"Hey, Rufus, when you get Shinra back from Umbrella, you ought to put your headquarters in Turkey," Cait Sith said.
Rufus turned around in his airplane seat and looked back at Cait Sith. "Why's that?"
"Because there's lots of Turks there!" Cait Sith collapsed in hysterics. Rufus gave him a steady look, then turned around again, not amused.
Cait Sith looked around, bored. Barret, sitting on his left, was asleep, and Aerith was reading the in-flight magazine. C.S. reached in the pocket of Rufus's seat, in front of him, and removed the vomit bag. Then he leaned back to talk to Vincent, who was doing a crossword puzzle. "Vince, can I borrow your pencil for a moment?" he asked. Vincent silently handed him the pencil.
Cait Sith scribbled a face on the vomit bag, then tossed the pencil back. He slipped his hand into the bag, making a puppet, and tapped Rufus's seat. Rufus turned. "Hi, Rufus," he said in a funny voice, opening and closing the puppet's mouth. "How are you today?"
Rufus sighed and looked away. "He just doesn't have any respect for great art," Cait Sith muttered.
Across the aisle from Aerith were seated two lanky green-suited blonde guys -- the flunkies from the Scorpion Army. One of them suddenly stood up and announced, "I'm hijacking this plane!" He then waited expectantly.
Heads turned to stare at him. The flunky returned the stares, apparently waiting. After about a minute of silence, his friend stood up and added, "Yeah! We're hijacking this plane!"
The first flunky produced a small slip of paper and looked at it. "Okay, next we're supposed to..." He squinted and tried to make out his boss's handwriting. "...to... show our weasel."
"Weasel?" the second flunky said hesitantly. "We were supposed to bring a weasel?"
"I had a pet weasel when I was a kid," the first one said. "But I forgot to feed it and it... it died." Tears came to his eyes. "I would have taken better care of it if I'd known I'd need it now!" The flunky started bawling.
At this point, the pilot and the rest of the crew arrived in the main section of the plane. "Do they have a weapon?" the captain asked, concerned.
The first flunky, still in tears, stared at the paper again. "Oh, weapon," he said, stifling a sob. "That's what it says. We're supposed to show our weapon." He looked up at the captain. "Thanks, Mister."
"Uh... we don't have one of those either," the second flunky said.
Rufus's party was cracking up, except for the ever-serious Vincent. "Let's get these guys," he muttered.
"No!" Cait Sith said. "This is hilarious!"
The first flunky was checking the boss's instructions again. "Moldy Damascus," he announced.
"What?" the captain said.
"What's Moldy Damascus?" the second flunky asked the first.
"Dunno," the first flunky said.
Aerith took the piece of paper from the first flunky and looked at it. "Oh, this says 'make demands'," she said, handing it back.
"Oh. Yeah," the first flunky said. He turned to his buddy. "What were our demands?"
"Demands? Uhhhhh..." The pair stared stupidly at each other.
"Why did you help them?" Sephiroth demanded of Aerith. Aerith just shrugged.
The second flunkie had a sudden inspiration. "Oh yeah! We want you to take us to Santa's Workshop at the North Pole so we can prove to the boss that Santa Claus does exist!"
"Don't be stupid," the co-pilot said. "Santa Claus doesn't exist."
"Now don't you start it!" the first flunky waved an angry finger at the co-pilot. "Santa is too real! Now take us to Santa's Workshop."
"I can't take you there," the co-pilot said. "There's no such place."
The second flunky grabbed the in-flight magazine from Aerith's seat, opened it to the map, and handed it to the captain. He pointed at the North Pole. "Here, draw in Santa's Workshop." The captain dubiously consented and put a dot labeled "Santa's Workshop" on the map.
The flunky waved the magazine. "See! The captain put it on the map! It must exist!"
"No it doesn't," the co-pilot said. "Now sit down so we can land the plane."
The two flunkies looked at each other. "Now what do we do?" the second one asked.
"RUN!" the other replied.
The second flunky threw open the window shade and starting kicking the window. "Hey!" the captain yelled. "What the hell are you doing?" With a crash, the window shattered. The two flunkies were instantly sucked through the window by the air pressure and landed on the wing.
The passengers on the plane struggled to fight the vaccuum, grabbing onto seats to resist the intense force. All effors proved futile, however, and the crew, passengers, and Rufus's party were sucked one by one through the window and out into the air. "Hang onto your drawers and don't piss in 'em; we're going down!" Cid yelled as they hurtled out into space.
