[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 493 - A More Lenient Mutant Link

Leon shoved the manhole cover aside and climbed back to the surface.

A squirming mass followed, squeezing up through the gaps in the ladder rungs behind him.

Marcus reassembled his humanoid shell, leeches knitting back into their familiar man-shaped arrangement, his entire body radiating the signature fermented reek of the sewers.

"Honestly, walking around in public looking like that, I'd have to think about charging you a city beautification fee."

Leon stepped half a pace to the side, expression sour.

He thought about the sewer leeches he'd just been handling. A shower was no longer optional.

Marcus shook himself off. A few leeches dropped to the ground, then immediately twisted and wriggled their way back to rejoin the rest.

"Appearance is a low-level aesthetic concern for carbon-based lifeforms."

"From a purely biological standpoint, this leech-composed body of mine runs at ninety-nine percent resource efficiency. My sons will eat almost anything, which means my survival rate is extremely high."

Leon had no interest in the biology lecture. His mind was still working over the feel of that tentacle in the sewer.

"I have a question." He turned and looked directly at Marcus.

"Those low-level leeches performed well enough in actual combat. But their power ceiling is hard-capped."

"Their combat strength is tied to yours, isn't it? To the Leech Queen herself."

The facial muscles Marcus had assembled from leeches rippled and shifted into something approximating a raised eyebrow.

"Perceptive."

"A leech colony is essentially a hive network. My core functions are distribution and reproduction."

"I determine the ceiling for every worker in the swarm."

"The stronger I am, the stronger the individuals I propagate."

"When the population hits the carrying capacity of the surrounding environment, they turn on each other. The strong devour the weak, and ultimately it all feeds back into me."

"As long as there's food, we run an internal cycle. We keep getting stronger. The evolution is open-ended."

"'Open-ended' is a slight exaggeration, technically, but I genuinely haven't hit a ceiling yet."

"If you found them underwhelming, the reason is simple: I took several RPG hits recently. I'm running on low right now."

Leon rubbed his chin.

"So if you, the Leech Queen, get stronger, the derived units under my control get stronger too?"

Marcus let out a raspy laugh. On that patchwork face, something surfaced that had no business being there: a sly, calculating amusement. The look of someone who had lived long enough to find almost everything funny.

"Now that is interesting."

"Not long ago you were ready to burn me to ash with a flamethrower. And here you are, thinking through ways to help me grow stronger."

He leaned in a little closer, voice thick with mockery.

"What, not worried that once my power swells I might start pulling a few moves? You're really out here dancing right on the edge of feeding the tiger."

Then Marcus went quiet. He knew exactly where they both stood.

But that easy, unguarded exchange had given Leon something new to think about.

When Candice was first converted, she'd kept her mind intact. But facing him, there was always something else underneath it: an absolute obedience written into her at the genetic level. She suppressed her own personality, instinctively, without being asked.

One-way. Total. No room for anything else.

Marcus was different.

This old fox had his core controlled, and he was still pulling off this level of independence. Still cracking jokes. Still needling.

What did that mean?

It meant the T-Virus fusion had changed something fundamental about how his conversion ability worked. Not crude brain override anymore. Something more flexible. A deeper kind of connection.

He had put Marcus in chains, and instead of killing the old monster's independent mind or his scientific drive, it had given him more room to breathe.

Network administrator privileges. Root access, not remote control. A leash with enough slack that the animal on the other end could still think.

That was infinitely more useful than a kennel full of puppets.

The two of them were still standing over the open manhole, running back through the experiment, when the sound carried in from somewhere down the yard.

Scratch. Scratch scratch scratch.

Claws on concrete, fast and urgent.

Bruce, Sam, Max. The three most feared dogs in the prison came tearing around the corner at full sprint.

These three had the run of the place. Even T-Dog gave them a wide berth when he saw them coming. Prison royalty, no contest.

Bruce hit the front, skidded to a stop right in front of Leon, and immediately went into his usual routine: tail working up to a wag, angling for approval from the one person in the facility who outranked him.

Then his eyes tracked down along Leon's pant leg.

And landed on the dark, writhing mass beside him.

All three dogs locked up at exactly the same moment.

➤ Next: Alicia? — Face to Face