#stillaware

the residual scent of bleach lingers in the air of the hospital hallways, and his scarce few belongings clink and clatter as he empties his pockets into the plastic tray provided, as leon makes his way through the comprehensive security set-up, shifting his legs shoulder-width apart as they wave the handheld metal detector over the fabric of his slacks, extending one arm, and then the other for the same treatment. leon can barely smother the impatient urge to tap his foot, instead repetitively squeezing his hand into a fist at his side and releasing, as they look over his government identification, and then his a.u.p.i.t. badge. leon startles, reluctantly dragging his eyes away from the curtain-clad sliding glass doors further down the hall ahead, as the woman behind the glass barrier clears her throat and asks him to sign a non-disclosure agreement he doesn't bother to read through for the second time. he knows the drill and gist by now. penning his signature in narrow cursive, piling his keys and wallet and identification cards loosely into his pockets, leon takes the chilled can of V8 in hand he bought directly from the lobby vending machine, and immediately breaks into a brisk walk as they wave him through.

stopping just outside the door, wavering on the threshold, leon pauses, uncertain - how is he going to approach this? what is there for him to even say in the first place? hey, i'm leon kennedy, nice to meet you, so, what was it like being held captive in your own body for four years because i let a renowned and amoral spy escape with apparently a handful of plaga samples? no hard feelings, right? guilt gnaws as he hovers outside of valentine's room, and leon draws a hand over the lower half of his face, scratching at light stubble with blunt nails as he considers a slight hope that maybe, if he was as lucky as everyone kept telling him he was, she would be fast asleep, knocked-out cold, and he could leave a note wishing her well instead of having to conversate face-to-face with her. leon winces visibly at the thought alone, disparaging it immediately. with the immense respect he has for jill in spades, he won't allow his admiration to be outwon by his self-reproach, and if she strangles leon with her iv lines, which he'll probably deserve, he won't go out as a coward, only as an idiot. inhaling, exhaling, biting the bullet, leon knocks twice before turning the handle and stepping in, and he can't hide the way his face drops the instant he sees the state of her, but he tries anyway, a well-practiced debonair half-smile instantly at the edge of his lips, raising a hand in greeting before it drums out a tinny beat on the canned drink he's brought along, sparing an assessing glass to the vitals monitor to the side of the bed, and then back to her.

𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐒𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  »  𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐄. ‘ none of us are going back ’ (for jessica)

that’s so like jill. so poignant. so dramatic. she speaks as if there’s an audience, as if there’s no return, a grand play on the stage and she’s the heroine. it annoys the hell out of her. jill valentine may be a survivor, could even be considered a hero, but it’s undercut by the way she talks to people - whether she realises it or not, there’s an air of superiority that jessica can’t stand.

once upon a time, she wanted to relate. the flash-bang destruction of terragrigia whitewashed her very bones, something she can’t forget. the sunlight refracting off a million shattered pieces of glass broadcasted for the whole world to see rather than the dark booming explosion of raccoon.

jill was in the wrong place at the wrong time and they treat her like a hero. jessica chose to fight the good fight, and all she got were people launching accusations at how the fbc had failed. she was too pretty, too vapid, not the kind of girl who does something like this - things she’d heard over and over, but only ever directed towards her. not jill.

𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝑵𝑶𝑵𝑽𝑬𝑹𝑩𝑨𝑳 𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑴𝑷𝑻𝑺 | @stillaware

"That's what I'm fuckin' talking about!" bellowed the mercenary. Wild-eyed, swinging open his arms in a gesture exacerbated by the imposing size of his rifle. Unsettled plaster whitened the air as he paced, kicked up by his scuffing boots, his heaving breaths blowing a clear path.

Celebrating a narrowly won victory, having secured their lives for that much longer, Carlos' elation has rendered him unaware of the dangers looming in their environment. Hovering above him is a sizeable, decorative wall sconce. It tips precariously, dislodged from it had been shoddily affixed by the use of explosive ordnance throughout the earlier firefight. It had a glass head shaped to resemble lively flames, a burdensome artistic rendition that now slips off its base.

