[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 766 - The Organized Runner Horde

The Red Queen's holographic projection hung suspended in the server room, bathing everything in a quiet red glow.

Alice stood at the control console, staring at the little girl in the red dress with an unreadable expression.

Simon read the room. He grabbed Kaya by the arm and slipped out without a word.

Rick and Shawn had already been gone for a while.

Only Leon and Alice remained, and the Red Queen.

Alice was quiet for a long time.

"She looks exactly like I did when I was little," she finally said. "Or rather... I look exactly like her."

She reached out. Her fingertips passed through the holographic projection and closed around nothing.

"Marcus created me. He gave me all of Alicia's memories. I know that — I know he thinks of me as his daughter now."

"But those childhood memories. Parents, school, all of it."

"Fake."

"Every single one of them belongs to Alicia."

She turned to look at Leon, and what was in her eyes wasn't grief exactly. It was something older and quieter than grief.

"Sometimes I don't even know what I am."

"A container? A shadow? A spare part someone can swap out whenever they want?"

Leon crossed the room in three strides, grabbed her by the wrist, and pulled her into his arms.

"You're none of those things." His voice left no room for argument. "You're Alice. That's it."

"I have never once looked at you and seen someone's copy."

"You have your own thoughts. Your flesh. The blood in your veins." He held her tighter. "All of it is yours."

He cupped her face in both hands and made her look at him.

"The person standing in front of me right now is a complete, whole, independent human being."

"Alicia is Alicia. You are you."

Right.

She was Alice.

Why the hell should she spend another second living in someone else's shadow?

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, no hesitation, no preamble.

"You're right," she said against his mouth.

"I'm Alice."

"Alicia can go to hell."

The holographic projection flickered.

"Do you require me to disable my visual module?" the Red Queen's flat mechanical voice inquired.

"Shut up. Power off." Leon didn't even turn his head.

The server room lights died.

......

A few hours later.

Alice leaned against Leon's chest, breathing slowly, a thin sheen of sweat across her forehead.

Leon raised his hand.

His fingertip split open his own wrist without hesitation.

Blood welled up. Something moved beneath the skin — a writhing of granulated flesh, and a dark-red G-Embryo pushed its way out.

It sat in his palm like a knot of living tissue, pulsing faintly.

"What is that?" Alice studied it. Not fear. Just curiosity.

"Something that'll make you stronger."

Leon pressed the G-Embryo against a fresh wound on Alice's shoulder, one he had made moments before.

The instant it touched blood, it burrowed in.

Alice let out a muffled sound. Her whole body went rigid.

A vast, crushing wave of power detonated somewhere deep inside her.

Her muscle density. Her neural response speed. Both climbing at a rate that made no sense.

Leon held her through it.

Once the G-Embryo finished maturing, Alice would be like Claire, a perfect G-Creature, zero mutation risk. And with Telekinesis on top of that, her combat capability would reach a level that was frankly absurd.

He stared at the ceiling and turned it over in his mind.

The other women back at camp. Ada. Jill. Should he put them all through the same process?

The G-Virus enhancement was brutal in the best possible way. Terrifying regeneration. Massive physical upgrades. And it kept the capacity for further evolution intact.

Every increment of strength was another margin of survival.

It was an insane idea. It was also extremely hard to argue against.

He'd need to find the right moments. Give each of them their "injection" when the time was right.

The next day.

Morning sun fell across the Atlanta prison's towering walls, the vines catching the light in uneven patches.

Alice walked out through the camp gate behind Leon, dressed in a close-fitting tactical suit.

She felt incredible.

Her footsteps were nearly soundless. She could hear a leaf drop a hundred meters out. The power coiled inside her felt like it had no floor, no ceiling, just more, all the way down.

"Leon." She picked up her pace and fell in beside him, taking his arm. "My Telekinesis has been stuck lately."

"I can shove a truck without breaking a sweat, but the fine control isn't there. And every time I use it over a wide area, it wipes me out."

Leon glanced at the sky. Clear, no wind to speak of.

"Good timing," he said. "I'll show you a few things."

They walked out to an open stretch of ground beyond the camp perimeter.

Leon stopped beside a truck loaded with the armored panels Jim had fabricated. He reached in, pulled out a heavy steel plate, and dropped it flat on the ground.

"Stand on it." He pointed.

Alice gave him a slightly puzzled look, but stepped on.

Leon stepped up behind her. His arms settled around her waist.

"Let me show you what Telekinesis actually looks like when it's used right."

He closed his eyes.

An invisible ripple of psychic force spread outward from his mind, calm and even, like pressure filling a room.

He didn't reach for anything in the distance.

He simply wrapped his Telekinesis around the steel plate beneath their feet, uniform and complete.

"Up."

The word came out barely above a breath.

Hmmm.

The plate lifted.

One meter. Two. Five.

Alice watched the ground fall away and instinctively seized Leon's wandering hand.

"Are we... flying?"

"Technically the plate is flying. We're just passengers."

Leon kept them steady, skimming through the air a dozen meters up. The wind came through their hair. The treeline dropped into a panorama.

"Telekinesis can't act on your own body directly. But that's not the only way to think about the problem." His voice was calm, almost conversational. "Wrap it around a platform. Apply a continuous upward force. As long as your psychic output holds, you can ride it through the sky like a skateboard."

He banked sharply. The plate carved a clean arc through the air.

"Better than a helicopter. And no noise."

Alice's eyes went wide.

She had used Telekinesis as a battering ram her entire life. It had genuinely never occurred to her that it could be a vehicle.

The whole framework of what she thought she knew had just caved in.

Leon completed a full circuit and set them down smooth as glass.

"One more thing."

He looked toward a dead tree standing alone a short distance away.

"Compress the force."

"Don't push that tree. Cut it."

Alice exhaled slowly. She locked her eyes on the tree.

The veins in her forehead rose. The invisible force tore out of her.

BANG!

The dead tree exploded sideways, splinters ripping through the air.

Leon shook his head.

"Watch."

No windup. No visible effort.

He looked at a large boulder beside the tree.

There was a sound, barely a sound, really. A dry SHIK.

The boulder split down the middle.

The upper half slid off and hit the ground.

The cut was flawless. Smooth as a mirror. The kind of clean you'd expect from a surgical laser.

"Compress it to a line. Or a single point." He looked back at her. "Infinitely more lethal than a wide-area push, and the cost is almost nothing."

Alice stared at the two halves of that rock and felt the air leave her lungs slowly.

A door she hadn't known existed had just opened.

If she could get this down, actually get it down, her combat strength would easily double.

She was still staring, already calculating, when the tactical radio on Leon's chest crackled to life.

Simon. And he sounded tense.

"Leon! Come in!"

Leon pressed transmit. His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Talk."

"Emergency distress signal from the Alexandria Safe-Zone — coming out of Washington!"

There was something close to panic underneath Simon's controlled delivery.

"Their contact says a massive organized runner horde appeared around the community perimeter without any warning. Numbers over 50,000. They're barely holding the line."

A pause.

"And..." Simon swallowed. "They said there are people at the rear of the horde. Several of them, wearing black trench coats. The runners aren't touching them."

His voice dropped.

"They're following orders."

➤ Next: Victor's Humiliation