Chapter Text
“Well this wasn’t in the briefing.” You say to your colleague, as you both gaze at the mass expanse of collapsed concrete and debris that was once part of Raccoon City.
“Yeah, You’d think a massive, hollowed-out scar in the earth would be something somewhat important for file, but hey, maybe that’s just me?” Rowan chuckles, eyes catching on the ghostly trails of smoke that pour from the massive dents in the crater.
Their mission file had mentioned a recent underground explosion, but this was definitely from something else.
Rowan takes a step closer, whistling low. “So, you think this is it?” he asks after a moment.
For a moment, all you can do in response is slowly turn to him with a ridiculing expression.
“The Ark Laboratory is underground, we need to find a way down.”
“Doesn’t look very underground anymore.”
Your eyes scan the crater once more, calculating. “The explosion must’ve blown the upper levels open.”
As soon as the words leave your mouth, you shrug your pack from your shoulders and begin digging through it. From between rations, aid kits, and gauze, you pull out a coiled line of rope, followed by carabiners, a belay device, a harness, and gloves.
“Fuuuck, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to use those.” Rowan whines, but slips his pack off and begins digging as well.
You ignore him, already walking towards the closest opening in the crater. The view is worse up close, a descent into pitch darkness. You find a jagged piece of metal jutting from the concrete, thick, bent but not loose. You grab it, testing it, but it doesn’t move. You give it another sharp tug, putting real weight into it, but it’s solid.
“This’ll hold.” You call out, not bothering to look at him.
“Yeah? That’s what you said about the bridge last time we worked together.”
“And it held.” You hum, looping the rope around the rebar.
Once, twice, then tying it off tightly.
“Barely.” You hear him mutter under his breath, drawing a smirk to your lips.
You pull at the rope roughly, testing it, and then you clip the carabiner through the loop to lock it.
“You do this a lot? Seems like you’ve been holding out on me.”
You can see Rowan from your peripheral. Simply standing there watching, holding his equipment loosely, as he watched you feed the rope into the belay device.
“Oh, I have no clue how any of this works. I thought you did?” You say as seriously as possible, before laughing at the way he blanches.
You step into the harness, pulling it up and straightening the straps around your waist and thighs before double checking each buckle. You notice Rowan following your lead, doing the same things the best he can.
“Scarlet’s never sent you on any sort of descent mission before?” You hum, clipping your harness to the rope and testing your weight against it.
Secure.
“Nah. Scarlet’s had me do a lot of things, but nothing like this.” He replies, struggling with the buckles on his harness.
You walk over and tighten them in a quick motion, then clip his harness behind yours on the line.
“I don’t know if the check is worth all this.” He mumbles out.
They walk to the edge of the opening as they both put their gloves on.
“I’ll go first, guide you down.” You announce as you grab the rope again, almost smiling at the look of relief that passes over Rowan’s face.
You click on the flashlight pinned to your tactical vest, and then click his on as well, before leaning back and stepping off the edge.
You move smoothly, controlled as you lower yourself step by step against the crumbling slope. Loose debris shifts under your boots as small rocks tumble around you, slipping into the darkness below.
After enough space between you and the world above, you call out to Rowan, coaching him on how to angle his body.
“This is a terrible idea.” You hear him mutter, before feeling him follow in a less graceful manner.
“You do realize this mission was optional, right?” You tease.
“If this rope snaps-”
“It won’t.” You cut in, glancing up briefly before adding, “Focus on your footing.”
He mumbles something but listens.
The descent is slow, the air turning cooler and heavier every few feet. Eventually, the light begins to fade, sunlight barely illuminating the surroundings at this depth, leaving the only light sources being their flashlights.
A narrow beam cuts through the dim to reveal a different type of metal buried beneath the debris. After a few more moments, the structure becomes clearer and you realize the beams are most likely stripped support for the walls that are slowly coming into view.
“I think we’re close to the bottom.” You call up.
“Yep, I see them.” Rowan’s flashlight swiveled and dipped, casting light directly onto the tall white walls now surrounding them.
