Oodles of Doodles

He set off back toward his house, content to enjoy the sun and the rest of his walk. He’d probably go for a run later, but at the moment he wasn’t in any rush. Closing his eyes, Leon tipped his head back to the sky, trusting Rucio to tell him if he was about to fall off a cliff. Still, it was a bit of a surprise when Rucio shrieked with alarm and Leon felt the ground sweep out from under him. 

Instinct took over and Leon turned his fall into a roll as he hit the ground. As he came back to his feet, eyes already sweeping his surroundings, Leon noted three very important things. First, the temperature had dropped sharply by a solid 40F, heat no longer pressing in on him from every direction. Second, Leon was not in the Arizona desert. 

No, instead this looked a hell of a lot like the classified Alaskan military base he’d left behind several decades ago when he turned 100 and the cold became too much for his ailing joints. 

Third, and most bizarrely, was that across the green Leon could see himself, or at least, a him that looked about 80 years younger. And next to that was… an even tinier version of Leon, except one far lighter in color and lacking far more spikes than Leon had ever had. Both of them were staring at him, mouths agape.

You seeing this too, Rucio? Leon asked, and got a quiet affirmative ping from his partner. Shit… what do you think the chances are of this being a very vivid out of body experience? 

Rucio didn’t deign to answer that.

Leon inhaled, the unmistakable scent of Alaskan summer—of spruce and birch and pollen—filling his lungs. It didn’t feel like a dream… Leon had certainly never smelled during a dream before. But unless he’d missed something, teleportation wasn’t a thing yet. Neither was time travel. (But he was feeling an odd sense of deja vu… like a half remembered dream.) 

Think we could just sprint into the woods and ignore all this? Leon wondered, but Rucio gave him the mental equivalent of a shove. Interesting, interesting, the plaga murmured in not-quite-words. Go see. 

Leon sighed, but obliged, wandering closer to his younger doppelganger and the… prepubescent version. As he got closer, he noted this dream really was quite detailed. It was like looking in a mirror, only Leon was 40 instead of 120. But that still didn’t explain the baby. The features were so round. Where Leon had proper spikes on his carapace, were rounded nubs on the baby, carapace so lightly colored it could nearly pass for Leon’s original skin tone.

Leon stopped when he was within about twenty feet. His weirdly young counterparts stare at him in turn, eyes wide in pure shock. Leon knows the feeling.

“Oh my god, it’s another one,” his younger version muttered. Which… okay?

The baby slapped Leon’s younger self in the arm, never breaking eye contact with Leon himself. “It’s me, er, us,” the baby whispered, eyes practically sparkling. Leon blinked. Us? “Us but old.” There was a pause, then the baby’s mandibles hugged his face in a picture of pure embarrassment that Leon had never seen outside of himself. “Ack, sorry I uh…”

Leon couldn’t help it, he snorted. God, this one was just like the rookies he’d met over the years. “Don’t be, I’ve been called worse. Besides, you’re not wrong. I am old.”

Leon was over a hundred after all. But no, he did not remember the dinosaurs, Len. You know very well when those were around and Leon may be old but he’s not prehistoric. (Well… Rucio was. Kind of. Technically.)

“Anyways,” Leon flicked his tail dismissively. “I may be old but I’m pretty sure I’ve got some time before I get to the stage of hallucinating. So tell me, what is… all this?”

His younger self exhaled. “The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future walk into an old Alaskan base, all with the name of Leon Kennedy. Lemme know when you figure out the punchline.” 

Leon blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Ghost of Christmas Future.

“Time travel,” he echoed, and pinched the bridge of his nonexistent nose. “You’re fucking with me…” Leon sighed, glancing around at what he could see of the base. It did look… oddly new. The buildings were newly refurbished, the spruce forest on the south side of the training grounds still intact, before that wildfire in late 2010 had burned close to base.

… Time travel.

He was in the past. 

He… he might be able to see them again. Luis, Ashley, Chris, Claire, Jill… everyone. Even if it was only a minute… Here and now, they were alive. Leon swallowed, blinking back the heat building behind his eyes. Right… the kids would probably forgive him for being late. Just this once.

“Right,” Leon shook off his melancholy, gesturing to his two(?) doppelgangers. “Okay, so you’re… me?” The younger him made sense, but Leon was confident that even during his earliest period of mutation, he hadn’t looked like a baby. 

His younger self—who looked like when Leon had been in his thirties—nodded. “I’m from around 2010. Rookie here,” he pointed a thumb at the baby, “is from ‘02. He got turned in Raccoon City, I got turned in Spain.”