* * *
Red XIII's airplane pet carrier slid out of the back of the plane as it plummeted into an L-shaped lake somewhere in northwestern Romania. The carrier rose quickly to the surface and floated around in small circles. Red XIII called out for help, but the rest of the plane's passengers were nowhere to be seen.
A hatchet floated by the pet carrier. Red XIII managed to fish it out of the water with his paw and used it to jimmy the lock of the carrier. He nudged the door open, swam out, and made for dry land.
When he arrived, he shook himself dry and looked around to see if he could find any other useful items. Unfortunately, almost everything had been destroyed by the impact. "Lovely," Red XIII said. "I'm stranded out in the wilderness with only a hatchet."
Red was suddenly lifted into the air by a pair of rough hands. Two burly humans had snuck up behind one. They were both wearing Umbrella security uniforms. "Put me down!" Red shouted.
"Did you hear that?" the one holding Red said to his friend. "It talks!"
The second Umbrella employee produced a CD player and reverently popped in a copy of Breath of Fire 3, holding the CD extremely carefully to avoid marring it. Then he started playing the data track. The player emitted a high-pitched squeal. Red XIII's sensitive ears were particularly sensitive to the noise, and his head started throbbing with pain. He thrashed about, trying to break free, until the awful sound rendered him unconscious.
* * *
Aerith, Rufus, Barret, Vincent, Cait Sith, Cid, and Sephiroth stood at the base of a steep cliff overlooking a dark lake. A path wound up the cliff to a huge black twin-towered castle at the top of the cliff. As they gazed up at it, lightning flashed. "Why does it always have to be a #!$*% mansion?" Cid complained.
The fall of the plane's passengers had been mostly cushioned by a conviently-placed forest. Rufus's party had left the crew and passengers in a clearing and set out to find shelter, and also to locate the missing Red XIII.
They soon reached the top of the cliff, and with it the castle's front door. Next to the door was a large white stone, on which was affixed a white-and-red pinwheel and the word "UMBRELLA". In smaller letters below, it read "Umbrella HQ is a Happy Place!" "Seems we found what we were looking for," Vincent said, gazing at the sign.
Silently, Rufus yanked off the letters the made up the word "Happy", leaving "Umbrella HQ is a Place!" Then, after a moments' reflection, he shot a hole through the center of the pinwheel.
"Speak up, we can't hear you," Aerith said.
"Huh?" Rufus turned to look at her. "I didn't say anything."
They looked nervously at each other. Then a figure appeared around a bend in the path. It was a young man with long, white, hair, a black suit, and a red-and-black cape. From a distance, he bore more than a passing resemblance to Sephiroth. A small purple demon hovered around him. When he reached the top of the path, he stopped and looked at the vandalized Umbrella sign. "Well, well," he said. "This is an interesting turn of events."
"Excuse me," Aerith said. "Who are you?"
The man turned. "Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes, or you can call me Alucard. And you are?"
Cait Sith stepped forward. "I am Cait, Cat Lord of the Sith," he announced through his megaphone.
"Rufus Shinra," Rufus introduced himself. He smiled sadly. "Former President of Shinra, until these bastards bought us. These are Barret Wallace, Vincent Valentine, Aerith Gainsborough, Cid Highwind, Cait Sith, and the ghost of Sephiroth."
"Yo," said Sephiroth's ghost.
The demon hovering around Alucard said something angrily in Alucard's ear. "Oh, yes," he added. "This is my familiar, Sparky."
"He's not familiar; I've never seen him before in my life!" Cait Sith said.
Aerith bent down to him. "No, no, this is a different kind of familiar. Magic-users have them."
"Then how come you don't have one?"
"Uh..."
Alucard looked at the sign again. "So you're come here too," he said. "Well, we might as well go together, seeing as how the Belmonts ran off to start a band and left me here to deal with Dracula."
"Dracula? What do Dracula have to do with anythin'?" Barret asked.
Alucard gestured at the castle. "Don't you know? This is Dracula's castle, Castlevania. Although it seems like it's being used for other purposes now."
Without warning, the front doors of the castle flew off their hinges and collapsed on the ground. A huge pale-skinned bald man in a long black robe stomped out of the castle.
Vincent was the first to recover from the shock. He took a few shots at the monster with his pistol. They drew blood, but did not slow the creature down. It hit Cid with a mighty punch, knocking the pilot to his knees. Rufus cocked his shotgun and blasted the creature twice, while Aerith cast a healing spell on Cid. The monster halted as Rufus and Barret fired at it, then eventually toppled forward onto the ground.
