Summary: What is the price you'd pay to protect something that you lost years ago? For one Raccoon City Survivor it may be his humanity, for another her freedom...
Rating: Teen to Adult, this deals with adult situations, and let's face it the games aren't geared for the ittie bitties
Pairings: Chris Redfield / Sherry Birkin, Leon Kennedy / Claire Redfield
Fandom: Resident Evil
Disclaimer: Just writing this monster for fun, Capcom owns all the characters I'm just borrowing them for AU tiems
Prologue
The blond pulled against the wall for a moment, she had to time it right or she wasn’t going to be able accomplish her mission. Sherry Birkin saw her opening and ran for the gate that would let her slip into the London underground and from there to the stops she needed to make to ensure that at least one of the trio of flash drives she carried made it to US government contacts. Hopefully they’d be able to get her the help she needed to get for Valentine.
Jumping the barrier the blond didn’t stop running, didn’t take long for her to get to the crowded corridors of the train stations. Jumping onto the first train leaving the station she allowed herself to relax only to keep people around her from paying too much attention to her. Her mind worked on trying to plot her path. With luck she’d get back to the compound hidden deep under London before her ‘godfather’ even found out that she was missing.
Two stops later she was getting off the train at Paddington Station. Blending in with the crowd she worked her way to her first stop, the café would be open by now and she hoped that the quick text she sent to one of her contacts got through to him. As she neared the café the scent hit her, it was subtle, but in the smell of normal people it was a dead give away…
Wesker had returned from his trip to Africa a few days early.
Sherry scanned the crowd, if he was there he probably already heard she had escaped the compound. The café was just a block away, if she made it there she might be able to at least make one of the drops. The man who owned it was BSAA, one of her contacts actually, assigned to London under cover. Her hand almost went for the custom made Samurai Edge Wesker had given her the day she turned eighteen. Instead she made the run for it, heading for the café. I’m sorry Alex, but unless one of these get out Jill has no chance.
Sherry yelped inward as she saw the blond man in the black jacket step out of the café she was headed for. Dark shades covered the red eyes she knew he had. At the same time she caught another scent on the air, fire and mint, Steve Burnside’s scent. The Veronica must have been the one to tell she had left. When she had a chance she was so going to deck the weaker B.O.W. She had to get out from between him and Wesker first.
Wesker hadn’t seen her yet, or if he had he wasn’t showing it. She moved to the alley, hoping to get into the café from the back.
The red head with the gun stepping out of the café had other ideas. Sherry recognized him at once.
“Steve, please… You know he’s just using us right?” She held up her hands, holding the trigger guard of her gun with one finger as Steve Burnside’s gun aimed at her.
“Which is the only reason I’m not shooting you now Sher.” He said calmly. “I know you’re the only way I’ll be able to see Claire again.” He moved closer. “Drop the gun Sher,” he spoke calmly, “And kick it over to me.”
She bit her lip kneeling to put the gun down. Steve picked it up, keeping the gun trained on her. She caught movement behind him and barely turned pressing against the wall as a shotgun blast hit the Canadian B.O.W. diving she snagged the luger and her samurai edge twisting her body towards the entrance of the alley.
“Birkin.”
“Left pocket, three flash drives, David, get them to your bosses. I’ll try to buy you time go, please.” She felt him reach into her pocket for the digital drives as she kept one gun aimed at Steve’s back, the better gun up at the street where she knew Wesker would be coming any moment.
The shadow that crossed the alley was Wesker’s. She lifted the other gun.
“You still disappoint me Birkin. If you weren’t so unique I would have destroyed you already.” He spoke calmly, the guns aimed at him not seeming to bother him. After all It wasn’t the first pair he had seen that week. “Burnside, get up.”
“Wha…” Sherry yelped as her legs were kicked out from under her; by the ‘corpse’ she was standing over. Sherry fell to the ground hard, the gun’s spilling away from her. Before she could react, Steve had her arms pinned behind her back.
