Inside the cabin of the Star Fire heavy tiltrotor, the climate control sealed out the gunpowder and bitter cold of the world outside. Warm reading lights spilled softly over every face, each one tired but visibly at ease.
Luis had changed into a clean white lab coat and was sprawled shamelessly across the leather sofa, cradling a steaming mug of coffee. He took a deep breath of it.
"Now this is where humans are supposed to be. Not on that broken island full of parasites and mutant freaks." Luis squinted and turned to Leon, who was starting to look like himself again. "Leon, my man, I have to say, your life really is as hard to kill as a cockroach."
Leon shook his head with a wry smile. He was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Ashley by the window.
"So what's next for you? Back to bodyguard duty for the President?" Ada took a sip of red wine, her gaze drifting to the rolling sea of clouds outside. The red hem of her dress carried a hint of something alluring in the shadows.
"Drop Ashley off first," Leon said quietly, then hesitated. "What about you? Wesker's side... you can't go back, can you?"
"I have my own plans." Ada swirled her glass gently, her eyes flicking toward Jill, who was chatting with Ryan at the front of the cabin. "I've got a more generous boss now. One with a better sense of humor, too. By the way, Leon, that 'Amber'... it would actually make a pretty good bedside lamp."
Leon's face reddened. Remembering that plastic block with the LED inside, he could only bury his face in his coffee.
In another corner of the cabin, three girls were huddled together.
Ashley and Sherry were close in age and had hit it off quickly.
"Oh my god, Sherry, you were so cool when you were shooting back there!" Ashley clung to Sherry's arm, eyes shining with admiration. "I want to learn how to do that too... that whole blowing-people's-heads-off thing!"
"That's up to Uncle Ryan's mood," Sherry said, laughing, pointing at Ryan across the cabin. "If he decides you've got the right bones for it, he might even bless you with a brick."
Becky sat off to the side, cradling the heavy electromagnetic rifle. Her face was blank, but the corners of her mouth had loosened just a touch.
Jill walked over to Ryan with two glasses of whiskey, taking in the scene.
"This 'Spanish road trip' of ours seems to have worked out well for everyone," Jill said, handing him a glass. "Except a certain bald gentleman."
A few minutes earlier, Ryan had generously shared his private photos of Wesker with everyone, advising them that the next time they ran into Wesker, pulling out one of those pictures might have surprising effects. Or it might just get them killed faster.
Ryan took the glass and looked out at the faint dawn breaking over the horizon. Down on the open sea below, Carlos's "Shadow Force" fleet burned bright with lights, like a string of rubies scattered across the dark.
"We've pretty much cleared out what was left of Los Iluminados. But the real challenges are just starting." Ryan sipped his drink, eyes unreadable. "For now, though, let them all get some sleep."
Laughter and warm conversation mingled with the smell of coffee inside the cabin, forming a small, temporary Eden ten kilometers above the ocean.
Meanwhile, on a desolate tidal flat off the coast of Spain, a few nautical miles from the Island.
Waves slapped mechanically against black reef rock, churning up pale foam.
Splash...
A battered figure dragged himself ashore with the tide, struggling.
It was Wesker.
His suit had been reduced to tattered strips hanging off his frame. Of his expensive shoes, only one remained. The most eye-catching thing about him was that bald head, still gleaming under the seaside dawn, with a few strands of wet seaweed draped across it.
Wesker sank to one knee in the wet sand, coughing violently. Each cough brought up mouthfuls of briny seawater.
"Ryan... I'm going to... kill you..."
His trembling hand went for the belt pouch that had held the data, only to find it empty.
That was when he noticed something was off.
It was too quiet. No seabirds crying. Even the sound of the waves seemed distant.
A cold, absolute sense of danger unlike anything he had ever felt raised gooseflesh all over his body.
Wesker's head snapped up.
In the shadow of a large boulder not far ahead, a slender youth was crouched silently. He wore a black custom combat suit, his skin as pale as if he'd been soaked in water for too long. Depthless eyes without a ripple of expression stared down at Wesker. Beside the youth, near the rocks, lay half of a shattered corpse. It was the village chief, Mendez.
"G-001..."
Wesker's pupils contracted. Instinctively he tried to activate his enhanced cells to teleport away.
The youth moved faster.
Almost the instant Wesker's muscles tensed, the youth was already in front of him. No flourishes, no technique. Just an utterly plain punch, driven straight at Wesker's chest.
Wesker hastily threw up both arms to block.
Bang!!!
Wesker was hit like he'd been struck by a train at full speed, flying backward a good ten meters before his back smashed a slab of rock to pieces.
The youth didn't pursue. He simply stood where he was, hooked a long finger, and casually settled the blood-flecked spare sunglasses he'd plucked off Wesker onto the bridge of his own nose.
"This is the 'god' that Umbrella used to be so proud of?" the youth said, voice ethereal but openly disdainful. "Too weak. And... your haircut is strange."
Wesker spat out a mouthful of clotted blood, a flash of shock in his eyes. The youth's strength and speed were suppressing his post-mutation abilities across the board.
"Did Spencer send you?" Wesker forced out through clenched teeth as he stood. In the shadows, his bald head looked particularly monstrous.
"The old man's dying already. I'm not interested in his tired old speeches." The youth turned and pointed at the distant horizon, the direction the Star Fire aircraft had gone. "I just happened to discover that there's one person in this world I can't kill. And that person happens to be the one tormenting you."
Wesker froze, then his mouth curled into a cruel arc. "You want to cooperate?"
"Each takes what he needs." The youth lifted the sunglasses away from his eyes, and a strange, ghostly gleam passed through them. "You want his life. I want his secrets."
Two top-tier mutants, both cast in Ryan's shadow, struck a dark pact on that desolate tidal flat, one that was enough to reshape the future.
In the distant sky, the dawn finally broke through the thick fog, lighting up the ambition written across both monsters' faces.