Vincent bent to examine the monster and found a box of handgun bullets that it was carrying for no apparent reason. He pocked them, then they entered Castlevania.
The entry hall of Castlevania was a long purple-tiled hall filled with stained-glass windows. Alucard, who seemed familiar with the place, took the lead. "Watch out," he said. "Some zombies usually pop out of the ground around here."
However, the zombies needing no popping out. An already-risen group of zombies shuffled out of the shadows towards the group, moaning in a way that indicated it would become highly annoying quickly. Barret started shooting at them, and Cid jabbed at them with his spear. Aerith caise Raise on one of the zombies and it dissolved. The zombies, however, continued to appear from all directions and began to surround the party.
"This isn't working," Alucard said. "We're gonna need a better weapon." He leaped into the air and smashed one of the candles on the wall with his sword. A small vial of holy water fell out. Alucard picked it up and started tossing the water on the zombies. Where it hit, blue fire erupted and consumed the zombie ranks.
"Where did that come from?" Barret asked suspiciously. "Don't tell me it was inside the candle."
Alucard shrugged and pocketed the vial for later use, then they continued on before the zombies could regenerate. "Where are we going?" Sephiroth's ghost asked.
Alucard opened his mouth to speak just as one of the stained glass windows shattered and a disgusting red monster jumped through, flicking its long tongue. It appeared to lack skin, as its muscles and brain were on the exterior of its body. The Licker jumped and clawed at Barret. Barret tried to fire back, only to find he was out of ammo. Unclear on how to deal with the situation -- he'd never run out of ammo ever before -- Barret was beaten down by the monster.
Alucard tried his holy water, but it had no effect. Then Cid skewered the Licker through its chest with his spear. He carefully lifted the creature up and tossed it back through the window with a wave of his spear. "#$%!*$%," he muttered.
"Something's not right with the castle," Alucard mused. "We'd better go to the library. The Master Librarian will help us... if he's still alive, that is."
* * *
Cecilia watched the terrain fly by under the Protowing as it zipped over the Transylvania region. "See anything suspicious yet?" Rudy asked, his attention focused on piloting the vehicle.
"No," Cecilia admitted.
"He's gotta be somewhere around here," Hanpan chirped. "His pod was right around when it went off the radar."
"There!" Cecilia suddenly exclaimed. "There's a big black castle down there!"
Jack stared out the window. "He's got to be in there. You just don't find a big black clifftop castle without a bad guy in it." He squinted for a closer look. "There's a tower on the top," he said. "Let's aim for there."
"We're flying in?" Elmina said, shocked.
"We'll parachute," Jack said, picking up a parachute from the back of the Protowing. "Cecilia, you stay here and guard the Protowing."
"Me? Why me?" Cecilia protested, but by that time Jack and Rudy were already out the door, and Jane and Elmina quickly followed them. "Oh, you -"
The four succesfully paradropped onto the roof of the top tower, which extended out over the lake. Jack kicked open a ventilation shaft and they dropped down inside.
The room was not at all what they expected. It was a modern-looking storeroom, with white-tiled floors and shelves of medical and scientific equipment. A large number of moaning zombies were mindlessly pacing the room. Seeing the newcomers, they started shuffling towards them. One of them leaned towards Jack and bit his arm. "That guy's a maniac!" Jack exclaimed. "Why'd he bite me?"
Rudy and Jane quickly whipped out their ARMs and started firing at the zombies. One zombie lost an arm to Rudy's lightning gun, and another was incinerated by Jane's flamethrower. Jack hit several with a Cosmic Nova, but they kept coming, heedless of their woundds. "This isn't working," Elmina said.
Rudy glanced around and found the stairs. They pushed their through the zombies' ranks and descended to another white-tiled room, this one stocked with computers. Only one of them was on, running a flying chinchillas screensaver. Jack shook the mouse to clear the screen, revealing a black screen with white text, prompting him to enter his user name. "Let's see what happens if I put in my name," he said, reaching for the keyboard.
"Stop!" Hanpan shouted, flying in front of Jack's right hand and pushing it away. "Remember what happened the last time you did that? Let's try Emiko instead." Hanpan flew down to the keyboard, hovered over it, and tapped in EMIKO, then press enter.
There was a brief pause, then another message appeared on the computer: "INVALID PASSWORD, DUMB-DUMB HEAD."
"Okay, that didn't work, let's try PEARLS," Hanpan said.
"Pearls?"
