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spidermilkshake · 6 days

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Wading Through Disaster

More RE fanfics--more mutants, more corporate shenanigans. Finally, we have arrived on the day of RE2's events.

Rating: Teen (TW for suggestive language, human experimentation, dehumanization, medical/lab settings and stuff, described injuries and gore, plus also human adults cuss like human adults)

Due to the nature of how RE2 is structured, I'm taking some liberties with the encounters that happen in the game-things should be familiar for any who's played the original, and especially the Remake, but since it's literally impossible to have a story where both Claire and Leon experience all the same stuff, I'm picking and choosing who meets Mr. X when-and adding in some more encounters with people who are not newbie officer Hat-Defiler and badass Ms. Redfield.

Obviously, Leon is the one who gets to meet Big Big Fella across the wreck of a helicopter! And makes a biiiiiiiiig mistake.

8: Wading Through Disaster

Though it hadn’t been unconscious for more than thirty seconds after the impact, another minute or two was required for the Tyrant to recover fully from the experience—at least from the lingering motion-sickness and blatant awareness that Umbrella Corp. was not particularly keen on comfort, or lack of concussive force, in its transportation methods. Its low growl of displeasure echoed in the increasingly unwelcome confines of the pod. Something in the bioweapon’s genome was so incredibly averse to enclosed spaces—and once Mr. X’s senses were back up to snuff this inbuilt claustrophobia reared and inspired a savage burst of strength unlike any it had used before. The Kevlar straps, despite each being an inch thick and anchored deep in the steel of the pod walls, snapped apart.

From outside the crashed drop-pod a huge hand thrust out through the weak spot of the door’s hinges, rending through the layered metal and support circuits and ripping it almost in half before the structure gave way and tumbled down in a twisted heap. The Tyrant’s other hand grabbed desperately at the opening, heaving its form up and gasping into the fresh air.

…Well, “fresh”. Open, at least. As the creature swung its legs out of the totaled device and thudded to a standing posture its eyes watered and narrowed. Something nearby was on fire. It studied the wreckage of the building that its deployment had dropped it through; smoke was billowing through the jammed-open automatic doors, wreathing a collection of narrow aisles. The lights were off. Another odor reached Mr. X’s flaring nostrils, almost familiar. Metallic, alarming—blood. But not just blood… something was not quite right about it. It made the Tyrant’s eyes water further, crinkling its nose and snorting to try its best to adjust. It was… sickly, old, fouled blood. Blood with something wrong with it. Aged but still sticky and flowing. Not right.

T-00 decided it needed to move faster. Fragments of the broken store windows crunched underfoot as it found the street outside. Here was the source of the smoke—a large truck was turned onto its side, piled and smashed amongst at least ten other vehicles, engine still guttering as the fuel and oil remaining were eaten up. But there was yet more smoke; looking down the length of the street it spotted even more smoldering wrecks, as well as a tall brick structure that had half-crumbled into itself from the flames that had consumed it some time ago. It must find the R.P.D. building. Scanning what it could find of the skyline, the Tyrant made a few assumptions of what might have been before most of the damage and picked a direction around the block.

This was where it also discovered what the source of the disgusting, blood-like odor that still hadn’t faded away.

A group of figures were standing together, half-in and half-out of the street at the intersection ahead of the Tyrant, who slowed to wonder why these humans(?) were neither turning to look at the heavy footsteps, seeking shelter amid the destruction, or taking a single action to douse the fires dotting the city. The closest of them let out a groan, or a gurgle, which Mr. X could only recognize as a wounded noise from a non-specific creature. It then turned its neck at an abnormal angle. The eyes had once been brown but were now glassed-over, crazed—but more odd was that the man’s jaw was completely gone, as if ripped clean off.

This did not appear to bother the thing. The human-like form gave a more aggressive snarl, its hands raising up and reaching towards the Tyrant as it stumbled towards it like a sick animal. Mr. X took a precautionary step back and stood puffed up even larger, as if this deluded man simply hadn’t noticed the sheer size of the bioweapon he was charging and needed a reminder. The thing still didn’t stop, baring the teeth in the remains of its upper mouth as it tripped closer.

It did not take much to put a stop to this; when it lunged, the Tyrant slammed the side of its half-face with a backhand that left it collapsed in the road like a wet noodle. The rest of the gang of strange humans, five in all, turned at the commotion and began shuffling over making more guttural noises. T-00 concluded that these… were probably not humans anymore, not officially. They, and any others that behaved like them, likely did not count as “survivors”.

Their presence also either explained the chaos of these surroundings or was a very prominent symptom of it. Some sort of rogue infection. It was vaguely aware of T and G—though its knowledge didn’t go beyond knowing these shortened names, and that most humans succumbed to their effects. A Tyrant simply didn’t need to know about viruses that had no effect on B.O.W.s. As a second infected shambled up to the Tyrant it gave a hard shove and threw its body backwards into two of the others. It was many times quicker and more agile than these semi-rabid people, and so took the opportunity to stride past and continue to where it hoped its destination was. On the way, more fires. More blown-out windows and disemboweled businesses, hints at struggles and a whiff or two of actual fresh blood with no trace of the foulness. More infected humans—and these did not even react to the Tyrant’s passage, occupied entirely with the carcass of something which they were gathered around and tearing at with bloody and inflamed mouths. Several buildings it passed now were either undamaged, or had the busted windows boarded over or barricaded with large pieces of furniture. T-00 studied the glass of an intact storefront, gaze hovering over the vinyl lettering for some idea of how close it was to the station. Its eyes wandered down the names, hooking onto the “R”s but finding no connections—

—then its eyes lowered to the clear glint on the glass just below the words, and it gave a reflexive jerk into combat readiness.

There was a big, big figure just on the other side. Maybe its own size. The stranger was in a stance, about to throw a punch, and their icy-white, unnaturally sharp eyes glared back at the Tyrant in a confrontational expression.

CRSH—!

Mr. X’s defensive swing obliterated the window glass, and to its bewilderment and shock the huge attacker had vanished from the other side of the partition.

Wait.

Wait..?

…Wait!

T-00 slowly stood back up into passive posture, though his shoulders were still bunched in lingering suspicion; one of its hands traced up and grazed across its own chin, sheepishly realizing what exactly the “stranger” was. Of course it knew what reflections were in theory, but there was never any need for a Tyrant to be shown a mirror, or to know what it looked like. Dr. Ramirez had only had one in the house’s bathroom, but it was neither necessary or particularly possible for it to fit into the tiny room.

So… this was what it looked like? Leaning over, Mr. X huffed in frustration as it tried to find a broken fragment still attached to the windowframe that had enough size and the correct angle to show it another glimpse of its frightening face.

Around the corner there was a sudden sharp report, followed by a rush of air overhead and the whining of a rotor straining against wind resistance. The sidewalk shuddered as a loud BOOM echoed from not very far away, and the Tyrant went instantly alert to its surroundings once more. Cutting around the corner, Mr. X was met with the sight of the R.P.D., though from the side; the clock tower was unmistakable.

The gout of flame and thick, oily smoke issuing from a hole in the uppermost story’s outer wall was also unmistakable. The bioweapon sped up as it got closer to the sheer wall, just able to make out the tail rotor of a small kind of commercial helicopter sticking out between the charred bricks and fizzling heat. It batted aside another infected, barely even noticing it as he gripped his gigantic fingers into the chipping brick and excitedly pulled itself hand over hand up to this higher level. Many of the windows on this building were much larger than the ones T-00 had been seeing on the way here—and one in particular appeared to have had most of the glass and frames blown out by the force of the aircraft plowing through the hallway. That one would do.

As it swung its way into the R.P.D.’s upper roof-access passages one leg at a time, it was forced to balk for a moment at the hotter, more acrid smoke flooding down the hall from the flaming engine. It tucked one arm protectively over its stinging eyes and nose, feeling an automatic spasm under its lungs that it had never experienced. With a grumble, it fought through several more of these spasms and turned away; with the fire so recently blazing through the chopper’s burst fuel tank, there was no way for it to safely investigate the area beyond the wreck. Not without more of these—were they sneezes? No, it had observed human sneezes before, it knew what that was. This was… like retching. Its lungs were retching? What was that called?

The refuge of an adjoining hallway saw the smoke lessen enough that the Tyrant could lower its arm and blink away the irritation. It stepped more slowly down the length of the hall, feeling the vibration and ominous creaking of the flooring and trying to tread more carefully. The place had just been crashed into by a helicopter, and judging by the odd strings of bullet holes decorating the drywall like open sores, there had been fighting on the ground in here as well. Its memory paged over all of the names and faces it had on its hit-list: Chief Brian Irons, Lieutenant Marvin Branagh, Deputy Elliot—

—something shifted right at his eye level while approaching a doorway interrupted that line of thought. A small security camera; Mr. X thought he had picked up the swivel neck of the device moving slightly, and stopped to watch. If it had moved, someone was controlling it, and currently looking at the bioweapon. Possibly a target.

A small red light inside the lens flashed on and off. Someone was looking at it. It was not advantageous for a target to know it was here—much less to know where it was; with a hook that was relatively gentle, the Tyrant popped the monitoring device from its anchor and into the nearby wall. Cheap plastic and aluminum components broke up like confetti.

It brushed a loose bit of the camera casing from its glove and was reaching for the doorknob when a jarring hiss sounded from behind him, followed by a wave of hot air that was scented like the contaminated cousin of normal petrichor. Curious, Mr. X turned and made his way back to the helicopter husk with much stealthier steps. There was no surveillance room past this point, only a fire escape and a roof access for the boiler room; at least two humans were still alive and unchanged in this complex. Whether they were its targets it could not say. Not until it got a good look for itself.

