A/N: As promised—here's another bonus chapter! 🎉 But looking at the numbers, you guys are basically already closing in on 100 power stones. 👀🔥 Keep that momentum rolling, and I'll drop another bonus chapter. Let's see how far we can push this! 💪
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Spencer Estate – Umbrella Observation Wing
The control room stank of sweat and ozone, the air thick with static from shattered monitors. Feed after feed showed only ruin: corridors gutted, doors torn off their hinges, operatives shredded into red smears. The T-Aegis Tyrant's trail.
Dr. Alexander Isaacs gripped the console until his knuckles blanched. His vision blurred, not from the flicker of the screens, but from the pounding in his skull. His creation — his masterpiece — was gone. No control, no compliance. Just slaughter.
"Sir," a technician stammered from behind. "The Tyrant is ignoring command prompts. It won't—"
"Silence," Isaacs hissed. His voice cracked, brittle. He pressed his hands against his temples, forcing down the tremor in his breath.
He remembered his teacher's voice, so long ago, whispering like a serpent: Evolution is not perfection. It is chaos. Only through chaos does the strong emerge.
For years, Isaacs had rejected that. He had pursued order, design, the soldier engineered into flawlessness. T-Aegis was supposed to prove him right. And yet—
On the monitors, the Tyrant tore another operative in half, ignoring weapons fire as though it were rain.
Isaacs' throat tightened. "Perfection is a lie," he whispered, the words half a confession, half a curse. "Chaos always wins."
His hands shook as he keyed in a buried command. A file blinked onto the primary monitor, dusty with age: PROJECT LISA – ARCHIVE.
The project Umbrella had buried in this mansion long before T-Aegis. A failed subject too unstable, too grotesque to parade as progress. Kept in chains because no one dared destroy her.
Isaacs stared at the designation, sweat trickling down his temple. Desperation gnawed at his composure, but his lips curled into a faint, broken smile.
"If I cannot control the future," he rasped, "then I will unleash the past."
He pressed the final key. Deep below the estate, locks disengaged with a grinding roar. Chains rattled. Something stirred in the dark.
Spencer's Mansion – Upper Corridors
The halls reeked of damp stone and gunpowder. Jack's boots crunched through shattered glass as he and Jill pushed forward, their flashlights cutting across peeling wallpaper and old portraits warped by mildew.
Jill checked the magazine on her pistol for the third time in as many minutes. Her hands were steadier now, though Jack hadn't forgotten the tremor in them after the greenhouse.
She crouched near the wall, brushing her fingers across the floor. Brass casings glittered faintly under the beam of her flashlight. "She was here," Jill murmured.
Jack scanned the hallway. Bullet holes pocked the plaster. A dark smear of blood streaked across the corner where someone had been dragged. The acrid tang of gunpowder still lingered in the air.
"Rebecca," Jack said quietly.
"Yeah," Jill replied, straightening. "If she and Richard fought through this, they didn't get far. Two corridors, maybe less."
Jack adjusted his grip on the M9, unease twisting in his gut. "Think they're still moving?"
"Not with Richard wounded," Jill said, her voice tight. "She's smart. She'd hole up, patch him up, and wait."
They pressed forward, the silence of the corridor broken only by the crunch of glass under their boots — and the faint, bitter scent of a gunfight gone cold.
The trail only grew clearer the farther they went. Shell casings littered the floor in clusters, some stomped into the dirt and dust. More bullet holes scarred the walls, grouped in frantic bursts. Furniture had been dragged into a makeshift barricade, then smashed apart by something stronger.
Jack crouched at one overturned table, brushing his hand across the gouges carved into the wood. "They fought hard here."
"And moved on in a hurry," Jill said, scanning the hallway. "Rebecca didn't stop unless she had to. Whatever chased them, it wasn't slow."
Jack's Viral Sense simmered faintly at the edges of his skull, but not like before — not the roar of Plant 42 or the Tyrant. Just a lingering heaviness, like the aftertaste of danger. His gut told him Rebecca had survived — for now.
