[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 519 - Frontal Slaughter — Clash
T-01 Tyrant.
Over two and a half meters tall.
This thing couldn't be called human. It was a humanoid bioweapon, and nothing else.
Every inch of muscle had a dead-gray, stone-like texture, thick veins coiling across its body like tree roots pressing up through cracked earth.
Bald head.
No lips. Gums completely exposed, drool sliding down its razor-sharp teeth in a steady drip.
The right hand was the worst of it.
Fully mutated. A massive claw, each fingernail longer than a tactical knife.
Pressure.
Pure, unreasonable, suffocating pressure.
It stood motionless, and the air around it was already thick with the stench of blood and formalin.
The Tyrant's murky, pupil-less eyes swiveled slowly, locking onto Leon in the center of the hall.
That must be the little runt.
ROAR.
Another bellowing roar.
It surged forward on its thick legs, charging in a straight line like a heavy Armored Vehicle with no brakes.
Every step made the floor jump.
Leon didn't move.
He watched the gray-white monster closing the distance, and instead of stepping back, he stepped forward to meet it.
The T-Virus inside him was boiling. Roaring.
The Leech Queen's derivative body writhed madly across his skin, rushing to both arms, converging and thickening until it formed a dense layer of black chitinous armor.
"Come on." A low growl.
The Tyrant closed in. Its massive right claw screamed through the air from above, driving straight down toward Leon's skull.
A clean hit from that would reduce a car to scrap.
Leon went forward instead of back.
He drove power from his waist and core, his spine cracking in a rapid series, force transmitting from his thighs up through his waist and surging through his shoulder into his right arm.
His fist, wrapped in thick leech armor, rose to meet the claw.
BOOM!
Large fist against small fist. No technique. No flourish. Just raw collision in midair.
The marble floor beneath Leon's feet spiderwebbed in every direction.
His expression went tight.
If the T-Virus hadn't spent the last months rebuilding his bones and flesh, that single blow would have pressed him flat into the ground.
The Tyrant was exactly what its reputation promised. Umbrella Corporation's flagship bioweapon, and it earned every bit of that title.
But that massive body had been stopped cold by one punch.
A flicker of something human crossed its face. Bewilderment.
It had probably never seen a carbon-based lifeform this small eat a direct hit from it and still be standing.
Leon's arm was humming with pain, deep and electric, spreading from knuckle to shoulder.
You're strong.
So what?
So was he.
He pulled his right hand back, planted his left foot forward, and stepped into the Tyrant's space, chest to chest. This thing had raw power, but its attack speed couldn't match his. And right now its claw hadn't even retracted yet.
Leon threw the left hook.
Vicious. Compact. It connected flush with the Tyrant's gray-white jaw.
A deep, meaty thud.
The two-and-a-half-meter frame rocked backward. Several sharp teeth tumbled through the air trailing black blood.
"That all you've got?"
Leon shook out his fist and pressed forward.
He directed the Leeches to his right hand, forming a half-meter black spike at the tip.
The Tyrant was still off-balance, still leaning back. He drove the spike straight for its exposed throat.
The T-01's weak point was its heart, which was exposed on its back. The T-02 had the same flaw, except the heart sat on the front. The reason the T-03 wore a bulletproof trench coat was specifically to cover that vulnerability.
This one was locked in a frontal fight. The heart was out of reach.
Fine. He'd kill it face to face.
The Tyrant was an ultimate weapon. Its reflexes proved it.
The left hand lashed out in a wild sweep, the back of it catching Leon across the chest.
The impact threw him back 7 or 8 steps. His spine hit a load-bearing pillar and he finally stopped.
The Leeches on his back took the worst of it, a wide patch crushed flat, but fresh ones flooded in to replace them almost instantly, bleeding off most of the force.
He pressed a hand to his chest. Spat a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva.
Hell yes.
This was fighting. Fist against claw, meat against meat. It was worlds better than mowing down those soft-legged mercenaries with a rifle.
The Tyrant found its footing. Fully enraged now.
Its mutated right claw raked the floor in a frenzy, marble parting like tofu.
It roared again, but this time it didn't charge in a straight line. It raised the claw and actually lunged.
Leon's blood was up.
He drove through his legs and charged straight back at it.
The hall filled with nothing else after that. Just the Tyrant's deafening roars and the dull, heavy crack of fist meeting claw, over and over.
Umbrella Corporation's pride. The T-01 Tyrant.
Today it had met a man more monstrous than itself.
---
Outside the sewage outlet behind the mansion.
Ada pushed the cart carrying William onto the solid mud of the riverbank and stopped.
She breathed deep, pulling clean air into her lungs, pushing out the stench.
Rebecca made it 2 steps onto the grass and sat down hard, both hands on her knees, just breathing.
From somewhere behind them, deep in the fog-covered buildings, came the sounds of massive impacts.
The ground trembled faintly with each one.
Ada turned back and looked at the buildings swallowed by thick fog.
She knew exactly what she was listening to.
"Don't get yourself killed," she thought.
Leon's reply came fast, his voice carrying the slight rasp of exertion, and underneath it, something that sounded almost like satisfaction.
"I'm not dying."
"This big guy can take a hit. Good practice."
That arrogant tone.
Ada let out a quiet breath. The tension she'd been carrying in her shoulders since the basement finally let go.
She glanced at William, still unconscious on the cart. Then at the mountain road stretching away into the dark.
"Move. Follow the river downstream. He's buying us time. Don't waste it."
Rebecca got to her feet and took a side of the cart.
Two women, one unconscious prize between them, slipped quickly into the night of the Arklay Mountains.
Inside the mansion hall, the fight that belonged to Leon alone had only just begun.
➤ Next: Kill