"Pearls," Hanpan repeated. "It was the password for the sunken ship in Mario RPG." He typed in PEARLS on the computer and hit enter again.
"ANOTHER INVALID PASSWORD, POOPOO FACE. WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?"
"How about Akuma?" Jane suggested.
Hanpan landed on Jack's shoulder and folded his tiny arms. "Akuma? What kind of a password is 'Akuma'?"
Jane held up a small slip of paper with "AKUMA" written on it. "I found this under one of the desks," she explained.
Silently, Jack punched in the password. This time, the computer made no smart-aleck remark. There was a brief sound as the computer accessed its hard drive, then a puff of smoke rose from the ground behind Jack and Jane. A red-haired man wearing a blue gi and red beads around his neck appeared in the smoke.
"Who are you?" Rudy asked, his finger on the trigger of his ARM.
"I am Akuma," Akuma said. His gaze flicked across each member of the small party. "You're the ones who beat Angol Fred, aren't you?"
Rudy considered how to deal with the situation, but then Hanpan spoke. "That depends. Whose side are you on?"
Akuma chose an evasive response. "Angol Fred recruited me, but I never got into any action," he said slowly. "Which was fine with me. I was just minding my own business when Angol Fred popped up, and said there was a false rumor about me and that I was now under his control. I owe you guys one for getting rid of him."
"You're welcome," Jane said. "How about telling us where we are?"
"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Akuma said.
The wall behind Akuma suddenly splintered as a huge fist smashed through. The fist was preceded by a bald, pale-skinned, humanoid form in a large black cloak. Rudy immediately started blasting at the creature with his Nimbus Flare ARM. Elmina cautiously circled around it, her sword drawn.
"Hadoken!" Akuma cried, throwing a fireball from his palms at the creature. It fell back in flames, quivered briefly, then lay still. A sword, which it had been carrying for no logical reason, slipped out of its clothing.
Elmina picked up the sword and examined it. It had a shiny mithril blade and a gold hilt; far superior to the one she carried. "May I keep this?" she asked.
Jack nodded. "Sure. Go ahead. It's all yours."
* * *
Meanwhile, Alucard, his familiar, and the FF7 gang were fighting their way through the Long Library, and by now they were running low on both ammo and magic power. "You know, if this is Umbrella's headquarters, how come we haven't seen anybody living?" Aerith asked.
Cid skewered a Hunter with his spear. "Maybe the @$%#* zombies run the company," he said.
Alucard pointed at an ornate wooden door. "This is the master librarian's room," he said. He pulled open the old, creaky, door.
"This is a nice door," Rufus said, examining the door. "A really nice door."
"Um... yeah," Cait Sith giggled.
As Alucard stepped into the room, something big and brown fluttered down at him. He quickly slammed the door shut. "Don't... open... that... door," he advised.
"I have this," Sephiroth said. He handed Alucard a red Materia.
"What's this?" Alucard asked.
"Just use it," Sephiroth said, opening the door and pushing Alucard through.
"Hey, be careful with that door," Rufus cautioned.
The giant moth swooped at Alucard. Alucard fumbled with the Materia Sephiroth had given him, accidentally triggering it. A hole in the floor opened and Ifrit emerged. Ifrit hurled a wave of fire at the moth, incinerating it and the wall of sticky goo behind the creature, then vanished.
The rest of the party entered the room. Rufus's gaze remained fixed on the door. Two people crawled out of the pool of zime that Ifrit had created. One was an old cloaked man, the other a young woman clad in blue clothes and beret. The cloaked man examined the party and recognized its later. "Master Alucard!" he cackled. "What can I do for you?"
"What's happened to the castle?" Alucard asked.
But before the Master Librarian could reply, the woman charged out of the shadows and stopped just in front of Vincent. "Vincent!" she exclaimed. "Is that really you?"
"Jill," Vincent said with a nod.
"That's it?" Jill demanded. "I haven't seen you in thirty years and now all I get is 'Jill' and a nod? What kind of way to treat your sister is that?"
"Sister?" Barret said in surprise.
"What did you want, a monkey playing an accordion?" Vincent asked softly. "Too much hope is the opposite of despair... an overpowering love may consume you in the end."
"I thought you'd outgrow that weird quote thing, but apparently not," Jill said.
"The absolute value of good and evil is the same," Vincent continued.
Seeing Rufus still admiring the door, Barret took charge of the situation. "What those damn Umbrella be up to?" he asked Jill.
