[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 547 - Curtain Up

Wesker watched the surveillance feeds go dark one by one, the vein on his forehead pulsing at a rate that would've impressed a rabbit in heat.

Plant 42, gone.

Neptune, belly-up.

The great serpent, not so much as a whole corpse left behind.

His pride and joy, the Arklay Mansion, Umbrella Corporation's crystallized years of painstaking research, had been thoroughly dismantled by Alpha Team into something resembling a Syrian war zone.

These bastards were pulling nothing but man-portable heavy firepower out of their bags.

How was he supposed to collect combat data?

There was nothing left to collect.

Time to wrap this up.

Wesker planted both hands on the control console.

He couldn't drag this out any longer. If he kept letting them tear the place apart, forget combat data, they might actually stumble onto something they shouldn't.

His fingers flew across the keyboard, hammering in a long string of highest-level authorization codes.

Sub-level three.

Two massive cylindrical cultivation tanks let out a long hiss of depressurization. The green fluid drained fast. The tank doors slid open.

Two Tyrants in dark olive-green restraint suits, each standing nearly two and a half meters tall, stepped out of their chambers.

T-002 Tyrant.

The last card Wesker had left to play. His strongest.

These were also the last two Tyrants in the mansion. The others were already gone.

Leon knew that.

"Go. Clean out those rats." Wesker spoke into the microphone.

Down in the underground corridor, the two Tyrants had barely taken their first steps when the ventilation duct louvers directly overhead swung open.

Leon dropped onto the metal grating floor, slick with standing water, without making a single unnecessary sound.

Ada landed right behind him, grapple gun primed.

"Dead end, big guys." Leon rolled his neck. His joints cracked.

The Tyrants' visual systems locked onto the intruders.

No wasted words. The left Tyrant raised its massive mutated claw and brought it crashing down toward Leon's face, dragging a gust of displaced air with it.

That kind of force would have caved a normal person's skull in like a watermelon hit by a sledgehammer.

Leon didn't move.

Then he did, one sharp side-step, left hand snapping to the Tyrant's wrist, catching and pressing down, redirecting the momentum in one smooth motion. His right hand shot forward immediately after, five fingers pressed flat and rigid as a blade, and drove straight into the Tyrant's thick neck.

The flesh split open.

Several jet-black Mutant Leeches burrowed through Leon's fingertips and into the Tyrant's body.

A specialized control strain, mixed with Leon's own blood.

The Tyrant's massive frame seized. A low, rattling groan rose from its throat. In those eyes, eyes that had been loaded with nothing but kill commands, a strange blood-red color spread fast, swallowing the original pupils whole.

Under 3 seconds.

The rampaging beast went quiet. It straightened slowly, then lowered its head toward Leon.

The second Tyrant moved to intervene. Leon dealt with it the exact same way.

Ada holstered her grapple gun and looked at the two monsters that had just been tamed in the span of a breath. One eyebrow went up.

"That trick of yours is more effective than anything Umbrella's engineers spent months trying to build."

"Direct physical bonding has always been simple and brutal." Leon patted the Tyrant's bare head. "Go. Head up to the second floor and play with those guys carrying the RPG Rocket Launchers." He paused. "Just remember — don't actually go for the kill."

---

Up on the second floor of the Spencer Mansion, Chris Redfield had just loaded a fresh rocket into the launcher and was seriously considering whether to blow open the very solid-looking iron door at the end of the corridor.

The backup radio clipped to his Tactical Vest crackled.

Leon's voice came through.

"Boys, dial back the firepower from here on out."

"Old man Wesker is about to lose his mind. He just sent you two big toys, but I've already had a talk with those two big guys."

"You need to play along. Put on a show."

Chris paused for half a second, then pressed the talk key.

"A show? How? My barrel's already hot."

"Pretend you can't win." A dry note of amusement in Leon's voice. "You've been steamrolling everything this whole way. Wesker's combat data is sitting at zero."

"He won't move on to the next phase until he gets data he's happy with."

"When the Tyrants come up, put the heavy weapons away. Make a show of it with your sidearms. Scream when you're supposed to scream, fall back when you're supposed to fall back, and at the end everyone slips out through the surveillance blind spots. Clear?"

Barry Burton heard every word of it.

He looked down at the grenade launcher in his hands, the one that practically radiated raw dominance just sitting there, and his entire face announced his feelings on the matter.

"Good Lord. I was just hitting my stride."

"Should've brought less ammo."

Jill Valentine was already moving. Assault rifle swung behind her back, Beretta M92F drawn from her thigh holster.

"Leon's given the word. Everyone be professional."

"Right now, we are desperate cops on the verge of collapse. Out of ammo. Completely cornered."

"Alright, Jill. Got it."

The words barely left his mouth.

BOOM!

The wall on the right side of the corridor exploded inward. Bricks flew. Dust roared through the air.

The two Tyrants stepped through the hole they'd just made, and the pressure of their presence filled the corridor like a physical weight.

"Holy shit, what the hell are those things?!"

"We're done — we're out of ammo!"

"Open fire! Open fire!" Chris bellowed at full volume, squeezing every drop of manufactured terror he could into his voice.

All 4 of them leveled their sidearms and yanked the triggers as fast as they could.

The 9mm rounds hit the Tyrants' restraint suits and left nothing, not even a white scuff mark. Every single one bounced off.

Following Leon's instructions, the Tyrants advanced in long, heavy strides. One raised its palm in a swing that looked absolutely devastating, and at the moment of contact, pulled back eight-tenths of its actual force.

The palm connected with Chris Redfield's ballistic vest.

Chris felt a dull thud in his chest. He rode the momentum, let it carry him, and went flying backward several meters before smashing headlong through an ornate European-style display cabinet.

Shattered glass and splinters of wood scattered across the floor.

"Aaagh—!"

Chris rolled twice across the ground, clutched his chest, and let out a hoarse, absolutely full-throated wail.

"My ribs! It snapped my ribs in one hit! This monster is terrifying!"

Joseph Frost's eye twitched.

The acting was way too over the top.

➤ Next: Preparing the Faked Death