A.N: First things first, this fic was create per request of CoolCat0720. The main idea of the whole story came up from CoolCat and all I did was adding some of my bits here and there.

If you're also a fan of Jake/Sherry (which I've been shipping very hard), go check CoolCat's 'Dance For Me'. You won't regret it.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything out of Resident Evil. All of the contents belonged to Capcom.

Still Breathing, Still Living

Part One

1 March 2014
China Waters

"Man. This place is a big mess."

Through the endless piles of rubbles and metals, several divers swam in circles as they scanned the ruined underwater facility. What they could all made out from the first sight are only big chunks of stones and steel. Dividing themselves into small groups, they turned their headlights brighter as they gave signals to each other to inspect the sunken facility further. Several submarines are on the scene to provide the divers lighting and the help if they needed.

"We're going in, Captain. There's no life sign down here." The head of the divers announced through his earpiece.

"Good, be careful out there."

Chris Redfield himself was on the main ship floating on the sea. Adorned in his old BSAA uniform, Chris himself volunteered to lead the searching team himself.

One part he did was to find any traces of Neo-Umbrella left that could be useful for the BSAA to hunt them down. But the biggest part in this mission, Chris wanted to find his deceased comrade a year ago. A comrade who had gave his life so that he could save his Captain.

Chris eyes squeezed shut for a moment, deep in thoughts. He will find him. He definitely will. "Search the place inside out, I don't want to left even a stone unturned. Is that clear?" He ordered as he monitored the wide screen in front of him, showing the scene recorded down in the sea. The divers were provided with waterproof recorders and the best diving equipment the BSAA could afford. Chris really went all out in this search.

Piers Nivans deserved better than a watery grave.

Hours passed and the BSAA divers did made some accomplishments, securing a few unbroken vials of whatever chemical they are and electrical devices like laptops that they believed would still work if they do some homework on it. They come across countless bloated bodies of the J'avos and BOW, parts of them too. But none of them belonged Piers Nivans.

Even Chris himself had the urge to dive in and search for himself.

"Wait a minute, what the hell was that?!"

The second cameraman suddenly spoke, causing the bulky man to nearly jump from his seat. He leans in closer to the bright screen and upon further inspection, he sees a very familiar sparks from a distance. One that resembles electric sparks. The BSAA Captain heartbeat increase by the second as he reached for the mic beside him, "It got to be him. All units, assemble at where Team 2 are. Assist them."

"Aye, aye, captain."

The rest of the divers joined the fray according to Chris' order. The sparks happen another few times before dying out, then it happen again. As two divers worked to remove the rubbles away from the source of light, another duo moved in to inspect whatever that was causing the electrical sparks.

Eyes closed, breathless, Piers is trapped helplessly underneath the very BOW that nearly took his life a year ago.

The whole operation had undergone for nearly eight hours long, but Chris felt that it is worth it. The eight hours are so far one of his best accomplishment he had in year 2014.

Aboard the main ship, Chris Redfield, alongside with other BSAA veterans visited the body of the heavily mutated Piers Nivans inside a incubator. Although Chris didn't know exactly what's the purpose of keeping Piers' dead body inside a huge glass and metal box will do any good to his comrade, but it is said that it can help to preserve Piers' temperature so that he won't decay from the exposure to the atmospheric temperature and to maintain the constantly surging electricity inside his body.

Cutting-edge technology. Right. Whatever.

"It's alright now, Piers. You can rest in peace. We have found you." Chris whispers to himself, lamenting. He breathes heavily before turning to the doctors, "We'll put him inside the bag, just like any fallen soldier do."

The white coats were all dumbstruck as their stare at the captain widen, "W-What?! That would be outrageous. It will damage the specimen, Captain-"

"Piers is not a fucking BOW." A low growl became the response. Chris' left fist tighten as he took one step ahead of them, challenging the doctors who anxiously responded by retreating backwards. The five doctors were all intelligent people and since Chris Redfield was so famed for his previous achievements (including the fact that he killed Albert Wesker), they knew it was better for them to oblige his request.

One of the doctors who was standing nearest to Chris pushed his spectacles awkwardly to his eyes, "Do whatever you want, Captain Redfield." He said begrudgingly. Chris wasn't totally oblivious to that, but he refused to argue with the mad scientists further.

As long as Piers was honored.

"How long do we still have to go?"

"We're still 54 miles away from the mainland, sir. ETA approximately three hours if we keep this speed going."

