The Resident Evil franchise is owned by Capcom. The Fate series is owned by Type-Moon. Any characters mentioned here are not mine and are a work of fiction.

Sherry Birkin had been hiding in the station for almost four days, she hasn't seen her mother yet and worse of all, her guardian, a teacher from her school - Mrs. Addison - was eaten by a zombie. Not long after that, she found a ventilation shaft that ran over most of the building. It was better for her to hide, away from death and also another monster, scarier than the zombies and the inside out men, following her. She did not think of that because it is stupid for anyone of them to pick on a twelve-year-old girl.

That's she had hidden here in the room full of knights where the only way to get in is the ventilation shaft. There is another way though it was guarded by a stuffed tiger and while it's not alive or anything, it was intimidating on its own. The station was overrun by zombies and most of the time she had spent was to sleep. Whenever she drifts off to sleep, she doesn't get stressed out

Sherry had plenty to eat in the candy machine downstairs but she didn't venture too much. Whenever she heard that monster, she hid in the vents, catching only a glimpse of its broad back in the steel grate. It screamed out and she knew that it was hungry, terrible and violent.

Most of the time, it will disappear on its own, only to come back a few hours later. No matter where she is, the monster is always nearby. The loud noises woke her up and she'd huddle herself up, ready to scurry back to the shaft as she heard the walls being destroyed. For a long time, she squeezed her eyes shut, holding onto the golden pendant that her mother gave to her. She had considered it a good luck charm since it stopped the loud thumping noises. Perhaps, the stuffed tiger scared the monster too as well?

Either way, whenever there's silence or her breathing itself, Sherry felt safe enough to come out and listen to the hall. The zombies and the inside out men cannot utilize doors and if it's the monster, it would have come clawing its way in.

Halfway down the hall, she heard people in but she couldn't hear what they're saying. It was the first time she'd heard anybody who wasn't screaming in the past two days. If there were people, maybe help finally came into the city.

'Perhaps the army, military or Marines finally arrive.'

She hurriedly down the hall and was next to the big snarling tiger, right by the door, when her excitement faltered. The voices stopped and Sherry stood still if there was help indeed wouldn't there be any indication of it? Guns, bombs, loudspeakers telling everybody to get out.

Not long after she had gone into hiding, she'd saw a female officer through the grating in a locker room. The woman rocked back and forth with an unstable look in her eyes. At first, she thought she can ask the officer to help her search for her parents. However, the inaudible mumbling and the looks of the officer made her hesitant.

The woman took out a knife in her pockets, keeping it to herself as she rocked back and forth. Sherry had been more scared by that woman than the zombies, because it didn't make sense. She'd been crazy, and she'd killed herself and she'd crawled away, crying because it just didn't make any sense.

She didn't want to meet anyone else like that. And even if the people in the office were okay, they might take her away from her safe place and try to protect her - and that would mean her death because the monster surely wasn't afraid of adults.

It felt awful to turn away, but there was no other choice. Sherry started back for the armor room…

*creak!*

…and froze as the floor shifted underfoot. The sound of the creaking board seems incredibly loud and she held her breath, clutching her pendant and praying that the door wouldn't come flying open behind her, that some crazy wouldn't charge in and get her.

She didn't hear anything but felt sure that the pounding of her heart would give her away, it was so loud. After ten seconds, she carefully started back down the hall, stepping as lightly as she could, feeling like she was creeping out of a cave filled with sleeping snakes. The hall back to the armor room seemed like it was a mile long and she had to use all of her willpower not to run once she reached the turn. But if there was one thing she'd learned from the movies and TV, it was that running from danger always meant a horrible death.

When she finally reached the entrance back to the armor room, she felt like she might just collapse from relief. She was safe again, she could snuggle back into the old blanket that Mrs. Addison had found for her and just…

The door from the office opened and closed and a second later, there were footsteps.

'They're coming for her.'

Sherry flew into the armor room, no longer thinking about anything at all in the bright and trembling crush of panic that swept through her. She sprinted past the three knights, forgetting her safe place because all she knew is that she had to get away as far away as possible. There was a dark, tiny chamber past the glass case in the middle of the room and darkness was what she needed, a shadow to disappear into and she could hear the running footsteps somewhere behind her, pounding over wood as she hurtled into the darkroom and into the farthest corner.