Leon blinked. Spain made sense. “Raccoon City?” he echoed, glancing at ‘Rookie.’ “How the fuck did that happen?”

‘Rookie’ shrugged. “It just did. We figure I’m from a… parallel timeline to Vet here. In mine, Irons infected me when I visited Raccoon a week prior to the outbreak itself.”

So not only was time travel a thing, so were parallel dimensions. The kids were going to love this. In addition to the fact Leon was meeting himself when he was 33, and an infected version of himself at 25. Because even in old age, his life continued to defy expectation.

“So, sounds like you were infected in Spain too?” ‘Vet’ asked, eyeing Leon with something he recognized as uncertainty. 

Leon nodded. “Yep, in 2004.” 

“Aw, damn,” Rookie gave a disappointed huff, but quickly shook it off, staring at Leon curiously. “So, how old are you?” he asked. Rookie’s eyes trailed over Leon, catching on the spikes that trailed down his tail and the small scratches littering his carapace. 

Leon shrugged. “Guess.”

Rookie squinted at him, eyes lingering on Leon’s hair that was equal parts brown and grey. (The kids still told him his hair was more brown than grey, but Leon wasn’t convinced.) “…Fifty? Sixty?” the kid guessed.

Leon hummed, neither rejecting nor confirming. But judging by the widening eyes on both his counterparts, they took it as a confirmation. Leon let them. Because how was he supposed to tell them he was twice the age they thought he was? How was he supposed to explain that, while they didn’t know it now, the mutation had slowed their aging? That Leon had outlived all his friends and family? Leon knew himself. It would not go well. 

“You’re fucking with me,” his less-young-self—hell, what was he supposed to call that one, midlife crisis? What did Rookie call him… Vet?—gaped at him. “You’re sixty? We make it to sixty?” Sixty and beyond, Leon doesn’t say, but he nods all the same. He understands the shock. At that age, Leon didn’t think he’d make it to thirty, let alone sixty.

“So,” Leon glanced around at the base that had been his home for decades. It’s… odd to be back here. He missed it. This was, after all, where he’d lived with Luis. “Do I need to start learning quantum mechanics? Because as fun as this is, I don’t think they’re equipped for three of us, and I refuse to be here during winter.” 

(Alaskan summers were warm, but it did not make up for the winter cold. He preferred the Arizona desert, thank you very much.)

His counterparts laugh, and Leon finds his mandibles twitching up in a smile.

Claire felt her heart drop to her stomach after Leon opened his eyes after eating one of the fries that she’d gotten for him. His pupils had turned into slits, and the black had been overtaken by a vivid blue. Scales had started to form, dotting under his eyes, face and neck. To her horror, Leon didn’t seem to realize what was happening to him by the way he raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.

“What, is something on my face?” he asked, revealing sharpening teeth. Claire felt dread pool in her stomach as her heart pounded in her ears, watching Leon's face turn to even more confusion as her face fell. Then came the grinding snap pop. His gaze went down, eyes wide as his breath hitched in his throat. Claire followed his gaze down and watched as bone and muscle shift under the skin before resettling, finger nails starting to sharpen, and scales erupted across his arms, as bone and muscle again shifted. Leon’s other hand jolted upwards, pads brushing gingerly across changing teeth. The way Leon’s face turned to that of horror made Claire’s heart pound.

A pained and confused grunt sent Leon lurching forward as something cracked in his chest. Claire was already up, grabbing his wrist and not even stopping for Leon to gain his balance. She just pulled.

“We need to run! Can you run?!” Claire said to him, though she knew he wasn’t paying much attention to her. A worker squawked as she charged past, Leon in tow. She didn’t even need to see the changes happening; she could feel it! Under her hand, Claire could feel the popping snap of Leon’s wrist as she pulled him through the halls, the tough scaled hide forming under her hands. She could hear the fabric tear as it gave way for the dorsal fins erupting from his back, his chest expanding to give room for… Claire didn’t even want to think about it.

“Out…. siiide!” Claire chanced a look behind her, fear welling in her stomach. Oh god he was growing, he had to be at least 3 feet taller than her, scales having completely covered his right arm, most of his left, and his neck, and light brown trailing down his neck and chest. Cyan spikes shuddered as his shoulders jolted up with a snapping pop as they grew in size. His face, oh god his face. Tears streaking down his cheeks, past teeth poking up past his lips, and it was pushing outwards, making it look more muzzle-like. “Can’t!” The word came out pained. At this rate, they wouldn’t even make it outside.

