[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 549 - Bro, Are You Leaving or Not

The alarms inside the Spencer Mansion screamed in unison. Emergency strobes flooded the corridor in pulsing crimson, turning every shadow into a wound.

A flat electronic voice counted down the self-destruct sequence without feeling, without pause. Each second clawed at the nerves.

"Damn. This place really is going to blow."

Chris had dirt and grime smeared all over him from the floor. He clutched his chest, breathing in short, ragged bursts.

Directly ahead, two Tyrants advanced. Two gray-white mountains of flesh and muscle, each step shaking the marble beneath them.

Jill and Barry were pressed into the corner behind him, guns quiet, selling the look of men and women down to their last round.

Then the oak door at the far end of the corridor exploded inward.

Albert Wesker made his entrance.

He leveled a custom Beretta and put several rounds into the nearest Tyrant.

The bullets sparked off its skin like he'd fired at concrete.

"Get away from my team! You brainless monster!"

Wesker roared it like he meant it.

From a man who spent every waking moment projecting cold, unreadable authority, the line landed with all the subtlety of a community theater curtain call.

40 meters back, buried in the shadow of a ventilation duct, Leon nearly choked trying not to laugh.

This old fox. To make his own death look convincing, he'd reached all the way down to a third-rate Hollywood script.

You want to go out swinging? Fine. I'll give you your moment.

Leon pushed the command through his neural link, direct and wordless, straight to the Tyrant closest to Wesker.

The creature turned. Its long legs ate the distance in three strides, and then it was right there, looming over him.

Wesker didn't dodge. He dropped his guard deliberately, leaned into it, offering his chest to the bone blade jutting from the Tyrant's arm, half a meter of dense, yellowed mutation, dense as horn.

The blade opened him up.

Blood sprayed in a vivid arc and hit the shattered marble floor.

This part wasn't performance. The blow was real, and it landed with everything the Tyrant had.

Wesker left the ground. He hit the wall hard enough to crack plaster, slid down it, and coughed a full mouthful of blood onto the floor.

The two Tyrants paused. Something pulled their attention, outside, beyond the mansion walls, and they lumbered away.

"Captain!"

Chris went full drama queen. He scrambled across the floor on hands and knees and threw both arms around Wesker's shoulders like a man clinging to a lifeboat.

The raw, heaving grief on his face, anyone walking in would have sworn they were watching a son lose his father.

Wesker was fighting just to breathe. The Tyrant's strike had done real damage. He reached up with what strength he had left and wrapped his fingers around Chris's wrist, his voice thin and broken.

"Chris. Listen."

"I'm not going to make it."

"Take the others. Get out of here." A rattling pause. "Bring the truth of this place to the civilians at Fort Benning."

"Don't let Umbrella win..."

The speech had the shape of a hero's last words. Noble. Righteous. Complete.

Wesker had expected Chris to swallow back tears, give a solemn nod, and lead the team out at a sprint. The countdown had under 7 minutes left. No rational person stays behind to hold a dying man's hand.

He had underestimated exactly how much Chris wanted to make him suffer.

Because Chris already knew. He'd known for a while. And every second of it had been building toward this.

He tightened his arm around Wesker's throat, nominally to stop the bleeding, and squeezed until Wesker's vision started to gray out.

"No! Captain! Bravo Team is already gone — I am not leaving you behind!"

"We die together!" Chris screamed it at full volume, right into Wesker's face. Spittle hit the cracked lens of his sunglasses.

The world went dark at the edges.

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