Sherry crouched down between the dusty brick of the room's fireplace and the padded chair beside it and tried to make herself as small as possible, hugging her knees and hiding her face.

"You hear that?" a man's voice registered to her ears.

"Seriously? We just enter here and you already picked up something?" another voice chimed in, coming from a woman.

'Please, please, please… don't come in, don't see me, I'm not here…'

The running footsteps had come into the armor room and were slow now, hesitant, moving around the big glass case in the middle. Sherry thought of her safe place, the mouth of the ventilation shaft that could have taken her away, and struggled to hold back hot tears of self-condemnation. The fireplace room had no escape; she was trapped.

Each hollow, thumping step brought the strangers closer to the darkroom in which Sherry hid. She scrunched herself tighter, making promises that she would do anything, anything at all if only the strangers would go away…

Suddenly, the room flashed into blinding brightness, the soft click of the light switch lost beneath Sherry's terrified cry. She pushed away from her corner and run, screaming and unseeing, hoping to get past the stranger and back to the air that and a warm hand grabbed her arm, tight, keeping her from going one more step. She screamed again, jerking as hard as she could, but the stranger was strong…

"Wait!" it was a lady, the voice almost as frantic as Sherry's hammering heart.

"Let me go," Sherry wailed, but the lady is still holding on, even pulling her closer.

"Easy, easy - I'm not a zombie, take it easy, it's okay…"

The woman's voice had turned soothing, the words crooned gently, the hand on Sherry's wrist warm and strong. The sweet, musical voice repeated the gentle words again and again.

"Easy, it's okay, we're not going to hurt you, you're safe now."

Sherry finally looked at the lady and saw how pretty she was, how her eyes were soft with concern and sympathy. Just like that, Sherry stopped trying to get away and felt the hot tears trickle down her face, tears that she'd been holding back ever since she'd seen the red-haired man commit suicide. She instinctively hugged the young, pretty stranger and the lady hugged her back, her slender arms tight across Sherry's trembling shoulders.

Sherry cried for a couple of minutes, letting the woman stroke her hair and whisper soothing words to her - and at last, she felt like the worst was over. As much as she wanted to crawl into the lady's arms and forget all of her fears, to believe that she was safe, she knew better. And besides, she wasn't a baby anymore; she'd turned twelve last month.

With an effort, Sherry stepped away from the woman and wiped her eyes, looking up into her pretty face. The woman wasn't that old, maybe only twenty or so, and was dressed really cool - boots and cutoff pink denim shorts and a matching vest with no sleeves. She wore her shiny brown hair in a ponytail, and when she smiled, she looked like a movie star.

The woman crouched down right in front of her, still smiling gently. "My name's Claire and this is Shirou."

The pretty lady was accompanied by a male who wore a white uniform. His hair is red in color. He also has a strange-looking weapon in his hands and he has this serious expression, making him a bit intimidating. When he noticed her, she fumbled a bit and hid behind Claire.

"Why don't you try smiling at least? The kid's already scared and that expression of yours is not helping."

"Sorry, I just want to make sure that no one will jump on us, you know? But it's nice to see you, kiddo."

Sherry felt shy suddenly, embarrassed for running and trying to get away from such nice persons. Her parents had often told her that she acted as an emotional baby, that she was 'too imaginative' for her own good, and here was proof; Claire and Shirou weren't going to hurt her, she could tell.

"Sherry Birkin," she said and smiled at the brunette, hoping that Claire wasn't mad at her; she didn't look mad. In fact, she looked pleased with her answer.

"Wait… Birkin?" the redhead said, going down on his knee and stared at the 12-year-old. "Is your parents' name, William and Annette?" the girl merely nodded at his words.

"Do you know where your parents are?" he asked.

"They work at the Umbrella chemical plant, just outside of town," Sherry said. "My mom called and told me to go to the police station. She said it was too dangerous to stay at home."

"You know her parents?" the brunette asked and Shirou nodded.

"From the look of things, she was probably right. But it's dangerous here, as well…"

Claire frowned thoughtfully, then smiled again.

"You'd better come with us."

