Over here, you will find what I am working on, be it writing or visual arts.
Born in 1993, I do not recommend this blog for minors. You have been warned; if you ignore me anyway, that is your responsibility.
I have a very strong stance against AI: everything I create is my own, without the need of these low-effort "tools" - be it writing or drawing.
Currently, I'm juggling life and work, doing art on my free time. That means, I cannot take requests at the moment.
If you have any sketches ideas, feel free to send an ask. I can't promise I'll work on them, though.
What do I like doing?
I enjoy character studies and figuring out a few hypothesis here and there, as well as sketches and art studies.
Since what I'm currently working on is regarding some very evil aligned characters, I've decided to write them with my own OCs instead of reader.
Solely because I will be putting them through some very unsavory situations - therefore, these are more like character studies, with my own characters in the mix, and I will tag everything accordingly.
If you read it, it's your responsibility - I am not responsible for you liking it or not. Please, be civil about it (if you aren't, I'm not responding - I'm too old for internet drama).
Also, I should note, I do not participate in fandom. There's a reason why I'm the Lady of Shalott: locked in my tower, away from the whole world, with my own stories. It's the first time I'm sharing them and I do not know fandom dynamic.
I'm not trying to be rude, but do understand: people have different levels of enjoyment and interpretations of stories. If mine doesn't please you, it's fine; you're welcome to forget my blog exists - and block it, if it's to your liking.
What I don't like doing?
I think the only thing I can think of right now is oversexualization of everything.
I don't mind sexy, but I do mind overt, mindless porn. Personal preferences.
Also, anything involving minors. Creeps are not allowed.
Lastly, any ships that aren't with my OCs, reader or canon. I want to live outside ship wars (again I'm too old for that).
Disclaimers
In real life, I work with legal matters and criminal cases aren't a shock to me - so I will bring some of my very own experience to what I'm creating.
That means: heavy subjects will appear. That is why I don't recommend it for minors or anyone who can be triggered by those subjects. I will, though, tag everything properly.
Masterlist
Tags: #shalott library
𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱
Art Gallery
Tags: #shalott gallery
(to be set up, eventually)
All in all, I hope you enjoy your stay. The only other places you will find me are bsky and ao3.
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I needed a good back anatomy practice and wanted to do my own sketch of his half-body RE1 render (the hip rotation is wrong, doesn't match his chest rotation, and I only noticed later 🫠)
and scientist Wesker just read something egregious and is reconsidering all of humanity's intelligence at this point in his life
Do apologize your local artist for indulging and drawing her own OC with Zeno. I felt like drawing something quiet and intimate, they were my chosen victims.
Alecto appears in the series of fics I'm writing; having an arc of falling from grace but finding softness in the most unlikely of places - and he finds his own softness too.
still on my adventure of replaying Resident Evil 5, now getting through Mercenaries
when playing with Wesker, you can get hit in a certain way so his glasses will fall away/break and then he will be the whole rest of the stage without glasses.
I had never noticed before, thought to share with you.
(a secondary detail: I find it nice his weapons are his own handgun, a magnum and hand grenades - because he's ex-military, of course he would pack hand grenades for crowd control)
Art Lessons/Guides Posts: What Would You Like To See?
I am putting together a few lessons/guides to help people who are currently beginners at art - since I think there are plenty resources on the internet right now, but sometimes it can be so much, it becomes horribly overwhelming and doesn't help; so I'm trying to condense what I know in one place to maybe help some people in their learning.
with that in mind, I was going to do one long post with quick tips, but realized maybe going in-depth in each topic will be more helpful.
I'm still trying to figure out where to start and which topics to talk about, so I think the best course of action is to ask you guys: what do you struggle the most? what would you want to know about first? what topics would you want to see and learn about?
I might not be able to help with everything, but I may have a thing or two to teach about some of them.
feel free to send me asks, comment over here, send me message pigeons or smoke signals. I'll do my best to keep up with them and it will help me organize my "teaching posts" of sorts.
----//----
disclaimer: I do not have formal (University/Art School) training; most of it I learned from my mother, my mentor, paid online courses from other professionals and by myself, having focused heavily on character concept/design. that's why I feel I can help out beginners; especially those who, like me, are starting to learn on their own and don't really have the money to spare to pay for a thousand courses or are having a hard time organizing all the information online to actually practice and learn
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Sketches and Studies - Wesker Face & Body (pre-remake)
since I worked on Zeno, here's a version for Wesker.
he is a little more complicated because the models back then weren't as realistic as models right now: some things, you have to fill-in the gaps with your own knowledge.
regarding his face, Wesker has a much sharper look, with lots of triangles and squares, and thin features (which bring out more of his sharpness).
regarding his body, it's complicated, like I've said before. due to limitations at the time, characters were naturally blocky and stiff - so my analysis was more on a sense of identifying his key features between models and making a list of what to have in mind to have a likeness of him.
turns out, the most distinct points are his very, very broad shoulders and inverted triangle shape; and long, lean legs, with calves being the same width as his thighs. even if he is very strong, he is most importantly lean (not bulky like Chris or Leon); and features like thinner wrists, ankles and waist accentuate that tall and lean figure. put it together with the broad shoulders, he looks quite imposing, powerful and agile (let's not forget, the man is the size of a lamp post)
something worth of note: I thought he was going to be mostly triangles, which is true in his face but not in his body. I'd say it's the model limitation at the time, but Zeno did inherit that blocky, squarish look (in his case, with rounder edges), and Vergil, from Devil May Cry, has the same thing going on.
personally, I think this is to convey power. the broad shoulders and squares/rectangles bring the sturdiness, strength and stability - but their triangles balance the reliability: they have too many sharp points to be considered trustworthy (unlike Zeno), so their shape translates to power and danger, immediately imposing with just a look.
Sketches and Studies - Wesker Face & Body (remake)
decided to take a look on remake Wesker and, lo and behold, he's got all the classic markers that make him Wesker.
the most different features are on his face, although they are more similar to his RE5 model, I think (perhaps I have to work on a face study to that one too). on the remake model, his face has a lot more triangles, with several diamond shapes rather than squares.
interestingly, Zeno has a lot more of the squarish shapes of the older Wesker model, which I think works better as a middle ground. after this study, though, I came to enjoy remake Wesker a lot more (maybe my issue is the in-game lighting making him look too soft sometimes).
oh, I couldn't find good references to work on his eyes. maybe when I find them, I'll add another small study.
(also, do tell me if you prefer this one to be a post on its own or if an added reblog like this to keep them all together works just fine)
I was asked to do a study on Gideon's face/body shapes and features, and only managed to finish now. I hope it's helpful ♥
he is a lot sturdier, stronger and heavier than the previous ones, but just like Zeno, Gideon has a lot of softer, rounder edges - which I think it's very interesting of Requiem, that both of its villains are somewhat softer, inspiring not only danger but some trust too. maybe to make Grace's decision to go with them more intuitive.
it's nice to note, though, that the sharpest feature he has is his mouth.
regarding his body, I think with Gideon his clothes silhouette is the most important. understanding the body shape helps, of course, but his overall silhouette is rectangles over rectangles (mainly, his oversized pants and leather lab-coat of sorts).
just like I mentioned with Wesker, I think the height + rectangles make them look imposing - with Gideon, though, his sheer size and bulky body make him look heavy and sturdy; differently from Wesker.
also, snake skin patterns are themes over his whole body, not only his coat. and I like to call the mark from the middle of his lower lip down his torso the "autopsy incision" - an interesting horrible detail; the first thing I ever thought when I saw him was that he was brought back to life or already dead.
I'll eventually work on other characters as time goes by, from RE and others - hopefully it can give you guys some insight on character designs and drawing as a whole
back to my daily "Wesker is the size of a lamp post" reminder. the type to lean over everything and anything because he has to.
the face angle on the 2nd one was hell and the profile one was just to fill up some space. I did not like it very much, but decided to leave it anyway - everyone makes mistakes (and unsatisfying sketches).
Sketches and Studies - Wesker Face & Body (pre-remake)
since I worked on Zeno, here's a version for Wesker.
he is a little more complicated because the models back then weren't as realistic as models right now: some things, you have to fill-in the gaps with your own knowledge.
regarding his face, Wesker has a much sharper look, with lots of triangles and squares, and thin features (which bring out more of his sharpness).
regarding his body, it's complicated, like I've said before. due to limitations at the time, characters were naturally blocky and stiff - so my analysis was more on a sense of identifying his key features between models and making a list of what to have in mind to have a likeness of him.
turns out, the most distinct points are his very, very broad shoulders and inverted triangle shape; and long, lean legs, with calves being the same width as his thighs. even if he is very strong, he is most importantly lean (not bulky like Chris or Leon); and features like thinner wrists, ankles and waist accentuate that tall and lean figure. put it together with the broad shoulders, he looks quite imposing, powerful and agile (let's not forget, the man is the size of a lamp post)
something worth of note: I thought he was going to be mostly triangles, which is true in his face but not in his body. I'd say it's the model limitation at the time, but Zeno did inherit that blocky, squarish look (in his case, with rounder edges), and Vergil, from Devil May Cry, has the same thing going on.
personally, I think this is to convey power. the broad shoulders and squares/rectangles bring the sturdiness, strength and stability - but their triangles balance the reliability: they have too many sharp points to be considered trustworthy (unlike Zeno), so their shape translates to power and danger, immediately imposing with just a look.
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I mentioned the face/body studies I did of him a while ago, so I'm finally posting them; it might help other artists or just be generally interesting.
my mentor taught me to break everything down in shapes to get someone's likeness, but we do have very different drawing styles - she's more stylized and I'm more realistic. even so, it's a valuable lesson for all styles, and I learned how to do these studies.
added some notes of what I think is important to keep in mind with his design - Zeno is very interesting because, as noted, he has a lot of square shapes, suggesting strength and reliability, and rounder ones, suggesting an edge of softness; both quite unlikely for villain/evil characters. his design is very, very interesting to me; quite intentionally contradictory, I think.
