#lickers

9: Wild Hunt

            Mr. X staggered through the hallway entering the R.P.D., eyes still smarting and watering from its first encounter with the detestable “flashbang grenade”, its mood still no less hostile. The dimness of the interior soothed it after a few moments, and with a heavy snort it began to scan around the floor close to the helicopter’s wreckage. It had to have landed somewhere in this radius after being knocked off, and the Tyrant began huffing louder and in desperation as it became clear that his trilby—his gift—was nowhere to be seen. T-00’s mood rapidly became much worse—snarling like rolling thunder under his breath as his measured, reserved tread became more of an aggressive march. The building itself seemed to tremble in fear of being the next thing to anger the bioweapon.

            It was going to find the unidentified man—if it couldn’t find the hat, then it could at least find him. And make him pay.

            Mr. X had zoned in on his mission now, and the implant’s forcing pulses had thankfully died down now that it detected the Tyrant prowling the hallways on its own. At the next door in this upper eastern quadrant of the building T-00 paused for a moment, listened. There was a cacophony of distant noises: Mr. X could filter most out right away as the mind-rotted groans of the infected drifting in through the damaged windows, and some as the low whirrs of air systems kicking on in still-functioning parts of the station. Something squeaked—a loud hinge of some door or locker—and Mr. X focused on that direction. He crouched through the door with some difficulty, and then gave the new air inside what seemed to be the waiting room a few sniffs. He’d been here—the smell of that particularly stressed human was flooding the area, lingering most strongly on where he had shouldered open the doors. The Tyrant dipped his own shoulder and barged through into a massive hall, captivated for a moment by the sheer height and depth of the place, and its ornate decoration. It was looking over a lower section where some makeshift infirmary screens and cots were scattered next to an intake counter of sorts, and spotted the large storage chest and numerous other survival goods piled up next to it. Its attention was hooked onto the slumped figure at the bench opposite. He recognized the man. Marvin Branagh—a target—though the bloody wound on the man’s abdomen sopping through the R.P.D. uniform was new.

            Cautious, Mr. X made his way down one of the grand staircases and approached the still body; he did not need to get very close for an inquisitive sniff to tell him that no killing was required—Marvin’s blood was recently shed, but it was starting to reek with a virulent infection. The Tyrant did not want to linger too close, and crept around the large intake counter instead, head raised away from the disturbing odor and trying to detect any others.

Its brows furrowed and it grunted in annoyance at the results: There was one scent it was prioritizing, but unfortunately that one was everywhere—and its mere presence was prompting him to rumble with stifled rage. With no clear trail it could follow, Mr. X instead pricked up its hypersensitive ears.

            Someone was very much alive and moving on the second floor—training on the source near the far back corner of the building, it also picked up something like… flowing water? Flowing water—the Tyrant growled under his breath and picked up speed through one of the closest doors into a disheveled office, intent to climb the stairwell near the back west side of the building, the one closest to whoever had just reminded it of the nasty encounter at the doused helicopter. Bursting into another hall, it began to creep a bit more softly over the floors leading to this area. Though with a slight wince, the boards underneath it still creaked in protest and each stairstep vibrated in warning that something strong and heavy was using them. It froze on the small landing halfway up, recognizing a fresher human scent coming from the third story.

            … This one was not the scent he wanted to follow, but it was something at least. With all his possible stealth, Mr. X inched up the rest of the way while double-checking his nose’s work. Not only was this presence new and unfamiliar, but up here the man’s had almost completely faded into the background of dust, crust, and viral-laden bloodstains. Whoever it was, they too were overloaded with stress hormones and carried an additional whiff of gunpowder and leather. Tilting its head in contemplation, the bioweapon realized that engaging with anyone new would only give his preferred prey advance warning of where he was—worse, it may allow the defiler of his hat a chance to escape the much easier-to-stalk confines of the indoors. Stomping with its full mass once again, T-00 turned around and made its way back to the main hall.

            The damn stink of that hat-shooting bastard was still all over this open room—and Mr. X still could not pinpoint any origin to the trail. The man had been here so often, and so recently, that it pervaded every corner.

            Well. If he had not cut through the office to the west, then maybe he had backtracked up to the second level somewhere. As the bioweapon ascended the grand staircase, pace increased and eager to trap his quarry, he continued to pick up the sounds of human activity. It was closing in on the source, though still echoing around corners, muffled through doors and walls; somewhere slightly above it a latch closed behind someone’s passage with a soft clunk, and somewhere else further into that upper west section of the building there was a dull electronic tone—similar to the types of noises that Sheena Island’s failsafe locks made as they disengaged. Two in motion. One could be him. Inhaling deeply, the Tyrant pushed open the closest door that took it in the right direction and ended up in a high-ceilinged library that looked more like it belonged in a university than in a police station. At the base of one of the towering shelves (so tall that an entire upper level of catwalks was build into their tops) was a pair of infected humans, clawing and gnawing clumsily on what was left of a ribcage and spine. One wobbled upright and lunged towards the new source of movement and flesh—and was promptly batted to the floor before having its neck crunched underfoot.