"This is their headquarters," Jill said. "I came here with the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. team to put an end to their genetic experiments. But my luggage got lost on the flight out here, and by the time I recovered it and got to the castle here, the rest of the team was gone. Then I got trapped by that giant moth." She paused for a breath, then continued. "Are you here to fight Umbrella too?"
"Damn right we are," Barret said.
Suddenly, the left wall was smashed to pieces as the bald, black-clothed, monster stomped through. "The Tyrant!" Jill screamed. She fired off several rounds from her baretta at the Tyrant-103. The Tyrant hit Aerith with a tremendous punch, knocking her to the ground. Then Alucard was rushing in at the Tyrant in the form of a wolf, biting at its throat. The Tyrant keeled over dead. Jill searched it and found a convenient box of bullets.
"At least he didn't harm the door," Rufus said, relieved.
"You all right?" Barret asked Aerith. Aerith managed a weak reply.
Alucard smashed a section out of the other wall with his sword, revealing a pork chop -- amazingly, it was fresh -- and handed it to Aerith. "This is one damn weird castle," Cid observed.
"And it's even weirder than normal," Alucard said.
"It's all those Umbrella people," the Master Librarian snapped.
"Umbrella," Jill said. "Where are they?"
"I don't know," the librarian cackled. "I always stay in the library. You might want to try the inner sanctum in the west tower."
Alucard thanked the Master Librarian and they turned to leave. Rufus stared at the door one last time. "Would you mind selling this door?" he asked.
"Hard to get doors out here, you know!" the Librarian responded.
Rufus sighed regretfully and produced a large bag of gold from his coat. It was the last of Shinra's treasury. He looked at speculatively, trying to decide what to do, then dropped it on the Master Librarian's desk.
"Hehe, thank you!"
* * *
"I can't believe you spent the last of Shinra's finances on a door," Aerith said as the group -- now including Jill -- made their way through Castlevania's clock tower towards the inner sanctum. The traditional flying medusa heads had been replaced with crows and mutated marshmallow Peeps.
"I love this door," Rufus said defensively. He was carrying his new prized possession tucked under his right arm.
"It loves you too," Cait Sith said.
"Oh, shut up," Rufus sighed.
Cait Sith did not. "Rufus and the Door: A Tragic Love Story in Three Acts," he continued, a wide grin on his face.
Rufus gave Cait Sith the evil eye. "I think you've been hitting the catnip a little too hard lately," he said.
"Yeah, but I didn't inhale," Cait Sith protested.
"Hey, you two, cut it out; I think there's a boss coming up," Alucard said. They were standing in front of another ornate door, this one carved out of bone. Cait Sith wondered whether Rufus would seek to acquire a mate for the one he had, but he ignored the door as they stepped into the torch-lit room beyond.
There was no boss; it had apparently being been removed by Umbrella. The gang continued on to what used to be Dracula's tower. Like the rest of the castle, it was oddly devoid of Umbrella personal, but the tower lacked even the ubiquitous zombie patrol. They made their way up the tower in oppressive silence.
There was a sudden beeping sound. "What's that?" Jill said nervously.
"Oh, that's just my Tamagotchi," Cait Sith said, producing a small yellow Chocobo Tamagotchi from his cloak. "Little guy needs some food."
"Put that away, cat," Barret whispered.
"Hey, he's hungry," Cait Sith said. "You're not going to deny him his basic daily nutrition, are you?"
Barret swore under his breath as C.S. punched some buttons, producing more beeps. Barret suddenly tore the Tamagotchi out of Cait's hands and tossed it out the window. "My Tamagotchi!" Cait Sith cried. "How dare you!"
"Ssssh!" Aerith cautioned. "I hear footsteps."
Indeed there were footsteps. Then a door opened and five people stepped through, two carrying guns, two carrying swords, and one unarmed. "Don't shoot!" Jill exclaimed. "I'm a HUMAN!"
Rudy lowered his ARM. "Rufus? Cid? Cait Sith? What are you guys doing here?"
"We're trying to overthrow Umbrella," Rufus said. "They acquired Shinra. And Sebec. And Square. And the tobacco industry."
"What is this, the big evil company franchise?" Jane asked.
"Exactly," Rufus said. "That's why we have to stop this. And how about yourself? I haven't seen you guys since that Guardian Amulet incident."
"We're looking for somebody called Zenogias," Rudy explained. "We saw him go into this castle. He seems to be working for an Umbrella Corporation."
"Zenogias," Vincent murmured. He seemed to recognize the name, but made no other comment about it.