(someday I'll add Wesker's, and he is a lot sharper than Zeno; all his edges are very sharp and he lacks the roundness Zeno has, which I think is very noteworthy as a difference between them - Wesker is more of a "conventional" villain/evil character design, in my opinion)
I only write here on tumblr and on ao3. If you find it somewhere else, it isn't me.
I randomly add ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ as a way to identify it's my work. If you read it somewhere else other than my tumblr or my ao3 accounts, it's 99.9% positive someone is AI-ing my original work. (I'm testing this as a way to somewhat counter AI for written works - maybe it will be useful, maybe it won't. I hope you understand.)
gently reblogging to let you know my ao3 account has finally been set up and the link is working.
those of you who prefer it, can find me and read my works there.
(the art will be more consistent than the writing; and all writing I post here and there will already be finished works broken down in chapters - just like with Deal With The Devil)
and today I bring you Captain Wesker being too big for mundane activities (I mentioned it before, I'll never let this go)
is he concentrating deeply on his work? is he about to have a nervous breakdown over someone's bad report? no one knows. all they know is that his chair is ridiculously small for him
Deal With The Devil (Zeno x OC) | Act Five (Finale)
𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: A negotiation turned sour got Zeno trapped and tortured at the heart of the Liberty Inquisition Estate. Expecting a slow death, what he did not expect was to be saved by Alexis, an FBI Agent who should not be on duty... And has ties to Umbrella.
》 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 《 +18 - graphic violence in line with the franchise, mentions of blood and torture, mentions of sexual violence/abuse, mentions of trafficking, similar themes to the movie Hostel (mostly implied or off-screen, but hurt/maimed victims/bodies do appear).
Minors DNI, I do not recommend reading if you're uncomfortable with the themes (again, I deal with legal matters in real life, those are standard subjects to me).
𝔏𝔞𝔡𝑦 𝔬𝔣 𝔖𝔥𝔞𝔩𝔬𝔱𝔱'𝔰 𝔑𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔰: last part of this short story, first of a series with Zeno and Alecto I call Petals. Thank you for reading, I truly appreciate your time.
you will find ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ along the text. If you read it in any other text outside of my tumblr or my ao3, it's 99.9% chance my work has been stolen.
───── ❝ 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 - 𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞 ❞ ─────
Zeno, 00:13 a.m
“Since you haven’t learned your lesson yet… I’m gonna teach you one.”
Zeno frowned upon hearing those words, having just snapped the neck of a staff member who was unlucky enough to run into him in the corridor as he moved to the main hall at the heart of the mansion.
The door to the bar was open – the one directly opposite to the taxidermy room where he was drugged; the bar where Zeno saw those so called doctors in their bloodied rags and made him realize the Inquisition was just a little murder club.
“Kill them. One by one, slowly…” As Zeno approached the place, he heard the voices downstairs, with people screaming as a commotion started – the one speaking being the only one calm, with an edge of fun and a hint of laugh in his voice. “I want her to watch. Because you know, Alexis, I expected more from you, given your father worked for Umbrella…”
Zeno had to furrow his brows further upon hearing the Agent’s name and Umbrella in the same sentence – if he was intrigued by her before, now she had his full attention; ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ after all, The Connections did collaborate with Umbrella, before destroying it.
“But I’ve never seen the woman he raised you to be; not Alexis, that stupid little nickname you like using…” With that, Zeno heard a gunshot and a few screams of horror – but nothing that resembled the Agent’s voice. Finally crossing the door, he casually approached the wooden guardrail to see what was happening on the first floor. “Alecto. That’s your real name. The Fury of Retribution… Ha!”
A security guard dropped one person on the marble pavement and shot them in the head, making the others scream again. The FBI Agent was on the floor, crawling on her own blood, trying to get herself up on her knees but failing – and, every time she managed to get herself a little up, a security guard would kick her down once again. On the other side of the room, near the passageway to the entrance of the mansion, a middle aged man wearing a dark gray suit that matched his hair, plain glasses, slightly too small for his face in Zeno’s opinion, and shiny black shoes held a gun as he talked – not looking like he would use it any time soon.
“So much for retribution. Your daddy did raise you to be his insurance policy against Umbrella right…? To kill all his enemies if they ever decided to turn on him…?” The man had a mocking laugh laced with his taunting words, signaling to another security guard – causing another person to be coldly executed. “Look at you now. Can’t even save yourself, imagine other people. Make her watch!”
Alexis had closed her eyes, turning her head away from all that horror – but the nearby security guard held her head by the hair, forcing her to see. As soon as he did, she opened her eyes; raising her head slightly, the amber burning with a stare that made a faint smile appear on Zeno’s lips.
“I want to see you cry, you pathetic little savior! You can’t do anything!” As soon as the man screamed, another person was shot.
And Alexis only stared, silently. Burning. Her pride stopping her from breaking, even if tears fell from her eyes; they were stained with hatred, not the despair Gates longed to see.
“Don’t you fucking stare at me like that!” As he spat that reply to her gaze, Alexis couldn’t help but let a small, heartless smile huff on her lips: his anger told her she didn’t give him what he wanted; and, at that moment, it was enough. “Who do you think you are?! You think you have some sort of control…? I do, you stupid little bitch! Another one!”
“You’re gonna drown in your own blood for what you did, Gates…” Alexis voice was low, but surprisingly steady. The Director slowly turned his head towards her as another victim was shot dead – the outrage stamped in his stare as he heard her speak. “I’ll make sure of that.”
Zeno couldn’t help but allow a delighted and surprised smile to spread across his face as the woman used her last sliver of strength to quickly crawl towards her gun and shoot – a well aimed shot, given her condition: one that caught part of Gates’ throat.
Her hands ebbed with pain, but it was worth it. The shot wasn’t fatal, but it was enough for Gates to stumble backwards, desperately trying to stop the bleeding with his hands – the power balance tipping a little bit towards Alecto, now evening the odds between them.
If she was to bleed to death, so was he and no one had the upper hand.
“You’re… Dead, Alecto…!” The Director still covered his neck with one hand, aiming his gun with the other. It didn’t matter much where he would hit her, as long as she was dead.
Now that was something Zeno couldn’t let happen – as he decided before, the woman did give him a chance to survive, so it was more than fair he would give her one as well.
Gates was so caught up in his own little show, he barely heard the sirens at the entrance of the mansion – but Zeno certainly heard them. It was time for that pathetic horror party to end, and he could do it in a split second.
The FBI Director certainly couldn’t understand what in the hell was going on: in one second, he was pointing his gun at Alecto as the woman tried to hold her own gun steady – her hands failing as her body grew faint with the lack of blood – but in the next second, one of the security guards gushed blood and fell on the ground.
“What…” Gates was about to start a ramble, as another guard had his leg torn off, neck snapped right at the next second.
The guards started looking around, pointing their guns at nothing, searching for whatever it was that was causing all that. Screaming at each other, looking at the ceiling, as Gates himself seemed to be searching for a ghost.
Another guard dismembered, dead on the floor. The one next to him tried to run, but had his legs snapped in half, only to be killed right after. A third one started shooting at the air, screaming, only to have his own gun pointed at his head and killed by it. And another. And another.
Gates stumbled back, watching in fear as that unseen force killed every single living thing in that room, his hand slowly losing the grip of his gun and letting it fall on the floor. As the world started to spin underneath the man’s feet, with the blood still gushing between his fingers on his neck, he saw the thing that caused all that: in the middle of the room, a man in a white suit appeared, casually and calmly loading a long, carefully crafted black revolver, as he slowly approached the last security guard left in that room; the one in charge of making Alecto submit.
“What the fuck…” Gates whispered to himself, stumbling even more backwards, taking a quick look over his shoulder towards the entrance hall – and finally noticing the noise outside, with red and blue lights flashing through the shut windows.
There was only one way for him to make out of that mess unscathed. Turning his gaze back to the center hall, the man in white finally subdued the last security guard and shot him right in the middle of his forehead – with the only bullet his unusual revolver could hold.
When that strange man looked over his shoulder towards Gates, the FBI Director didn’t hesitate: looking around and finding an oil lamp – that he constantly questioned the Inquisition for keeping such old stuff around, even if the answer was always a dumb “some of our members appreciate it” – he promptly used it to start a fire in the heart of the place.
That would give him enough time to stumble towards the front door and ask for help, since he was losing more blood than he could – and it should be enough to stop that strange man that moved like a ghost and killed with no hesitation. The fire would also be perfect for covering up evidence: burning everything that could tell a different story than the one Gates would fabricate to put the blame on Alecto and paint himself as the hero; having already taken care of CCTV that night. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ After all, she did have ties with Umbrella; and Gates knew exactly how to use that to tilt people’s opinions in his favor.
Zeno could have killed that stupid little man – after all, it wasn’t like some fire could stop him from terminating his targets – but he did have something a lot more interesting lying right in front of him.
Almost out of breath, Alecto crawled away from Zeno; what little strength she had in her arms helping the woman drag herself on her back, the farthest away from him as she could. Her legs were barely useful, as she couldn’t feel her left leg and the pain ebbing from the shot on her right side tingled down her other leg and up her right arm. Alecto left a trail of blood as her palms were sticky on the marble floor, sliding her with a faint squicking sound until her back found a piece of furniture.
There was no other place to go.
She could only watch as Zeno approached – still calmly, hips in cadence with his patient steps, the fire behind him framing his towering body. When she met him before in that room, beaten up and exhausted, Zeno didn’t seem that imposing – a large man, yes, but nothing that made her uneasy. Now, he had already recovered completely from all that was done to him; and seeing how he carried himself with so much certainty was enough to chill anyone’s blood.
Alecto didn’t know what he wanted with her – after all, he had just killed everyone in that room so quickly, and ruthlessly, no one was even able to see him. Yes, she had saved his life, but… Had she? Did he really need saving? Who was he?
There was something in him that reminded her of Umbrella. Maybe one of their researchers, maybe one of their SpecOps agents… Alecto couldn’t quite tell what it was. But there was something in him that was unnervingly familiar.
