who had spent far too much time surviving biological disasters to still be genuinely surprised by much of anything.
Ada, on the other hand, was a rather amusing anomaly among the group.
While Leon and Claire clearly showed signs of the years that had passed, she seemed to have decided that aging was merely an optional suggestion. If she'd gained a single wrinkle since the memories I'd seen, she was doing an exceptionally good job of hiding it.
I looked from one woman to the next, then toward the older Leon walking among them.
An amused smile immediately appeared on my face.
"Quite the ladies' man, I see, Mr. Kennedy."
The older Leon gave me a tired look.
"Don't start."
"I'm merely observing."
My gaze then dropped toward the hatchet he was still holding.
A faint trace of fresh blood stained the blade, immediately catching my attention since I'd been fairly certain I'd cleared out everything that could pose a serious threat along our path.
"Did you run into some resistance? I thought I'd completely cleared the area."
Leon briefly looked at his hatchet before wiping it clean.
"A ghost from Raccoon City."
I raised an eyebrow.
"That doesn't narrow it down much."
"HUNK."
This time, I immediately understood.
"Ah. That one."
I was almost disappointed I'd missed him.
Between his reputation, his experience, and his almost supernatural ability to walk away alive from situations where everyone around him died, HUNK probably would have made an interesting addition to my Factory.
I was about to ask exactly what had happened when one detail made me realize why no one else was joining our conversation.
Sherry, Claire, and Ada weren't looking at the older Leon at all.
They were staring at the man standing beside me.
My Leon.
It was difficult to blame them for their reaction.
Standing in front of them was a much younger Leon S. Kennedy, looking almost exactly like the man they'd known several decades earlier, except his body had been considerably enhanced by the Perfect G-Virus and the eight modified Plagas he now possessed.
Sherry's eyes were wide, and for the moment, she seemed completely unable to figure out what she was supposed to say.
Claire kept looking back and forth between the two Leons as though searching for some rational explanation for both of them existing in the same place at the same time, while Ada observed my Leon with far more composure, though her silence revealed more than enough of her surprise.
My Leon eventually raised one hand slightly.
"Hi."
Sherry opened her mouth.
No sound came out.
Claire looked at the older Leon.
Then at my Leon.
Then back at the older one.
"Leon?"
The older Leon sighed.
"It's complicated."
Ada tilted her head slightly without taking her eyes off my Leon.
"I noticed."
My Leon, meanwhile, seemed far more amused than uncomfortable with the situation.
He possessed the older Leon's memories and therefore knew exactly who the three women standing in front of him were, but he had none of the emotional attachments associated with those memories.
"Technically, I'm Leon too."
The older Leon closed his eyes for a moment.
"That's absolutely not going to help them."
"I know."
I let out a quiet laugh before approaching the three new arrivals.
They had several minor injuries and looked like they'd been through more than enough to justify receiving some treatment before we did anything else.
"Before you start debating the existence of two Kennedys, let me take a look at those injuries."
All three women immediately tensed slightly at my words.
"Let him."
That simple sentence was enough to catch all three women's attention.
Considering how suspicious Leon had been of me when we first met, the fact that he was now allowing me to approach them without even reaching for his weapon was probably a particularly convincing endorsement.
I quickly treated them, removing the poison from Raccoon City that had entered their blood and caused the black marks to appear across their necks.
Sherry examined her now-unblemished skin in amazement.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Claire carefully rolled her shoulder, realizing that the pain was completely gone.
"I could really get used to this."
"A lot of people in my world have said the same thing."
Ada simply stared for a few seconds at the spot where her injury had been moments earlier. Then she looked up at me and gave me a small smile that was difficult to interpret.
"Convenient."
"That's usually the word people use."
Once the three women had been treated, I turned my attention back to Elpis.
They could talk with the two Leons as much as they wanted, but I personally had a mission to finish, and I had absolutely no desire to discover that some new problem had suddenly moved the serum I'd been searching for ever since I arrived.
So I began examining the device more carefully, trying to figure out the best way to extract a dose.
After traveling through an entirely different reality just to get here, accidentally damaging Elpis at the last possible moment would probably have been the most ridiculous way imaginable to fail.
Fortunately, the System had decided to spare me that problem.
The moment I got close enough to the device, a notification appeared before my eyes.
[Main objective detected.]
[ELPIS RECOVERED.]
I stared at the now-empty space for a few seconds before shrugging.
"Well... that works too."
Then another notification appeared before my eyes, and I immediately stopped joking.