"Umbrella!" Rufus said. "How did you get involved with Umbrella?"
"It's a long story," Rudy said. "Why?"
"We're after Umbrella, too," Rufus said. "We might as well work together, then."
"All right," Alucard said, making no effort to introduce himself. "Let's check out the rest of this tower."
"We already looked up there," Rudy said. "There's nothing interesting."
"Let's look again," Alucard pressed. "These Umbrella guys have to be around here somewhere."
Rudy shrugged, acquiesed, and walked back the way he had come, into a long, winding, spiral staircase. Rufus's party followed him inside. "Don't expect to find anything," Jane remarked.
"They have to be somewhere in this tower," Cid said. "Bad guys like $*%@ towers."
"You've got it all wrong." Aerith jumped. The voice that had just spoken did not belong to anyone in their group. It had come from somewhere higher on the staircase.
Jill stared up. Barely visible around a bend in the stairs was a suited man with short blond hair and sunglasses. "Wesker!" she exclaimed.
"The headquarters is in the underground catacombs, not the tower," Wesker continued.
"Who is this guy? Can we trust him?" Sephiroth asked Jill.
"Albert Wesker," Jill said contemptously. "Former leader of the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team. He was working for Umbrella the whole time. He's about as reliable as Direct X."
"I wouldn't try anything funny," Wesker said. There was no indication that anybody was planning on doing anything funny, but Wesker seemed intent on following some pre-arranged script of his. "I wouldn't want to have to harm your friend here."
Jill stepped back to get a better view of Wesker. He was standing with his left arm holding Rebecca Chambers by her neck, and his other arm was pointing a gun at her head.
"Don't move," Wesker said. "And put your weapons down."
"I haven't drawn my weapon," Jill said.
"Don't argue with me!"
Jill sighed, drew her gun, and then dropped it on the floor. "Happy?"
"Yes," Wesker said. He relaxed his grip on Rebecca. "Now we'd better get going."
"We?" Jill repeated. "I don't think so."
Wesker tightened his grip. "I told you not to with argue me. Now am I going to have to do something you'll later regret or are you going to shut up?"
Jill fell quiet. Wesker started descending the stairs, keeping a close eye on Rebecca. Jill turned to Vincent and Rufus. "I don't like this, but it doesn't like we've got any choice. We'd better go with Wesker. He's probably leading us right into a trap, but there's a lot more of us than there are of him."
"All I can say is he'd better not touch my door," Rufus said defensively.
Suddenly, the wall shattered and the Tyrant-103 stomped through. Reacting quickly, Rudy zapped it with his Nimbus Flare lightning gun ARM, and Akuma hit it with a fireball. The Tyrant toppled to the ground. Rudy searched it and found, not surprisingly, a bullet clip for his ARMs.
"Hurry up," Wesker snapped. "I don't want to wait around."
* * *
Wesker led the large party -- now including Rufus, Cid, Vincent, Barret, Aerith, Sephiroth, Cait Sith, Rudy, Jack, Hanpan, Jane, Elmina, Akuma, Alucard, Jill, and Rebecca -- through a series of caves towards the catacombs under Castlevania. When she was confident that Wesker was not paying attention, Jill whispered to Rebecca, "Where's the rest of the team?"
"They're in the catacombs," Rebecca whispered back. "Umbrella caught us. I managed to escape, but then Wesker showed up."
They arrived at the end of the caves, facing a great steel double door that led into the catacombs. Wesker produced an ID card and slid it through a slot next to the door. A bell dinged and the door opened, allowing them to pass through. "I told you you'd need me," Wesker said.
"You never said that," Cait Sith retorted. Wesker gave him a frosty look.
Alucard and his familiar examined their surroundings. The catacombs had been vastly changed since they last saw them. They were standing in a carpeted lobby of some sort, and the walls were metallic. The catacombs were bustling with people, all wearing Umbrella ID tags. And the Umbrella logo was plastered all over. The whole castle was just a facade. Umbrella's headquarters was the catacombs.
Sensing Alucard's thoughts, Wesker explained, "The monsters up in the castle help keep out... shall we say, unwanted visitors. And the headquarters is far bigger than that castle anyway. These tunnels go on for miles. Good thing I know where I'm going."
"Yeah, and we don't," Cait Sith piped up. "Don't play the trombone with us, Wesker."
Wesker gave him a weird look. "If anybody asks what we're doing, I've captured you and am escorting you to the prison."
"Isn't that what's really going on?" Jill asked.
"I told you not to argue with me."