Sherry felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach and shook her head, wondering how to explain to them that it wasn't a good idea, that it was a very bad idea. She wanted more than anything not to be alone anymore, but it just wasn't safe.

'If I go with them and the monster finds us...'

Claire would be killed and although she was thin, Sherry was pretty sure that Claire wouldn't be able to fit in the ventilation shaft. Shirou while has a weapon with him, cannot defeat the monster alone with it.

"There's something out there," she finally said. "I saw it, it's bigger than the zombies and it's coming after me."

Claire shook her head, opening her mouth to say something, probably to try and talk her into changing her mind, when a terrible, furious sound filled the room, echoing in violent waves from somewhere in the building.

"Rrraaahh…"

Sherry felt her blood turn to ice. Claire's eyes went wide, her skin paling. The redhead readied his weapon and tried to make out where it came from. "What was that?"

Sherry backed away, breathless, in her mind already running for the safe place behind the three suits of armor.

"That's what I was telling you," she gasped out and before Claire could stop her, she turned and ran.

"Sherry!"

The girl ignored the shouted plea, sprinting past the glass exhibit case for the safety of the air shaft. She leaped nimbly over the knight's pedestal and dropped to her hands and knees, ducking her head and scrambling into the ancient stone hole set into the base of the wall.

Her only chance, Claire and Shirou's only chance, was for Sherry to get as far away from them as possible. Maybe they would find each other again when the monster had gone.

As Sherry crawled quickly through the tight and winding darkness, she hoped it wasn't already too late.

"That girl is going to get herself killed."

"We should go after her then."

"Hold up, " the redhead intervened. "You sure about this? I mean, you're here to find your brother in the first place. You gonna put that away just to search for this girl you barely knew?"

"I do and Chris will also do the right thing in this situation. If you don't want to come, that's fine to me." she was about to leave when she glanced back at him. "Good luck, Shirou. I'll see you around… if you're alive and not a zombie, I guess."

The determination he saw in the brunette's eyes reminded him of his past. When he was still a somewhat brash individual who will go out on his way to help anyone. Not that it changes but at this point he became more calculating to situations. Perhaps, it's because of her somehow rambunctious nature that made him go with her.

Will he be able to live with the fact that he let a helpless teenager especially a girl on her own?

'Yes, just like the numerous ones you left behind!' a loud and somehow mocking voice screamed at him.

"Wait, Ms. Redfield…" the brunette who was about to leave stopped in her tracks. "I'll go with you."

She huffed and crossed her arms. "I'll let you come with me under one condition. "Stop with the Ms. Redfield thing, eh? Just call me by my first name, okay."

"Oh, erm… alright… I can definitely do that, Claire."

She smiled at his reply and checked the gun, she still has some bullets and a full clip to her. The brunette kinda wishes that they ran into any weapon cache, she wouldn't mind having a shotgun or even an SMG with her.

He, on the other hand, fiddled with the watch, his only way of communicating with his superiors back in his world. He constantly pours his od to the device, to at least let them know where he was or if they would ever bother to find his location.

Ada Wong sat in the cluttered desk in the office of the Chief of Detectives, resting her aching feet and staring blankly at the empty steel safe in the corner. Her patience wore thin. Not only was the G-Virus sample nowhere to be found, but she was also beginning to think that Bertolucci had flown the coop. She'd gone through the break room, the S.T.A.R.S. office, the library - in fact, she was pretty sure she'd covered just about everywhere the reporter would have had easy access to, and had used two full clips to do it.

It wasn't that she was low on ammo, it was the waste of time that the bullets represented: twenty-six rounds and no results, except that there were a dozen more virus-riddled corpses laid around.

The Asian-American shuddered, remembering the warp red flesh and trumpeting shrieks of the bizarre creatures that she'd shot in the press room. She'd never been particularly bothered by greed, corporate or otherwise, but Umbrella had been up to some seriously immoral experimentation.

There were this long-tongued, clawed, bloody humanoids that are an affront to her sensibilities. Not to mention a lot harder to kill than the virus carriers. If they were T-Virus products, she'd have to keep her fingers crossed that Birkin hadn't done anything with his newest creation.