“You are not going to survive long, Agent Alecto.” He stopped right next to her, towering over the broken woman on the floor. She could feel the heat from the fire quickly spreading – as well as hear the reinforcements screaming by the entrance door, trying to fight back the flames. “I can offer you a way out.”
Alecto frowned upon hearing those words, as that man crouched by her side – still maintaining his elegant posture, he didn’t have a single speck of blood in his pristine white suit. Zeno tried to level his face with hers in a way that wouldn’t hurt her even more to look at him, yellow eyes glowing behind his glasses.
“You were kind enough to help me. Let me return the favor.”
Zeno offered one of his leather covered hands, in a gesture too delicate for his intimidating looks. Looking from his hand to his face, Alecto’s eyes immediately softened – albeit carrying a bit of distrust: those glowing yellow eyes, slightly tamed by the dark lens of the glasses, had nothing but sincerity in them.
“You… You don’t work… Against it, do you…?” Alecto’s chest hurt every time she caught her breath to speak. She could feel her hands trembling, knowing her body would give out soon. “Do you work for them…?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be in the situation you found me before, would I?” His question, though, seemed to be laced with patience, instead of dripping anger at her words – the latter being what Alecto was more used to hearing, her entire life.
“You could be a traitor.” The Agent’s answer was a whisper she forced to let out, almost as if her lungs themselves were on their final breaths.
“Hmmm. Smart.” To her surprise, Zeno’s voice carried even more of that patience, and even some admiration – as if he could stay there forever, talking to her, convincing the woman to let him save her. “I wouldn’t work for such a pitiful group of scum like the Inquisition. They lack vision; just imagine, what can such power and networking do…? What can great minds achieve with research genuinely unrestricted from boundaries…? Who will be able to truly control the world with such results…? The Connections have interests far beyond something so simple-minded as killing for fun.”
Alecto furrowed her brows, watching as Zeno spoke with nothing but passionate belief in his words – not the one of a man who wanted to force those beliefs in her, but of a man who wanted to share a better world view with someone else; who wanted to welcome her to it.
And that name again. At some point going through tinfoil hat forums and immersing herself in all kinds of conspiracy theories to try to find something about the Inquisition, Alecto was sure she saw that name floating around – then, earlier that night, finding that letter mentioning it.
And now… Well, now Alecto knew they were real, being face to face with their delegate.
“We have the best installations to care for you, Alecto. You just have to let me save you.” Once again, Zeno gently offered his hand, having a very faint, but sincere, smile on his pale lips.
Alecto tried to pick up if there was any catch in his words – anything whatsoever that could tell her he was, in fact, playing her. But all she found was quite the opposite: the man’s forehead was smooth, with his whole expression suggesting a softness that didn’t really match the danger his presence implied.
“The…” Her answer was interrupted by a groan, as Alecto felt more blood gushing out of her bullet wound. She looked over his shoulder, the flames to engulf them soon enough. “The ambulances… They can help…”
“You will bleed to death before they can get to you.” It wasn’t a threat, it was a fact: they both knew the reinforcements had to put out the flames before saving her – and that meant she would either burn with that whole mansion or die from her wounds. “You think that man will let you live after this...? The Inquisition is well connected… And even if they save you in time, you will end in a prison cell. If they don’t kill you first.”
Alecto closed her eyes, trying to take a few deep breaths. She needed her heartbeat to remain steady so she wouldn’t lose blood too fast – and she didn’t want to admit, Zeno was right. Gates was probably already telling everyone she shot him and she was the one behind all the horrors in that mansion; that Alecto knew what was going on and tried to cover up for the Inquisition, not the other way around.
Gates would be the unsung hero, while she would be the terrifying villain of that tragedy. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ
“Let me help you, Alecto.”
Once again, that patient, gentle tone; Zeno’s hand delicately offering Alecto a way out, with that softness mirrored in his glowing yellow eyes. He was too polite, too convincing…
She knew it was a deal with the devil. That group, The Connections, was allegedly involved in a few of the worst incidents she had seen – and some even said they had ties with Umbrella. The woman fought her whole life to not let that be her defining characteristic: to persevere and be more than what her father raised her to be; than the ruthlessness Umbrella believed was necessary to thrive in the world. Alexis did her very best to believe in kindness, beauty, courage… In standing up for and helping those who were too weak to do so. She defied everything she was ever forced to learn, her very own nature and upbringing…
Now, destroyed by that ruthlessness she refused to accept; broken into pieces, to die engulfed by fire and soaked in blood.
The only solace being offered to her resided in those tender hands and unnatural eyes filled with soft expectation; in that faint smile mirroring the kindness she had to fight so much to find – and never really had it offered to herself before.
If Zeno was indeed the devil, Alecto wondered why he seemed so gentle.
Without words, she raised her trembling bloody hand and placed it on his – looking so small and fragile, something Alecto loathed to her very core. Zeno was witnessing her worst version, the one drowning at the bottom of the well, too weak to fight like she always did… And, even so, his eyes lit up behind the dark lens, while the smile spread through his lips with a sincere, quiet joy.
It happened so quickly, Alecto barely had time to feel the pain: as soon as she accepted to be taken to The Connections, Zeno wrapped his black coat around her shoulders and took the woman in his arms, lifting her from the floor as if she weighed nothing – which, to him, was precisely the feeling. Alecto braced herself by holding on to his white suit jacket, staining it with the blood already sticky between her fingers.
He took one last look over his shoulders, noticing the reinforcements had managed to open a corridor through the flames – already pointing guns to shoot at that strange man from afar; and, if Alecto could see what Zeno could, she would have noticed Ryan among them, with wide eyes, pointing his gun at the man in white, ready to open fire.
In a heartbeat, that strange apparition was gone, leaving the officers questioning their own sanity and their own eyes – after all, it could have been a trick played by the flames, since that main hall was a carnage, with corpses everywhere.
═⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯═
Tomomi held Sally tight in her arms, having never let her go ever since Alecto showed up with her and asked the woman to keep an eye on the girl.
The garden at the entrance of the mansion was chaotic: the house was on fire, but Ryan did a good job at leading the reinforcements to find the survivors at their safe room. As soon as they stepped outside, there was a chaos of officers, paramedics, cars and ambulances – and no sign of Alecto, anywhere.
Tomomi looked around, being led to one of the ambulances, as the paramedics tried to speak to her; but all she wanted was to find the FBI Agent who saved them. To know that she had survived.
“Ma’am, can you tell us your name? Please…” A paramedic tried to get Sally from her arms, but the girl only held on to Tomomi even tighter; almost hiding herself from them. The woman caressed the girl’s hair, eyes still searching in that chaotic crowd.
“Tomomi. My name is Tomomi…” She finally turned her dark eyes back to the paramedics, still unconsciously trying to reassure Sally that everything was going to be alright. “Is everyone out already…? Have you… Found everyone?”
“We don’t know, ma’am. Our job is to help you.” The paramedic had her best patient tone in her voice, trying to get Tomomi to finally sit down in the ambulance. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ “The FBI is doing the saving tonight.”
“Yes… Yes! I…” The woman shook her head, sighing audibly – tears were already forming in her eyes, as they now seemed to burn. All she wanted was to rest and recover, but she had to know.
“Alexis.” Sally tried quietly, drawing the attention of the paramedic and her coworker. “Is she alright…?”
“We…” The paramedics exchanged lost looks, not having heard that name yet. “We don’t know. Was she with you…?”
“She’s FBI… She helped us.” As Tomomi finally explained, the paramedics exchanged looks again. They had heard of an FBI Agent who was in that scheme – and not in a good way.
“Maybe you can find her later.” The paramedic tried to mitigate the damage, not knowing what that kind of information could do with two victims in such a fragile state.
But as fate would have it, Ryan crossed right in front of them – now with an uncharacteristic stern demeanor, walking with broad steps towards his car; apparently too caught up in his thoughts. Tomomi didn’t think twice before going towards him.
“Ma’am, wait…!”
“Agent Ryan…! Agent…!” Her voice was faint and her legs couldn’t carry her too fast, but Ryan did hear her after a few calls – turning around with those worried eyes. “Alexis…! Is she ok…?”
Ryan only frowned further, resting his hands on his hips… Debating with himself if he should be honest or not.
As Alecto always said, he was the more empathetic of them both.
“Agent, please. What is going on…?”
“Damn…” Ryan shook his head, huffing a sigh. Alecto also said he couldn’t lie to save his life… And she was right. “Our Director said Alexis was with those guys. Everything she did was to put the blame on him so she could continue covering for them… She shot him and set the mansion on fire to burn the evidence.”
“What?!” Tomomi’s eyes were wide, as the woman’s heart started beating faster and faster inside her chest – Sally turning towards Ryan with tears threatening to go down her face.
“She saved me…!” The girl tightened her arms around Tomomi’s body once again, doing her best not to cry – but failing still.
“She saved us! All of us…!” The woman was sure she would run out of breath – but not before defending the only creature who fell from heaven to take her away from certain death. Ryan looked back at her with sorrow, making something stir in her chest – revolt. “Do you… Believe in that? Do you…?!”
“I… It’s the Director. His words against Alexis’. I can’t go against him.” He shook his head once more, running his hand on the back of his head. Now Ryan wished he had followed Alecto as soon as she called him that night… He wished he had taken at least one bold action, that he hadn’t just asked her not to do what she had to do.
He should have had more attitude – he should have been there for his partner.
“I’m not asking… What you have to do…!” It seemed like Tomomi’s voice would soon give out, but the harshness in the woman’s eyes, judging him, was enough to get her point across. “I’m asking… What do you really think…!”
Ryan always had that issue of being too passive – always scared of his superiors, of losing his job, of picking up a fight. In a matter of fact, it was more out of comfort than anything else: he had a natural aversion to adversities in his life, as everyone with a sensible mind should have. Even though he admired her, Ryan always questioned why Alecto had to be so belligerent and couldn’t just let things go. She was always trying to solve things that couldn’t be solved – and, if she was a little more like him, she wouldn’t have gotten into that horrible situation of that night in the first place.