Wesker led the party through a bewildering maze of corridors, offices, labs, and lounges. The entire headquarters was decorated in the same style of metallic, cold, efficiency, and Umbrella's logo appeared every twenty feet. "They really are worse than you damn Shinra," Barret observed.
Suddenly, Alucard's demon familiar flew over to the wall and jabbed at it with his spear. "There's something strange about this wall!" it screeched.
Wesker stopped and looked at it. He gave it a push. There was a faint grinding sound. Wesker pushed harder, and Barret and Cid went to join him. The wall start to rotate backwards ever so slightly. "You there, with the weird hair," Wesker grunted, glancing at Rufus. "Put down that door and help us out."
"That's it!" Rufus said angrily. "NOBODY makes fun of my hair."
Alucard quickly intervened to stop the conflict by aiding Wesker in pushing the wall. With a click, the wall spun backwards. Alucard, Wesker, Barret, and Cid fell through into a secret room.
The secret room appeared to be a laboratory of some sorts. The walls were made out of stone, contrasting with the metal walls throughout the rest of the headquarters. There were a number of glass cylinders filled with strange-colored liquid on a counter. Sitting next to the counter was a cage with Red XIII in it. "Barret! Cid!" he said. "Am I ever glad to see you!"
While Barret and Cid went to release Red XIII, Rebecca went to the counter and examined the cylinders. They were labeled: T Virus... G Virus... Jenova Virus... Good Times Virus (this cylinder was empty)... Ebola Virus. "Ebola?" Rebecca exclaimed its name. "EBOLA? I hate to think what Umbrella's planning to use with this."
"What's Ebola?" Aerith asked.
"It's an extremely deadly virus," Hanpan butted in. "A filovirus, to be exact."
"I am not," a voice squeaked. Rebecca whirled. The top of the cylinder popped open and a tiny green creature climbed out, wearing even tinier boots and gloves. He had two large (relatively speaking) eyes and a mouth that was shaped in a happy smile. "That's just a malicious rumor," the Ebola Virus said. "I would never do such a thing."
Rebecca shook her head. "This is too weird."
Meanwhile, Barret and Cid succeeded in releasing the lock on Red XIII's cage. The door slid open, but an alarm started sounding. Red bounded out as a barred door on the far side of the lab opened. A square pink blob of gooey material with short black arms and legs waddled out, carrying a long gray gun. "Oh no!" the Ebola Virus cried. "It's Spam, Tofu's evil twin!"
Spam raised its Olestra Shot and fired it at Sephiroth. A blob of Olestra zipped right through Seph's insubstantial form. "Nyah, nyah, missed me!" Seph taunted Spam.
"I'll handle this," Ebola squeaked. He jumped at Spam. As he touched the creature, he vanished. Spam fired its Olestra Shot again, scoring a hit on Jack's side. Then the being suddenly exploded, coating the room -- and the party -- in globs of Spam. Ebola hopped out of the mess. "Ta-da!" he said.
Ebola hopped up onto the counter next to Rebecca, who was coated in Spam. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced," he said. "The name's Zaire. Ebola Zaire."
"R-Rebecca Chambers," Rebecca said, unsure of how to deal with the situation. She had never encountered a walking, talking, virus before, and strangest of all, Ebola was a cute little guy.
"He kind of reminds me of Slippy in StarFox," Cait Sith said to Red XIII. "But he's not as annoying."
The side wall of the lab collapsed into a pile of stones as a huge fist smashed through it. The Tyrant-103 stepped in. "You know, this guy is really starting to annoy me," Cait Sith said.
Jane grabbed the Olestra Shot from the pools of Spam on the ground and fired it at the Tyrant-103, spraying Olestra into its mouth. The Tyrant-103 wobbled and keeled over. Jane collected a bullet clip from the creature's seemingly infinite supply of ammo.
"Could we kindly find a restroom?" Red XIII asked. "This Spam is started to stick to me."
* * *
As soon as they'd cleaned all the spam off themselves, Wesker immediately took charge again. He continued to lead the party towards their original destination, something deep inside the former catacombs' mess of corridors. The Ebola Virus rode on Rebecca's shoulder, singing happily.
Eventually, they arrived at a double door that looked identical to the hundreds they'd seen before. The only difference was that Wesker stopped here.
"All right, this's the prison," Wesker said. "The rest of the S.T.A.R.S. team is in here." He produced his ID card, slid it through the card slot, and the door popped open.
Immediately, Barret, Akuma, and Rufus charged in, plowing by Wesker. The Umbrella operative was trampled by the rush of the giant party into the prison room.