The scorched, dented metal was still somewhat hot to the touch, but not enough to be a bother through the Limiter’s gloves. Bending a knee down, T-00 braced one hand against the tipping point of the steaming tail section and pressed up and inwards with a mighty push. The helicopter’s landing struts came unstuck from the floor and the weight of it slid forward into the gap it had broken in the inner wall, finally out of the way.

“Jesus Christ!”

Its attention flicked up to the source of the surprisingly close voice. There was, not ten feet further down the hall, a young man standing rooted in place. The Tyrant stared down at him, craning its neck at a steep angle despite this human not being at all short for his species. Its gaze hooked first on the drawn pistol that was being pointed at its chest, and its back twitched in defensive instinct. Next it stopped on the acronym that the man was wearing on a body armor vest—“R.P.D.” A target. A target?

But… who was this?

T-00 let its arm fall back to its side, examining for longer, as if just pinpointing the features harder might click together with the memorized faces of those it was sent to hunt. At the same time the creature leaned forward, giving a few exploratory sniffs to try and learn this unexpected individual over the pervading stench of hot metal and burnt plaster. This human matched… none of the targets it had been shown. While he wore the police department’s gear, there was no match at all to any of the faces it had learned, target or not. Nothing about the human’s scent told it much either—except that his cortisol levels were far higher than any other it had met, making him particularly odiferous. Did Umbrella miss someone? Or was this a survivor who had managed to break in and scavenge the weapons and supplies here—completely unrelated to T-00’s mission?

T-00 shifted in place, prepared to either step forward if beckoned or provoked by this new, perplexing human, or to step backward if the man did not factor into its next goal. What exactly was a Tyrant supposed to do, if met with someone it was not meant to attack, and also not meant to protect?

And a pulse began to run down Mr. X’s spine before it could wonder much further. In a horrible recollection all of his plentiful back muscles seized.

No... No... NO..! It was useless of course, and though stiff at first the Tyrant’s legs began to drag it mechanically forward. NO—let me—Must confirm! The Tyrant willed these thoughts to be sent back along the command servers’ connection… though it was doubtful such a capacity existed, or was even thought of by Umbrella.

Stupid! Stupid! The only thing these forced movements were allowing it was the low, bass growl of aggravation with being forced about like a rodeo bull on a nose-ring. The young man, understandably, hustled back a few steps in the face of the 700-pound living weapon stomping closer. But whoever this was, he held his ground fairly well, still brandishing the pistol. His aim had canted upwards, as if knowing in a split second that the brute’s torso was so thick and covered up in protective layers that any shot there would have no stopping power whatsoever.

T-00 was so busy inside its own head, cursing and flailing at the mind-burning nonsense of it, the idiocy, of whatever handler was pushing it towards killing this survivor while still name unknown that it barely registered when the pistol flashed twice—small bullets splattering across the spot right between its eyes and very temporarily sending a mist of Tyrant blood from its leathery brows. Something about the faint sting jarred Mr. X enough to pause mid-step.

…Something missing.

Its fingers explored up to the regenerating scrapes. No, not that. Up higher. It gave a sharp twitch as it missed the snug fit of the felted brim over its head that by now it was so used to.

Hat.

Mine. Gone.

A hot coal of rage flared up from deep in its guts, inflaming far more strongly than any other slight it had experienced before. Suddenly it found no issue at all with the command server’s insistence that it chase this… this… flimsy little thing. He was going to hurt the small human. It was going to catch him. And it would not. Let. Him. Shoot. My Hat.

Three more rounds peppered against Mr.X’s face, none of them giving it the pause like those first ones had, and with his face betraying a flash of terror the human turned and sprinted back for the roof access.

There was nowhere to go that way, and the Tyrant knew it. Its eyes widened in smug satisfaction. It slammed the door to the roof open almost as soon as it had swung shut behind its prey. The steady pattering of rain on the rooftop area—or arena—was drowned out as Mr. X lunged out after its enemy and swung wide.

“Shi—tahh..!” The human had tried to tuck and roll, but half-slipped on the slick surface. Still, it had brought him low enough that the sledgehammer-like swipe had breezed narrowly overhead. Disregarding pain almost as well as a bioweapon, the man scrambled on his bruised limbs to get out of the way of the crushing force of the Tyrant’s boot as it came down, trying to catch and disable one of his arms.

T-00 let the man drag himself upright for a second, leveling a glare at him that perhaps could have outright killed lesser humans as he backed his enemy towards the staircase down to the boiler room. It waited, fingers tightening in their fists and the joints crackling, and it let the man come to the realization that there was no escape route here. Only behind the Tyrant.

“What th—?” The human grabbed the railing as one foot slipped down a step, “What the fuck are you?”

Mr. X did not appreciate the man’s tone here; with a huff it came at him at a determined power-walk. The human stifled another curse and fought to not fall feet-over-face down the stairs to keep up the distance between them. There was a hideous burbling as he hopped down the last stair—an infected form rose back up to its feet, face all but destroyed by bullets but its brainstem still intact enough to move and bite. The man whipped around and pumped another two shots into the shambling thing as it made to grab at him, and it snarled as it folded down again—likely still not dead.

From behind, a rasp of furious breath blasting over the man was his only warning of what was coming—and this was not even remotely enough to avoid the Tyrant’s palm closing over the back of his skull.

“Ack—urgh!”

Mr. X felt its lip curl up slightly, unbidden, and let a sliver of its upper row of teeth bare. Rather than instantly crush the man’s skull or sling him in a sharp motion to snap his neck, the Tyrant lifted him up in triumph, hoping in the time that the frail being wriggled in his grip he understood what he had taken from the angry bioweapon.

The human still had a lot of nerve, which was admirable in a way—still struggling, his free hand had pawed over one of the pouches at his hip and grabbed something small and cylindrical in size. The Tyrant’s brows cinched and ears had pricked up, but relaxed slightly as its prey fumbled the small canister. It clinked harmlessly against the patio tiles, rolling up against one of T-00’s boots.

And then fucking chaos aagh—

Light! Sound! More than it had ever known at once—stabbed it in the hyper-strong senses. Its hand loosened automatically, and a faint wet scuffling was the last sign it had of its enemy fleeing at top speed.

At that moment, it was more worried about the splashes of phantom light in its retinas, even with its eyes closed and a large arm shielding its face… Its ears were ringing, and it felt itself growl without fully hearing the rumbling noise produced.

It was going to throw this human. Off this roof. Or off a roof at least. Or into a wall. Any wall would do. If only the painful stars would get out of its eyes…

#Mr. X #Mr X #resident evil #Tyrant #T-00 #T-103 #re2 #resident evil 2 #fanfiction #fanfic #Umbrella #B.O.W.#Leon S. Kennedy #uh oh Leon bad idea #don't mess with the hat it's all the poor Giant Mutant Guy's got!#a bit of a grudge has formed now y'see

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spidermilkshake · 10 days

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Deployment

More RE fanfics--more mutants, more corporate shenanigans. Finally, we have arrived on the day of RE2's events.

Rating: Teen (TW for suggestive language, human experimentation, dehumanization, medical/lab settings and stuff, plus also human adults cuss like human adults)

Mr. X would rather like to get off Umbrella Corp.'s wild ride. It's a rather short one while I'm working on finishing up the next--which will FINALLY feature a certain newbie RPD guy about to be pursued by a Big Big Fella.

7: Deployment

The agent commanded Mr. X to enter the panel moving truck, but by the limited space within and the chill that pervaded the blank interior the unmarked vehicle was clearly a refrigerated compartment. T-00 set itself down against the far wall in a cross-legged posture, tucking itself down to resist the slight cold and letting itself doze off for much of the rumbling journey. It must have taken several days, which mattered little to it. It did not wish to be all that aware after being torn away. Its metabolism had been slowed enough by the confines that only once an armed guard yanked open the door and blasted the dormant Tyrant with morning sunrays did it notice any sort of thirst or hunger. Its joints cracked stiffly as it stood, tromping down the truck’s ramp and into a familiar yet unfamiliar industrial warehouse setting.

There were five other Tyrants already waiting in a semi-circle, immobile while Umbrella staff and guards buzzed around them like frantic bees. It recognized one of them—not by designation, but by its drowsy habits during downtime. T-00 came to a stop right beside the other Tyrant and eager to be near someone familiar, who greeted the younger with a bleary blink, grunt, and a slight bob of its head. Mr. X rumbled in its throat in response, but the nonverbal reunion was interrupted by a labcoat-wearing older man approaching the group of huge creatures:

“T-103 Tyrants—stand by for your new orders.” The man rasped, untucking a sheaf of documents and photographs from under his spindly arm, “T-048, T-049. You two are to maintain a perimeter around the Disposal Plant. No unidentified creatures or persons are to exit this perimeter. Destroy all irregular mutants; kill all armed persons you find.” These two accepted between them a copy of a large photograph which showed the exterior of a large disposal complex, one hand of each holding opposite corners as the B.O.W.s nearly hit their skulls together in their close study. They were much more similar in looks than many T-103s—likely from a split embryonic batch and accustomed to assignments together.

The older man also handed a copy of this photo and an internal map schematic to the three others.

“T-029, T-033, and T-035. T-035. Hey, Sleeper. Wake up.” He snapped, and Mr. X’s former holding room neighbor flinched and snapped to attention, “You three will infiltrate the facility. Clear out irregular mutants you find inside and put all organic materials from them into the disposal chamber. There will be a trained armed squad of outsiders within. Kill them all.”