But then… Ryan probably wouldn’t like her as much as he did.
“I don’t believe it…” He closed his eyes, speaking in a whisper, almost as if it physically hurt saying those words out loud. Ryan was signing a death sentence, and all his peace would be gone. He could feel it. “She wouldn’t have called me and put on such a circus if she was with them. I don’t believe it, but… There’s so little I can do…”
“She trusted you.” Now, Tomomi had not only a judgment in her eyes, but also a sentence. Almost as if Ryan was even worse than the Director: a friend turned into a betrayer; a coward. “There was… Little she could do for us too.“
“Ma’am…! Please…!” The paramedic finally found her in that chaos, trying to get her back to the ambulance. “You need to go to the hospital…!” ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ
“There is little… I can do… But I will do something. You can do more, Agent.”
As Tomomi walked away with Sally still in her arms, Ryan watched the little girl’s eyes glaring him before looking away.
Sighing, he lowered his head. They were right. He could do more… And that guilt would drag him down to the center of the earth, if it could. Ryan just had to know if he had it in him to finally take some damn action in his life.
═⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯═
Outside of the mansion, there was only silence.
The quietness of the night with the stars scintillating above, the chilliness of the air caressing Alecto’s face. They had finally left that hellish place, and now Zeno quickly carried her to safety – the woman didn’t know what that meant to him, but her options were too scarce for her to complain.
As he walked, Zeno noticed her muscles gradually relaxing in his arms. Slowly, but surely: Alecto was still trembling, but she allowed herself to stop tensing so much, and her head finally rested on his chest – probably out of the haziness that came with the blood loss. If he wanted to keep her alive, he would have to be faster.
Alecto’s hands, though, kept holding on to his suit jacket as if her own life depended on it.
Picking up the pace, Zeno thought about the unexpected events of that night. The woman in his arms was a lot tougher than he had expected: at first, Zeno was just interested in returning the favor, the kindness she showed him without even knowing who he was. But then, Umbrella; and, right after, all the challenge in her amber eyes when arguing with that man who clearly had an advantage, on a mission to torture and berate her before moving in for the kill.
And finally, using her last strain to take him down with her, even though she didn’t manage to land a killing blow.
Alecto was a wild thing. Kept in a cage, surrounded by rules that dulled the fire she had inside. She could be great, if only she wasn’t smothered of her true potential. Zeno could see everything Alecto could become, if she ever had the correct environment – The Connections wasn’t the best of all, but they would know how to make use of her skills and intelligence better than the FBI ever could.
His thoughts, though, were disrupted by a muffled whimpering coming from near his chest. A quick glance down was enough for him to move his eyes back to the path ahead, focusing only on getting back to a place where they would be safe.
Zeno wasn’t the only one who had been thinking about everything that had just transpired. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ With the adrenaline washing away from her body, Alecto was finally starting to feel the pain – on her body and from those cracks on her insides; of something that broke and she couldn’t really say for certain what it was.
All those bodies. All those victims. All the blood, the horror, the violence, the things that could have been avoided if someone at the very least had listened to her – or just given her a chance. She had so many tears stuck in her throat, so much grief, so much anger… So much to mourn. As if she could spend a lifetime doing so, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
Which was better? Knowing? Not knowing? For a long time, Alecto heard people talking about the price of knowing the truth; and she always thought it was just a bunch of sniveling tears from the weak who couldn’t handle reality. It seemed like life enjoyed testing her core beliefs – and all of them were tested that night.
It was all over. Her life and her dreams, the goals she hoped to achieve, the morals she fought so hard to build and apply, the ruthlessness Alecto swore she would leave behind to give herself a chance for softness and empathy. It all drowned in blood and maimed bodies, burning down along with that hellish house: maybe, Alecto was not supposed to live a life of softness and understanding… Maybe, her life was supposed to be ruled by mercilessness, discipline and survival of the fittest.
Maybe that was her real fate – and the kindness, just a dream life mocked her to try to have. An illusion, that when Alecto truly believed was achievable, it was ripped out from her… Remembering her who she really was, and what she was meant to be.
The woman could barely feel her body, but her fingers still clenched Zeno’s jacket as if it was the only thing holding her together. Everything was over, and those insufferable tears needed to overflow – and so, Alecto hid her face on his chest, hoping it would muffle her cries. It was the only thing she still had energy to do; and, at the moment, the only thing she needed to.
He didn’t need words to understand. If that was what the woman wanted, then Zeno would give her the privacy to cry without being perceived, as she buried her head down and held his jacket tighter; bloody hands painting his suit red... Until the tears and blood loss lulled her into fainting, fully relaxing in his arms, at last.
Alecto had enough to mourn – most importantly, perhaps, that Alexis was no more.
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𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: A negotiation turned sour got Zeno trapped and tortured at the heart of the Liberty Inquisition Estate. Expecting a slow death, what he did not expect was to be saved by Alexis, an FBI Agent who should not be on duty... And has ties to Umbrella.
》 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 《 +18 - graphic violence in line with the franchise, mentions of blood and torture, mentions of sexual violence/abuse, mentions of trafficking, similar themes to the movie Hostel (mostly implied or off-screen, but hurt/maimed victims/bodies do appear). read lady's notes
Minors DNI, I do not recommend reading if you're uncomfortable with the themes (again, I deal with legal matters in real life, those are standard subjects to me).
𝔏𝔞𝔡𝑦 𝔬𝔣 𝔖𝔥𝔞𝔩𝔬𝔱𝔱'𝔰 𝔑𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔰: Zeno being constantly called a freak and considered genetically inferior, and very lightly implied cannibalism - could be interpreted differently if you please. Proceed with caution.
you will find ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ along the text. If you read it in any other text outside of my tumblr or my ao3, it's 99.9% chance my work has been stolen.
───── ❝ 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 - 𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫 ❞ ─────
Present hour
Zeno, 00:01 a.m
As Zeno finished buttoning the cuffs of his black shirt, his memories of that night were now clearer – and his thoughts as sharp as always.
Patiently putting on the black tie around his neck, he furrowed his brows upon thinking how hazy everything seemed when he opened his eyes in that damned room after being caught.
The first thing he felt, was a heavy chain already hot around his wrists, tied tightly behind his back.
Zeno tried to break them apart, but it was as if his arms had no strength left in them. Opening his eyes, he immediately closed them as soon as he noticed his shades were missing – the room wasn’t too brightly lit, but still… His head was swimming inside a fog he couldn’t quite get away from and, even with his eyes shut, everything underneath him seemed to be moving; spinning uncontrollably in a way he couldn’t stop. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ
That vexed him immensely… That lack of control over himself.
“Oh… You are coming back already, aren’t you…?” The voice that spoke to him appeared to be inside of a bottle, reverberating through glass in order to reach his ears; echoing, slightly muffled, dragging at some points. “I couldn’t expect less from such a fine specimen…”
Zeno forced himself to open his eyes again and glare at the man in front of him. Not too tall, nor strong, nor anything really. A pitiful creature, that had nothing of special that made him stand up in a crowd – be it generally pleasing or disgusting features, that man carried none of those, bearing the curse of being painfully average.
“So interesting, how years of research have resulted in you…” And even if Zeno tried to force himself to answer, there was almost a great delay between his brain and his motor abilities. The man grabbed his face, forcing him to turn to the side, so he could better see the black scars in Zeno’s skin. “Not perfect, of course, there’s still too much to refine… But impressive that something like you can exist…”
“Impressive…” Zeno finally seemed to be less impaired by whatever they used to drug him – and, considering his weaknesses to numbing agents were very slim, he had to wonder what was it and how they were sure it could effectively shut him down. “I can say the same… About the likes of you.”
“Oh, making threats even in your current position…? That is brave!” The amused tone and the man’s laugh made Zeno’s blood boil as the fake doctor let go of his face in a rather dismissive, yet slightly aggressive, manner. “My students like the feisty ones such as yourself…! And I can safely say, you are one of a kind, even if incomplete.”
Zeno closed his eyes, frowning as he tried to get his mind back in its proper place. His legs were tingling, so as the tips of his fingers, and soon the numbing agent’s effect would wear down. And when it did… Oh, when it did. He wouldn’t spare cruelty. That plain, average little man would deserve all of it.
That was when he heard a loud clank, followed by a wave of warmth that, after a few seconds, only seemed to get stronger.
“I am aware of your healing abilities, though.” The man’s voice now sounded a little clearer and steadier; although, upon opening his eyes, Zeno realized that wouldn’t last for long: the doctor had turned on a heater, turned directly towards him. “And I don’t plan on taking any chances. After all, you could snap my neck with just one of your hands, if you were fully capable.”
“Your type doesn’t deserve a quick death.” Zeno’s answer was quiet, yet his yellow eyes glowed with a predator glint that made the man stop in his tracks for a while.
That and the absolute disgust in Zeno’s voice upon referring to the man.
The makeshift doctor had his reasons to be part of the Liberty Inquisition. It did bother him that he usually didn’t stand out in life, but it bothered him even more when people below him didn’t treat him like he deserved. He had money, he had power, big houses, nice cars, great investments… And still. People with lower status, lower wits, lower backgrounds and genes didn’t respect him like they should. They treated him like nothing, like they were better than him.
Freaks like Zeno disgusted him to the core and he truly believed they should bow to superior men like him. And yet, there was Zeno: tied up, drugged, on a clear disadvantage, to be tortured until he cried for mercy… He should be weeping on his knees. Bowing to him, like his type was born to do.
But the doctor tried to hide all his rage in a slightly uncomfortable smile, forcing to convey he was pleased with Zeno’s defiance.
“What I like the most, is when your type breaks; and starts begging between tears… Finally knowing your place.” The man walked up to a computer on a desk right in front of Zeno – and that was when he first noticed the camera pointed at him. “My students say the same. Freaks like you should learn to hold your tongue… And perhaps, I can cut it out of you. That should teach you a lesson.”