It was past midnight and the BSAA was still in the water. The crews worked in shifts and most of them had already returned to the lower deck to rest. It's been a long day for most of them. Except for Chris Redfield, he was restless. He remained on the Captain's room with other attendants to monitor the sea. The weather was all good, there were stars in the sky and it's a good sign; there won't be a storm any time soon.

Now, all he had to do was to wait.

Then in a sudden, the attendant monitoring the sonar spoke up to him urgently, "Captain, we got an unknown incoming ship from our rear! It's approaching our ship at a very fast rate. Should we send them a signal?"

A ship? At times like these?

He was about to issue his order when a massive shaking occured on his ship. Luckily, he manged to grab on a pole to prevent from stumbling over when an explosion happened somewhere on his ship. When the ship regained its equilibrum, that's when Chris realized that the foreign ship was a hostile ship.

"Alert the others now! Prepare to engage hostiles!" He breathed rapidly as he ran past his crew out of the room. As expected, the whole crew now was alarmed and panicked. Screams of horror and shouts of order echoed all over the ship but Chris shouldered past them as he rushed over to where the armory was located. The soldiers had already assembled there passing weapons to each other as they went to the stairs to the main deck.

Chris himself was passed an assault rifle too as he issued his next orders to the units present, "We'll go to the deck to prepare if the hostile try to jack our ship, the rest of you will diffuse the tension on the ship and get the people to the escape pod, alright?"

"Sir!"

It was a chaos around the main deck as the BSAA struggled to keep themselves in line as the foreign ship pummeled their ship relentlessly. The preemptive attack earlier had the crew completely caught off guard and people were scrambling around the ship to find the escape pods instead of preparing to counter their enemy.

From what that he could see from the deck, Chris was very sure that the hostile ship was a Chinese ship, judging from the Chinese words adorned on the sides of the ship, although he couldn't tell what they meant. "What are they? Pirates?" Through his earpiece, he could still hear the screams over at the Captain Room as he tried contact the attendant.

"No, sir! Our observation told us it's the J'avos!"

Another cannon was fired from the J'avos and Chris ducked to avoid further impact. Smoke began to fill the air as the BSAA ship caught on fire. Chris maintained his composure as he rushed over to where the cannon hit and was thoroughly devastated to find that the ship had been breached. Water rushing in through where the cannon had hit and it's just the matter of time before the ship sink.

'Nice job for some mutants. Able to turn us around in just an ambush.'

Situation began to get out of had as the ship lost its buoyancy and began lossing its balance as water filled in. Redfield knew that his ship was lost and he silently prayed the J'avos stop making things any worse. Even through the sea of fire and chaos, he could hear the cheering on the other side of the ship. Damn J'avos.

He'll need to focus of getting all the crews out of here now, the escape pods was on the a level above the space where they kept their secures specimens and...

"Shit! Piers!"

They had removed Piers from the incubator and he was encased in the plastic bag like any fallen soldiers did; but the catch was his body was still in the same room just a level below where the escape pods were. Chris' could feel the thumping of his own heart but he chose to ignore it. He knew that he need to get to the lower levels if he needed to reach Piers' location.

He knew that he's being utterly selfish but there's no way that he'll let Piers return to the sea again.

He descended the staircase as quickly as he could but was blocked by hordes of people trying to get into one of the pods. Chris was annoyed of course that these people were literally fighting their way through like savages on a prey. He pushed past the first wave but then another BSAA operative suddenly grabbed his forearm.

"Sir, it's too dangerous out here, you need to get to the pods!"

Chris yelled angrily when his subordinates failed to fulfill his duty, "I need to get Piers outta here! You were supposed to keep them in control!" He pointed at the crowd. The timid BSAA could only shook his head in defense, "I did but the people are now alarmed that the ship was sinking fast! The lower level that we kept Nivans' body had already flooded in water!"

Wait, what?

Taking advantage of the dazed Chris, the young BSAA operative quickly pulled his Captain into one of the many pods along with 6 other operative who managed to squeeze themselves in. Then a familiar deja vu struck his senses again as Chris finally realized that he was repeating the same thing as what happened a year ago.

His comrades gave their lives to save his.

He didn't even had the time to recompose himself when the door closed on him and his pod was launched away into the water, away from the burning ship.

Chris could only stare in disbelief.

Several days later
Somewhere on China

Squeals and giggling echoed through the lonely beach as a pair of happy couple enjoying their time together at the sand and sea water. After splashing each other playfully in the water, they proceeded to help themselves to the towel that they left on the golden sand.