            At a better time, Mr. X may have liked to explore the smaller details of this room—but with a shake of his head, he knew he had greater need to focus on the purely strategic ones. Sidestepping the other vastly-overconfident zombie, it peered around and took stock of all escape routes. There were the main doors, of course, which it was blocking, but there was also another door on the opposite side—high on the catwalk level making this one room fully stretch across two stories. Close to where it had entered the staircase wrapped around one corner, and it frowned once it turned away from pulping the other infected man against the hard base of this stair, having spotted the ladder. Against the opposite wall and giving anyone he pursued two ways to get out of its immediate range—the recipe for a literal run-around. T-00 growled to itself; this library was no good, too large. If that man ever fled into here, it would take tactical—and risky—decision-making to herd him somewhere he could be more easily cornered.

            There was also a smaller door in the wall just by the bottom of the stairs. As far as it remembered from the blueprints it was given, this led to a lounge, then from there into the winding hallway of the west side’s 2nd floor that meandered into and out of more functional spaces until it met up with that narrow backmost stairwell. Many places to hide—and higher odds the fleeing human might have chosen one of these. If caught there, there was no getting out. And he’d remember those horrible little blasting canisters—he would not be fooled by that trick a second time.

            Perfect. The Tyrant plodded towards this door, scenting near the handle and finding a muddle of both fresh and old there. One of them made its eyes flare; yes, he was here. Somewhere.

            The simmering anger was interrupted by an explosion—and not of the emotional kind. Mr. X hadn’t been ready for anything like it, and staggered into the door ahead of him, his sheer weight ripping it off its hinges and landing on the lounge’s rattling floor with a thunk! as the Tyrant caught himself on the doorframe. Though not before banging his forehead squarely into the top of it. T-00 sucked in an annoyed hiss and surveyed the splintered dent his cranium had left in the wood before shaking off the disorientation:

            What the hell was that.

The whole building (or at least this wing of it) was still faintly shaking, dust trickling down from neglected beams and corners. Not the most powerful explosion it had experienced, but enough to do more than give the likes of him pause. Wary now, Mr. X took a few shuffling paces into the lounge, around the wrecked door, back muscles twitching at every faint noise. There were… quite a lot of those. Some grew less and less faint. Many were definitely on the floor above the Tyrant. Scratching, gouging… shrill, inhuman shrieking? Not even animal-like. Something else. There was a muffled BLAM that seemed most like a long-gun discharging, and this drew its eye upward for a crucial moment as it was just in front of the door into the winding hallway—

            —as that door slammed open, narrowly whiffing past its torso, and a series of rapid, clicking steps screeched to a half a meager distance from also slamming into it. Mr. X’s neck snapped back downwards, startled but ready to repel another charging infected… but this wasn’t a zombie. Certainly not a police officer, dressed as she was. Her long coat was more like a Tyrant’s own Limiter than any other uniform he had encountered.

            “Fuck..!” The woman sounded as if this was not the first time that evening that she had wanted to let profanity slip, but that this was the moment that one had leaked out. In a flash she’d dragged the alarm on her face back behind a cool, confident mask, sidestepping neatly to gain a bit more distance from the hulking creature at the same time. Mr. X shifted to follow her position, locked-on now and more curious than anything now.

            Her right hand had slid to her waist, clearly ready to draw a hidden weapon, and for a few beats the only move either made was each swiftly appraising the other—calculating risk, trying to gauge motives, identifying who and what. She, too, was of no comparison to the faces T-00 knew—but she was too unafraid to be unarmed—or unaware of his true nature. His first thought was that she may be with Umbrella, something they called “Monitors”—but that made little sense with how tense and alert she stood while watching for the Tyrant’s next move.

            “What’s the matter, big guy?” She took another step backwards, almost pinning herself to the wall. A glint of dark metal drew T-00’s attention down for a split-second, shoulders tightening at the appearance of the pistol in her hands, “Don’t know how to act around a woman?”