Claire whipped her head forward, nearly squawking as she nearly ran face first into the door. Door! Arm raised, she shoved it open, running maybe 10 feet before Leon broke away from her, again his shoulders jumping as he charged and stumbled. His feet had broken through the inside shoes provided from him, resembling that of the form he took a week ago. The sound of more fabric ripping, and what remained of his shirt fluttered to the ground or combusted at the wave of heat that suddenly came off of Leon. A tail ripped free from a pant leg, whipping in sync with the groaning snarls and whimpers that deepened with each growth spurt, rending anything human sounding an after thought.

A hand was now across her mouth, watching on in horror as Leon doubled, no, tripled in size. And she could only watch with sinking horror the same creature that appeared on the news just a week ago, emerge from her friend. Slowly, the cracking, snapping, popping, and grinding sounds slowed before coming to a complete stop. Claire watched as Leon slowly moved, raising his now massive head to look down at his stumpy looking fingers. A whine filled the air in place of bird song, that only got louder as he turned his head to her, blond hair moving with the motion. Watery blue eyes looked at her in fear, another whine sounding far more reedy slipping past sharp teeth.

Claire swallowed hard, taking a step towards the massive nose that had been stretched out alongside Leon’s mouth. Another whine slipped out, and Leon shuffled slightly, as if he was readjusting himself. His gaze darted to his back side, and covered his eyes with almost useless hands, a whine that sounded more embarrassed than anything slipping out. Claire wanted to laugh, she really did! But she also didn’t want to hurt Leon’s feelings with everything that's happened to him so far. So instead, she leaned her weight onto his muzzle, stopping a rumbling sound midway through his apparent displeasure.

“It’s ok.” Claire couldn’t stop, the words just tumbling out. “It’s going to be ok. We’re going to fix this!” Claire held her breath as she felt his jaw move, and a puff of moist warm air blasted her midsection as a soft crooning(?) sound left Leon. “Your going to be ok! I just… Rebecca, I need to get Rebecca, ok?” Another croon, this time sounding more whiney. “I’ll be right back, ok! Right back!” Claire pushed off Leon’s nose, another crooning whine leaving him as she jogged to the building’s entrance, having to shove past the growing crowd ogling at Leon with bright curiosity. “Move! This isn’t a dinner and show, GO!” Claire hollowered, scattering a few of the onlookers. She had to ignore the quiet rumble from Leon as she vanished further into the building.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Claire to find Rebecca, given the fact that it seemed everyone seemed to be whispering about what had just happened. Don’t think it helped that they nearly smacked into each other racing around the corner. Rebecca’s expression was wild, and she was slightly winded as if she’d been sprinting.

“Leon?” She asked, and Claire only nodded, pushing herself back into a sprint as Rebecca followed suit, hot on her heels. More people had gathered, many of them looking horrified(One had their hand over their mouth, trying to hold back retching as another led them away), some looking pale, and others clearing the way for the two. Leon was making a sound that Claire could only describe as a wail, or at least, as close to a wail as a lizard could make. He was still laying flat on his belly, hands pressed against his head as he tried to keep talons from digging into his skull.

Claire once again brought her hand to her mouth. Whatever was happening to Leon, wasn’t stopping. He shrank, he grew, scales vanished then reappeared, pupils trying to return to black only for the blue to remain. Leon was at war with his body. Claire charged forward, Rebecca still at her heel, and skid into the grass where Leon was pressing his now small head into the grass. It was still muzzle shaped, teeth still poking over his lips as near pure blue eyes stared up at her, tears welling in his eyes before dissipating against his heated skin. Scales pebbled thickly over his face, trying to make way for smooth skin.

“Huuuuuurrts….” Was all Leon managed to get out, posture stiff as his back arched to the sky, the dorsal fins jumping at the growth spurt only to resettle. A weak moan of pain spilled from his misshapen features as Claire pulled his head into her lap, another wailing sound spilling out of him as Rebecca started to take his vitals. Leon raised an arm, ready to wrap it around Claire before freezing and thinking better of it, and let it drop to the grass.

“I know… I know…” Claire hummed, her own voice thick with emotion as again, the sounds of bone and sinew rearranging slowly came to a stop(Leon let loose a soft wailing moan when it finally did, tears still spilling from him). Rebecca looked to Claire, her gaze filled with worry as Leon wheezed in relief. Still he shuddered, and Claire didn’t blame him. This wasn’t how she was expecting her day to go, by any means, wake or form. Though… Claire’s gaze briefly darted down before landing back to Leon's pain filled features. The poor man had nothing to cover himself with. And anything they did, would have been dirty(Turning into a 25 foot tall lizard and back was not going to be good for his clothes. Leon lets out another whining rumble, softer than before, but still loud.