"Pretty nice place you've got here, Jun Shan." The young brunette commented as she kissed his boyfriend on the corner of his lips, a hand planted on the man's chest and another propped itself on the towel. The man identified as Jun Shan could only smirk as he tickled her sides, "Yup, it's my dad's. But he decided to give the house to me on my last birthday." He took a quick glance over his shoulder to the small mansion up the grassy cliff. It wasn't as big as any private mansion but the decor was as good as any, "It's pretty cool, huh, Ai Lin?"

"Very."

Then he leaned in to kiss her again, deepening it again this time.

It was nice and all, the make-out session was like one on any romantic movies with the golden sunset as the background and they can only be seen as a dark silhouttes.

But it didn't last long before the corner of Ai Lin's eyes suddenly caught a black object on the beach that wasn't previously there. And it certainly didn't belonged to the whole scene. She deliberately pushed her disappointed boyfriend away as she turned her attention to the unknown object by the beach, eyeing it curiously.

Jun Shan followed her gaze and spotted the same thing as she had, he whispered, "What was that?" She shrugged, shoulders raising for a moment before falling back down.

They carefully dragged themselves to the wet sand for a closer examination and it frightened the woman when she realized the shape of the black object.

A body inside a bag. Most probably dead.

But Jun Shan was a curious one as he dared to approached the bag as opposed to his girlfriend, carefuly trying to turn the bag to find the zipper that he knew that was there. Ai Lin watched a few steps away as she covered her mouth with her palms in fear. Then Jun Shan sigh in relief when he discovered the soaked emblem tattered on the bag.

"It must be the military. I saw one of these when I served the army. See? It the logo of this... BSAA." Jun Shan explained when he finally found the small piece of metal on the end of the bag. And from what it looked like, he was about to pull the zipper when Ai Lin suddenly stopped him, "Why don't we just turn it in to the police? This could lead us trouble." She warned with a thick Chinese accent.

But Jun Shan was adamant himself, "You can only get this kind of bags from the military. Don't worry about it. How about you go and report to the feds while I... take a look on this?" He held onto the zipper tightly as he shooed his girlfriend to a safe distance where she could barely see them. She was more than glad as the petite woman dashed to the mansion up the cliff for the phone.

Then he took a very deep breath, expecting the worst that will come. Perhaps it would be a body with the brains blown out of maybe some parts dismembered or maybe disemboweled? He didn't know.

But as he pulled the zipper in one swift motion, he nearly throwed up.

It was worse. This man. Whoever he was.

The right side of the once handsome face was so horribly mutilated with purple and green and red and there was only whites on the right eye, the iris was gone. And the right arm was mutated that it resembled some squid appendage, the whole arm was beyond repairable and the exposed goo-ish flesh? Eww.

In an instance, the body looked very similar to the J'avos in the pictures shown by the media across the globe.

Stunned, Jun Shan froze at where he was. Regretting that he didn't listen to his girlfriend earlier.

His romantic vacation suddenly turned into a very bad movie.

"Piers! Open the goddamn door - that's an order!"

Piers' eyes were empty as he stared back at the pleading Captain inside the spherical escape pod. As the escape pod powered up, Piers gave one satisfied smirk as he watched the pod launched out into the open waters.

As the water found its way into where he was, Piers' mutated arm surged with a powerful force of electricty as he felt the last of his humanity was stripped away from him.

Just one more thing left to do.

Piers Nivans took a very heavy gasp as his left eyes shot open. He flinched to the direct contact with the light as he struggled to turn to his side, grunting unevenly.

He was alone - there was no one in vicinity. On the beach. Still in the bag. It took him a lot of efforts to roll himself off the drenched bag. He must have floated up the shore.

For a moment, he completely at loss at who he was and even his own name. All he could recall was the last bits moments that flashed through him moments ago. He didn't even remember himself being a human. "Who... am... I?" He spoke to himself as he raised his left human arm to his face, surprised that he actually remembered to speak in English. But not his own name, sadly.

But then it struck him, the flashbacks that happened before he awoke from his deep slumber. The bulky man was his Captain, his superior and his name was... Chris Red-something. And this Chris called him... Piers.

"I'm... Piers... Nivans."

A.N: I actually wanted it to be a one-shot. But I guess it was a little too long for that so I'll break it into two parts (or maybe three).

Again, the whole idea of the story will be credited to CoolCat0720.