She let her gaze wander, taking in the plain, functional office. It wasn't the most inspiring environment to take a break-in, but at least it was reasonably gore-free; with the door closed, she could hardly smell the officers in the main part of the room. They'd been pretty far gone when she'd put them down, that bonelessly wet stage that apparently preceded the total collapse.

She wished she'd bothered to learn more on the science end; she knew what the T-Virus was used for, but hadn't thought it necessary to research the physio-chemical effects. Why bother, when she had no reason to think that Umbrella had been planning to spill a shitload of it in their hometown?

She was getting plenty of firsthand information about how well it worked, but it would have been nice to know exactly what happened in the infected party's body and mind, which turned them from a person into a mindless flesh-eater. Instead, she could only file away her observations and make guesses at the truth.

From what she'd seen, it took less than an hour for someone infected to turn into a zombie. Sometimes the victim went into a kind of fever-coma first, which presumably burnt out parts of the brain and only added to the impression that they were waking from the dead when they stood up and began to look for fresh meat.

The symptoms of the virus were the same for everyone, but not the infection rate; she'd seen at least three cases where the victim had turned bloodthirsty within a couple of moments of being infected, the stage she'd started to think of as "going cataract." One of the few constants was that their eyes clouded with a thin film of eggy white mucous when they turned and although the physical deterioration always started immediately, some fell to pieces much faster than others…

She sighed, bending over to rub her toes. True enough. Still, it was something to think about. Focusing on staying alive is tiring and all-encompassing work; she didn't have a chance to consider the subtleties of the circumstances while clearing out corridors.

She was on break, and she needed to let her brain run around a bit, ponder a few of the job's more puzzling aspects. And there are about a thousand to mull over…

S.T.A.R.S. - what had happened to the unit?

Ada leaned back, rolling her head tiredly before pushing herself off the desk and stepping back into her uncomfortable shoes. Enough downtime, she couldn't spare her aches and pains more than a few minutes and didn't expect to figure out much of anything until she was well away from Raccoon. She still had a couple of areas to check for Bertolucci before heading into the sewers, and she'd noticed that some of the first-floor window barricades weren't as solid as she might have hoped; she didn't want to end up blocked out of a path by a new group of carriers from outside.

There were the "secret" passages on the east side, and the holding cells downstairs past the parking garage. If she couldn't find him in either of those places, she'd have to assume he'd left the station and concentrate her efforts on obtaining the sample.

She decided to try the basement first; it seemed unlikely that he'd stumbled across the hidden corridors. From what she'd read of his work, he wasn't a good enough reporter to find his own ass. And if he was hiding in or near the holding cells, she wouldn't have to spend any more time roaming the station, facing the inevitable invasion; the entrance into the subbasement was downstairs, so barring any complications, she could head straight for the lab.

Ada walked out of the office, wrinkling her nose at the fresh burst of rotting smell pushed at her by the lazily spinning ceiling fans. There had to be seven or eight bodies in the desk-filled room, all of the cops, and at least the three that she'd shot had been fairly rank…

'…and didn't I leave five carriers still walking around in here when I came through before?'

She paused just outside the large and open room, looking back in from the narrow connecting corridor that led to the back stairs. Had there been five? She knew she'd capped a couple on her first visit; the rest had been too slow to hassle with, and she thought there'd been five of them. And yet she'd only had to knock off three when she had returned for her impromptu break.

'There were five. I may not be at peak, but I can still count.'

She wasn't in the habit of doubting her ability to keep track of such things, and the fact that she'd only just noticed was a sign of how tired she was; two days ago, she would have made the observation immediately. There was no way to tell if the additional corpses had been shot or had simply disintegrated on their own without exposing herself to contact - they were too messed up, but it would be wisest to assume that there were still a few survivors wandering around.

Not for long, one way or another…

Whether or not the zombies managed to break through, Umbrella would act soon, if they hadn't already. What had happened in Raccoon was a shareholder's worst nightmare and Umbrella certainly isn't going to ignore the problem; they'd probably already worked up a fail-safe disaster and prepared their own spin to feed to the press. It was a foregone conclusion that they'd try to salvage Birkin's synthesis before putting their fail-safe into effect, which meant that she'd have to be very careful.

'A team of human beings, hopefully. I can handle that. A Tyrant, though… I don't need that kind of pain.'