He felt himself being hauled back by his tactical vest, how it tightens and urges around his chest, pulling the air right out of a would-be laugh. His whoa of protest, the top-heaviness of his gear off-kilter - it nearly brought him down to a kneepad. Where Carlos was once standing, the glass flames crash. Rushing out in an explosion of glittering dust and projectiles of shards. Scattering bullet casings, the destruction litters the floor. Brass and glass spangling like an overturned treasure chest.

Caspian wasn’t a soldier. 

He certainly wasn’t a battlefield commander either but ultimately what Los Iluminados demanded was what he would be. And frankly? He was almost giddy to take up this task for Lord Saddler.

It had been eleven years since the Kijuju Autonomous Zone Incident. That was a rather technical term for what Caspian considered out-and-out blasphemy; the butchery and mockery of Las Plagas for profit by Tricell.

Of course while Tricell had gone under in the decade-plus since the infected hosts continued to roam the quarantined zone.  Able to propagate freely and without direction it had swiftly become like a parody of Umbrella’s Raccoon City. It was everything the American branch had argued would happen if the company embraced the idea of parasites wholesale.

That they were in some way posthumously correct made his skin crawl. It disgusted him and it agitated him. Of course, he wasn’t the only one. And that was why he was here, now, in Kijuju under Saddler’s orders - to find the means to eradicate these disgusting offshoots. He’d taken a small team and slipped in easily enough; the darkness was no obstacle and security was (disturbingly) lax in places.

The Ganados surrounded Caspian as a living wall, weapons clutched tightly - flails, axes, maces, even a crossbow or two. Caspian’s own Plaga pulsed, giving them the unity their opponents could never truly have. They’d encountered disturbingly few of the ‘Majini’ - and those that they had they’d hacked apart in short order, butchering the twisted Plaga inside before it could emerge.

Even in the cool of the night their bodies beaded with sweat and Caspian could feel their own Plaga coil a little tighter. He paused at the doorway they’d been edging towards, waving the Ganados to the sides.

“Vigila la zona. Mata a cualquiera que no sea nosotros.” He spoke softly, quietly, but the Plaga that wrapped around his heart roared silently and made his word law. This was power that those made by Tricell would never understand. There was no dissent. Wordlessly but for muttered Spanish they filed out and slid into cover as Caspian slid the door open.

It was an old lab, perhaps, an outpost. It had long since been abandoned, of course, and Caspian doubted there might be power to the building. It was difficult to tell what worked and what didn’t, but the Plaga let him see through the dark as though it was bright day. That was why when the figure hunched over the table whipped around and something burst from its mouth, Caspian snarled and drove his fist forward.

The Control Plaga did not just make his word law, it empowered him physically. The lesser, defective parasite certainly hadn’t expected the fist to punch clean into it as it spread open like a flower, fingers gripping and yanking. Caspian felt a moment of satisfaction as the hosts’ eyes widened, the Type-2 Plaga trying in vain to retract moments before Caspian yanked and tore it free in a spray of blood and gore. The host dropped lifelessly like a puppet with its strings cut (the one unifying feature) and Caspian crushed the parasite in his hand like a water balloon, flicking it off to one side to splat against the wall.

“Disgusting.” He huffed, moving for the computer, pausing to wipe his hand on the table. Maybe...

the BSAA director isn’t at all what Mia expected. she’d envisioned a tall woman, like a viking shield maiden or an Amazonian, with a severe face and perhaps some battle scars. someone who’d almost seem like a feminine equivalent of Chris Redfield’s intensity.

 but instead, Director Valentine seems like someone she’d have enjoyed a drink with. gentle features, only just taller than herself, but the eyes- 

 “ Director Valentine, ” Mia greets, refusing to squirm. “ I... I take it I have you to thank for the squadron sent to get me and my husband out of there ” 

MEME // ALWAYS ACCEPTING

@stillaware​​ asked;

"there was nothing more you could have done."     

     “ ... He spoke to me, ya know... Jack Baker. I know that sounds crazy but-- He asked me to free his family. “ He offered Jill a weak smile, yet still SADNESS took his eyes. He hadn’t told ANYONE about Jacks request, but now with Zoe safe and Lukas dealt with ... It felt like Ethan was finally ALLOWED to move on. To HEAL from the trauma’s Louisiana had caused. However, that would take TIME and they both knew THAT sort of pain didn’t just disappear, “ ... I just-- I just don’t think dead is what he meant when he said free. “

"there was nothing more you could have done."