Spring 2006, Edonia, Eastern Europe.
Spring here had no flowers or warm sun, only a year-round ceiling of cold gray clouds.
Civil war had long since ground this historic little town into rubble, and now a shadow worse than war, the C-Virus, was spreading unchecked through the city's ruins alongside the forces known as Neo-Umbrella.
The air carried a sickeningly sweet smell, the blue mist unique to the C-Virus. Along the streets, charred severed limbs lay everywhere, alongside corpses undergoing grotesque transformations.
Just hours ago, the BSAA's Alpha Team had been nearly wiped out here. Now, the organization that had always been on the front lines of anti-bioterrorism response had arrived. Star Fire was here.
A low, rhythmic drone rolled through the clouds. Several tiltrotor aircraft in jet-black livery, the Star Fire emblem prominent on their fuselages, punched through the fog.
They didn't call in fire support with all the fanfare the BSAA had. Instead, they swept over the fiercest fighting at the central plaza with cold, surgical efficiency.
Cabin doors slid open without a sound, and dozens of black figures fast-roped to the ground.
This was Starfire Pharma's most elite fighting force: Shadow Team. They wore nano-grade hazmat combat suits and fully sealed tactical helmets, and in their hands they carried custom EMP rifles capable of severing the cellular bonds of any biological tissue.
"First squad, lock down the southeast intersection. Second squad, clear high-value samples. Remember, any target in Chrysalid state gets physically pulverized, priority one."
The commander issued orders over comms, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of concern.
Because ahead of him, Star Fire's two darlings, two young women who didn't even look twenty, were strolling into the hardest-hit zone sealed off by C-Virus fog as if they were out for a walk.
"This place smells worse than the basement in Romania." Becky wrinkled her nose slightly, her eyes locking onto a dark shape in the ruins ahead. "Contact, three o'clock. Limb mutation in progress."
Before she'd finished speaking, a mutant burst from the rubble, four compound eyes bulging from its skull, its arms warped into massive sickle-shaped bone blades from C-Virus infection. Its shriek hadn't even reached them when Becky had already raised her rifle, sighted, and pulled the trigger.
A faint electromagnetic pulse hummed through the air.
A streak of pale blue light punched clean through the mutant's skull. The kinetic force blew the top of its head clean off, and the thing hit the ground as a splatter of pulped meat before its post-mutation regeneration could even kick in.
"Don't waste time, Becky." Sherry said quietly, tapping off the ground and vanishing from the spot as if she'd teleported.
Ahead, several hostiles wandering the ruins spotted the intruders. They raised rust-covered rifles to open fire, but Sherry's silhouette was already carving a graceful arc through their ranks.
The long blade cleared its sheath, crackling with high-voltage arcs.
No wasted movements. Every stroke severed a mutant's spine with surgical precision. The creatures couldn't even register pain before the electromagnetic energy tore through them on a massive scale, shattering their bodies and their hardened bone shells alike into dust.
Past the bombed-out city hall, the scene ahead grew even more horrific.
Lining both sides of the street were enormous semi-translucent, dark-red masses. These were the Chrysalid stage that C-Virus victims entered before full mutation or when critically damaged. The giant cocoons pulsed rhythmically, and through their thin membranes you could clearly see the grotesque bones and muscles restructuring inside.
"All of them are test subjects that were damaged and forced into full metamorphosis." Sherry crouched down, studying a violently trembling cocoon, a flash of disgust crossing her face. "This evolutionary logic is cruel and inefficient."
"That's why Uncle Ryan calls this stuff a cheap knockoff." Becky walked up beside her and put a round through the head of a mutant trying to tear free of its cocoon. "Shadow Team's already mass-spraying Plagas suppressant. These things won't last till morning."
The two skirted the nauseating field of cocoons and reached a temporary stronghold held by the Edonian resistance.
It had once been an old library. The thick walls and elevated ground made it defensible, and the surviving rebels had set up a perimeter. When Sherry and Becky pushed open the heavy iron door, dozens of black gun barrels locked onto them instantly.
"Back off! We don't want any mercs working for the new Umbrella Corporation!" A scar-faced resistance officer barked, but when he got a clear look at the sophisticated tactical gear on these two girls, complete with the Star Fire emblem, his tone softened against his will.
In Edonia, you could get away with not knowing God. You could not get away with not knowing Star Fire.
Because they were the only organization that could deliver not just relief supplies, but antiviral vaccines.
"We're not with Umbrella." Sherry retracted her long blade and offered a polite but distant smile. "Starfire Pharma. Search and rescue. We need to ask about someone."
The moment they heard "Starfire Pharma," the tension in the stronghold eased noticeably. The scarred officer lowered his AK-47 and sized the two of them up with suspicion. "Who are you looking for? In times like these, finding someone in a pile of corpses ain't easy."
"We're looking for a mercenary." Becky stepped forward and projected Jake Muller's photo into the air. "Name's Jake Muller. Supposed to be a dead shot, works strictly for cash. Word is, if you pay him enough, he'd kick down the gates of hell for you."
The scarred officer stared at the red-haired young man in the holographic display, went quiet for a moment, then blew out a cloud of smoke.
"That kid. Yeah, he's been around, and he's made a name for himself. Guy's got dollar signs where his eyes should be, but I'll give him this: he's the most dangerous fighter I've ever seen. Even a full squad of J'avo can't corner him. He'll punch his way out bare-handed."
"Where is he now." Sherry pressed.
"About an hour ago he took an evac job, headed north to the old city with a few wounded. But you'd better move fast." A hint of sympathy crept into the officer's eyes. "Something big's got a lock on him. Some freak in full alloy armor with a giant hydraulic arm grafted to its right side. That thing's like a hunter that never gets tired. It's been chasing the kid for two days and two nights straight."
...
The old city district. Inside an abandoned apartment block with half its structure blown open by a missile.
Jake Muller leaned against a wall that was about to collapse, breathing hard. His face was caked with gun smoke and dried blood, and his once-clean shirt had been reduced to rags.
In the shadows behind him, a handful of surviving civilians huddled together in terror.
"What the hell even is that thing." Jake looked down at his right hand, trembling slightly. In the close-quarters brawl moments ago, the strength he'd always prided himself on had been practically useless against that steel monster.
Heavy metallic footsteps echoed from deep in the stairwell, each impact like a boot stomping on your chest. Jake knew the creature had pinpointed his location. As Wesker's bloodline, his body was the highest-priority specimen Neo-Umbrella could ask for.
"Listen, when I move, you people run for the roof." Jake stood up, pressed his last round into the chamber, and his eyes took on the hard edge of a man with nothing left to lose. "I'll draw that ugly bastard away. If you make it out alive, do me a favor and collect the rest of my pay."
He vaulted over cover and unloaded everything he had toward the shadow at the end of the corridor.
A deafening roar answered him, and the massive hydraulic arm smashed clean through the concrete wall. A towering three-meter horror stepped into view, its gruesomely stitched face fixed on the young man, a single eye glowing with cruel red light.
Jake threw himself into a roll, dodging the killing blow by inches. But he knew this was borrowed time.
Then, just as the Ustanak prepared to charge again, two streaks of deep blue light sliced through the clouds outside the building.
An electromagnetic pulse wave crashed down from above and shattered the entire rooftop in an instant.
Sherry and Becky dropped through the shattered ceiling like a pair of young hawks, landing sure-footed on the rubble. They stood above the standoff, looking down at Jake and the monster.
"Jake Muller." Sherry's voice echoed steadily through the hollow ruins. "Your contract is over. From this point on, we're taking over your security."
[This novel is now COMPLETE. Read the entire series right now on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]