These Tyrants grumbled roughly in a sort of response, weight shifting from pillar-like leg to pillar-like leg—anxious, building with adrenaline at the thought of the more violent-natured assignment. This left T-00 standing alone, eying the old staff member as he turned towards it and appeared to ogle its trilby for a long moment.

“As for you—you have a very special mission.” A small stack of papers was offered towards it, and with a curious head tilt it took them in one vast hand and began shuffling through them. “You are to obtain a sample of Dr. William Birkin’s G-virus. You are holding a schematic of the N.E.S.T. layout below the city where all samples should be located. However, intelligence suggests that before a team was sent to dispatch him Dr. Birkin had locked the sample cache down with a number of fail-safes that will detonate unless it is unlocked with a specific keycode. Next you should see a photograph of Dr. Annette and William Birkin’s daughter, Sherry.”

Mr. X examined this photo. Sherry was very much what its experience had it expect of juvenile humans, though as pale as the Birkins’ where Mariposa had been as dark as Ramirez. She shared the tired lower eyelids of Julian’s daughter in this frozen moment she was in—baring her teeth in a broad smile between her two distracted-looking parents.

“Based on the bugging of their house, it is very likely that one or both of the Birkins has given Sherry an object which conceals this keycode, if not a dormant sample of the G itself. If you encounter her, get that object. It could be jewelry, a pager, a flash drive—anything roughly that size.

“You have a secondary task—find the Raccoon City Police Department and clear it. A photo of the building is in your materials.” There was in fact a photo of a large, distinctive building with a sturdy gate around its front exterior, and a… tower? Tower, yes. It would be very hard to miss even from a distance.

“You are to track down all surviving members of the R.P.D. and kill them all. You have photos of every confirmed member of this force. If you encounter any of these targets, kill them immediately. Understood?”

T-00 gave a heavy nod, flipping through the smaller five by sevens which appeared to be officially-taken headshots. There were more than a dozen to memorize, so Mr. X took an additional minute to do so, its leathery brows just barely mobilizing in concentration.

A heavy blast of air from the propped-open warehouse door had the Tyrant’s free hand shooting up to catch onto the brim of its hat. A powerful whirring of double-rotors slowing filled the space and drowned out the shouts and commands of the Umbrella personnel as the cargo helicopter touched down just outside. A woman in a labcoat leaned down over the high catwalk above the bioweapon conference and bellowed in a voice of authority:

“Alright boys—get those living tanks loaded up! Move—we don’t have all goddamn day!”

Aware they were about to be on the move, the Tyrants all pocketed their various background materials and fidgeted in place, their tremendous weight giving the small movements extra energy, extra menace for any observer who knew what was good for them; T-00 straightened up its hat atop its scalp and watched as two armed guards gestured at the group of Tyrants to follow over towards a cluster of heavy, metallic cylinder-shaped pods that sat strapped and ready to be hooked up and airlifted. These drop-pods were arranged two by three—ten feet tall and more than six feet wide, the devices armored and painted minimally with a dull red and white block letters naming the designations of each Tyrant they were meant for. Mr. X’s sleepy-natured neighbor was loaded into the cylinder just ahead of it, and the creature startled sharply at the noise of the curved doorway hissing as it was hermetically sealed and its support systems came online. With a swift glance, it confirmed for itself that none of the handlers had noticed the sudden jolt of fear, and under another goading from the nearest guard it cautiously wedged itself into the extremely tight confines of its pod.

The gas valves sizzled painfully in its ears as the door shut it in. A small LCD screen lit up mere inches from its eyes, showing a diagram of a vague bipedal form along with a short instruction: LINE UP WRISTS AND ANKLES IN THE SHOWN POSITION. T-00 felt its jaw clench tighter with the stress, but it focused on where its arms and legs were backed up into the grooves built into the sleek white inner surface. A green light half-stunned it from the screen, and firm Kevlar belts engaged from the grooves to restrain it in place. The Tyrant let out a panicked croak. This was… not a part of training, or something it was intuitively inclined to accept or understand. It tried to concentrate on anything else but the clinical, plastic-y smell choking the stuffy space or the complete loss of mobility: The G-forces on its huge frame increased, telling it the pods were finally being lifted.

The muffled double WHUMM-WHUMM-WHUMM from above was the only thing now that could distract it from the tightness and the nauseating proprioception as the Tyrant pods lurched along behind the tow line. The bioweapon hoped the distance until the airdrop point was not far; not that it had anything to vomit up, but it did not want to think about how the pod’s systems would react in that case…

It was a torturous half-hour of top-speed flight until the pods gave a second, even more violent lurch—now dangling straight down over a selected spot as the helicopter hovered over. It had felt so many times longer. T-00 gave a reflexive jerk against its bonds as a pneumatic whoosh sounded from a neighboring pod; then another—and another. Five Tyrant pods had been dropped in succession; Mr. X was alone now. It strained with greater force against the straps holding it down as it felt the chopper’s tow line drag along again, swinging the Tyrant in a perpendicular direction. The inch-thick Kevlar started to give off little ping!s as its fibers gave way, one at a time.

Mr. X really, really wanted off of Umbrella Incorporated’s wild ride. Before it had the chance to put its enhanced muscles to the test doing that, there was a sudden k-CHUNK! from overhead. The straps holding the deployment pod ripped free with a controlled hiss. For a few seconds, T-00’s eyes widened until they watered in the artificially-dry air, sensing itself floating up from the floor—slowly putting together what this lapse in gravity meant, especially given its great mass.

This box had better be strong enough to—

CRASH!

#Mr. X #Mr X #resident evil #Tyrant #T-00 #T-103 #re2 #resident evil 2 #fanfiction #fanfic #Umbrella #B.O.W.#Umbrella corp is even more nasty for how they send out their killer mutants #My headcanon here is that the claustrophobia and motion sickness was unintended #Umbrella were just jerks for deciding to trigger it when Tyrants were used to make them VERY grumpy in general

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spidermilkshake · 10 days

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Requisition

More RE fanfics--more mutants, more corporate shenanigans. There is fluff! Also, deep sadness.

Rating: Teen (TW for suggestive language, human experimentation, dehumanization, medical/lab settings and stuff, plus also human adults cuss like human adults, some obvious child neglect and endangerment, alcohol abuse, implied animal abuse)

Mr. X and Mariposa's rapport becomes stronger--but nice things don't last, and when you are a bio-engineered sentient creature but you count only as property of a cutthroat, eugenicist corporation, you come to know that all too well. This one takes place right before RE2/RE3, by only a day or less.

6: Requisition

For a time the pattern continued, and Mr. X did abide about as well as he could. The new wrinkle in the routine of weekend visitations by Mariposa had become a welcome change, and the girl slowly but surely became somewhat used to having an immense, inhuman, and mostly silent shadow. The Tyrant also grew accustomed to the tiny human and her curiously vulnerable status, drawn towards placing itself as a shield between here and even the most minor misfortunes in a way that it could not quite categorize. It was not the placid, logical, natural inclination of loyalty it regarded Dr. Ramirez with (though it did also regard the man, warts and all, with a sort of respectful fondness given that he had been the first to speak to T-00, and of T-00, with the correct regard for its awareness and intellect.) The child brought out… something else, partly an instinct, partly a thought that it could not collect the words for but did feel some control of—and a willingness to continue to feel this… something. It often wondered during the off-time late at night if this perhaps was a feeling that had to do with friendship, and from that it considered that it had not had a friendship before. Docile acceptance of its former neighbors in the holding chamber, yes. Acquainted with the names, faces, and general habits of it first set of handlers, trainers, and keepers—sure. Obedient to its master and willing to work for him until it became impossible, of course. But the other Tyrants, the most reliable trainer, and even Dr. Ramirez were not what Mr. X would call “friends”. The doctor and the trainers were sources of orders and tasks and purpose—they stood well on the rung of authority over any Tyrant’s head, and however kind some of them were at time this felt always incorrect… too distant for the type of bond that it felt must be required. As for the others of its kind… acknowledgement of their sameness, ease of understanding each other’s cues and moods, none of that changed that T-00 had spent precious little time freely around them. Calling something that razor-thin a “friendship” felt presumptuous, and premature.

But the small girl… she and her Tyrant chaperone were different. Yes. Mariposa and Mr. X perhaps were now friends.

Through the boiling heat of August, the doctor paid less and less attention to his visiting daughter, and became far more willing to allow T-00 alone to watch over her, as he opted to focus manically on the take-home aspects on his work. As the incidence of stressful, heated phone calls increased, so too did the outings farther and farther from the small back garden plot and its shady patio. Mariposa was adventurous, and while she was hesitant at first she quickly concluded that getting some distance from her father’s distracted cussing was worth whatever danger might be out in the wooded hills and wider pastures of the property. And she also reasoned that there was no danger out there that her monstrous follower could not render utterly harmless with a slim fraction of his strength and lightning-like reflexes.

Sitting in the shade by the fence line where Mariposa could watch the cows grazing, Mr. X eyed the structure being twisted together and formed in her hand with an expression of contented interest. The long, dried strands of yellow grass here were tough and fibrous, as were the other mixed species of flora poking up through the gaps in the dominant plants. She had asked him to tear some pieces of these loose—those she could not break off herself without scraping and pricking her frail fingers—and pass them to her a few at a time. She was making something. Out of the irregular bits of plant matter, a regular pattern was emerging in a long, unified band. She asked for another of the flowering species. “Daisies”, she called them, by which point he knew she meant the white colored ones that had yellow centers and many small petals arranged in a single-layered radial pattern…

“Almost done,” she smiled, holding the long, woven piece up and stretched to its full length, squinting appraisingly at it for unknown reasons. “Just one more piece of grass, please!”