            Mr. X’s brows twitched, and his head tilted. What… did that have to do with anything? What the Tyrant needed to know how to act around was a woman he didn’t know being especially cagey around him with a gun in hand. Annoyingly, this time the pulses of the implant hijacking his movements never kicked in, and with a deep huff he tested if she was friend or foe for himself, floorboards creaking as his massive weight shifted forward to take a short step to the side which would open up her path past him, should she choose it.

            Two things happened in quick succession—unexpected enough the giant had trouble reacting to the one-two punch of the woman choosing violence. The gun’s barrel swiveled up towards his head, and he froze to brace for the sharp sting of bullet casings shredding against a steely skull and bullet-proof hide. Her firearm must not have been at all powerful because the impacts hardly scuffed up the spot on his cheek where its projectiles connected, but the sharp pop-pop! of the gunfire in the close quarters made him flinch and swat upwards to cup his ringing ear.

            That pop-pop! had echoed down the twisty, strangely-designed hallway, reaching something else and leading it on a beeline towards the room. Mr. X’s aching ears were bombarded in the front and behind with the sounds of scrambling feet—the woman darting across the room towards the permanently-open library—and something rounding the hall corner, approaching on all fours—

            The Tyrant’s senses scrambled, it was truly taken off-guard the moment it turned to retaliate against the woman’s attack, and something thudded onto its back and latched on with four clawed limbs. Futher injury came in the form of a stinking, slavering jaw full of needle-like teeth digging into the back of his head. He bellowed—a noise somewhere between ape and ox—and panicked at just what exactly was biting him? Its combative intuition and training combined in an instant, and it reached up with both hands and clutched at something gnarled, fleshy, and disturbingly wet. His assailant was thankfully nowhere near the strength of even the most anemic Tyrant, and Mr. X tore the creature off and slung it down in front of it, the thing squealing as it was thrown completely around in one sharp jerk.

            It wasn’t a human—not even an infected on—but the way it was shaped under the glistening, overlayed skinless muscles implied it probably had been, days ago. Fingers had lengthened, thickened, sharpened into talon-like spurs (as had toes), and its head… well, to say it was destroyed did not suffice. The gnashing jaw, filled with shard-like teeth still drenched in Tyrant blood, was a human mandible, but above the eroded nostrils everything was compacted, caved-in, replaced by a bunching, brain-like series of growths. Frontal lobe, eyes—everything was now a wrinkled, oozing teratoma. Yes. Mr. X knew that word. Many strains of the t-Virus did that to humans. It would do it to Tyrants as well—if the inoculation was not undertaken at the end of the growth cycle. It had never expected something to this degree. It looked like a brain on the outside of its head—as if to replace the grey matter that had deteriorated to nothing within its warped skull.

            What it was, beyond a threat, was irrelevant. T-00 growled deep in its chest as it glared at the monstrosity flailing and flopping back upright.

            It hissed, then with a full-body ripple of twitches it appeared to forget the Tyrant existed. Launching through the library’s doorway in a cat-like lunge—following the sounds of the woman fleeing up the library’s stairs.

            Oh no you don’t… Mr. X wiped the profuse blood that had streaked down the side of his head from a punctured ear and lacerations at the base of his neck—still running down his large jaw to drip from his chin despite the rips it spilled from already stitching themselves together. Artificial implant or animal impulse, it knew what to do when something attacked.

            She’d bolted to the top of the stairwell, taking a breath to turn on her heel and cut across the center catwalk when the erratic, blind mutant leapt to the top of the railing directly in front of her. Reeling back to avoid the swipe of a claw, she took a snap shot at it which caused only a burst of translucent yellow fluid from its false brain and a yowl, and then grunted in largely-restrained disgust as the thing’s tongue whipped out and extended—wrapping in a vice-grip around her waist and yanking her off-balance. Her second shot sent a gout of strangely-viscous blood from the side of its mouth, slowing its attempt to pull her into range of its uneven fangs.

            T-00’s rush took the stairs three at a time with ease, and in the time it took for the woman to turn and see him charging towards her he had made the decision to target the long-tongued mutant first. It made a noise like a rusted hinge being forced open as his fist gripped onto the middle of its extended tongue—the rest of its length instantly spasming and going limp. The woman had ducked down to the floor, though she was no longer much concern of his, narrowly avoiding being bowled over by its other arm—and then ducking again under the frantic mutant’s body being swung into the wall behind them. The mostly-brainless creature regrouped itself fast from being brained, but not fast enough to avoid the Tyrant’s free hand shooting out and pulverizing its neck against the wainscotting. Limp and giving only leftover twitches from its rapid brainstem death, the thing slumped into a pile of flesh and bones and disgust as Mr. X retracted both hands. His finger joints crackled and he gave a rumble—good riddance.

