Chapter 59: Together, We Might Just Be Able to Fight It
Tactical flashlights cut white through the rain. Infrared laser sights crossed it in red.
The Umbrella teams looked at the cult soldiers converging through the trees and opened fire without hesitation.
"All units. Free fire."
Gunfire filled the forest.
What happens when a modern, well-equipped fighting force with heavy weapons meets an opposing force armed with crossbows and wooden shields? The answer could be read in the state of the forest floor.
The heavy weapons opened up without restraint. Wherever the fire passed, it left torn limbs and Las Plagas parasites writhing in the mud. The wooden shields the cult soldiers had brought to stop arrows were not built for large-caliber rounds. Each one held for approximately as long as it took to find out it couldn't. High-explosive grenades thrown at intervals tore gaps in the advancing lines with no particular effort.
The helicopters kept circling overhead, lighting the path forward for the ground teams. The door gunners picked off anyone who slipped through.
In under ten minutes, what had been a dense mass of cult soldiers was scattered remnants.
In the trees, Leon kicked a soldier who had been lining up to attack someone from behind.
The man flew three meters.
He landed on his back with a caved chest, spitting blood, one hand pressed to the damage, still trying to get back up.
Leon didn't give him the window. He stepped forward and put his boot on the man's chest.
What had been a caved chest became worse.
Blood ran from the soldier's mouth without stopping. His eyes fixed on Leon with an intensity that had nothing reasonable in it.
Leon looked at him for a moment, then brought the shotgun up and pressed the barrel to his forehead.
The soldier looked at the barrel. His face didn't show fear. What it showed was fervor.
"Death is life!"
"Long live Lord Saddler!"
"Long live Las Plag—"
The trigger came back.
Leon looked at the aftermath on the forest floor with the expression of a man who had completed a task.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm in the habit of skipping cutscenes."
On the other side of the forest.
Pesanta and the Verdugo had both arrived at the worst moment of their lives simultaneously.
They stood looking at the yellow cargo container five meters in front of them. Both took a half-step back. Both looked at each other.
The meaning in each other's eyes was the same.
Caution.
"Pesanta." The Verdugo's voice was low. "What do you think is in there?"
Pesanta stared at the container. "A weapon."
A pause.
"A weapon made specifically for us."
"I can smell the danger coming off it."
The Verdugo glanced at him. "If you can smell how dangerous it is, why aren't you retreating?"
"Retreat?" A cold sound from Pesanta. "The two of us together — we might just be able to fight it."
Before the words had finished, the container that had been sitting as quiet as a sealed grave began to shake.
The metal walls vibrated hard, producing a deep sustained hum, as if something inside was desperate to get out. Rain bounced off the shuddering sides. The ground beneath it trembled.
Pesanta and the Verdugo both went rigid.
Then the sealed doors were kicked from the inside by a force that did not negotiate.
Both heavy iron doors cleared their hinges in the same instant and became two massive spinning blades, cutting into the trees on either side. The trees along their path were severed at waist height. The sound of splitting wood mixed into the rain as splinters and broken branches flew outward in every direction, carving open a clear space in front of the container.
The rain kept falling. Fine and dense, gray-white threads through the dark, blurring everything past a certain distance.
The Verdugo looked into the container through the curtain of rain.
Empty. Nothing inside.
Nothing there, and yet every instinct it had was screaming at full volume.
"Pesanta, do you see anything?"
No answer.
"Pesanta?"
The Verdugo turned.
Pesanta, who moments ago had said the two of them together might be able to fight this — was hanging in the air.
Nearly a meter off the ground. His neck bent at an angle it was not built to sustain.
His insectoid hands were clawing at nothing.
At first it looked as if some invisible force had simply lifted him.
Then the Verdugo's gaze followed the direction the rain was falling and tracked downward. Its eyes contracted sharply.
Not an invisible force.
Rain fell through the air.
The rain that should have fallen straight to the ground was hitting something midway and stopping. Water ran down along the surface of something that wasn't there. It traced the outline of shoulders, an arm, and a hand locked around Pesanta's throat. The hand was large enough to close entirely around Pesanta's head.
Even without seeing what it was, the Verdugo could tell that every finger on that hand was as thick as a steel pipe.
The Verdugo stared at the enormous shape being outlined in falling rain, and something it had little regular use for — fear, took root and spread.
Pesanta kept struggling. The biological spear in his hands swung again and again, was caught, snapped, and thrown aside without apparent effort.
"Help... me..." He forced the words out with what he had left.
Before the Verdugo could move, Pesanta's head was crushed.
The sound it made was wet.
Crimson blood poured from the break and ran down the invisible form, mixing with the rain. It moved into the grooves of invisible muscle, and layer by layer, stripped the thing hidden in the rain from its camouflage.
Revealing Nemesis.
Nemesis threw the body to the ground and stamped it apart.
The Las Plagas parasite that controlled the brain and central nervous system had no chance under that kind of assault. No opportunity to activate the second phase.
Nemesis turned to look at the Verdugo.
Before the Verdugo had finished processing the situation, Nemesis came at it like a dump truck.
Each footstep drove into the ground. The standing water in every puddle along the path leaped upward. Rain turned to mist in the wake of the charge. Mud and dead branches kicked out to either side.
The Verdugo's body made a decision before its mind caught up.
Run.
Stay any longer and it would end up exactly where Pesanta had.
Together, the two of them might just be able to fight it.
Complete nonsense.
Running was the only truth.