Between two giant fingers, the bioweapon fulfilled the request, and then leaned down a few more inches to watch her looping and twining the grass around both ends of the creation. In a matter of moments they were joined into a continuous band, which she displayed proudly over her outstretched palms.

“What do you think?”

Mr. X bobbed his head, though twitched up a wrinkled brow to try and express its confusion. It was unclear what the circle of combined plant matter was for; perhaps it did not have a purpose, and was merely decorative. It did have a pleasant balance of colors and details from the placement of different flowers…

“Can you duck your head down, Mr. X?” Yes. It could. And it did, holding still as it felt its hat shift somewhat—and the pressure of two small hands pushing on it, and tugging the trilby back into its standard position. Mariposa giggled, “Okay, you can sit back up now.”

The Tyrant gradually straightened up, noting the absence of Mariposa’s creation with a questioning rumble. Giggling harder, she pointed up to the top of his head, and upon probing with a few fingers he found the delicate flowers encircling the brim of his hat.

“I wanted to see how it looks on you,” she stifled further laughter, wriggling in place from the effort of containing her mirth, “It looks kinda silly though.”

Mr. X half-closed his eyes and uttered a low grunt; it did not care particularly if it looked “silly”, excepting that silly always made the child much happier. Mariposa allowed the nearly eight-foot bioweapon to wear the flower crown a while longer, only scooping it off right before returning in sight of the house—unsure how her father in a sour mood might react to seeing his personal Tyrant bodyguard so peaceably “emasculated”.

------

September changed—though the visits remained. The nature of them grew stranger. Mariposa relied on her backpack more, fussing over the heavy texts and notebooks contained within. Their explorations were fewer (but thankfully much cooler as summer’s heat started to die), and more and more of the child’s time was spent indoors. She very often could be found only in her room which Mr. X found her could just barely squeeze himself into and sit cross-legged in the last remaining open floor space, relegating Mariposa to the bed with her plush toys and her mysterious written materials. If Dr. Ramirez’s slurred shouting over the phone was too loud, she would retreat to the kitchen island, the mutant in her wake.

Thankfully, that Sunday night the doctor had retreated into his bunker lab for a few more hours, and his daughter had the benefit of a quiet room to spread out her papers and concentrate. Once more, the Tyrant leaned closer to the top of the bed from where he sat, eying and uttering a skeptical grunt over the open textbook and single-subject notebook. Mariposa fidgeted with her pencil and sighed.

“I know it don’t make sense, but if I don’t do it I’ll get in trouble. It’s homework.”

“Rrrgh.” Mr. X uttered a groan. Dr. Ramirez had not followed up on his hopes to teach the Tyrant how to speak, but in the meantime it had become practiced in use of tones, pitches, and even exercising its tough, calloused vocal cords enough to try out a number of clumsy, bestial phonemes on its own. It could form an “M”, or an “R”, an “H”, and even “S” and “Ch”—and could distinguish how to make them and choose when to do so. The breathy, plain growls were not gone—but the creature was now far closer to language than most T-103s ever came. The girl shot him a sad but understanding look, catching the low snarl’s meaning from her own long practice.

“It’s math homework too. I hate math homework…”

Mr. X glanced at the upside-down numbers and symbols on the pages, one milky-white eye squinting as he struggled to make them out. There was that word again: Homework. Work… Mariposa seemed very young and underdeveloped to be expected to do any sort of work, in the Tyrant’s silent opinion. It would be like barking orders to a being like himself while it was still a half-formed fetal blob in the growth tube. But it did understand very well the concept of grudgingly following a trainer’s commands through a testing range, and so likened it more to that. Mentally at least, she was very much not half-formed.

Frustrated by the long page of simple math, the ten-year-old finally flopped back and grabbed onto one of her larger plushes—a bizarrely-proportioned and colored horse-like creature. Settling more comfortably, she turned the text and notebook around so that T-00 could properly read the contents.

“Ugh, it’s giving me a headache… Do you wanna try one?”

Mr. X peered back up at her, eyes widening with brows raised in alarm. She wanted it to… what now? Her index finger poked out and landed on a short line of words, the only form of instructions that stood out on the page above a few columns of numbered equations, “There, that’s what you’re supposed to do for this row. They’re not hard, but my teacher Ms. Ingels makes me ‘show my work’. I dunno how to ‘show my work’ of just… knowing seven times seven, ugh.”

“Hmmmmmgh…” Mr. X was not sure what to make of any of it: The teacher’s bizarre expectation, the wording that Mariposa was using for the task, and the threadbare instructions on the page. Times? What times? How does one “times” something—especially an abstract number? The instructions were only more puzzling: “Solve problems No. 13 through No. 21 with multiplication.” “Solve problems” it knew, and it could see the numbered chunks of numbers and symbols, but numbers on a paper and various “X”s and lines did not seem like a problem to solve to the Tyrant. They just were.

But they made Mariposa unhappy. They were a problem, a very different kind of problem than the monster was used to.

It picked up the pencil with some awkwardness, its fingers far too large and thick for the thin spike of wood and graphite. Holding the item up stiffly, T-00’s brows screwed up tightly as it studied the little girl’s work so far for clues to what the strange orders meant. She had finished two earlier sections, and had made it to copying the numbers and symbols beside No. 16 before giving it up to the Tyrant’s attempts. It glanced back to No. 15: It had said “11x3”, and the girl had arranged the numbers vertically instead before filling in below the number “33”.

Wait a moment—

Multiply. Three groups of eleven. Thirty-three. Now it made sense! Why the book did not just ask, flatly and sensibly, to write what the numbers multiplied together were Mr. X didn’t know. Somehow the compiler of this textbook had less of a grasp of how to communicate than the completely non-verbal non-human.

“Mrph,” It looked back to No. 16: It read “8x8”. It was childishly simple—not too much to expect for the most mathematically-challenged ten-year-old—but Mr. X still wasn’t sure what Mariposa’s teacher could mean by “showing her work” aside from recording the answer. Now, for the difficult part; the Tyrant moved the tip of the pencil down to the targeted spot at an achingly slow pace, trying its best to not press or move the flimsy implement too hard. It had seen humans write before, and it had seemingly awoken with an innate knowledge of all the shapes signifying the sounds and meanings for English and Spanish at the very least… but it had never attempted to write anything before. A jitter shot through its chest, and it could sense the pores on its forehead beading up with a nervous sweat.

—very slowly, with the pencil clenched in almost a whole fist, the Tyrant scratched out the number 64 in much rougher, fatter lines than Mariposa could manage. She opened her eyes wide, and exclaimed:

“Oh! You never told me you could do math!”

Mr. X’s mouth twitched into the closest semblance of a proud smile as its tough, warped face could manage. It had never seemed necessary to prove its own intelligence. Mariposa had never needed the proof, and had never insinuated he was stupid. Unlike most other specimens of humanity it had met…

“And you can write!”

That much the Tyrant hadn’t even known, but the confirmation relaxed the twinges of tension in its neck. It rumbled softly and focused on the next problem. The girl did try to pull the homework away, but with a planted palm and a shake of his head, T-00 assured her that he was willing to finish the task at hand—with an increasing confidence in its ability to not destroy her belongings it filled in the solutions in a matter of moments. Barely containing her excitement, Mariposa swept aside the dull school drudgery and dug out a different notebook in its place.

“What else can you write? Maybe you can talk to me by writing back!” She had also dug out a different writing implement—a pen, more importantly one with a thicker, chunkier handle—and gave it to the Tyrant. Mr. X tilted its head; it… had not thought of that possibility before. Of course, it had not thought to try and mimic how humans wrote either, and had considered its progressively greater mastery of its voice to let it communicate just fine.

But the idea seemed to thrill his friend, and he was now curious to give it a try. It hunched its heavy shoulders over the fresh lined sheet and held up the pen:

I write words.

Name Mr. X.

Mariposa. Friend.

I do good?

“Yes!” She giggled, “Yes, it’s good! My old 4th grade grammar teacher wouldn’t like it, but he’s a baboso, so he doesn’t count.”

The Tyrant produced a deep grumble that was practically a purr, and glanced to her meaningfully as he scrawled out another line:

We talk like this?

“Yeah,” Mariposa grinned and hugged her rainbow-hued fabric equine tighter. Her tone was excited, in a way that suggested she and the bioweapon were getting away with something. Nervous, and playful. “I wanna know more about you. Papá doesn’t tell me nothing, of course—but you can tell me what you remember.”

It took several of these nighttime weekend sessions for Mr. X to adequately describe not only what it was, but how it had lived in the spring month prior to coming to her father’s secluded estate. Many times he had to stop, as Mariposa became distressed almost to tears—but rather than becoming afraid of what she was reading she surprised the giant living weapon by insisting upon crawling up into his grasp and clinging onto his Limiter’s lapels, speaking in a cracking, tiny voice how sorry she was.

She was unable to read his broken messages when tucked up against him like this, so the Tyrant tried its best to let her know the worst of its cold, coarse introduction to life was over, and it was all better now with a deep rumble and a palm resting carefully on her back and shoulders. After the roughest parts were over, it could much more happily recall to her their first meeting from its own eyes.

First day. I scared you. You scared me.

Small. Small, but scary.

… embarrassed.

She collapsed into giggles at the revelation, unfathomably tickled by the reminder of that day’s terror and the hindsight that came with now trusting “el monstruo” implicitly with her own safety. She read the last little message she had missed earlier and grinned, laughed, all over again. That one word was in the most miniscule letters she’d ever seen the creature manage—their very hidden nature adding further to their meaning.

You gave ice cream. First ice cream.

Friend then.

GOOD friend.