            Its sense of triumph was snubbed in a moment; a jolt of unexpected impact shot through the bones of the Tyrant’s pelvis, and with a puzzled grunt it look down between its boots and discovered the woman again, still pressed flat to avoid the combat overhead. She’d… kicked it. While perfectly aimed and with full humanly-possible force braced with the floor’s leverage, the strike had not exactly conjured anything approaching pain. Mr. X frowned slightly; she definitely was not an Umbrella agent. If she had been, and had known enough to recognize a T-103 when she saw one, she would have known that he did not possess the particular weak spots she’d aimed for.

            The Tyrant decided to play “an eye for an eye”, or rather a boot for a boot, regardless. The woman rolled, narrowly dodging Mr. X’s half-hearted stomp and folding upwards to her feet in a fluid motion. Her pistol pop!-pop!-ed once more, but he felt no impacts and whipped around to see that she had been aiming for the fastenings securing the ventilation grate in place in the corner of the library. The metal fell to the halfway-point landing with a clang, and she heaved herself up and began to army-crawl into one of the large vents pumping the climate-controlled air into the library.

            Mr. X’s nose crinkled up as he made for the last sight of her legs vanishing into the darkness of the ducts; she was assuming he couldn’t follow into such a narrow space, though by his measure the space was not so narrow at all… once the ducting was peeled out. In a dive, one massive hand plunged into the hole in the wall—fingers scraping on the corrugated metal as he came up just shy of her heel. His other hand braced on the opening and with a hitch in its breath began forcefully ripping the entrance larger. Larger. There was a quick flash from within the vent, and T-00 jerked his head aside as another bullet blew apart very close to its eyes.

            Once sure his vision wasn’t compromised, it bared a sliver of teeth and pressed forward, knees plowing through the wood paneling and underlying brick while pushing the framework of the vent shaft further out. It could now fit its entire enormous width into the darkened inner-wall space, and even as slow as this progress was made, it was still managing to keep up with this provoking character…

            Something creaked—deep, ominous. Not surface-level, as with the floorboards. The Tyrant stiffened up, spreading its weight in a spasm of reflex the second it registered the sound. The inner-wall’s frames didn’t… feel that weak. After a second more of trying to find any further subtle warnings of a structural nature over the echoing clamor of the woman hustling towards another series of dim vent grate slits, the Tyrant snorted and moved again.

            Another groan, softer. He grew confident. This framework was part of the architecture designed to prop the entire level up, surely it wouldn’t—

            —ting!

            … ting—tingting!

            …Oh.

            It appeared the place was not up to code.

            —KLINK! Tink! T-KING!

            The Tyrant, eyes as wide as they went, made a desperate attempt to back out of the improvised widened passage he’d made, but the mangled metal and the dusty inner braces had already buckled under its tremendous mass, and the damage that mass had done. With a final series of snaps and cracks, the weak section within the walls dropped open like a trap door—Mr. X tumbling into the black unknown, trying to spread himself out to lessen the impact or—he hoped—to catch onto something sturdy and prevent any inconvenient injuries from this error at all. Luck was not with the bioweapon, and as it crashed into another series of much sparser pieces of framework it grunted as it felt itself tilting uncontrollably onto its back mid-air—

            —seconds before velocity and weight combined and it burst through another set, then landed with a meaty thwwakk! onto a concrete block.

            A true testament to the fortitude of this particular living weapon, Mr. X was not knocked unconscious by being dropped more than two stories. He did, however, spend some time grumbling unhappily and rubbing at the shoulder that had mostly taken the brunt of it until the heavy bruises on the heavier muscles had faded—which was only fair.

            Sitting up, his contemplative grunt echoed in the actually quite large and convoluted chamber that made up the utility inner-walls of the basement level. It must be a basement area—nowhere else was so full of damp rust and mildew odor, so much that even the ever-present scent of the building’s brick, wood, lacquer and other basic matters were overpowered.

            Coming slowly to its feet, the Tyrant tried to shut out the now-useless olfactory information in favor of its other enhanced senses. Noise was also not going to do much good—not unless it was from close by. Pipes in the ceiling were bubbling, some popping and sizzling, and somewhere off in the darkness an electrical transformer was hammering. Vision was also limited—not as much as a human’s would be. Mr. X’s pupils, usually tightened into tiny pinpricks, had dilated to be even larger than the usual human’s, and this afforded him some level of clarity in the dungeon-like setting. Even so, he was only seeing detail in greyscale and the distance at which he could make those details out was much shorter—perhaps only out to twenty meters or so. He craned his neck up, studying the chaotic pit in the R.P.D.’s inner workings that he’d created; it did not look like there was going to be a way to get back out by going up—there was no stable way to climb unobstructed, and nothing jutting out after the architectural trauma would at all take his weight if he tried to jump up.

