POV: John Walker
I felt a pang of guilt for the kids. Honestly, no one should have to go through something like that at such a young age.
I walked into Dr. Weidiger's office. The man was bent over a lab table, dissecting a werewolf. I'd seen this a hundred times before—it wasn't the first, and it certainly wasn't the worst—but it never got easier.
"So… how are they?" I asked, keeping my voice low.
Weidiger didn't look up at first, his hands slick with blood and fur. Finally, he glanced at me.
"Well, the girl," he said, voice clipped, "she's in too much shock to even speak. Won't be talking for a while."
I nodded. That didn't surprise me. She'd seen her father die—there was no coming back from that instantly.
"The boy, though…" He paused and wiped his hands on a rag. "He's a lot like his father. Sharp. Intelligent. Especially for a thirteen-year-old."
I leaned against the doorframe, watching him carefully. "Sharp, huh?"
Weidiger didn't look at me. "I already spoke to the Director. He wants the boy trained. We don't know what to do about the girl yet, but the boy… he's valuable. He wants him as a weapon."
I frowned. This wasn't new to me. Umbrella had raised child soldiers before, trained kids to fight, to kill, to carry out missions before they even had a chance at a normal childhood. But… Leon was different.
Very different.
I'd watched him today, seen the way he reacted under pressure, how quickly he assessed danger. The way he protected Grace, even when he had no weapons. That instinct. That intelligence.
Weidiger continued muttering something about growth hormones and cognitive accelerants, but I barely heard him. My mind was elsewhere.
Leon wasn't just another soldier. He was… smarter, faster, and more adaptable than any kid we'd ever seen.
And that made him both dangerous… and invaluable.
I shook my head slightly, a bitter taste in my mouth.
No matter what Umbrella wanted, no child should ever have to bear that kind of weight.
But if we were being honest… Leon Kennedy wasn't just a kid anymore. He was becoming something far beyond ordinary.
And the world he was walking into… was about to get very, very dangerous.
POV: Leon Kennedy
A few months had passed since they started putting me through training.
At first, everything felt like a blur. The days blended together into the same routine over and over again. Wake up early. Physical training. Weapons training. Classes. Then more training until it was late enough for them to send us back to our rooms.
I wasn't the only kid here.
There were others.
Some were my age. Some were younger. A few were older—maybe sixteen or seventeen. Most of them had the same look in their eyes that I probably had.
The look of someone who had seen too much too early.
Umbrella called it a training program, but everyone knew what it really was. They were turning us into soldiers.
Grace was okay, though.
At least… as okay as someone could be after everything that happened.
She didn't train like I did. They kept her in a different part of the facility most of the day. From what I heard, she spent a lot of her time on computers. They said she was some kind of prodigy when it came to technology.
I wasn't surprised.
Grace had always been smart.
But I still didn't like that they kept us apart so much.
The only time I really saw her was in the evenings when they let us eat together.
Those moments meant everything to me.
The training facility was massive.
It had shooting ranges, combat rooms, obstacle courses, and even simulation chambers where they could recreate different combat situations.
Every instructor here had one goal.
Make us stronger.
Make us faster.
Make us better killers.
At first, I hated it.
Every punch, every fall, every bruise reminded me of the night my father died.
But after a while…
Something inside me changed.
The anger I felt didn't disappear.
It just turned into something else.
Determination.
If monsters like that vampire existed in the world, then I needed to be strong enough to stop them.
One day, during combat training, they paired me against a boy who was two years older than me.
He was bigger too.
Most of the other kids watching assumed I would lose.
The instructor blew the whistle.
The fight started.
The older kid rushed me immediately, trying to overpower me.
But I had learned something during these past few months.
Strength wasn't everything.
Timing mattered more.
As he swung at me, I stepped to the side and grabbed his arm, twisting it just like one of the instructors had shown us.
He hit the ground hard.
Before he could recover, I pinned him.
The instructor raised an eyebrow.
"Match over."
The other kids stared.
One of them muttered, "No way…"
I stood up and offered the other boy a hand.
He looked annoyed but accepted it.
"You're fast," he said.
"Thanks."
From that day on, the instructors started paying more attention to me.
Especially Agent Walker.
Walker watched almost every one of my training sessions.
Sometimes he gave advice. Sometimes he just observed quietly from the sidelines.
One afternoon, after a shooting exercise, he walked over to me.
"You're improving quickly," he said.
I lowered the handgun and looked at him.
"That's the point of training, isn't it?"
He smirked slightly.
"True."
I hesitated before asking the question that had been in my head for months.
"Have you found the vampire that killed my parents?"
Walker's expression changed.
"Not yet."
I could tell he wasn't lying.
But he wasn't telling the whole truth either.
"Was he the only one?" I asked.
Walker crossed his arms.
"No."
My stomach tightened.
"There are more."
I nodded slowly.
Good.
That meant there were more chances to make things right.
Walker studied me for a moment.
"You're thinking about revenge," he said.
I didn't answer.
He sighed.
"That kind of thinking will get you killed someday."
"Maybe," I said quietly.
"But it'll get them killed too."
Walker didn't argue with that.
Later that night, I met Grace in the cafeteria.
She was sitting at one of the tables with a tablet in front of her, typing faster than anyone I had ever seen.
When she noticed me, her face brightened a little.
"Leon!"
I sat down across from her.
"What are you working on?"
She turned the tablet slightly so I could see the screen.
Lines of code filled the display.
"Security systems," she said. "They're teaching me how Umbrella networks work."
I raised an eyebrow.
"You understand all that?"
She smiled a little.
"Most of it."
For a moment, things almost felt normal again.
Like we were just two kids talking about school.
But then Grace's smile faded slightly.
"Leon…"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think Mom and Dad would be mad that we're here?"
The question caught me off guard.
I thought about it for a moment.
Then I shook my head.
"No."
She looked at me.
"Why not?"
"Because we're getting stronger," I said.
I looked down at my hands.
"And next time… we won't be the ones running away."
Grace didn't respond.
But I could tell she understood.
And deep down…
I knew something else too.
Umbrella might think they were training me to become their weapon.
But the truth was…
I was training for my own reasons.