------

It was a Saturday, with September almost yellowed into nothing like the dry carpet of pasture grass. Mariposa was sleepily sprawled out on the carpet in front of the television with Benji, and old episode of some sort of Western drama playing out before the unimpressed dog and girl. Dr. Ramirez was working on breakfa—er, lunch, nearby in the kitchen—a towel from the freezer wrapped around his neck and the lights over the range in as low a setting as they went as the second grilled cheese sizzled away. A small saucepan sat on another burner—slowly heating up a can of condensed tomato soup. Mr. X leaned against the kitchen’s corner—an eagle’s eye on both of those he had to protect—gnawing contentedly at the reward which Dr. Ramirez had given him for its very punctual reminder that his daughter needed someone awake and sober enough to receive her at 11 a.m. It was something which he’d seen the man given to his daughter before: A “jawbreaker”. The name did not seem all that appropriate—as its jaw seemed to be easily breaking off pieces of it instead. But it crunched pleasantly, and was packed with sugars, so T-00 counted its blessings, ignored the illogical naming, and enjoyed the treat.

There was a loud series of rapid knocks on the front door. Ramirez almost dropped the grilled cheese he was mid-flip, and he choked audibly before whirling around to the entry hall. Mariposa scuttled up to a seated posture, hidden partly by the couch.

“Mr. X—see who it is,” the man ordered, and it was clear by his disheveled and tense response that no one was expected. The bioweapon set down the unfinished half of its treat and strode heavily, assertively, to the door, its brows twitching down in irritation. Its hearts thudded in readiness to destroy whatever threat was invading this house:

—When it opened the door, the Tyrant was faced with a relatively tall man in a dark suit, and darker shades. He faced the huge being with absolutely no shift in his pale, wrinkled face. His black hair was streaked with grey, and T-00 could not miss the hump of fabric on the front of his suit jacket that announced to its sensitive eyes the concealed handgun. The bioweapon reflexively broadened its stance, blocking more of the doorway with its body and leveled a sour glare down into the slick shades covering the intruder’s expression.

“Stand down, T-00,” the man ordered, and the Tyrant’s hackles pricked up as he silently refused. This was some Umbrella Company personnel, but he’d offered no proof of that beyond knowing its designation, nor any proof whatsoever that he outranked Dr. Ramirez.

Mr. X instead moved like a striking snake—a fist bunching around the bundle of fabric he’d grabbed by the man’s throat and collarbones—and lifted the pathetic man half a meter off the ground. Before the man could finish yelping in fright the Tyrant’s other hand flicked out and ripped the small pistol out of the harness hidden under the suit jacket.

“Who is it, Mr. X?” He paused at the voice close behind him, and answered by shifting its broad shoulders more sideways and smoothly displaying the confiscated weapon as the captive intruder’s struggles became visible, “A-Ah! Easy, T-00! Let him down—carefully!”

Grunting with bemusement, Mr. X obeyed to the letter and gently let the man down onto his feet again. He waited until the stranger seemed to be stable and balanced before loosening its grip on his collar. Gasping, the suited man recoiled for a second as he caught his breath, then adjusted his shades.

“Very good.” He croaked, “Not to worry, Dr. Ramirez. I didn’t present I.D. or offer any other proof to your Tyrant here. It did very well,” He let out a breath of relief, “and I didn’t even get whiplash, like the last time. A gentleman, this one.”

“Ah, er, well,” Ramirez blustered. “I’m sure he thanks you.”

“I apologize for the rude interruption,” the man said, fishing out a company Identification Card as he continued, “My name is Mr. Winters. Operations Director Winters. I’ve come on behalf of Umbrella’s executives of the U.S. branch to discuss something, ah, very important.”

Dr. Ramirez was already half-sobered-up from the shock, and as he made a show of handing the agent his firearm back he snuck a glimpse past him to the gravel turnaround, and his eyes widened. The Tyrant could see clear over their heads and the rock half-wall of the front garden, and noticed the large, boxy, white commercial moving truck parked next to the unmarked black Crown Vic. As well as the two armed guards by the former, and a Tyrant handler in their uniform gray jumpsuit and heavy boots.

“Uh. What’s with the truck?”

“That’s for later. Come, shall we talk somewhere more private?”

Ramirez curiously took to the polite suggestion as if it were a harsh command. Mr. X allowed them to pass through, but shut the door meaningfully hard in the nosier of the two approaching guard’s face.

“Mariposa, go play in your room.”

“Papá?”

“Go on now. I need to talk to this gentleman here—so go upstairs.”

The Tyrant watched her climb the stairwell, then as he shifted one foot to follow the doctor stopped him with a harsh command:

“No, you stay here.” Ramirez then pulled out a chair by the kitchen island for Mr. Winters to make himself comfortable, “I apologize—I send it to guard her when I can’t keep an eye on her. Learned response, y’see.”

“I see. Rather quick adjustment for a T-103.”

“Oh yes. This one learns very quick.”

The agent and Ramirez were soon facing each other across the kitchen island, a glass of iced lemonade out for the guest. Mr. Winters hardly looked at anything, even as he commented on it—and this included the nearby Tyrant.

“Dr. Ramirez, I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now. Internally, or otherwise,” the man quirked a dark, dry brow at him.

“Yes…” Ramirez’s face was quite troubled. His forehead was coated in bullets of sweat—and not the heady, steady hangover-sweat he often wore after a night of drunken phone-line shouting matches. “I always had a bad feeling about Birkin… Can’t help but feel the bastard did something to start this off.”

“Well, regardless of his past transgressions, we won’t have to worry about that man anymore.” Mr. Winters daintily sipped at the lemonade, “Unfortunately, it does seem he managed to release some form of the t-Virus either right before, or as he was terminated. He was not the only source of the situation in Raccoon City, though.” The man leaned closer to the doctor, face completely flat and unreadable despite the grim facts he dispensed, “You know very well, even as far back as July, that the incident with the Ecliptic Express and the Arklay Labs had caused some level of environmental contamination in that area. Ms. Teifer herself consulted you at the time, and thanks to you both exactly 37 infected wildlife and four infected humans were discovered and terminated. I’m afraid that by the time Teifer had any words with you that the waters of Victory Lake were exposed, to some degree, to vector of the Beta strain.”

“Oh. God.”

“Yes indeed.”

“So… the so-called ‘football riot’, and the so called ‘new serial killer spree’..?”

“An escalation of infection. It’s worse than that by now,” Mr. Winters said flatly. “Which is why I’m here. The board is in damage-control mode, and they have requested certain resources to deal with it.”

“I-I—”

“It’s not a request, of course, but I would prefer to make this even an amicable one.”

“Of course,” Ramirez breathed, defeat and resentment beginning to spring up in his eyes.

“Dr. Ramirez,” Mr. Winters removed his shades, revealing the pale brown eyes and their softened shape as he stared hard at the dark, worried ones of his subordinate, “Corporate is requisitioning Tyrant T-00 for their own purposes. I’m sorry, but we do in fact need this Tyrant more than you do at this time.”

“Sir,” Ramirez’s tone grew more incredulous, “Umbrella has… has well over forty unsold and unpromised Tyrants in retention all across its facilities, and you need my prototype?”

“Yes.” Mr. Winters said, deadpan. “Especially since the first five Phase 4 T-103s were completed in May, and have only recently entered their first training cycle.”

“What?”

“Goldman had your specs, and process notes—and all the techs knew what to do. At the very worst, they could be a study group sent to R&D.”

“I was on vacation.”

“Sure you were.” The agent stared, “Some people relax at home with… family.” The word seemed to be sneered. “Others arrange a stay by the beach, or in a fine multicultural European city, or on a national parks tour. Some even go swimming with sharks, or they for some reason think they can crawl up Everest. Very few opt to stay actively in their home office, and keep grinding out hours picking apart microbes in a secret laboratory bunker.”

“So. Why wasn’t I informed regardless?”

“Obviously… I was not privy to that decision. Not to speak ill of my employer, but such things occur regularly with the board’s decisions.” Winters seemed to smirk, “You love your daughter, yes?”

“Oh, fuck you, you—”

“Not so fast. Think for a minute. How many daughters are there, right now, in all the 100,000 citizens of Raccoon City?”

Ramirez gulped.

“What does that have to—”

“This is a disaster, Julian.” The agent’s tone raised. “And you live far from it. For now. All emergency plans of Umbrella’s directors are on a ‘for now’ basis. But that always means that ‘for now’ will mean ‘now’, if nothing is done. 100,000 people is a lot. Even if it doesn’t mean Zombies crawling up into your cushy California home, anywhere close to 10,000 infected without some containment will still mean negative consequences… and believe me, you’d wish this was the Apocalypse if the U.S. government got wind you were involved with that damn virus.”

“Okay… Okay…” Ramirez appeared to compose himself, licking at salty lips and mustache stubble, “I… I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand.” He sucked in a breath, “My daughter’s going to miss the big lug, you know…”

“And she can say so, once this mess is over,” Mr. Winters made a face that may have been intended as a smile, but was so so desert-dry. “Its own considerable intellect is what we need. Adaptable. We need T-00 in Raccoon because what’s going on there is changing in scope and severity every day. Infected aren’t even the worst of it, and we need every advantage on the ground we can get.” His jaw went tight, “Umbrella already tried the ‘human touch’, and that first squad are all skeletons by now. If they’re lucky.”

“A—ack—okay now, I get it,” the doctor winced. He lowered his head a moment into his wrapped arms, and then raised back up with a dazed, sad expression. “I assume you will… collect T-00 within the day?”