            The bioweapon turned back to the deep shadows, boots crunching over pieces of broken plaster and splintered braces.

            This was… not ideal.

            There was not much clearance over the Tyrant’s head, which put it on edge as it picked and squeezed its way through the awkward forest of load-bearing pillars and piping. At every turn, he scanned for signs of some way out of the damp hole: A maintenance door, a drainage gate, even a bricked-over old window that would not be too difficult to unblock. It got the distinct feeling it was wandering in circles, and with a frustrated rumble instead felt along one of the less grime-coated brick walls. Perhaps the only way out was going to be through.

            Not here though. For several meters, his inspection revealed these were tough, thick walls—not just from bearing the weight of floors and street above though that certainly was not a helpful factor. He had to find a more expendable section; too much damage to these, and it risked bringing much of the entire station down on itself. While it was difficult to do, it was possible to asphyxiate a T-103—and over forty tones of earth, brick, and roofing collapsing atop it was probably one way to do it.

            Continuing his search, Mr. X paused to probe at a new section of wall and held his breath a moment. Muffled voice? Or voices? The walls were still thick here, making distinguishing anything about them next to impossible. Must get closer. Must hear.

            “…Look, we’re… s station… nd help each oth…”

            T-00 felt its way along, closer to the source, the leather of its creased-up Limiter creaking and straining as it had to duck under a tangle of electrical conduits. The voices stopped at the noise it made, and Mr. X felt the inner urge to curse and went absolutely frozen-still. Listening.

            …Listening.

            Come on. Speak. Listening!

            “Shit. It’s coming.”

            There. It was quiet through the half-meter of stone and mortar, but he was definitely much closer to whoever was speaking. The Tyrant pressed his ear flush to the brickwork, straining his auditory processing powers to their limit.

            “What—what’s coming?”

            At the sound of the second voice, the Tyrant’s heavily wrinkled face twitched in recognition—his blood going white-hot with rage. HIM. Beyond this wall. The voice was distinctly coming from directly perpendicular to him—speaking hushed, but it couldn’t be more clear. There was someone else there too, shouting at his prey in a panicked tone, but T-00 did not care about any bystanders. Everyone else could walk away—he wanted that man—and the short-sightedness of a bull being whipped had come over him.

Wall be damned, too. Mr. X bared his teeth and wound back his dominant arm. With a straight punch, the force of a car wreck was concentrated onto a spot only a few bricks wide, and the thick barricade between interior and nebulous wall-space burst apart in a shower of powder and fragments to allow the Kevlar-wrapped forearm to dive through. There was a sharp shriek of terror, which Mr. X would have found understandable if he had been in any kind of mood to pay the noise any mind.

Reaching as far as his bicep would allow, Mr. X’s fingers found something and reflexively wrapped around it. Through his glove, he could feel the shifts and tangles of hair under his palm, and there was no mistaking the frantic movement of struggle from whatever he had in his grip. Hands much smaller than his own were now clawing at the buckled straps over his wrist and the clenched tops of his knucles; the game struggling, though useless, reminded him of something. Further inflamed, the Tyrant uttered a low snarl and wrenched his arm higher in defiance of the robust brickwork in the way. As expected, the bricks lost, and the wriggling form he held captive was lifted off his feet in an arc. Sputtering, the man began thrashing harder. He had him. Yes.

In a surge of strength, the Tyrant tightened his grip; in spite of the hard human skull in the way, T-00’s fist close regardless. With a deep, spinal twitch the body stopped fighting back, and no longer caring to be in contact with the blood and gore of the task, Mr. X released him to slump into a tilted seated posture. As he retracted the arm, the comparatively-bright light streaming in from the interior of a jail cell half-blinded him, and with care to only raise his unsullied left hand to guard his sensitive eyes he pulled back and huffed.

His next inhale cut short as he heard that voice. Again…

Joined shortly by that of the woman who had instigated their fight upstairs. Mr. X was numb to the exchange of his two enemies, instead focusing on lifting his right hand and squinting down at the glistening residue caking it.

…Whose blood was this?

With much less vigor than before, the Tyrant took a few less-than-graceful steps back into the full darkness. It felt like… lying down for a moment. After it felt like… cleaning itself up somehow.

It was detesting being stuck in this narrow, unpleasantly-scented hole more by the second. Shoving another rat’s nest of cables aside with a shoulder, it tromped off into the unexplored lengths of the foundations.

There had to be a weakspot somewhere.