Ada turned away from the room, walking toward the closed door that would lead her to the basement steps. Tyrant was the code name for a particular series in Umbrella's organic weapons research, a series that embodied the most destructive applications of the T-Virus. According to her 'sources', Umbrella scientists - the one's working in the secret labs - had just started tests on a kind of humanoid bloodhound, designed to hunt down any assigned scent or substance it had been encoded for with relentless and inhuman capabilities. A Tyrant, a nearly indestructible construct of infected flesh and surgically implanted wiring - just the kind of thing that they might send in to find, say, a sample of the G-Virus or take out potential witnesses.

Once she collected the sample, she was history, paid and drinking margaritas on a beach somewhere.

And anything she might or might not feel about it, about how many innocents had died, it's just one of things that she doesn't need in her line of work.

This is not the kind of work that rookie cop, Leon S. Kennedy expected when he arrived in Raccoon City. Sure he was late for about two hours on his first day of work but he didn't expect to find the city itself in ruins and these… zombies around. He heard the announcement that any refugees can come to the station for help. When he went their, he didn't find anything not anyone for that matter.

He did find a fellow senior officer in one of the rooms of RPD though he was wounded. As much as he hated to leave Marvin Branagh behind to at least treat his wounds, he's far too gone now. He filled him in on what happened to the city, the suspension of the S.T.A.R.S unit, the alleged mishandling of the Arklay murders and Umbrella being the one behind all of this.

'That explains the sudden hiring of new police recruits.' Leon thought to himself.

Leon stood in the ransacked basement weapons locker, adjusting the holster straps and thinking about where other survivors might be. From what little he'd seen so far, the station wasn't too bad. Cold and dim and stinking of the bodies heaped in the hallways, but not as actively dangerous as the streets. It wasn't much to be grateful for, but he'd take what he could get.

He'd killed two of his fellow officers and a woman in the tatters of a traffic patrol uniform on his way to the basement - the cops upstairs and the woman just outside the morgue, a few yards from the small room that housed the RPD armament. Only three zombies since he'd reached the station, not including the few he'd been able to avoid in the detectives' room, but he'd passed over a dozen corpses on the short journey and had been able to make out the bullet holes on about half of them, through the eyes or directly to the temple.

Between the cleanly 'dispatched' creatures and the number of weapons missing from the lockers, he dared to hope that Branagh had been right about there being survivors.

'Will Marvin turn into a zombie? If Umbrella is the one behind this virus, how do I know I've been in contact with it? Do you get it by being bitten or worse… it might even be airborne?'

The thought of being a zombie and feasting on the flesh of others send a dread to him. He looked at his handgun and gulped if he did make contact with the virus… he can end himself with a bullet in his brain.

'If it's come down to that, I don't even know if I can pull it myself. If I survived somehow, this is something I can tell to my grandkids.'

Leon nodded to himself, sighing. A better plan than worrying about it, and he now had the equipment to boost his chances. The electronic lock for the weapons store had been shot through, saving him from having to go searching for a key card or shooting it himself; the door had obviously been pried open, the external locks and handle practically shredded.

On his first dig through the room, he'd been disappointed, and not a little freaked. There had been no handguns at all and very little ammo left in the dented green lockers - but he had found a box of shotgun shells, and after a second, more desperately thorough search, he'd uncovered a twelve-gauge hidden behind a high stack of boxes. There were a couple of shoulder harnesses for the Remington model still hanging on a wall hook, as well as a bigger utility belt than the one he already wore; it even had a side pack deep enough to hold all of the loaded Magnum clips.

With a final cinch on the harness, he decided that it would be best to start searching the most obvious places first, every connecting corridor from every possible entrance. He'd head back to the lobby first, find something to leave a note on…

*Bam! Bam! Bam!*

Shots fired, close, and the echoing tone said it was the garage just down the hall. The rookie yanked the Magnum out and ran for the door, precious seconds wasted as he fumbled at the mangled handle.

The hall was clear, except for the dead traffic cop on the floor to his right. Straight ahead was the entrance to the parking garage, and Leon hurried toward it, reminding himself that he wanted to go in easy, that he didn't want to get shot by a panicked gunman.