“As soon as possible,” Winters said, though the age lines around his mouth and nose slackened, “I’m willing to give you a brief preparation time, however.” He leaned closer, “Don’t take advantage of it. If the sun sets and that Tyrant isn’t in the truck, things will be poorly for you daughter’s future.”

Mr. X finally felt his spine unstiffen at the… the… perplexing and terrifying information it had overheard. It finally had processed what this had meant; its gorge rose, and eyes began to water though nothing seemed to have gotten into them to cause the irritation. It was going to leave this place. Leave his friend.

“Mr. X,” Ramirez’s voice cut into its thoughts, and it fixed its blurry gaze onto its master, “go see if Mari’s alright. Be ready for further orders!”

The Tyrant’s fearsome, beady pupils tightened with urgent focus, and then it slowly turned to face the stairs and took them at a soft, light-footed march. Once upstairs, it crept fast and suppressed its weight as much as it could and made its way straight to Mariposa’s room. His friend.

Only friend.

She was almost spooked at the unusual speed which he had opened her door with, but brightened as she saw the Tyrant squeezing its way in and settling in his usual seated pose by the foot of the bed.

“Mr. X!” She ducked over the footboard and squeezed the creature’s hefty neck in a hug, “I was scared something bad was happening… You okay?”

The Tyrant could not muscle out any affirmative noises or motions, though it desired to. It would preserve the joyful relieved mood that his friend had adopted in this moment. Instead, it cinched its brows together and let out a low, toneless groan, reaching out a hand to tell her to provide the thick-handled pen and a source of paper.

“What’s goin’ on?” She squeaked, “Who is that guy?”

Mr. X slowly began to scratch out:

He is Agent. Papá’s superior.

“What’s he here about?”

He twitched, the likes of which he would normally reserve for unexpected physicals and harsh training checks, and tentatively started writing again.

He will take me away.

I am sorry.

“But why?” Mariposa whimpered, “You didn’t do anything wrong!”

No. It wrote, and then: There is city with danger. Infection. Threats. Extreme danger.

“What… What kind of danger?”

Released virus. Dangerous infected people. Many people. It tried to explain, in as soft of words it knew without leaving anything important out, then added: They want me. Need help to stop it. Stop it going outside city.

Mariposa’s eyes became glittering wells, wincing with the pain of what it meant. Their guardian would rip a seam in their brief bond. She was technically twenty times his actual age, but her maturity took the blow much like you would expect for a child.

“No,” she wept, diving off the footboard fully, knowing the giant form would catch and cushion her against any harm, “Why you? Why now? I thought they put you here! I thought dad was in charge!”

Mr. X cupped the sobbing form below the shoulder-blades with one hand, the other finding one of her own minuscule hands and enclosing it softly. He let out a very low, very bassy rumble. The vibration seemed to always comfort her, and maybe now it would settle her enough and give them more time. There was never going to be enough time.

She tucked herself closer, letting tears drop onto the leather and steel of his Limiter’s neck buckles. “I don’t want you to go,” she hiccuped, “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met, since…” she cut off, and cried hard into the creature’s shoulder. The Tyrant groaned, lightly tightening its grip around her fingers. She wept, “I don’t want you to go.”

For a long while, the Tyrant held her as she sobbed and vented the fear, and the vulnerability. The beast relaxed and let her be, calm so long as his friend was safely close by and content to let her cut loose the emotions into his own heavily-padded armor. At some point, her grip tired, and with one arm supporting her back, his other arm scooped up the notebook and the thick-handled pen. He balanced the former upon a raised leg, and she hiccuped again as she turned to see what he was writing:

I do not want to go.

Her eyes beaded with new tears.

I will be forced to.

He groaned, low—plaintive. There wasn’t any other tone or attempt at any consonant that would properly capture how sorrowful the Tyrant was to admit it. Its hand holding the pen moved, flicked, and scratched again:

Friend. I will miss you.

I will try to come back.

Mariposa managed a weak, watery smile, hopeful that this at least was something temporary. Her only very reliable, unjudging companion would return—after the distant, abstract disaster beyond her young mind’s conception. He’d return, right? Nothing would happen… right? The Tyrant was indestructible… right? Right?

The Tyrant tightened its grip around the child’s back and gave another low, placid-natured grumble. Things were bad. But things could be okay, for the moment.

“I’ll miss you too, Mr. X…” she said, muffled into the monster’s thick clothing, “Please come back as soon as you can, please…”

At this point, a heavy, stoic knock sounded through the wood of the child’s bedroom door. Still cradling the girl, Mr. X had stood up by combative instinct, and had to pause himself to set Mariposa safely down on the bed, and then return the notebook and pen to her.

“But—”

T-00 grabbed the pen again, and in larger letters wrote:

STAY. BE SAFE.

—And then set the pen down. The door hammered again even harder, interrupted by the massive Tyrant opening it in the face of a body-armored and heavily-armed man, who staggered back before reaching up to his radio.

“Confirmed, we have T-00 in sight.”

T-00 huffed, aggravated and impatient. Of course he had the thing in sight: It was four feet wide at the shoulders and the guard had been told where it was. Stupid…

When it ducked under the doorway and stood up into the upstairs hall the encounter could have gone very poorly if not for the booming yet high voice of the handler accompanying the retrieval:

“Stand down! You fucks, it’s docile. It’s complying. Dumbasses…” T-00 stood still as the handler darted the rest of the way up the stairs and set a palm on its chest. Handlers often did this, whether the Tyrant in question was at risk of damage or not. Usually because even the most fierce, tantrum-ing bioweapon wouldn’t try to hurt a trainer or keeper who had treated it well, or given it any particularly good rewards. But for the most part it was purely a tactic of handlers to stop more idiotic bullet spray from jittery UBCS newbies—unnecessary and ineffective to a great degree. Mr. X would not have tolerated a single stray bullet where Mariposa was concerned. It rumbled—angrily—but fixed the handler with a sharp, eager expression which possibly shocked him. The man hopped back as the Tyrant descended the stairs almost casually, and he called out ahead of the bioweapon his warning that the creature was docile. It ducked its head under the front doorway, the drop of eye contact hopefully communicating it was not going to be resistant to the process.

“They call you ‘Mr. X’, eh?”

It froze, lowered head training in the direction of the voice. It would recognize that dry drawl anywhere now as that of Mr. Winters, and followed up with a low growl. It raised its gaze and found the shades a few meters away, and froze again.

“You’re magnificent,” the agent said as he stepped up well within a range the present handler was wordlessly panicking over, “And you know what’s going on, eh. Well, you know by now that you must go in that truck. Not to worry. We won’t hurt the doctor or his girl if you cooperate.”

With a low nod, the Tyrant growled a low affirmation, and the man raised two fingers up and towards the waiting truck’s open rear door. Mr. X growled once more in a higher tone of warning as one of the guards it passed by prodded it in the back with the barrel of his rifle, unneeded. It cast a long look around, catching the glare-addled shadow of Mariposa’s face peering through the upstairs hall’s window before he was prodded again and stepped up the ramp into the darkness.

#Mr. X #Mr X #resident evil #Tyrant #T-00 #T-103 #re2 #resident evil 2 #fanfiction #fanfic #Umbrella #B.O.W.#Dr. Julian Ramirez #Mariposa Ramirez #part 6 #big scary mutant and tiny little child becoming friends is adorable #they have more in common than things different at this point

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spidermilkshake · 18 days

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They love carrots so MUCH

#that tadpole shrimp is LOST in the sauce!

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spidermilkshake · 19 days

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Until September

More RE fanfics--more mutants, more corporate shenanigans. There is fluff! Also a rival company commando is blitzed by a Tyrant, but, uh, this is Resident Evil. Even the nicest scenes are bookended by scary.

Mr. X's long first assignment--to be upper-level Tyrant Project researcher Dr. Julian Ramirez's personal bodyguard as he spends his summer at his fancy house bought with his evil corporation money. Having a test mission prototype Tyrant on your property to help flatten any intruders or rival company agents that sneak in is apparently a common perk if the company's board likes your work. Ramirez, uh, has an interesting home life, and T-00 is smart enough to detect some of that despite this being its first experience of humans not poking it in a lab or putting it through combat training in a top-secret facility...

5: Until September

From that point, after a short cargo helicopter ride and another in the back of a large civilian armored car, T-00… “Mr. X”… experienced the brief life of Dr. Ramirez’s at-home lab.

Situated in a cozy, deep-red corner of northern California, the man had the benefit of the rural landscape for all manner of reasons. One being his bunker laboratory which he fiddled around with variants of common viral and bacterial elements within, as well as examining various domesticated animal species’ genomes to try and discover another, more advantageous quirk that could be added to the Tyrant project. Some of the sources of these genomes could be found on the small attached ranch property in the form of a somewhat decrepit horse and several large, semi-feral cattle. A highly-pampered golden retriever mix also bounced its way around the property, but it could hardly be lumped in with the farm animals considering how loving and attentive Dr. Ramirez seemed to become on sight of the canine. This animal was about as untrained as the cows—though it balked at any close quarters with the Tyrant, probably smelling something was off about the inoffensive but intimidating newcomer.

The Tyrant was ushered swiftly into a portion of the swanky abode which bordered the laundry and a small guest room on the first day. Between these two locations, the doctor had prepared a simple rest area for the bioweapon to reside in while it was not to be seen—roughly the size of the small laundry though without the obstructing machines, T-00 noted the heavily-built twin bedframe and the fitting mattress, which it assumed it was meant to rest on. It… was not bad, now that it had a few minutes to contemplate it.

Okay, it was more than “not bad”. Mattresses were invented for a reason, and the insufficient nature of those holding chamber benches became richly obvious to the beast that had never experienced proper back support before. It had slept a solid nine hours the first night, until summoned by a cheerful call of its nickname—the longest stint of sleep it had ever known.