Zeno only grunted in response, beginning to feel the effect of the heater on his skin. Too much of that, and he would start having issues regulating his body temperature – one of his flaws, according to the researchers at The Connections. He tried to force the chains around his wrists, but his strength wasn’t fully back yet; although his skin was already starting to become too warm and slightly damp.
“But I have plans for you, so many plans…! And I want you to be aware of it the whole time. Of course, can’t risk having you running around so quickly not even security cameras will catch a glimpse of you…” The man left the computer after reading a few of the comments on the livestream chat, walking to another heater on Zeno’s right. “Yes, yes, I’ve read your file. And as soon as I did, I knew I’d have to have you as my specimen… I wonder how you look on the inside, even as a flawed creature as you are.”
Zeno was ready to give him another sharp answer, but the doctor turned on another heater. Frowning, Zeno looked around the room, stating something that did make his stomach sink: he was surrounded by those heaters. The man didn’t intend on making it quick.
“You do have a heat sensibility, don’t you…? With such a pale skin, and resemblance to reptiles… I wanted to test my little heat-exhaustion theory.” With that being said, the man promptly started turning on the rest of the heaters. Zeno closed his eyes once more, taking a deep breath: desperation would get him nowhere. He had to keep his mind clear and think; that was his best bet to get out of that situation. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ “Oh, but don’t worry. I won’t kill you like that. It’s only to incapacitate you…” The doctor stopped right in front of Zeno, lowering himself to be at his eye level – making his victim open those interesting black and yellow eyes, staring at him with pure hatred. That made the doctor smile. “My greatest intention is to study you, to dissect you… And of course, it’s only fun if you’re also present during the procedure; what use are you for me if you are already dead...?”
“To think we entertained the possibility you people were serious researchers…” Zeno scoffed – if he could, he would already have a cigarette between his lips, and making sure to blow the smoke on that pitiful creature’s face to stress his disdain. “You all get off with torture and role-play... No better than common serial killers.”
“Don’t compare me to those subhuman things in prisons.” The doctor grabbed Zeno’s face again, bringing it closer to his, watching those unnatural eyes with curiosity and disgust. “I am better. I bought you. I set the rules. I decide when you die. I get to learn with practice… And I get to do it for my fans. You better know your place, freak.”
It was a good thing, how the doctor couldn’t see the comments in the chat, laughing about a specimen being able to strike a nerve and get him to lose his cool for the very first time. Differently than all the ones before him, Zeno didn’t seem to submit even in his disadvantage, and that was something that made the doctor increasingly dissatisfied – to say the very least.
He showed his annoyance, though, by turning on two floodlights – one on each side of the camera – almost blinding Zeno in the process. He had to immediately close his eyes, feeling them sting with the sudden brightness – the pain reflecting to the back of his head; there was a reason why he wore his shades almost all of the time.
“A flawed waste of resources, as it says in your file…” The doctor’s voice was once again controlled and soft, almost with a giggle right at the end of it. Zeno huffed in annoyance upon hearing that: he lost count how many times he had heard that about himself; and how much it stung, every single time. “More useful than the ones before, but still… A shame.”
Zeno locked his jaw, trying once more to break the chains – already burning and starting to eat through his pale skin. Sweat began to drip from his forehead, slowly going down his neck, and would soon start pooling on his chest. Zeno knew, no matter how much he struggled, with all that heat and the bright lights, he would soon go into shock; and probably die.
Not that it would make much of a difference to The Connections. But it would make a difference to him.
“Oh, the plans I have for you…!” The doctor now had an edge of ecstasy in his voice, checking once more the chat on his laptop. “Now, now, calm down all of you. I will let our guest marinate for a while. When he’s on the brink of having a heatstroke… Then we can begin to dissect him. Leave your requests, be creative, it’s going to take a little while. I will probably…”
With that, Zeno heard a soft knock on the door. His mind began to spin again, and the noises in the room seemed to echo and repeat strangely, as if he was hearing them multiple times, with a delay naturally embedded on them. His breathing became faster, and so did his heartbeat – and all Zeno could think was that he had to maintain his mind focused, without scattering off, back in the present moment.
A panic attack wouldn’t do him any favors.
“Doctor Nullo… Dinner is ready… If it is of your interest…” The small voice appeared to be inside of a bottle again, and Zeno could barely distinguish if it was male of female. In a matter of fact, he couldn’t really be certain if those were, indeed, the words being said.
“Thank you… I will…”
But Zeno couldn’t hear anything with clarity anymore. He was taken by the haziness and the world spinning underneath his feet. It was the first of many times his consciousness would slip, only for him to come back and try to drag himself out of that pathetic situation.
Having just finished buttoning up his vest and putting on his white suit jacket, Zeno huffed in disapproval. To think his heart and his mind almost panicked enough to take his breath away and make him fall in desperation. To think he feared death.
Being who he was, he should never fear death – he should be the one in control at all times. And, if he hadn’t been numbed down by that dart on his neck, Zeno would have been the one in control, killing all those who tried to oppose him at that damned mansion.
He had to wonder how the Inquisition knew so much about his… Condition. There were very few things that could slow his regenerating rate, as well as sedate him, and those were only known by the researchers from The Connections. Given how important his task was, and how little they knew about the Inquisition, it was very unlikely they would betray him just to conduct a little experiment.
After all, even if Zeno was a failure, he was still better than most operatives. He had inhuman characteristics and a loyalty that never faltered, since The Connections were the ones to create him – without them, he wouldn’t even exist. After so many other failed ones, he was the most competent, the most complete; and the one to deliver the best results. They needed him as much as he needed them.
That was something to consider upon returning to headquarters. Now, his priority was to leave that place – since the FBI would be arriving soon.
The thought made Zeno stop on his tracks while retrieving his gun – abandoned by a cupboard directly behind his chair, still having one bullet ready to be shot. If it wasn’t for that Agent, Alexis, he would still be agonizing from the heat; and, if he wasn’t lucky enough to die by that, he would be dissected alive by that pitifully average failure of a man who had to participate in a murder club to call himself a doctor.
Slowly checking the bullet and the integrity of his gun, Zeno’s mind went back to the first time he felt Alexis’ hand on his face, unceremoniously touching his black scars, as if she wasn’t disgusted by them. There was a softness to her touch he wasn’t used to, a certain edge of… Kindness. If she had harshly grabbed his face, coldly analyzed him to check data, it would be more in line with what Zeno was used to.
But she was careful, trying not to hurt him. Asking for permission.
Zeno furrowed his brows, putting his gun away and already taking his black trench coat to wear over his shoulders, as he always did. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ That stirring in his chest, it was alien. He didn’t know what it meant nor what kind of feeling it was, but he knew it was something. And he knew he couldn’t leave that mansion without checking on that FBI Agent.
Alexis made sure to help him, to give him a chance to live; it was more than fair for Zeno to return the favor.
═⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯═
Alexis, 00:08 a.m
She had just finished the upper floor. Reinforcements would arrive at any moment. Alexis just had to do a quick run through the first floor – a fast check just to make sure there would be no lose ends before she stormed the Dining Hall.
In all that mess, Alexis did find some notes about the mansion and what seemed to be a little invitation to a special dinner that night, to be held on the first floor, west wing, at the Dining Hall. It would explain why the fake doctors were taking so long to resume their pointless torture activities, but it did give Alexis an advantage: everyone she wanted to kill, grouped together in one place.
As she quietly ran through the east wing on the first floor, now completely ignoring the cameras and paying no mind to security, Alexis couldn’t help but think Fate was smiling at her. Did she think it was strange no one had been alerted by her presence so far…? Yes, she wouldn’t lie. But Alexis was being careful and, so far, managed to pretend she belonged to that horrible place. As much as her base instinct told her to be careful, her pride found an explanation for everything.
Not only that: Alexis didn’t have time for uncertainty. If she alerted security, she would deal with them; but standing around waiting for the cavalry to arrive was certainly not an option. To save the few people she found alive, she would have to take action – and she could only calculate the odds, pondering the results to decide which one she would live with better.
Alexis would save those people. And by any means necessary if she had to.
Finishing the east wing, the woman crossed the front hall in order to move to the west wing – the Dining Hall being the last room in the back, and the one she would have to arrive quickly if she wanted to get her job done.
Checking if she had any messages, Alexis did see another one by Ryan, telling her they would probably arrive in five – give or take a few minutes more. She didn’t open the message nor answered, shoving her phone back in her pocket and holding her gun with both hands.
Dining Hall was close. Alexis immediately moved to the hall on the back of the mansion, the one where she first entered from the garden, in order to cross the kitchen and enter the dining room through the back – using the surprise factor to her advantage.
Quietly opening the door to the kitchen, though, Alexis froze for a few seconds, her stomach dropping once more as she felt her hands tingle. A man dressed as a Chef spat orders to his “staff” – people with fearful eyes and covert bruises; some of them with busted lips or marks that seemed to still be healing. Others were gathered on another corner of the room, sitting on the floor, trying to protect themselves – some trembling on their own, some trying to muffle their cries while holding on to each other; a little plaque on the wall, indicating that part of the kitchen as “storage”.
Something snapped. It was the same feeling Alexis had before. A switch moved inside her and old habits came back – predator eyes, quiet stalking, cold demeanor and calculated moves. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ The staff who saw her immediately ignored as it was painfully obvious Alexis wasn’t part of the Inquisition; or else, she wouldn’t be moving like a wolf ready to kill the one who was obviously using those people as his slaves.
“You stop fuckin’ starin’ at me and do your job properly…! Or I’ll give you to the doctors as a guinea pig!”
The man screamed, his voice too loud... Too annoying. Alexis quickly grabbed him from behind, ignoring the height difference and his bulkier build, holding his head with an iron grip – one hand over his mouth, just like she did before.
The Chef didn’t even have time to register what was going on as she snapped his neck. Alexis didn’t feel anything when she killed: it was something she did to survive. Back with Umbrella and her father, if she didn’t do it, someone else would; and if she didn’t kill, someone else would kill her. There was no pleasure in it, only logic – being one of the reasons she couldn’t understand why those people wanted to do that out of sport.