'Take it slow, get a good look before you move, identify yourself clearly…'

The door, set into the wall to his right, was standing open and as Leon darted a look into wide and open space, his body shielded by the concrete-block wall, he saw something that startled him into forgetting about the shooter.

'What the hell is up with these dogs!?'

Impossible - but the sprawled, lifeless animal in the middle of the car-lined chamber looked the same.

Even with the barest glimpse he'd had before, the slimy wet demon in canine form that had nearly scared him into a crash ten miles outside the city could have come from the same litter. Beneath the sputtering fluorescent strips that lit the cold, oil-stained garage, Leon could see how truly abnormal it was.

There didn't seem to be anything moving, and no sound except for the buzz of lights. Still holding the Magnum ready, Leon stepped into the garage, determined to get a closer look at the creature - and saw a second one next to a parked squad car, apparently just as dead as the first. Both lay in sticky red pools of their own blood, their long, skinned-looking limbs splayed brokenly.

'Umbrella. The wild animal attacks, the disease… how long has this shit been going on? And how did they manage to keep it quiet after all those murders?'

What was even more confusing is why Raccoon wasn't crawling with support services already; Umbrella may have been able to keep their involvement with the 'cannibal' murders silent, but how could they keep Raccoon's citizens from calling for help from outside the city?

And these dogs, like carbon copies… something else that Umbrella made up in their labs?

He took another step toward the fallen dog-things, frowning, not liking the dark conspiracy theories that were forming in his thoughts but unable to ignore them. What he liked even less was the look of the oil stains on the concrete floor; they were rust-colored and there were too many of the dried splotches for him to count. He bent down to get a closer look, so intent on putting to rest a sudden terrible suspicion that he didn't register the shot until he heard the high, singing whine when it blew past his head.

*Bam!*

Leon spun left, bringing the Magnum up and shouting at the same time…

"Hold your fire!"

And saw the shooter lowering her weapon, a woman in a short red dress and black leggings standing by a van against the far wall. She began to walk towards him, her slender hips rolling smoothly and her head high and shoulders back. As if they were at a cocktail party.

Leon felt a rush of anger, that she could be so calm after very nearly killing him, but as she got closer, he found himself wanting to forgive her. She was beautiful and wore an expression of genuine pleasure at seeing him; a welcome sight after so much death.

"Sorry about that," she said. "When I saw the uniform, I thought you were another zombie."

She was Asian-American, fine-boned but tall, her short hair a thick and glossy black. Her deep, satiny voice was almost a purr, a strange contrast to the way she looked at him. The slight smile she wore didn't seem to touch her almond-shaped eyes, which were scrutinizing him carefully.

"Who are you?" the rookie cop asked.

"Ada Wong."

"I'm Leon Kennedy," he said reflexively, not sure what to ask or where to start. "I… what are you doing down here?"

Ada nodded toward the van behind her, an RPD transport wagon that was blocking the holding cell area. "I came to Raccoon looking for a man, a reporter named Bertolucci; I have reason to think that he's in one of the cells, and I think he might be able to help me find my boyfriend."

Her smile faded, her sharp, almost electric gaze meeting his. "And I think he knows all about what happened here. Would you help me move the van?"

If there was a reporter locked up on the other side of the garage wall who could tell them anything at all, he was eager to meet him. He wasn't sure what to make of Ada's story, but couldn't imagine why she would lie about anything. The station wasn't safe, and she was looking for survivors, just as he was.

"Yeah, okay," he said, feeling caught off guard by her smoothly direct manner. It felt like she had taken control of their meeting, some subtle but deliberate manipulation that had put her in charge and from the casual way she turned and walked back to the van, as if there was no question that he would follow, he thought she knew it.

'Don't be paranoid; strong women do exist. And the more people we can find, the more help I can get to get civilians out here.'

Maybe it was time to stop making plans, and just try to keep up. Leon bolstered the Magnum and went after her, hoping that the reporter was where Ada thought he was and that things would start making sense, sooner rather than later.

Did anyone watch the gameplay of RE:3 Remake? Looks like it'll be tough as hell since Nemesis can run and has access to weapons. The game looks promising and can't wait to play it once it comes out in April.

As for Ada Wong's nationality, while it's never been disclosed where she was born exactly in any official sources, I'll take liberties in here for that.