Beneath Salazar Castle, the hidden archive room.
This was where generations of Salazar family secrets were stored. The air reeked of moldering paper.
Ryan kicked the heavy iron door off its hinges, sending it flying into two stone statues and smashing them to pieces. He brushed the dust from his shoulders and walked to the deepest bookshelf.
X-ray vision meant he didn't need to dig through piles of useless documents. He went straight to a concealed compartment in the wall, pulled it open, and lifted out a sealed metal case.
Inside lay several hard drives and a thick stack of research manuscripts.
"Clinical data on laser-assisted parasite extraction... Las Plagas differentiation and cultivation records..." Ryan flipped through the pages, his eyes catching on a few key lines.
Extraction of the "Amber" (differentiated specimen) is complete. Entrusted to Luis Sera for safekeeping.
Cultivation of the "Dominant Species Plaga" (mother organism) has been secretly relocated to the Sanctum Laboratory in the deepest level of The Island, under Lord Saddler's personal guard.
"So the mother's still on The Island." Ryan closed the manuscript and swept every hard drive and document into his tactical pack.
But the hard drives and manuscripts weren't the only things in the compartment. Through his X-ray vision, he spotted a false bottom in the metal case, and inside it, a neat row of vials glowing faint blue.
"There it is. The Plagas suppressant." Ryan raised an eyebrow, pulled one out, and held it up to the light.
Note: This compound temporarily blocks neural synchronization between parasite and host. Recommended for use in conjunction with laser extraction. - Luis Sera
So Salazar had hidden it away early. In the original storyline, Luis thought the suppressant had been destroyed in a fire, and afterward he and Ada had nearly run themselves into the ground trying to reproduce these few vials. Luis had even gotten himself killed trying to deliver them to Leon. But to Ryan, this was just another line item on Star Fire's R&D acquisition list.
Perfect. I'll bring the whole batch back for Bard and Annette to reverse-engineer. This approach to delaying mutation could be valuable for refining Star Fire's immunization serum. He packed the entire case of suppressant alongside the hard drives without a second thought.
Shopping complete.
The moment he turned around, a mass of footsteps echoed from beyond the archive room door.
Dozens of red-robed zealots in full gear, wielding heavy tower shields and flails, packed the doorway solid. In their midst, a figure barely five feet tall emerged in lavish medieval noble attire.
The eighth Castellan, Ramon Salazar.
"You filthy rat, how dare you trespass in the sacred halls of the Salazar family!" Salazar brandished a folding fan, his pale, malformed face twisted with arrogance and fury. "I'll have you carved into mince and fed to my pets..."
"Shut up."
Ryan frowned, the shrill voice giving him a headache. He didn't bother drawing a weapon. He walked to the archive room doorway, looked at the wall of shields braced against him, and casually raised his right fist into the main load-bearing pillar beside the door.
CRRRAAASH!
The massive stone column, thick enough that three men couldn't link arms around it, crumbled like a dry cracker under his fist and exploded into chunks.
Without the pillar's support, compounded by the devastating shockwave, the ceiling above the doorway let out a grinding shriek and collapsed.
Tons of stone and masonry came crashing down. The screams didn't even have time to start before every one of those shield-bearing zealots was crushed to paste and buried under the rubble.
When the dust cleared, a single figure remained standing.
Salazar stared at the mountain of debris in front of him. His fan slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. His legs shook uncontrollably, and a warm trickle ran down the inside of his ornate trousers.
Ryan stepped over the rubble and walked past him.
He didn't even glance down at the terrified Castellan. In Ryan's eyes, this defective test subject clinging to faded glory had a broken mind to match his broken genes. Killing Salazar would take one light punch, but he held back.
Leave him. He'll make a good midterm exam for those two.
Sherry and Becky had seen their share of chaos, but they'd never faced something like this alone - a creature with a massive frame and grotesque mutant abilities. You couldn't grow real Star Fire soldiers in a greenhouse. If he wanted them standing firm when the global storm hit, Salazar and his twisted mind and dirty tricks were the perfect whetstone.
Ryan stopped, turned his head, and fixed Salazar with a look as cold as a coroner's.
"Don't die too fast." His tone was flat, but it landed like a curse. "My people still need the practice."
He walked into the ruined corridor's shadows without looking back.
...
The village. An abandoned shack.
Rain hammered down in sheets. Leon had just pulled Ashley, Sherry, and Becky inside to escape the downpour when a casual whistle drifted from the rafters above.
"Looks like our American agent found his little princess."
A man in a leather jacket with center-parted curly hair hopped down from the beam. He spread his hands, wearing an easy, devil-may-care grin. "Luis Sera, former Umbrella researcher, currently unemployed. Pleasure to meet..."
He stopped mid-sentence.
A cold tactical kukri had materialized against his carotid artery without a sound.
Becky stood behind him. She'd moved there like a phantom, and her eyes were blank and still. If Luis so much as twitched, that blade would open his throat without hesitation.
"Whoa, whoa! Easy there, sweetheart!" Luis raised both hands, a bead of sweat sliding down his forehead. He looked at Leon with a pained grin. "Buddy, where'd you find these two gorgeous bodyguards? They've got some temper."
Leon leaned against the wall and held up his palms. "They don't answer to me."
Sherry sat on a wooden crate nearby, thumbing rounds into a magazine. She didn't look up. "Correction. We're not bodyguards. We're hired help."
Luis swallowed and dropped the carefree act.
"Alright, hired help. We're all in the same boat here." He tapped his pocket. "I've got the Amber. Original Las Plagas sample, the thing Saddler would kill for. And as it happens, Saddler's turning the world upside down looking for me, and you need my medicine and my intel to get this girl out alive. So. Partners?"
Leon looked at Sherry and Becky.
Becky flipped her wrist, sheathed the blade, and stepped back behind Leon.
"Lucky you." Leon looked at Luis. "Lead the way, Mr. Researcher."
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