Otherwise, the Tyrant which Dr. Ramirez called “Mr. X” stayed a moment, or a meter or two, behind him (depending on what the man requested, and what the Tyrant’s highly-tuned senses for danger dictated). The man spent a lot of time in the small bunker lab, checking fuse banks before booting up huge computers to run an equally massive hypermicroscope device in order to manipulate pieces of dead SARS and Hepatitis delta-virus, picking out segments of RNA and comparing them to Umbrella’s sample slides of base genes. He often made spunky commentary, knowing it was only the so-far nonverbal Tyrant hearing him, but based on his specific, jovial responses it knew he could only be speaking only to it.

Despite the doctor’s fancy and frequent social life, he was very lonely. After dark fell, no other human occupied the languidly-spread and draftily large house in the hills. The man still chatted happily—sometimes too happily—with his newly-won bioweapon attendant.

The bioweapon had once or twice also stepped out with him, and a very flinchy, nervous man whom the doctor’d called a “trainer”, to see the old horse and the half-dozen cows. T-00 eyed the dusty, vacantly-staring creatures staying well back from the bioweapon. They behaved much like B.O.W.s with none or very rusty training. The lone horse would come right to the gate for Dr. Ramirez’s trainer, even with the towering creature feet away, though the whites of its eyes flared plainly as it stood, ears pinning and legs shaking for the trainer to check its hooves and teeth.

T-00 focused instead on the cows, not wishing to interfere unintentionally on the equine check-over. It locked eyes with a large, rusty-brown beast that had very small, stubby horns. The animal stamped its rear legs softly, nostrils flaring. Strange. The creature was fairly small compared to the others in the group, though it placed itself front and center regardless—a “leader” of sorts, making all of the protective motions towards the others that the position entailed. A much larger steer of a mostly black color hid ineffectually behind her—sharing many features with this cow.

“Come on! We’re done Mr. X,” the doctor called from the gate, the first indication it had quietly shuffled a step inside the paddock area to watch the animals more closely. With an instinctual start, it turned and tromped off after its current objective.

It wished the animals and its master’s use of the Tyrant as a social interaction stand-in had been the most predictable parts of its mission. No—that honor would go to the once-monthly incident of rival agents attempting to gain access to Ramirez’s nuclear-shielded bunker. Irritated out of its comfortable rest, the Tyrant followed the clinking and ticking of attempts to bypass the lock code and the other measures to find a body-armored individual in front of the small cellar entrance, like a sitting duck as they focused on the loud—annoying—puzzle portion. It wasn’t clear if they ever realized an eight-foot mutant weapon was creeping up on them before it happened. Regardless, Ramirez would have one of the informed Umbrella staff bag up the body and tote it off the next morning as the household came awake.

--------

It was one week during the hellishly dry heat of summer than Mr. X encountered a true challenge to its adaptable wits—and it began more or less during one of the more predictable, boring parts of its duties. The bioweapon lurked a few meters behind the doctor in his home office, blocking the large window with its even larger back while Ramirez was distracted on the phone.

The Tyrant could only guess at some of this, but it did recognize the codenames and designations used for various B.O.W.s:

“So the train was just…? All of them?” Julian Ramirez scrubbed at his patchy stubble, “Jesus… Well, do you know how it happened? …Uh huh, I’m sure it came back inconclusive. There’s never any hypercompetitive, jealous pricks trying to off each other at Umbrella labs, huh.”

“Speaking of, do you have any idea what they’re gonna do about Birkin?” There was a long pause before a tinny squeak of the other voice picked up, “Oh come on. They practically know it was him. Who else has been sabotaging projects involving T for months? …It was T on that train, right? …Okay, they even know it’s that strain—so who else has access to the Arklay lab who would?”

There was an even longer silence this time before the other line began to speak again; and once it did Ramirez’s grip on the phone tightened, his dark complexion going sweaty and almost impossibly pale. The change was so extreme that T-00’s senses honed in and it watched its master with mounting concern, convinced the doctor was about to collapse out of some kind of medical distress.

“… Since when? …Really, that recent?” He finally dredged up his voice again, wiping furiously at his brows and mustache, staring down at his own shaking hand in bafflement as if wondering who put all of that sweat there, “So where was Willy in all this?”

“…Ah.”

“So… they’re sure it wasn’t him… Well. I’ll see about giving Teifer a call soon if she’s got questions for me.”

After Ramirez hung up, he glanced over his shoulder at his house-Tyrant with an indecipherable expression, which had Mr. X straightening up to full attention. Then, with a heavy sigh he turned in his chair towards the squat glass bottle of Pilár dark rum that he kept on one side of the desk and unscrewed the cap in a ritual which usually—T-00 had observed—took place later in the day. The powerful alcohol swirled into a coffee mug and shortly after was slammed into the man’s mouth, eliciting a rough grunt as he fought the burn of the unhealthily-large shot.

Mr. X relaxed somewhat as Ramirez returned to the phone. The next conversation had more that the bioweapon recognized, but was even more confusing:

“Hey, Teifer! It’s Ramirez,” he sounded as peppy as always, despite the haggard look in his eyes and the rum flooding into his bloodstream, “Yeah, he told me you needed to hear from me… eh? Ah, he did mention what happened up at the Arklay lab…”

He leaned back, hooded eyes inspecting his propped-up shoes as he took in his colleague’s words. He rolled them upon a certain part of her story:

“Hey, hey—you’re getting too stressed. Listen: I get the risk. But Cerberus specimens physically can’t spread the virus. That shouldn’t be your main concern.

“Those dogs don’t have T in them anymore—they’re kinda like the modern Tyrants, alright? We enhance the genome, we infect—with the delta strain for the Cerberus—and let the mutation take its course, okay? Then when they’re fully baked, we quarantine the specimens, give them a T-virus vaccination, and a course of anti-retrovirals just to be sure before those guys go to training. Which, by the way, you should be able to get a hold of someone at N.E.S.T. with experience training animal B.O.W.s. They’ve got lots of new Hunters coming out of there, they can help you wrangle those dogs when the time comes…”

“Hm? …Ah… Yeah, see, that one is a problem,” Ramirez’s shoulders finally slouched more naturally, and he got a level, if slightly slushy, tone of voice back, “Rabies is very real and a good explanation for any ‘public eye’ stuff… If the bear story is true you’ll want to get a squad with heavy weapons and track down every rabid animal claim in a five-mile radius, then be sure to bag and burn everything they shoot.”

“..? Teifer, you know that’s even easier. Quarantine and trace identity, burn the premises, then let the weaponized-virals R&D team see the data.”

“…What journalist?” At this new turn in the conversation Ramirez shot upright in his chair, “… You don’t have a name? …Uh-huh. … Hm. Well, if he knows too much he probably already knows he’s dead.”

“Right. See you in fall. Bye now.”

After Ramirez hung up, he sat for a long while, head in hands. Mr. X let a good ten minutes pass before the alarm bells started to go off, and the huge mutant huffed as it took a careful step forward. At the creak of the floors, Dr. Ramirez raised his head again.

“Eh?” He twisted around, “What is it, Mr. X?”

The bioweapon had a number of words that it might have wanted to put out—“Are you well?”, “What was that about?”, “Do you need help?”, or even “What the fuck?”—but it had no idea how to move its throat, or tongue, or lips to do such a thing. He did the next best thing: Mr. X grunted, managing to make the trailing end of the noise rise up in pitch with wordless questions, as humans did in such a situation.

“Smart fella,” Ramirez gave a soft laugh. “One of these days I’ll have to get you practice in saying a few words. I’m fine. Can you just… turn and check out the window for a while? I have to call my ex,” he added the last part quickly, which while confusing did not hold up the Tyrant very long in turning around and scanning the exterior of the house for potential threats.

The phone rang several times, with Ramirez left waiting. Mr. X’s pinprick pupils hovered over the entrance gate, then the edge of the pinyon treeline, then over to where the dog was laid out in a patch of dirt by one of the front garden walls. Finally, someone answered the doctor:

“Linda… hey. No don’t—” there was an insistent buzz of muffled vocals from the speaker, “It’s about the weekend, Linda—look, you want me to just not warn you? Huh?”

“Okay okay. Look, I just need you to know I have to be out a few hours Saturday to work with someone. Don’t worry—” he interrupted the agonized screech from the speaker, “—I have someone to watch her until I get back. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t walk back on this, mi amor.”

“… Okay, Jesus, I won’t do it again. Just… noon Saturday, right? I’ll be there.”

The phone slammed on the receiver. Mr. X peeked back over his lapels in anticipation of a command. There was only so much time in the office, however decorated and airy, that Ramirez could stand and Mr. X tended to agree with this habit. It was in the loft area of the house, and the ceilings were a foot too low for the Tyrant’s comfort.

“Right. Mr. X?” The bioweapon swiveled around in reply, “I’m going to fetch some things from the basement. Take up a guard downstairs, yeah?”

Mr. X nodded with eagerness, letting the somewhat tipsy human lead the way out the door and down the stairs. This was an ideal task for both of them, considering the ninety-plus temperatures outside, and once the man had vanished down the too-narrow steps to the musty, refreshingly cool basement level the Tyrant posted himself in a comfortable nook within sight of the open basement door, the front door, and the downstairs hall towards the kitchen area. It watched. Nothing much reached its eyes or ears—except for a distant snort of a horse or cow, a wasp bouncing against the nearest window in a frenzy to find food or shade, and a clatter followed by a Spanish-language curse from the cluttered sublevel. Business as usual.