The trail led them to a half-broken door at the end of the corridor. Faint light flickered from inside, the glow of a lantern spilling through cracks in the wood.
Jack raised his hand. "I'll check it."
Jill nodded, taking position behind him, pistol ready.
Jack pushed the door open slowly and slipped inside. The smell hit him first — herbs, gunpowder, and blood. A lantern burned on the far table, casting long shadows across the room. Richard lay slumped against the wall, pale but alive, a crude bandage wrapped tight around his torso.
Next to him, Rebecca knelt, tending to his wounds.
And standing over them was Barry Burton.
The barrel of his massive revolver was already pressed against Jack's temple.
"Don't move," Barry growled, eyes hard, finger taut on the trigger.
Jack froze, hands still raised from pushing the door open. His gaze flicked sideways to the weapon — a .44 Magnum, steady as stone.
Barry's revolver didn't budge. The muzzle pressed cold against Jack's temple, steady as a hammer on an anvil. His eyes, hard under the shadow of his brow, flicked briefly toward Jill before settling back on Jack.
"Talk," Barry growled. "And make it quick. You don't look like S.T.A.R.S., and I've had enough surprises tonight."
Jack kept his hands raised, jaw tight. "Name's Jack. I'm not one of them. You'll have to take my word for it."
Barry's finger flexed against the trigger. "That's not good enough. Umbrella's made plenty of things that looked human."
"Barry, stop!" Jill's voice cut sharp through the room. She stepped in fast, lowering her pistol. "He's been with me this whole time. He's saved my life more than once. If he were Umbrella's, I'd already be dead."
Rebecca's voice broke in, tight but earnest. "Barry, please. Jack's not the enemy. Back on the train, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here. He's rough, but he's not one of them."
For a moment, silence filled the room. Only Richard's shallow breathing and the hiss of the lantern filled the gap. Jack didn't move, didn't blink — just met Barry's glare head-on.
Finally, Barry exhaled through his nose. The revolver dipped, then lowered fully. He holstered it with a heavy click, his jaw still tight.
"If both of you are standing here vouching for him," Barry said, his voice gruff, "I'll take that. For now." His gaze lingered on Jack, sharp and unyielding. "But hear me — you even look like you're turning, I'll put you down myself. No hesitation."
Jack let his hands fall, lips twitching in a humorless smirk. "Fair enough. You wouldn't be the first one to try."
Barry's eyes stayed cold, but there was the faintest flicker of acknowledgment — a soldier's respect for another man who didn't flinch under the barrel.
Jill holstered her pistol and stepped past Jack toward Rebecca. "We don't have time for this. Richard's hurt bad, and Rebecca's done everything she can. We need to move."
Barry nodded once, still watching Jack. "Then we stick together. Four of us stand a chance. But understand this — I protect my own first."
Rebecca gave Jack the faintest nod, a quiet reassurance that she trusted him even if Barry didn't yet.
Spencer Estate – Sublevel Containment
Dark. Always dark.
Chains cut into her wrists. Cold metal. Heavy. She pulled until skin split, until bone ground against shackle. The pain didn't matter. Pain was forever.
A sound above. Footsteps. Voices. Too many voices.
Her head twitched toward the ceiling, neck cracking with the motion. She smelled them. Flesh. Warm. Alive. Her jaw worked, teeth grinding against broken lips.
Mother… where…?
She dragged her chains, iron screaming against stone. Each step was heavy, each breath a rasp pulled through a throat long ruined.
The walls wept dust as she moved. Old stone shuddered. Her body remembered the tunnels, remembered the mansion. She had walked these halls before, when they tried to hide her. When they locked her away. But nothing kept her down. Not fire. Not bullets. Not time.
She staggered toward the stairs. Her chains rattled. Her voice spilled out in a moan that was not language, not anymore — just the echo of a child who never stopped searching.
"...Maaaaa… maaa…"
The sound rose up the stairwell, through the mansion's bones. Toward the living.