Alexis was very sure some people at Umbrella enjoyed it back in the day, and it only caused her disgust. Pitiful behavior, beneath any human being – at least, that was how she saw it; and that was the reason why she decided to work at the FBI in the first place.
The woman was aware, though, how that side of her could be unnerving to most people – and why the staff and other victims in that room stared at her with unease.
“FBI. I’m gonna get you out of here.” Alexis’ eyes immediately softened, quickly showing her credentials. “I need you all to be fast and quiet. Reinforcements will arrive soon.”
Some started crying, silently, while others sighed in relief and a few smiled: Alexis was like an angel, falling from Heaven to get them out of that Hell.
One of the reasons why her stomach dropped upon entering that kitchen, was the realization she wouldn’t be able to terminate each and every single doctor in that Dining Room. As soon as Alexis saw more victims, she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave them behind – after all, her instinct to help was still stronger than her instinct to kill.
Alexis told the group where the others were hiding – and so, they would go to the center hall of the mansion, and from there up to meet with the others. If she timed everything right, by the time they arrived at the other group of survivors, Ryan would be there with the reinforcements and she wouldn’t need to worry about keeping that rather big group safe for too long.
Checking her phone again, it was just a matter of minutes. They had to hold on only for a little while.
As she stayed downstairs, underneath the great chandelier at the center of the mansion, Alexis signaled the other survivors to run up the stairs; still holding her gun, ready to shoot anyone who tried to stop them.
“You and your fucking savior complex.”
The woman immediately turned around upon hearing those words – interrupted, by a loud gunshot.
Her amber eyes widened, as Alexis kept staring at the entrance passage: Gates. With everything that happened – all the bodies, the victims, the atrocities, the sheer horror… Alexis forgot the real reason that brought her to that hellish mansion in the first place: Director Gates.
Looking down to her abdomen, the woman saw blood. Trickling down from a hole on her right side, a few inches away from her hipbone. Her legs started trembling, but the adrenaline made her keep the grip on her gun still tight.
“Run…!”
As soon as she screamed to the panicking survivors alongside her, a few other people dressed in fancy black suits and dark sunglasses surrounded the hall – and, with a positive gesture from Gates, opened fire on the people she was trying to save.
“Run! Get out!” Alexis wouldn’t go down that easily, though. Watching as they started the slaughter, the woman retaliated: her wound would have to wait and she steeled herself, shooting at the security agents. She would take as many of them down with her as she could.
Another gunshot. As survivors screamed and ran – some up the stairs she mentioned, some up other stairs, some trying to get away through the passages on the first floor, some being caught in the process – another bullet lodged itself in Alexis’ left thigh, making the woman limp and hold her gun with just one hand; turning her fiery eyes towards Gates.
Just one shot. One would be enough to end him. He didn’t deserve to be arrested anyway – she could and she would end it right there.
“Stop, stop! Make her stop too!” As always, Gates barely did what he himself should be doing; only screaming orders around.
The security stopped shooting and surrounded the passages, blocking the way of some of the survivors who didn’t manage to run quickly enough to escape. Alexis’ hands trembled slightly, but she only needed one second to make sure Gates wouldn’t be able to survive – with a perfectly aimed shot in the middle of his forehead, right between his eyes. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ
That second wasn’t given to her, though, as one of the security guards punched her hands, making sure Alexis wouldn’t be able to shoot for a while after that. The woman grunted in pain – having learned in her youth not to scream, even in the most unbearable conditions – and, with her wounds, couldn’t put up a decent fight: in a few seconds, she was punched to submission, falling on the floor face first; barely being able to break her fall with her hands, watching as the red blood trickled from her mouth and stained the white marble pavement.
“I knew it. I mean, that that fucking savior complex of yours would be your cause of death.” Gates sighed, fixing his glasses on his face, nonchalantly playing with his own gun in his hands. “Didn’t expect it to be such a stupid situation, though… I mean! Storming in here and trying to save people?! What in the fuck were you thinking?! That you’re, I don’t know, Jesus or something?!”
Alexis raised her eyes towards him, burning with hatred. Her arms were trembling, her left leg throbbing and her right side with an ebbing pain that took her whole body. She couldn’t get up, she could just turn around to try to sit down – if her pain allowed her to do that.
Her humiliation, though, fueled the rage that spread like wildfire from her heart to her eyes.
If she could just reach her gun… She would shut him up.
Deal With The Devil (Zeno x OC) | Act Three (Part 2)
𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: A negotiation turned sour got Zeno trapped and tortured at the heart of the Liberty Inquisition Estate. Expecting a slow death, what he did not expect was to be saved by Alexis, an FBI Agent who should not be on duty... And has ties to Umbrella.
》 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 《 +18 - graphic violence in line with the franchise, mentions of blood and torture, mentions of sexual violence/abuse, mentions of trafficking, similar themes to the movie Hostel (mostly implied or off-screen, but hurt/maimed victims/bodies do appear). read lady's notes
Minors DNI, I do not recommend reading if you're uncomfortable with the themes (again, I deal with legal matters in real life, those are standard subjects to me).
𝔏𝔞𝔡𝑦 𝔬𝔣 𝔖𝔥𝔞𝔩𝔬𝔱𝔱'𝔰 𝔑𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔰: there has to be a good reason for Alexis to break and accept the deal, so another longer chapter exploring more of her. She saves a heavily tortured woman (part of it implied, explicit injuries) and saves a child who is waiting for the "doctor" (violence implied, nothing explicit), the main reason for Alexis breaking. Proceed with caution.
you will find ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ along the text. If you read it in any other text outside of my tumblr or my ao3, it's 99.9% chance my work has been stolen.
Seeing the amount of doors down that corridor, Alexis could only describe her feeling as that of her soul leaving her body; only a husk staying behind.
How many victims…? That was all she could think about. How many damn victims were claimed by those people? Alexis thought of all the cases that showed up on her table, all the folders she connected because of tiny details she was able to tie together, all the patterns, all the people, all the work. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ The work she had done during all that time, trying to get to the victims before they could, trying to save at least one. Trying to help.
“Oh, of course. You and that little savior complex of yours...” Gates rolled his eyes after Alexis had been explaining her latest find: victims in different states and from different social and racial backgrounds that did appear to have a connection on their murders.
“Excuse me…?” Alexis immediately frowned, more in confusion than anything else. Ryan remained quiet outside the room, arms crossed, but knowing quite well her meeting wasn’t going well.
It never did.
“Savior complex.” Gates spoke as slowly as he could, almost as if the woman had an understanding impairment – oh, and how that patronizing tone made her blood boil. Reminded her so much of her father. “You wanna be a hero. And look, I get it, Agent Kardos. With your father being tied to Umbrella, how he died in a mysterious company accident, I mean… We all know Umbrella wasn’t the upstanding company it said it was. So its researchers probably weren’t as well. I understand you wanna be a hero. But this…”
Alexis almost didn’t pay too much attention to what Gates was doing, only realizing after a while he threw the files of the victims she had correlated back in his desk with a nonchalant wave of his hand. All she could do was stare at him, doing her best not to punch his mouth and teach him a lesson never to bring up her personal life at her job again.
That was what she was taught, since she was a child. Sometimes, intimidation had to be physical. Sometimes, you had to draw blood to make others respect you – if not by genuine reverence, then by sheer fear.
If Gates feared her, he would never talk to her like that in the first place.
Deprogramming all that survival-of-the-fittest, aggression-mode-turned-up-to-eleven behavior that had been drilled into her since she was born was tough – Alexis wouldn’t throw away all the progress she had done so far just for a pitiful scum like Gates.
A vermin like him was below her. She wouldn’t stain her hands with him.
“This is just circumstantial evidence you extrapolated to create this… This… Big conspiracy, human trafficking for experimentation thing. It’s just to fulfill your fantasy to take down a complex operation and be the hero, saving the day.” Gates opened a gentle smile, although his eyes behind the rectangle glasses – too small for his face, in her opinion – had absolutely no feeling at all. “There’s nothing to save here, Kardos. There’s no way these victims are related. The police staff just don’t feel like doing their job and threw it over to us in the hopes we will do something, as if we aren’t drowning in dead bodies to begin with.”
“Sir. If you give me some minutes, I can show how these murders are related. We can at least try to gather some more evidence to rule out…”
“Kardos. We’re up to our ears with work. I can’t afford sending you to any of these states to play FBI Agent in a TV show. You are not Scully, you know.” Gates let a scornful smile play on the corner of his too wide lips, as Alexis only glared him back – she had mentioned once how much she liked watching the X-Files with her mother as a kid, and how both of them admired Scully. “Go back to your desk and make yourself useful, Kardos. There’s a lot of paperwork that isn’t gonna fill itself. And there’s no conspiracy needing to be uncovered… You need to spend less time on reddit.”
“Sir. If you just listen…”
“You’re dismissed, Kardos.” Now Gates turned his hollow eyes to her with a glint of distaste. “Close the door on your way out.”
Taking his head by the back of his neck and hitting his short nose on his desk would be effective enough to make him more compliant. Alexis could even hold his neck down, threatening to beat him up again until his nose broke, to “give him a better complexion”. Asking softly, ever so nicely, if now he would listen to her. If he would respect her. If he would fear her. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ
That was what she had learned. If respect isn’t given, it should be taken.
“Yes, sir.”
Alexis somehow managed to swallow her pride, taking back the files scattered on his table. She fumbled with them a little bit in her hands, knowing she had to do something – but all Gates did was to immediately turn from her and go back to clicking away on his computer. She had to try; she had to try…
That horrible feeling started creeping on the base of her stomach, threatening to come out of her throat. Her face started heating up, hands trembling as her eyes slowly filled with tears. She was taught to always be powerful and never show a single vulnerability, to always be on the top of the food chain… But to be human, to be normal, she couldn’t. And she didn’t want to be like that, she wanted to be in a place she could speak and people would listen.
Gates acted as if she wasn’t even inside his room anymore.
