[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 633 - Progress on the Mutant Fruit Tree

The plaza.

Engines roaring.

Diesel fumes biting the air.

Leon stood in front of the lead mine-resistant vehicle and didn't move to board.

His gaze swept the core fighters assembled beside the trucks.

Chris was loading shells into his shotgun. Shawn was wiping down his Magpul rifle. Rick was checking spare magazines and inventorying everyone's reserves. Glenn had even taken the time to smear two streaks of tactical camo paint across his face.

Smith stood apart with his special operations soldiers, every one of them carrying the exact posture of men ready to assault a high-intensity combat zone.

Morale was high.

But Fort Benning was going to be brutal work.

It was a proper military fortress. No matter how rotten the management inside, whatever was sitting in that armory was the real deal. Heavy machine gun emplacements. Armored vehicle main guns. Possibly armed helicopters ready to lift off at a moment's notice.

Bullets don't have eyes. They don't show mercy.

He was superhuman now. His people weren't.

They had the most ordinary flesh and blood. Aside from him, a single.50 caliber round would cut most of them in half at the waist. He'd worked too hard to build this core group to feed them into a meat grinder for nothing.

But they had no choice. They had to fight for it.

Leon raised his hand and pressed it down. Everyone on the plaza stopped what they were doing and turned.

"I know you're all itching to drag Fort Benning's commanders out and bleed them dry."

He looked around at them. "But let's get the ugly truth out first."

"Where we're going isn't some two-bit hideout."

"Those bastards have armored vehicles with fire-control radar. Anti-materiel weapons that can punch through this truck like it's a colander."

"You've all fought and killed your way here alongside me. Aside from me, not one of you has taken the kind of enhancement serum that rewrites your genes."

"If this turns into a real pitched battle and their heavy firepower comes down on us, people will die."

Leon looked at Rick. Then at Shawn.

"Your wives and kids are back at camp. When I take you out there, I'm responsible for bringing you back."

He paused. His tone was completely flat.

"One question. When it comes to a real fight against regular military — are you afraid to die?"

Brutally direct. The entire plaza went quiet for a few seconds.

Chris was the first to spit out his gum.

"Boss, that's a pointless question." He swung the shotgun onto his back. "Every time we've run into those things, haven't we always had our heads on the line? Death doesn't mean a damn thing."

Shawn broke into a grin. "If it weren't for you, Rick and I would've died in Atlanta a long time ago." He racked the bolt. "Who the hell are the soldiers at Fort Benning? They've got guns. So do we."

Rick didn't bother with words. He just nodded, once, firm, final.

Glenn raised his rifle and shook it. Absolutely not staying in the rear.

Even Smith walked over.

"Commander, this is exactly what a special operations detachment is for." He was completely serious. "Plan the tactics right, and their heavy firepower is just that — nothing we can't handle."

Not one of them flinched. Not one of them treated the word "death" as something worth worrying about.

Leon looked at them.

Satisfied.

He didn't need a fearless suicide squad. He needed people who understood the risks and were still willing to flip the table with him. This time, their job was guerrilla action: draw the enemy's attention, fall back when they push, press forward when they retreat.

The real main course was him.

Nobody wanted him walking into that camp. Even if they didn't know it yet, Leon would make sure they remembered it from today onward.

He was about to give the order to move out when the communicator clipped to his collar crackled with static.

Then Marcus's voice came through, thick with barely contained intensity.

"Boss. Come down to Sub-Level Two."

"Now."

"If you're about to go hit something hard, you're going to want what I've got."

Leon's eyebrow lifted slightly.

After all this time, the lab had finally made some noise.

The timing wasn't bad. Coal delivered in a snowstorm.

"Hold position." He turned and walked away without looking back. "Wait for me."

---

Sub-Level Two. The biology lab.

The security doors were considerably more reinforced than before. The access protocols were painstakingly elaborate. Leon walked through the decontamination corridor and pushed open the glass door to the sterile room.

Under the glare of blinding white fluorescent lights, Marcus and William Birkin were hunched over an enormous cultivation tank. Both lab coats were streaked with unidentified liquids. Both men looked like they hadn't slept in days and didn't care.

Leon walked over.

"What's worth pulling me down here right now?"

William stepped aside.

The cultivation tank no longer held revolting severed limbs. Instead, a plant grew inside it, dense, vigorous, almost aggressive. Its roots plunged deep into a growth medium flooded with dark red nutrient fluid. The trunk and branches had taken on a strange ashen-gray color. And at the very top, hanging from the uppermost branches, were a dozen or so red fruits the size of fists.

Leon stared at them. "This is the fruit tree you mentioned?"

"More precisely, a T-Virus symbiotic plant that has undergone complete genetic recompilation." Marcus reached out and ran his fingers along the fruits. "We performed a deep-strip of the T-Virus's rage sequences. Then we used the plant's cell walls for a second pass of filtration and fusion."

He turned to Leon.

"Boss, you've always been looking for a way to let ordinary people undergo large-scale enhancement safely. Direct serum injection kills too many of them. But now — our alternative solution is nearly complete."

He pointed to the red fruits.

"These contain a high concentration of a mildened T-Virus. In theory, once a person eats one, the plant fiber breaks down slowly under stomach acid. The virus integrates into the bloodstream steadily, evenly. No genetic collapse. None."

Marcus's expression was barely contained.

"For an ordinary person, bone density increases. Muscle fiber becomes significantly tougher. Reaction speed improves by at least 2-fold."

William added from beside him. "And because the virus has been mildened, there is no side effect of losing your mind and mutating into a monster."

"Essentially a perfect physical enhancement pill," Marcus said.

"Permanent."

Leon's eyes narrowed.

2-fold reaction speed increase. Higher bone density.

This was exactly what he wanted.

With this, he could build a super army that walked sideways across the wasteland. Even if Fort Benning's soldiers had armored vehicles, faced with a group of monsters who could flip a pickup with their bare hands and move fast enough to dodge stray rounds, they would still be torn apart.

"Confirmed no side effects?" Leon asked.

Marcus and William exchanged a glance.

"The data model simulations show no problems. And you've eaten one before." Marcus swallowed. "But you're a variable. We haven't conducted live human testing yet. These are the first fruits, they only just ripened and dropped a moment ago."

William picked up a pair of tongs from the nearby tray and lifted one of the freshly harvested red fruits.

"Boss." Marcus fixed his eyes on Leon. "We need volunteers."

He paused.

"Has to be living people. If a Walker eats this, it only accelerates decomposition."

➤ Next: Experiments and Enhancement