After a few more long minutes, your boots finally hit something solid.
“I’m down.” You test the surrounding ground, only unclipping and directing him to come down once you’ve made sure it’s stable.
You hear Rowan’s heavy exhale before he lands. “Well, I hated that.”
You don’t reply, but a small smile plays on your lips as you scan the surrounding areas. Halfway through the room, you notice a warped doorway, barely visible through the broken concrete. A partially exposed section of the Ark, and your way in.
The door tries to resist but with Rowan’s help it’s forced open, meal groaning to give just enough space to slip in.
The hallway ahead is long and wide, built for something bigger than just people you think to yourself. The second thing you notice is how heavy and stale the air turns as you enter.
The door settles shut with a dull thunk as Rowan steps in behind you, boots echoing against the metal flooring as you both begin to move. You pass doorways cautiously, rooms on either side, some open, some closed.
You peak your head into one, gun drawn but only met with an empty ruined lab. Tables and furniture overturned or broken, equipment scattered and fallen, and a floor full of broken glass. You keep moving, Rowan silent.
The further you walk, the bigger it feels, the ceiling seems to rise higher, the rooms seem to stretch wider. Everything is too quiet, yet every instinct screams that there is something lurking right around the corner. But there is nothing. No movement, no sound, no threat. Just the tense feeling that there should be.
You turn into a corridor at the end of the hallway. You keep moving them forward, a bit faster now, not reckless but purposeful.
“We need to find a stairwell or a way to the bottom of the building. The file mentioned a collapsed platform in the center of the building. The target would be around there.” You explain in a hushed tone, not bothering to look back at him.
As if on que, you find a set of stairs to the left. They’re unnaturally long and fold into a half landing, stretching longer down. At the bottom, they reach a junction, splitting into two paths. Something tells you to follow the left path, and Rowan follows you without question. As you move, you both notice deep gouges in the metal, as well as blood around some of the debris you pass.
“Do you think he survived all this?” Rowan asks in a small voice after another episode of silence.
“Doubtful.” Is all you reply, turning into another corridor.
Halfway through the narrow space, you find another stairwell, this one a straight shot down. They’re half collapsed, but usable. The pace slows back down as you cautiously test the foundation furthest away from the structural damage.
“Careful.”
“Yeah, I know.”
They descend slowly, each step creaking under their weight but holding up well enough. Impossibly, the air gets thicker, their flashlights reflecting dust.
The bottom leads into another corridor, Your light cuts left to illuminate a set of important looking doors.
As you approach you realize that one is bent inward, almost as if forced.
“That looks promising.” No sarcasm this time, just tension.
You don’t respond, instead you continue, and manage your way through the door.
Inside is an expansive graveyard of concrete and metal. Massive chunks of metal protruding from the ground like spikes, no inch of ground uncovered from the debris. This has to be the central chamber, round and multi-leveled, even if the upper platforms have collapsed.
High above you, light pours in from a massive gouge in the ground, the large break in the center of the crater you think. You estimated it was nearly 200 feet to the crater, where you’d been almost 2 hours ago. Steel walkways twisted and support beams snapped. Everything had fallen, towards the center, to the bottom.
“That’s not exciting.” Rowan draws you attention, and you find him peering off a ledge you hadn’t noticed previously.
You move to stand by his side and follow his gaze deeper down. Another drop reveals the true bottom of the Laboratory.
“You think he’s all the way down there?”
You scan the destruction around you to find a slope, angling down along an intact curve of the central chamber’s walls.
“I know he is.” you mutter as you realize that unstable slope is the only way down, and back up.
“We’re going down, through there.” He follows your gaze and lets out a disbelieving breath.
“Of course.”
You step onto the debris first, it shifts under your weight but holds.
“You ever notice how it’s always down with you?” Rowan jokes as you try to focus on controlling you weight.
“Stay focused, keep your weight against the wall.”
They descend slower than before, the silence tightens then, both focused on their footing.
When you finally reach the bottom, you slow to survey the area, but stop entirely.
“What.” Rowan breathes behind you, nearly bumping into you.
