[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 462 - Morphology Two — Clash
"Careful. This thing is incredibly precious."
"We'll still need to check whether it can be artificially propagated when we get back!"
Rebekah knelt on the ground.
She held a small, delicate trowel and worked it carefully through the soil around the Sunlight Staircase.
Glenn and T-Dog flanked her on either side, each cradling a specialized incubation container, ready to take over the moment she was done.
"Don't worry, Rebekah."
There was a rare gravity in Glenn's voice.
"I guarantee it won't lose a single hair."
Merle laughed.
"It's a flower. Where exactly would the hair come from?"
The rest of the group formed a ring around them, guns facing outward, watching every shadow in the greenhouse. The pile of shredded monster flesh still lay in the center, black ichor pooling and spreading across the floor, but no one dared relax.
Leon leaned against a stone pillar. He wasn't looking at Rebekah. He wasn't looking at the pile of minced flesh.
His gaze moved slowly across the unremarkable corners of the greenhouse.
Ventilation ducts. Drainage channels. Cracks in the walls.
He stopped.
The flashlight beam locked onto a fissure at the base of the wall.
A thread of black liquid was seeping out through that nearly invisible gap. Silent. Steady. Bleeding into the shadows on the floor.
"Leon?"
Rick had noticed.
Leon didn't answer. He raised one hand — a quiet signal — and walked toward the crack. Crouched down.
Everyone's eyes followed him.
The black thread was still flowing. Like a single drop of ink that never stopped falling.
Then a second thread appeared. A third.
From every corner of the greenhouse, from cracks and crevices they hadn't even registered before, the same black liquid began seeping out. Countless thin streams, slithering across the floor like tiny black snakes, converging, flowing toward the center of the greenhouse, toward the heap of dead flesh.
"Oh, fuck."
Merle had figured it out.
"This goddamn thing still isn't over?"
"It's not that it isn't over."
Rebekah looked up. The color had drained entirely from her face.
"It's that it's only just begun."
She pointed at the black rivulets surging in from every direction.
The entire Cultivation Facility. Every single leech. They were all coming.
The ground began to tremble.
Not an aftershock from the explosion. Something subtler. Denser. A vibration that hummed through the soles of their boots like thousands upon thousands of insects crawling through the earth beneath them.
"Rebekah, hurry!"
Rick shouted.
Rebekah's hands were already moving faster. She dug up the entire Sunlight Staircase in one motion, roots and soil and all, and transferred it into the incubation container in Glenn's hands with the steadiest grip she could manage.
"Done!"
"Move!"
Leon roared.
But it was already too late.
BOOM!
The heap of shredded flesh at the center of the greenhouse erupted upward as if an invisible bomb had detonated beneath it. The black liquid streaming in from every direction found its destination and surged into that rising mass with savage urgency, feeding it, filling it.
It was growing.
Visibly. Rapidly. Right in front of them.
"Open fire!"
Shane bellowed, his automatic rifle already spitting.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
Everyone opened up at the same moment. Bullets hammered into the swelling black mountain of flesh in a continuous, unbroken rain.
It did nothing.
The mass absorbed the rounds like a sponge swallowing water. It devoured the incoming leeches faster, grew faster, pulsed with a horrible, accelerating vitality.
It was reshaping itself.
Tentacles burst from the surface, thrashed wildly through the air, then snapped back and dragged more leeches into the core. The shape shifted in lurching, grotesque cycles. Legs pushed out and were reabsorbed. A head formed and was swallowed by new flesh before it could fully solidify. It looked like a failed creation fumbling through agony, searching desperately for its final form.
The entire underground space shuddered under its mindless impacts. The ceiling fractured in wide panels, and glass rained down in sheets.
"Merle! T-Dog! Light it up!"
Two high-powered flashlight beams snapped back on and trained themselves on the mass.
"ROAAARRR!"
A shriek tore out from the core of the thing. Sharper than anything before it. More agonized.
The light was working.
Barely.
The mass staggered for a moment, then resumed expanding at an even greater speed. The beams only scattered blinding glare off its surface now. Whatever damage the light had done before, it couldn't reach the same depth anymore.
"Shit! Why won't this thing just die!"
Shane cursed through gritted teeth.
Then it stopped growing.
It stood in the center of the greenhouse and filled it, a black peak of flesh that nearly scraped the shattered dome overhead. At least 5 times the size of what they had fought before.
It was no longer humanoid.
Its lower body was a mass of thick, segmented limbs, like the legs of a monstrous spider, bracing the enormous weight above. Its upper body sprouted 4 arms: 2 were massive, rigid appendages, and the other 2 were long black tentacles that could stretch and contract at will. At the very top sat a disproportionately enormous head.
No eyes. No nose.
Just a mouth. A circular, yawning mouth that consumed nearly half its skull, lined with rows of spiraling fangs that wound inward like a meat grinder leading straight to hell.
It looked down at them.
Like a god surveying insects.
"ROAAARRR!"
It opened that mouth and roared, announcing its arrival to the world. The concussive force of it sent Shane and Abraham, the two nearest, crashing flat to the ground.
"Rat Boss! The rocket launcher, now!"
Leon thrust out his hand.
Rat Boss had already unstrapped the launcher from his back and was moving to pass it over.
One tentacle came down.
Almost too fast to track.
The target wasn't Leon.
It was Rat Boss.
The thing knew what the RPG could do to it.
Rat Boss had no time to react.
CRACK!
The tentacle coiled around him and the launcher both and yanked them into the air.
"Fuck!"
Leon raised his gun and opened up on the tentacle immediately.
"Let him go!"
Abraham hauled himself off the ground, eyes already bloodshot, and charged forward with his rifle up.
The monster gave the tentacle one lazy shake.
Abraham flew like he'd been hit by a truck doing highway speed. He rolled across the concrete floor 3 times before stopping.
"Stay back!"
Rick grabbed Merle by the arm before he could charge in after Abraham.
"It's useless!"
The monster lifted Rat Boss slowly toward that enormous, spiraling mouth.
It seemed in no hurry.
It seemed to be enjoying this.
Rat Boss fought against the grip with everything he had. His strength meant nothing.
He wailed.
"Boss, save me!"
"Hey." Leon's voice broke through the chaos, calm and almost conversational.
He was looking up at the monster. Then he glanced at Rat Boss, dangling in midair and white with terror. Then back up at the monster.
He lowered his gun.
He stood in the open, tilted his head back, and looked the thing dead in its eyeless face.
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
The monster went still. That massive, featureless head swiveled toward Leon.
Leon reached into his tool bag and drew the fire axe in a slow, unhurried motion.
He looked up at it.
Then he crooked one finger.
"Let's play a game."
"One on one."
➤ Next: Come, Single Combat