[Affliction analysis in progress.]
An intense heat appeared in the center of my chest before gradually spreading throughout my entire body.
My muscles involuntarily contracted, and my joints cracked slightly as something that had been constricting my body for months finally seemed to disappear.
Then my strength began to return, along with the other physical abilities that had been suppressed by the infection.
My senses gradually regained their true sharpness, my muscles recovered their power, and my original mutation finally began functioning properly again.
After a few seconds, however, I frowned.
Something didn't match my memories.
I wasn't simply recovering my previous strength.
I had become noticeably stronger than I'd been before the contamination.
"Wait..."
I slowly clenched my fist and immediately felt the difference.
Every injury I'd suffered since my evolutionary ability had been blocked had still triggered regeneration, but the benefits normally associated with those regenerations had never been properly applied to my body.
The affliction had blocked my evolution, but it hadn't prevented my body from recording the damage and successive reconstructions.
Now that Elpis had removed the anomaly, all the benefits accumulated throughout my battles seemed to have been applied almost simultaneously.
Leon immediately noticed my expression.
"What is it?"
I slowly moved my fingers, savoring the familiar sensation.
"I'm stronger than before."
"By a lot?"
"Enough to make this entire trip more than worth it."
I didn't have much time to experiment any further, however.
The objective for which the System had sent me into this temporal extension was now complete, and I had no reason to unnecessarily prolong my stay in this reality.
So I left that world with everything I'd recovered.
One second, Leon and I were still standing in the depths of the Ark.
The next, my familiar control room appeared around us.
My Leon immediately looked around before letting out a satisfied sigh.
"We're back."
"Finally."
I immediately checked the status of my Factory to make sure nothing had been lost during the transfer.
Grace, Emily, Marie, and Jeff were all present, along with Gideon, Zeno, the hundreds of infected from Rhodes Hill, the bioweapons recovered from the Ark, and the three Tyrants I'd captured.
I quickly sent a request to my logistics unit to take care of the zombies and the various creatures I'd recovered, then had Grace, Emily, and Marie wait at a café on the outskirts of the city while Zeno and Gideon were taken to my scientists.
I wanted to see whether I could get any use out of their skills, although I suspected Zeno would eventually join the S.T.A.R.S. after a few minor upgrades.
Everything seemed to be perfectly in order.
But it was when I checked the section corresponding to Raccoon City that I discovered the real surprise.
The System had indeed kept its promise regarding the gigantic reservoir of contaminated blood I'd recovered beneath Rhodes Hill.
A new installation now covered an area roughly the size of a football field. The enormous tank naturally formed the centerpiece of the complex and still contained the monstrous quantity of contaminated blood Gideon had accumulated over the course of his experiments.
Around it, the System had organized the various devices I'd recovered instead of simply dumping them there at random. Several pipes directly connected the reservoir to the machines installed around it, giving the entire setup the appearance of a genuine industrial facility.
I approached the blood analyzer first. Its function was particularly interesting, since it could study different blood samples and discover new recipes that could then be used by the conversion system.
"Marcus is going to love this."
I walked a little farther around the tank before noticing something on the other side. Several additional devices had been installed at regular intervals, each one connected to the same central reservoir.
I moved closer to inspect them and quickly realized that they were additional Blood Collectors.
So the System hadn't simply recovered the machine I'd discovered at Rhodes Hill. It had transferred the entire setup required to exploit the reservoir on a large scale.
In the end, the facility operated on a fairly simple principle.
The analyzer could test new types of blood and discover recipes, the enormous tank served as a reserve of raw material, and the various Blood Collectors could then simultaneously produce the corresponding resources.
I placed my hands on my hips as I took in the entire setup.
What had started as the improvised recovery of a strange machine at Rhodes Hill had just turned into a genuine small-scale industrial facility capable of transforming a gigantic quantity of contaminated biological matter into directly usable resources.
"I think Marcus and the others are going to have fun with this."
Leon stared at the enormous tank before turning his head toward me.
"You realize you left to find a cure and came back with the equivalent of an infinite production machine? Considering what that thing can do, it's practically magic."
"Even better. At least we'll always be able to produce ammunition and other resources. We're all literally infected anyway, so I can organize blood drives to keep the tank supplied. Or I could have them create some gigantic creature with strong regeneration and use that to keep it filled."
(Author's note: Originally, I was going to leave Leon with his infection, but since I like the older Leon, I decided to spare him. ^^)