You don’t answer, only lifting your light to allow him to get a better glimpse. Unmistakably, there is a large figure, half-buried, mere feet away from you.
For a moment, everything is frozen. The body is unmoving, just as you’d expected, yet you tighten the grip on your handgun.
“Well, we’ve located the target.”
With the sweep of your flashlight, your gaze moves over the rubble pinning him down. Broken concrete across his torso, and a bent support beam trapping his right arm.
Pacing around the body, you realize his left arm is dark, almost as if charred. A tattered coat hides most of your view.
“This guy is seriously a tank.” Rowan huffs a dry laugh.
The man is enormous. Even folded awkwardly beneath the fallout, his shoulders are far too broad, and the hand peaking out from underneath the metal beam far larger than the average person.
You kneel beside the body, brushing silver hair out of his face to reveal pale, grey skin. Scars gouge from his mouth and crack litter the panes of his face.
“He’s infected?” It comes out more of a question rather than a statement, as you’d meant it to be.
“Great. They left out the massive crater, failed to mention how massive of a man, of course they’d leave out the infected part.”
You reach for him once more, fingers finding their way to his carotid artery out of habit more than logic. Your eye’s catch on a deep surgical scar that trails down his neck and along his torso, before your heart skips at the discovery.
“There’s a pulse.”
“No way. No, seriously, there’s no way. The file said the target was deceased.”
“He is infected, we don’t really have much intel on that.”
“You realize that if he wakes up, we’re fucked, right?”
“So help me get him out so we can restrain him before he does.”
Rowan blanches. “You cannot be serious.”
“We came all this way. We are literally an arms length away from the target. We can’t just back down now.” You reason, already clearing the smaller bits of debris off the man’s torso.
You hear Rowan exhale deeply, and grumble under his breath as he approaches the side opposite of you but begin working on the metal beam anyways.
“A little help?” Rowan strains out after a few moments.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” You huff, pacing around the body.
You slip your fingers underneath the dusty metal ledge, digging your heels into the ground and lift. For a moment, the only sound is both of your labored breaths before the metal shifts with a grinding scrape. Dust drifts off as you slowly lift the beam upwards, and then to the side. It falls to the ground when its weight becomes too much, the loud sound echoing off the walls and through the center roughly.
“I already know who’s gonna be doing all the heavy lifting with this guy.” He breathes.
You roll your eyes, moving to clear the rest of the debris off the man.
“I don’t understand why Scarlet didn’t send a man, it just makes more sense-”
Your eyes cut to his sharply at that.
“I mean another man, like with us.” He stammers, hands rising in surrender.
All you reply with is a moody ‘mhmm’. Rowan quickly moves to help you, now silent.
Soon the man is mostly free, and for a moment all you can do is stare at him. Uncovered, the scale of the man really hits you. You immediately note he has to be breaching 7 feet, and by the sigh Rowan lets out, you’re sure he’s concluded the same thing.
As you skim his body, you curiously take in his attire. A long, tattered coat patterned by pale snakeskin overlaying a black shirt, clipped loosely down the middle. Your eyes trace the exposed skin trailing down to his navel and land on a large, silver scaled belt buckle in the shape of an infinity symbol, two skulls protrude from the center. Gazing lower, you note the scuffs and tears in his dark leather pants, and finally his heavy looking boots.
“Big guy really likes snakes.” You hum, amused.
“Yeah, I gathered that. Help me get ‘big guy’ up, we’re losing daylight.” Rowan chuckles.
Together you start shifting the body, slowly hoisting him up so Rowan can hook his arm around his waist. You help as much as you can with the awkward height disadvantage.
“I hate this mission.” He strains, even with both of you lifting the dead-weight.
“You happen to remember this guy's name? Been thinking about it this whole time and keep coming to a blank.” He huffs, causing you to exhale a slight chuckle.
“Victor Gideon. A doctor-” You breathe.
“ Virologist.” You correct yourself.
“Doctor Victor Gideon, huh. How fancy.” Rowan mocks.
Then begins the agonizingly slow journey out of the facility.