Chapter 61: Hail HYDRA!
A figure the size of a watchtower came through the wall like a battering ram.
At its feet: something that had been pressed flat.
The smoke cleared.
Not far from where Nemesis stood, a pale figure — the specific gray-white of something that had no business being alive, turned its head slowly.
A Regenerator.
The product of multiple Las Plagas parasites implanted in a single host simultaneously. As long as the multiple cores inside it remained intact, it would regenerate continuously — even with half its body destroyed. A persistent nightmare for anyone who encountered one, largely because the only reliable way to reach those cores was equipment most people didn't have access to.
Nemesis grabbed the Regenerator as it completed its turn, closing a hand around it and pressing its head together like clay.
Then it dropped what remained in the corner and kept moving.
Two steps later, something behind it made a sound.
Nemesis stopped.
It turned around slowly.
The Regenerator was getting back up.
Nemesis walked back.
No pause. Before the Regenerator had finished standing, a kick connected with its chest.
The upper half came apart.
Nemesis turned to leave again.
The same direction produced the same sound.
Nemesis: ...
You cannot be serious.
It looked at the Regenerator twitching and reconstituting on the ground, and covered the distance back to it at speed.
Then both hands came down. Again, and again, and again.
Left fist: massive damage. Right fist: comparable damage. Neither fist taking a break.
The Regenerator had spent its entire existence on the giving end of that equation. It had hit its Waterloo.
It also discovered, progressively, that Nemesis did not appear to tire. On top of that, the Regenerator's own attacks accomplished nothing. Its teeth, which it attempted to sink into Nemesis's skin, did not penetrate. Several of them broke off in the attempt. Its claws produced a similar result. The main contribution of the Regenerator's offensive capability was getting Nemesis's skin damp.
The Regenerator recognized this pattern and tried to leave.
Nemesis caught it by the head and pulled it back.
Then it stretched the Regenerator out like an accordion, squeezed it back together, and repeated the process until the regeneration cores had been worked past the point of function and the whole thing dissolved into a puddle of red.
With that resolved, Nemesis moved forward again.
On the island's surface, Hunk and the others arrived.
What they found was that every military defensive installation on the grounds had already been completely destroyed.
They looked at each other, and the expression passing between them required no translation.
This was the point of a B.O.W. Missiles and nuclear weapons delivered overwhelming force that was impossible to apply precisely. A B.O.W., properly commanded, could destroy exactly what needed to be destroyed and leave everything else standing. In the right situation, a B.O.W. could conduct a targeted strike on a high-value individual that conventional firepower simply couldn't.
The coordination between the teams and Nemesis moved them through to the core area at a speed that the defensive installations, had any of them survived, would have found objectionable.
Core area.
Osmund Saddler, leader of the Illuminados, felt his followers going dark one by one.
The connection severing. Then again. Then again.
The mood behind his eyes had passed dark some time ago.
Saddler considered himself a reasonable man. He kept to his own territory. He focused on his missionary work, on his research, on the operation he had built here. He had never done anything he would describe as genuinely harmful to anyone. At worst, he had used certain methods to bring the residents of a few surrounding villages and the local old families into his congregation. That was the full extent of it.
He genuinely could not understand what he had done to bring this down on himself.
No warning. No negotiation. Straight to extermination.
They had cleared every inch of the old nobility's territory. They had destroyed his laboratory. Not one of his researchers had been spared.
This was... beyond any reasonable description. Utterly without conscience. More unconscionable than anything he had personally done. And he was the villain here.
The vibrations from outside were getting closer. The Las Plagas tentacles under his skin were moving with the unease of something that had good instincts.
Saddler took out his phone and made a call.
Three rings. Then the line connected, and the other end said nothing.
Saddler spoke first.
"Hail HYDRA."
A voice came back from the other end, processed through something that changed it substantially from whatever it originally sounded like.
"Hail HYDRA."
A pause.
"...Saddler. What's the matter?"
The instant Saddler heard the voice, the rage he had been carrying since this began came looking for somewhere to go.
"You absolute—" He pulled it back into something that resembled a question. "Why is my island being overrun and I haven't heard a single word from your end?! Did you think my research results were sitting here for anyone to just walk in and take?!"
The person on the other end sounded genuinely puzzled.
"...Saddler. I'm being honest with you. I have not received any information about a government-authorized covert operation against you. Our people embedded in the Spanish government at senior levels haven't heard anything either. Are you certain you have this right?"
He wasn't lying to Saddler. That much was clear from his tone.
Saddler, who understood HYDRA's nature as well as anyone, believed none of it. "Oh! So your position is that everything happening on this island right now is something I arranged for myself!"
"Saddler, come on." The voice shifted into something more conciliatory. "We have a partnership. If something happens to you and the research results stop coming, we're the ones who lose out. Your equipment. Your laboratory. Your researchers. Everything you've built here, we provided all of it. Do you honestly think we would hide information about an operation against you? Or—" a slight edge entered the voice "—are you suggesting we're the ones who sent them?"
The displeasure in that last question was evident.
Saddler was not moved by it. "Who knows! You're HYDRA. Your reputation precedes you. I don't see why I should rule anything out."
Ten seconds of silence from the other end.
When the voice returned, it had cooled noticeably.
"Despite the offense, I'm willing to let that go."
"I'll send you a location and a route. Follow it and there will be someone waiting for you."
"Bring the Amber when you come. You know what happens if you don't."