The prison area looked very similar to the Shinra Building confinement area. Rudy ran to the first door and smashed it down with his rocket launcher. Chris Redfield emerged from the cell. While Jill and Rebecca were explaining the situation to Chris, Rudy blew up open the next three cells, freeing Claire, Barry, and the Umbrella trooper Hunk. An alarm started to sound.
"Let's get out of here," Alucard said.
The party members were milling about the room mindlessly, bumping into each other. The group had grown so large -- now over 20 people -- that they were not able to act as a single unit. Wesker and Rufus were trying to regain control, but they were having little success in the chaos.
Something started whirring outside the room, then somebody in a red cape and a black superhero-like suit and helmet ran in. "I am R3X," it said. "President Zenogias has ordered your termination."
R3X raised a ring. It spun into the air and started growing larger. A chimera burst out of it and showered R3X in light. He then started shooting energy bolts from the horns on his helmet. Akuma ran out of the crowd, yelled "Shoryuken!", and hit the robot with a Dragon Punch.
"Hide in the cells!" Rufus said. Clutching his door to his chest to protect it, he ducked into the cell that had been occupied by Chris. R3X started spraying energy bolts into the crowd of characters. Driven by the attack, they managed to sort themselves out and retreat into the cells.
R3X advanced to the first cell, where Rufus, Claire, Elmina, and Cait Sith were hiding. A panel in the front of R3X's helmet opened up, revealing a dark chamber illuminated by a tiny blue reactor-like device. "Hey, did you see that? Let's get him for indecent exposure," Cait Sith quipped.
R3X started charging up a laser, while still firing his energy bolts. Rufus held his door behind his back, shielding it with his body. Claire fired her bow gun once at R3X, then dived to the floor as the blasts blasted at where her head was moments before.
Elmina crawled across the floor to the robot. Clutching her new mithril sword, she jumped to her feet, and swung it. Time seemed to slow. Energy crackled along Elmina's sword. Waves of blue sonic energy shot out in three directions -- one of which was directly into R3X's stomach, knocking the wind out of him. As he stumbled, a pile of rings slipped out out of his hands and scattered all over the floor.
"Whoah, that was just like in Sonic the Hedgehog," Cait Sith said.
"Frickin' sonic waves," R3X gasped. He scooped up his rings and fled.
Elmina's sword fell from her shaking hands. "I.. I don't know what happened," she said.
"Don't worry about it," Rufus said, checking his door to ensure its safety. "You got rid of that guy."
Hanpan flew out of the cell he had been in. "Did that robot say what I think he said?"
"'Frickin' sonic waves'?" Claire repeated.
"No, no, 'President Zenogias'," Hanpan said. "Looks our friend from New Jersey has a bit more power than we might have thought."
"You mean this Zenogias guy is the president of Umbrella?" Rufus said.
"That's what that guy said," Hanpan shrugged.
Vincent stared blanky into the wall. "Zenogias," he said. "So he's still around. Hmm."
"Would you kindly tell us what you mean?" Jill asked irritably.
"It seems we have the same goal, then," Rudy said. He turned to his party. "You guys want to go with them?"
"Fine with me," Jane said, tossing and catching her Hand Cannon. "The more of us, the less work I have to do."
A phone rang. The gang looked around, and all their eyes focused on Rufus, whose pants were emitting a ringing sound. Rufus pulled his PHS phone out of his pocket. "Hello?"
"Rufus! This is Guido Sardenia. Get back to Costa Del Sol NOW!"
"Why? What's happening?" Rufus asked urgently.
"I'll tell you later," Guido said, speaking incredibly fast and nearly screaming as well. "Just come back! It's urgent!"
Rufus hung up. "Don't know what that's about, but we'd better move," he said. Rufus ran out of the room, and his FF7 comrades followed him, as well as the Filgaians.
"Wait!" Jill said, running after them. "Take me with you too!"
"I will come as well," Alucard said with a flash of a cape. "I must reclaim Castlevania from Umbrella."
Rufus was halfway down the hall. "Fine! Go ahead! You can all come! The more, the merrier! Just hurry up!"
"You'll get lost without me," Wesker said, running after the group.
As Wesker led the group down the hall, Cait Sith thought he heard the S.T.A.R.S. team, Akuma, and Ebola clashing once again with the Tyrant-103. "If that guy keeps punching through the walls like that, this whole place is going to collapse pretting soon," C.S. muttered.
| Next chapter: G Force |