Not even in her cutthroat upbringing she had such a nonchalant disrespect towards her – at least, when she was younger, she could scream, she could fight and she could make her point of view known; even if that made her the devil, the villain of whatever story was being told. Alexis was used to that, not to being… Invisible. So unimportant, her only use was to be ignored.
Taking whatever was left of her pride, Alexis only lowered her head and left the room, closing the door on her way out. She was never so thoroughly defeated in her life – and utterly humiliated.
And she was right. After all that fucking time, she was right.
As Alexis tried the doorknobs on that floor – and heard more muffled wails and thrashing around, completely powerless to help those who needed her – she could almost feel pain in her chest from thinking of all the suffering that could have been avoided.
Not because she wanted to be a hero. Alexis never wanted that; the so called savior complex was surely a projection from Gates onto her. All she ever wanted was to help people, so Umbrella wouldn’t happen again. So no one else had to suffer like she and the innocent people around her did.
It was hopeless, but she would try every single one of those doorknobs. If she could save only one person in that hell…
As if a higher power could listen to her thoughts, a door opened. Quickly checking to make sure there were no “doctors” conducting their “researches” in there, Alexis entered as soon as she managed to clear it.
And that was when she found the very first livestream.
Frowning and wrinkling her nose in utter disgust, Alexis saw a woman about her age in the middle of the room – tied by her wrists and neck, suspended just enough so only the tips of her feet would touch the floor; while her tired, marked body with blood and bruises was starting to fail to hold herself up. She had a dirty leather blindfold around her head and the woman immediately turned towards the noise of Alexis entering the room.
“Please… Please, I’ll be good, I promise…” Her voice was a ragged whisper, from her throat being constantly pressed by the thing around her neck. She was so tired she couldn’t even cry, as if trying to save as much energy as she could to keep herself standing.
In front of her, there was a high quality camera and a computer setting. The whole room was dimly lit, with cinematographic red lights giving it an even more uncomfortable feeling. Quickly, and quietly, moving to the computer desk, Alexis saw it: a livestream, with hundreds of people in the live chat, discussing what the doctor should try next.
Sometimes, Alexis wished she could wash her eyes with bleach. Even then, it wouldn’t be enough to get rid of the filth she was reading.
Luckily, the doctor in charge of that room said he was going to take a thirty minute break to eat something, stopping the livestream in order to have everyone “on edge”: would she still be alive by the time he came back? Or would she have succumbed on her weak legs and sealed her fate, forcing him to find another plaything for the night? Viewers should stay tuned.
Alexis checked the time – he had left five minutes prior; and, for the first time in her life, it seemed like a higher power was helping her.
Thirty minutes would be enough. Given how long ago she had contacted Ryan, it was more than what they needed to reach the mansion and bring reinforcements – that sick bastard would never know his victim was gone.
“Hey…!” Alexis whispered, making the woman raise her head towards her, startled. “Don’t move, don’t move…! I’m FBI! I’m here to help!”
“FBI…?! Oh, oh my…!” The woman started crying uncontrollably, trying to hold the ties above her in order to make herself weight less. “You’re… I…!”
“Shhhh, I need you to keep it down, please. Excuse me.” Alexis immediately placed her hand on the woman’s neck, checking her heartbeat. It was fast, but that was to be expected in her situation. She traced her hand up to the woman’s face, caressing her a little bit, trying to make her focus. “It’s alright, I’m not gonna leave you. I’m gonna find a way to get you down, ok?”
“Oh… Ok. Ok. I’ll keep it down…” The woman whispered back; that gentle touch being enough to ground her and make her heart stop beating so fast.
“Take a deep breath. I’m still here, ok?”
“Ok… Deep breath…” The woman nodded frantically, doing what Alexis had told her. The grounding touch disappeared, but she could still hear the FBI Agent pacing around the room.
“Here…! Let me get you a chair…” Alexis found the device to lower the ties holding the woman up, but she could bet her legs would be weak and trembling – if she fell on the floor, that would be enough noise to alert those people.
Luckily, she quickly found the “doctor’s” chair, rolling it to stand right behind the woman. Knowing it could roll away with her wight, Alexis braced the chair by dragging a few stainless steel desks behind it.
“That should do it… There’s a chair behind you. Try to sit on it as quietly as possible, ok?”
“O-ok…”
Alexis knew it was too much to ask from a woman in that situation, but she had to. It was a matter of survival now, and both had to do their best to get out of there alive.
Even if the woman made noises and that alerted all the people in that place, Alexis wouldn’t back down. She would kill every single soul in that mansion, but she would get that woman out of there alive. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ All the training she had received in her youth wasn’t for nothing – she just chose not to use it.
As soon as the ties lowered her arms, the woman scrambled to keep herself up; legs trembling, she collapsed on the chair – the desks behind it serving their purpose of keeping it up. Even then, Alexis had to run and hold the woman in place so she wouldn’t fall to the side and cause a very noisy accident.
“Hey, hey…! You’re ok, I’m here! I got you…!” She kept whispering, as the woman kept trembling and trying to be a little more stable. “I’m gonna get your blindfold off, it’s probably gonna hurt your eyes for a little while, ok…?”
“Ok. Ok. Thank you…” As soon as Alexis took the blindfold off, the woman blinked for a few moments, trying to get used to some light – even if there was barely none in that hellish room. After a few seconds, she finally managed to focus and see Alexis for the first time.
“I got reinforcements coming. We just need to find a safe place for you to wait, ok?” Alexis reassured the woman with a smile and unconsciously patting one of her knees. She didn’t know, but that gentleness was enough to make the woman start crying – quietly, but overflowing with relief. “What’s your name?”
“Tomomi. I’m… Tomomi…” Her sobbing threatened to become louder, but the woman lowered her head, trying her best to hold it in. “You…?”
“Alexis. We’re getting out of here, ok, Tomomi?” She quietly smiled once more, making that feeling inside the woman’s chest only tighter. Tomomi was sure she was going to die that night – as far as she was aware, Alexis was nothing but an angel that fell from a Christmas tree to help her. “Let’s find something to keep you warm and get out of here.”
As Tomomi kept sitting and regaining trust on her own legs – and arms, since they were up for such a long time she could barely feel or control them – Alexis swiftly searched around the room for something to cover Tomomi with; and, upon opening a cabinet, she found the ideal.
A clean, pristine white lab-coat. Yes, the woman was covered in bruises and had blood all over, but nothing a towel with some water couldn’t fix. Alexis helped her put on the lab-coat and cleaned Tomomi as best and as fast as she could, knowing they couldn’t take too long with that rescue. As soon as the woman got on her feet, they buttoned the coat up and, finding a pair of medical slippers, Tomomi was soon ready to go.
Alexis firstly checked the corridor before signaling Tomomi to follow her out. Side by side, they walked down casually, with Alexis keeping one of her arms around the woman’s back, since her legs were still a little wobbly.
“Aren’t… They going to… Find us…?” Tomomi’s voice was still coarse and her throat hurt every time she tried to speak, but her worry was greater than her pain.
“I’ve been pretending I belong for quite a while now. It seems to be effective…” Alexis whispered back, watching one camera down the hallway. “But you see that? If I know a thing or two about security cameras, is that based on where that one is located, the last room in the corridor is a blind spot. They can’t see who goes in and who comes out. It’s our best bet. Also, I don’t think they will suspect someone wearing their uniform.”
With that, Alexis discreetly pointed at the lab-coat Tomomi was wearing. It wasn’t just something to keep her a little warmer, but also to help her blend in. As long as she kept pretending she belonged, there was no reason for them to believe she was not one of them – even with the bruises, Alexis didn’t doubt some of them were covered in injuries as well.
Counting how many doors she left unchecked, Alexis silently asked Tomomi to stay in place; her heart beating fast with euphoria and relief as the last door in the corridor was unlocked. The relief washing over her body was even greater when she realized what that room was.
Calling Tomomi to follow her, soon they were both locked in a storage room – not too big, but also not too small; a perfect place to keep anyone else she could find until reinforcements arrived.
“Ok. Tomomi… Keep the door shut with this chair, like this…” Whispering, Alexis showed the woman how to block the doorknob with a chair and stop anyone from entering. “If someone forces it, you’ll have some time to hide. When I come back, I’ll knock…” Alexis proceeded to knock two times, stop for a second, then knock two times again. “And you’ll know it’s safe to open.” ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ
“You… Please…” Tomomi held one of Alexis hands with both of hers, eyes filling up with tears again. “Please don’t leave me… I don’t wanna be alone here… Please…”
“Hey, hey…” Alexis held her hands back, approaching so Tomomi would look into her eyes. “I’m getting out of here with you. I’m not leaving you. But there are so many rooms, on this side of the mansion and the other, with people needing my help, just like you. And I’m not going to leave them too. I will get them, I will get back, and we are all leaving this hell, together. Ok…?”
Tomomi didn’t answer, her chest tightening again. She knew Alexis was right – she knew there were so many others suffering like her in that place. But she… She was scared. She didn’t want to be alone. She was so scared.
“Hey. I’ll be back. I promise.” Alexis made Tomomi look back into her amber eyes again, causing the woman to take a few deep breaths to control her crying. “If I don’t make it, I have a friend in the FBI, his name is Ryan…” With that, she took her phone out again, immediately texting her coworker. “I’ll tell him exactly where you are, and he will find you. I guarantee you. See…?”
Alexis: I found someone alive
Alexis: her name is Tomomi
Alexis: 3rd floor, east wing, last room down the corridor
Alexis: it’s a storage room, she’s keeping it locked with a chair. Knock 2 times wait 1 sec knock 2 times again, she’ll know it’s you or me
Ryan: Tomomi, 3rd floor, east wing, last room
Ryan: 2 knocks, 1 sec, 2 knocks
Ryan: Got it
Ryan: We should be arriving in twenty minutes
Ryan: If traffic treats us nicely
Alexis: I’d make a joke about it
Alexis: but that would be terribly insensitive of me
Ryan: Terribly
Ryan: Try to be a better person, will you?