“She gave the drives to someone, I can’t pick up their scent.”
“I’ll get a team of hunters to look for our little spy’s contact. Get her back to the compound, I’ll be taking her to Africa when I leave again.”
Sherry was about to protest, but the butt end of Steve’s luger connected with the back of her head.
Sherry heard screaming, they were testing on Jill again. She tried to move, but the straps holding her down were too tight. Tugging at her wrists she panicked, she needed to get free. “Wesker! You’ll kill her! Please don’t do this!” She knew it was useless, Wesker’s humanity had been lost years ago. The man only cared about the viruses, and his own life.
She saw the blond haired monster; that had become her guardian after he took her from Leon Kennedy, in the viewing window above her. He just gave a small grin. Sherry felt the backboard she was strapped to start moving down. Screaming she knew what was going, he was putting her in one of the containment pods used for their experiments. “Wesker don’t!”
“Oh, but she’s proving to be more loyal than our little pet. I’ve known you’ve been the leak a while Sherry. Now I’m just going to make sure you can’t medal anymore. Be glad I still have use for you.”
“I’m never going to be one of your precious weapons. I’ll fight you every step of the way!” She hoped it sounded better than she felt. She could see the tank she was being lowered into now. Closing her eyes she tugged more at the straps wishing, not for the first time in her life, that the Devil Shot she had received back in Raccoon hadn’t stripped away the G’s strength. Not that they gave her any leverage to pull the straps free with how she was bound to the backboard.
“That’s what I’m hoping for.” He turned walking away from the tank. It closed, sealing with a hiss around her and Sherry screamed again, begging to be released as the pod started to fill with a liquid chemical, something that she knew would knock her out, and give her nutrients until they could place the pod into the central storage area.
What she didn’t see were the five figures standing in the room, a girl, close to Sherry’s age, holding a boy of about eight, to prevent him from running forward. Steve stood with them a pair of twins off to the side, all of them being forced to watch, a reminder of what happened if you betrayed Albert Wesker.
Steve looked at the twins. “Take Marina and Mikhail to their room.” He knew that he was about to do far worse than Sherry ever did, but looking at the other four B.O.W. all linked by the simple fact they had been children who had been experimented on by the parent that worked for Umbrella… They were his family, Wesker had brought them together, but Sherry reminded them they were still human.
“No, he’d expect it from you Burnside. I’ll do what needs to be done, We’ll give her the strength to fight, you make sure that she can be found before he breaks us all.” The older twin, dark haired and eyed Japanese youth of about nineteen stepped away from his brother. His twin nodded and started to usher the other three out of the room.
Months later Jill sat tapping on the keyboard trying to help one of the techs break into some files Tricell had locked up. Memories of screaming, pain and someone trying to calm her hit, making her drop the coffee cup she had been drinking from, just as the file was broken into.
On the screen was a blond girl, early twenties, blue eyes, locked in one of the pods. Eyes were open, the girl struggled a moment and the tech was trying to find out where it was. “This is a live feed.”
“Sherry Birkin.” Jill spoke the name softly, seeming to recover. “Locate it fast, if there’s anyone left here that knows she’s there they’ll be going for her.” She turned away from the screen. “Chris, we have a problem, Matt’s searching, but Birkin’s here. The little girl that was with your sister. I don’t know why, but I feel like we have to get her away from here. Something about when Wesker was controlling me,” She said tapping the earwig lightly. “If anyone’s still here that was working for him, they’ll be going for her. I hate the idea of it, but we might actually have a sample of the G if we can convince the kid we’re not a threat.”
“What?” Chris’s voice was startled. “If she’s infected…”
“Chris, she’s in one of the pods, and it looks like she’s human, she’s fighting to get free of it already. What if she’s like me? Who knows how they got her, but what would Kennedy and Claire say if you killed her without giving her a chance. You gave me one.”
“Fine, but she tries anything I won’t give her a second one. The G’s far too dangerous.”