“You’re already… A great person…” Tomomi’s voice came out rugged, as she tried to hold back the tears again; holding Alexis’ hand a little tighter. “Just… Please come back…”
“I will.” Alexis’ eyes burned with such certainty, the woman had no space for doubt in her heart – finally letting go of the Agent’s hand, even if a little against her will. “But if Ryan reaches you first, you go with him, ok? He’s a good guy and will keep you safe.”
Tomomi only agreed with her head, her heart tightening again while waving as Alexis left the room to find other survivors.
Sitting down in a corner of the room, the woman kept quiet, praying to whoever would listen for Alexis to survive and leave that hell with her and the others who managed to be lucky enough to cross the Agent’s path.
═⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯═
Alexis didn’t find many people, but the ones she did made her heart inside her chest sink. The more she saw how tortured they were, how depraved those “doctors” could be, the more Alexis was sure her soul was indeed leaving her body.
Some couldn’t walk properly, some would be with not only psychological scars, but physical ones that would leave them impaired for the rest of their lives. Every time someone sobbed uncontrollably when she whispered she was FBI and they were safe, every time she saw the relief in their eyes, every time they treated her as if she was an angel walking on earth… Something inside her would break.
Alexis didn’t know what it was, but as she walked them back to the storage room and kept them with Tomomi – leaving behind broken people that were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, who never did anything in their lives to deserve that much violence… There was something changing in her. Something Alexis didn’t want to, but she could feel it happening anyway…
As if her father was right, all those years ago. As if Umbrella was right. Only the strong survived; and, if she wasn’t strong enough, she couldn’t survive in that world. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ If Alexis was too soft, she would never be able to help anyone, let alone herself. In order to be who she wanted to be, in order to be human and help others, she had to be strong enough to subdue those spreading all that horror.
It wasn’t an idea she subscribed too – and she had fought all her life against it. But now, in that place, she started wondering how the hell she would get out of there; and, if she did… Would she allow the people responsible for that to survive?
The right answer was yes. She couldn’t hurt them, she couldn’t destroy that group from the inside, as much as she wanted to. Alexis couldn’t be a vigilante: she was there to help people, not to make justice with her own hands. Even if she wanted to, she was still FBI, and she still had rules to follow – even if she was off-duty.
Managing to get three more people to the storage room, Alexis was done with the east wing – meaning it was time to check the other side. Taking her phone out again, reinforcements were supposed to arrive in ten minutes… Until she checked her messages.
Ryan: Guess what? Traffic is being a bitch
Ryan: Unbelievable
Ryan: At this hour, there’s still heavy traffic
Alexis: hence why I hate this city
Alexis: how long?
Ryan: 15? 20 min tops
Ryan: I’m so sorry
Alexis: not your fault
Alexis: don’t apologize for something you can’t control
Alexis: got three more people with Tomomi
Alexis: heading to the west wing
Ryan: Roger
Ryan: Will you keep other survivors with the ones on the east wing?
Alexis: I think so, yeah
Alexis: better for them to stick together
Alexis: apparently the “doctors” are on a dinner pause
Alexis: been taking their time there
Alexis: thankfully
Ryan: “Doctors”…?
Ryan: Alexis, what the fuck is going on?
Alexis: I’m not sure either
Alexis: but they’re acting like doctors
Alexis: I’m keeping most survivors with lab-coats
Alexis: so don’t shoot them
Ryan: Roger that
Ryan: I don’t even wanna see that place
Alexis: trust me, I wished I didn’t see all this too
Alexis: keep me posted
Alexis: about traffic
She wouldn’t wait for his answer, immediately turning right down the corridor and finding an even longer, broader one – which, apparently, connected the east to the west wing on that floor.
Like before, Alexis kept checking all the doors, finding them tightly locked. In the middle of it, though, one doorknob ceded and she managed to open another room – only to find someone in there, wearing the staff’s lab coat. Washed by surprise, Alexis had the quick reflex to turn away…
Until her amber eyes met the scared, brown ones of a child.
Alexis froze in place, hand cold on the doorknob, heart frantically beating inside her chest. Those scared eyes, pleading in silence; the girl couldn’t be older than eleven, maybe even twelve years old. She was sitting on a medical bed, as if waiting for a doctor’s appointment. Her little hands fumbled nervously on her lap, legs trembling, as she quietly begged for help. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ
The man in a lab-coat was standing on the left side of the room, back to the door, carefully organizing a bunch of instruments on a stainless steel desk. Alexis looked back at the child, taking one of her fingers to her lips, asking her to be completely silent.
The girl nodded nervously, still trembling. Alexis entered the room quietly, closing the door behind herself, stepping as lightly as she could – her amber eyes, now dramatically different than before.
Those were the eyes she was taught to have; the cold, calculating eyes of a predator who stalked clueless creatures and killed them in a heartbeat. She was taught to hurt to be respected, to assert her dominance with power, to kill in order to protect – and she avoided it with all her heart.
But even Alexis had her limits.
Ryan would take time to arrive with reinforcements, and only the Fates knew what that despicable man intended to do with that child – and that was something Alexis wasn’t going to allow.
No one listened to her. No one allowed her to do her job. Gates covered up all that shit because he was in it. All those livestreams, all those people – men, women, elderly… Children. Alexis had to follow rules, but all those rules put shackles on her wrists and allowed that horror; breaking them was the right thing.
Risking a quick look at the girl, Alexis signaled her to cover her eyes – which, luckily, the child obeyed. As swift as she had learned, it was almost as if her instincts kicked in and Alexis could never really forget all her training: grabbing that man from behind, one hand over his mouth, one on the back of his head; a quick spin of her hands and he stopped flailing, going limp as soon as something snapped in his spine.
Holding his weight, the woman carefully put him down on the floor, so he wouldn’t make any noise.
One less scum for the world to worry about.
“Hey…” Alexis’ voice immediately softened, just like her eyes, as she quickly approached the girl – still covering her sight, like the woman had instructed. “You don’t need to do this anymore…” She took the little hands down, looking into those brown eyes again. “Did he hurt you? Are you ok…?”
“Hmmm….” The girl nodded, tears starting to go down her face. Alexis did her best not to do the same – after all, her rage burned stronger than her sorrow. “He… My feet. He hurt me so I couldn’t run…”
Looking down, Alexis furrowed her brows, seeing the bruises around the girl’s ankles. Something burned inside her chest, so consuming she wished she had actually beat him to death instead of giving him a swift one. Seemed unfair to all the other people he must have hurt before that girl.
“He said… I was going to be his play thing. That I should keep quiet…” And that was when her voice trembled, starting to quietly sob. “And you…”
“Hey, hey, keep calm. I’m here now.” Alexis didn’t really know what to do. She knew how to save people and how to control their emotions so they could keep functioning in a high stress situation… But she wasn’t really that good in being emotional support. Ryan was better in that department. “What’s your name?”
“Sally.”
“I’m Alexis. I’m glad I found you, Sally.” The woman smiled back to the girl, caressing her little knees. That seemed to make her smile, as Sally tried to dry her tears – instinctively reaching out to hold the one who had saved her. “Hey, I got you…”
Alexis had never been a motherly type – in a matter of fact, she believed she had no motherly instincts at all – so having a child search for some comfort in her was rather… Strange.
Nevertheless, she knew Sally needed it, allowing the girl to wrap her arms around her neck and wrapping her own around the girl’s waist. Sally hid her face in Alexis’ neck, holding the woman tighter, as she started to quietly sob again.
“There, there…” Alexis awkwardly caressed the girl’s back, patting her a little bit, trying not to seem so tense and weird with that hug. The awkwardness, though, only fueled her anger – that kid was so scared, she was ready to hold and trust the first stranger that appeared in front of her. That something inside Alexis’ mind seemed to silently crack; and the woman knew it changed her, for better or for worse. “I’m FBI. I’m taking you to a room with other survivors, they will help keep you safe until reinforcements arrive, ok, Sally…?”
“Ok, Alexis.” The girl’s voice was small, but filled with compliant relief.
And as Alexis carried Sally back to the storage room, she was already planning how to take down the cameras if she ever needed to – she wasn’t just going to rescue the ones she could. She was going to make those people face the consequences of their actions, even if it costed her whole career.
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The west wing was exactly the same as the east wing, but apparently its “doctors” weren’t too keen on having dinner as the ones in the other side – most doors Alexis tested were completely locked.
She had to be fast. Now that she was on a mission to bring that group down, Alexis was focusing more in doing everything as efficiently as she could than respecting people’s need to recover – even if she wanted to help, she would have to sacrifice some things in order to keep in schedule.
After all, if the reinforcements arrived and Ryan was there, it would be very difficult to kill as many of those monsters as she could – they would be the morals and rules she couldn’t afford to have holding her back, especially Ryan.
As she was walking down the corridor, though, Alexis awareness turned to the stairs that gave access to the floor below, hearing two sets of voices casually going towards the floor she found herself.
And that was bad. ʷᵃᵗᵉʳᵐᵃʳᵏˑʷʳⁱᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ˡᵃᵈʸ ᵒᶠ ˢʰᵃˡᵒᵗᵗ As much as she knew that, eventually, security would notice she was acting strange – and she did wonder how no one had spotted her in the cameras yet – she couldn’t afford being so easily seen; it could be enough to make her whole mission go down the drain.
Alexis ran quietly to the next room, hoping it would be opened. It was quiet, but the handle didn’t budge; making the woman desperately try the next one.
As soon as the door opened, she glanced inside, not noticing anything moving – and, if one of the “doctors” were in there, she could easily neutralize him. Not having much of a choice, since the voices were reaching her floor, Alexis entered and silently closed the door in a rush.
She did find it weird, though, since that room seemed to be as hot as the layers of Hell.
When the voices passed by the room, Alexis could finally take a deep breath in relief; only to turn around and feel a certain shock tingling from her heart down to the tips of her fingers upon finding Zeno chained to that chair in the center of the room.
Oh, she would kill as many as she could that night. Alexis didn’t care anymore. Her father would be pleased.