-------

On Saturday, the omen which Mr. X innocently overheard came to the doorstep.

In the morning, with Ramirez nursing a pickle-juice-based hangover cocktail and holding a hardboiled egg like it was a sergeant’s switch from bygone days, Mr. X was confronted with a series of warnings which it knew right away were serious, very serious, and urgent… but that he didn’t entirely grasp right away.

“Mr. X! Listen—listen,” the man pressed his eggless hand into the lapel of his tame mutant’s trenchcoat, “Today is going to be a bit different. I need you to be… uh… well… different.”

T-00 stared down at the man pressing himself as close to its face as possible, and gave a low grunt as he tilted his head.

“Well, I mean…” Ramirez let up on the contact, as aware as they came that pushing the living weapons too hard or confusing them with contradictory orders could come with serious consequences, “Mr. X, you are going to meet my daughter today. She’s visiting over the weekend and will be here until roughly 11 a.m. on Monday.”

Ramirez waited, as if to hear an acknowledgement from the creature staring him down with wide, perplexed, but still willing eyes. The man sighed, leaning into his hands which had settled on the Tyrant’s chest, “While she’s here, I want you to put your protective orders over me as secondary. While she’s here, you protect her, is that understood?”

Daughter. Mr. X had not heard anything of Ramirez’s family before, but it had an intuitive sense of what the word “DAUGHTER” meant. The creature took a deep, sharp inhale, then gave a rough, affirmative growl at the same time it bobbed its head.

“Good… good…” Ramirez reached up and patted the Tyrant on the shoulder, grin of relief almost palpable without flashing it within sight. Mr. X reflexively swelled with the praise.

“She’ll be here at noon, and you must watch over her very closely until about four. If she needs water, get her a cup and fill it from the fridge. If she gets hungry, take her to the bottom left cabinet and she’ll pick what she wants. Otherwise just make sure no one and nothing hurts her. I’ll introduce you—”

—and then, the kitchen phone rang, and the pager on the doctor’s hip bleeped with an annoying tone. The man rounded and went to answer, while the biomutant stood silently processing the future orders. Daughter… did that mean juvenile or adult daughter? Probably… juvenile. It would not need to be providing water on demand to an adult, or show an adult to the bottom left cabinet. There was also no reason to limit an adult to that particular cabinet, which only contained the sacks of undiluted nutrient gel for its own fluid intake along with boxes of crackers, jars of peanut butter, and a few bags of veggie chips and other “health snacks” as the doctor had called them. It was… not exactly designed for the task of childcare, and it shuffled anxiously in place as it dawned on him that it would have to figure it out with no more instruction. It could… learn this… right?

Humans seemed to be fairly unbothered by the duty to watch over their offspring—so it must not be that difficult.

------

Mr. X had been ordered to stand still inside the gates of the garden in an area half-concealed with shade when the large sedan pulled into the gravel circle at the end of the rural mountain road and crunched to a stop. Its keen vision spotted the small figure step out of the passenger side and quickly have an arm snatched up in a control grip by the small woman who had emerged from the driver’s side. There was a bitter argument between all three, which quelled after a minute or two while the sedan’s engine puttered impatiently. The woman released the little one, who did not run to either parent and instead stepped towards the gate, keeping her large brown eyes on both of them, as if wary of them following her.

After a minute the car’s engine revved up as it returned down the uneven paving, disappearing in a few seconds around a bend. Ramirez was left wearily standing by where it had once parked, a small bag dangling from one hand (presumably the belongings of his child, packed into a tiny, colorful package).

Mr. X glanced down at a small sound and was suddenly locking eyes with the absolute tiniest human he had ever seen. Dark hair and cut short, dark skin with a few freckles, and those huge brown eyes which widened further upon noticing the massive, trenchcoat-clad form skulking just inside the property line.

“Papá!” The shrill voice was at such decibels and pitch that the Tyrant was forced to stagger back. Such a tiny body was so, so loud! The bioweapon resisted the urge to raise up its hands to cup over its ears, but its knees did bend and buckle before the doctor rushed up and grabbed the girl around the shoulders:

“What’s wrong, m’ija?”

“M-monstruo!” She pointed straight to the half-subdued, heavily-stressed visage of the startled Tyrant.

“Oh,” Ramirez hugged his daughter closer and chuckled, as if there was some clear, and obvious, and worse trivial confusion at play. He knelt to where he was halfway between his child and his personal Bio-Organic Weapon.

“It’s okay, m’ija—this is my bodyguard. I promise, he’s nice, okay?”

The child peeked over the shabby fabric of Ramirez’s polo shirt, meeting the obviously inhuman pupils of the giant form that had frightened her. Without telepathy, it was unknown if she found a lack of evil within, but she did relent and sniffle up the start of her tears.

“Bodyguard?”

“Sí, for work,” Ramirez gave a strained smile, “It’s okay, he won’t hurt you. Look, see? He didn’t mean to scare you.”

The doctor had slightly pressed the girl further around his shoulder, closer to the colossal form. Mr. X sensed the girl’s resistance to this and took a step slightly back—almost mirroring her trying to push herself back away from it. Its hearts thudded stronger in a sympathetic feedback loop upon seeing the feeble struggle she was putting up against her own father. He was forcing her towards a powerful monster, knowing full well what it could do. What then could it do, a being built for combat?

It did what only its inbuilt reflexes urged it to do—and bowed its head until it lost eye contact with either of them. Mr. X had assumed Dr. Ramirez’s child would know what a T-103 was. It was now clear that she did not know at all what he was; she might think it was a human. But a big human staring hard at a tiny child was… threatening.

“You’re okay. C’mon let me introduce you!” Ramirez’s voice chimed out as if no terror or stress was in evidence, “This fella is Mr. X. Don’t ask his real name—it’s secret. He’ll keep you safe so long as you’re here.

“Mr. X! Eyes up.”

T-00 reluctantly obeyed, and the first thing its eyes met was the petrified face of the girl still trying to cling onto her father’s shoulder after he’d pushed her to be well within the bioweapon’s reach. Its back twitched before it forced itself to stay completely still, the only other movement he made the uneasy blinking, and the gaze flicking back and forth—from the man, to the girl, to the man.

“Mr. X, this is my daughter, Mariposa.” He smiled, “You remember I was talking about her yesterday, yeah? Be nice to her. She’s only—how old are you, Mari?”

Was it… normal for humans to lose track of how old their offspring were? Mr. X felt his brows twitch, and somehow this microscopic expression which went in opposition of her father’s constant push was what Mariposa needed to see to give a quick swallow of nerves and relax a fraction:

“Ten.”

“That’s my girl! C’mon now, let’s get your stuff inside,” Ramirez stood up, all but shrugging his little girl off of himself like an annoying weight and picking up the backpack from where he’d set it down beside him. Apparently only Mr. X heard the soft whimper she let out as she stumbled and scurried to put her father back between herself and the menacing giant; T-00 took the opportunity to also do away with this forced close-quarters and took a much larger step back. It hesitated to follow the two into the front door for a few moments, especially as it spied the child sneaking worried glances over her hardly-evident shoulders at the creature.

“Mr. X! Come on you, get out of the heat!” Its eye twitched a bit at the impatient tone of the order, but ducked his head low to negotiate the entryway and squeezed into the welcome air conditioning. Ramirez had been rushing around the open concept downstairs, dropping off Mariposa’s belongings onto one of the kitchen chairs before scoping around for his own briefcase, wallet, and the keys to his armored truck. The girl meanwhile had posted herself up behind the kitchen island, staring over bewildered and clearly scared at her parent preparing to leave her alone with a monster.

“Right… that should be it. M’ija, come give a kiss ‘bye for now—Papá’s got to go into town for some last-minute business.”

“You can’t leave me with—”

“Shh! Don’t be rude. Mr. X is a big teddy bear, really—relax!”

The Tyrant itself shot the doctor a dubious look; bear was maybe an accurate comparison at least in terms of size and weight, but… teddy? That was soft and harmless—and Mr. X knew by now it was very much not harmless, and… probably not soft.

“Papá, please—”

“No no, you listen. I’ve got to do this and it’s not a choice. You stay here and if you need anything just ask him. I won’t be gone for more than a few hours.”

With that, Ramirez brushed past the Tyrant and swept out the door. The sound of the latch setting again ushered in a new, heavy silence. The bioweapon could feel the girl’s stare boring into the side of his head—watching him for any sudden moves with the same alertness that a Tyrant might train onto a potential threat. Understanding somewhat, Mr. X held completely still and listened for any indication that the tiny figure was moving out from her cover.

The click and whirr of the fridge fan cutting on startled them both—Mariposa shrieked, the Tyrant jolted upright so hard the flooring shuddered, and it turned to see that the child had ducked further down and was only barely peeking over the island countertop at it. Briefly grumbling with embarrassment that it had reacted so strongly to so little, Mr. X eyed the floor as it reached up and scratched at the deformed grooves on its jaw. Being scared of something new was one thing… being scared of the box that kept the treats from spoiling was another entirely…

“Um… Mr. X..?”

He froze mid-itch at the trepidatious voice; the Tyrant turned to find that Mariposa had crept around the side of the kitchen. While still keeping a chair between herself and the hulking brute, she had cut the space between them by half, maybe more. Without the insufferable pressure of her unobservant (or uncaring) father forcing either of their hands, she seemed to calm down to the idea that this monster was “housebroken”—at least in the sense that it wouldn’t break the house. Not without orders to.

Mariposa’s nose appeared to wrinkle up in contemplation as the Tyrant continued to watch her, making no move or noise but the normal bassy rush of its breathing.

“…You don’t say much, do you.”

Mr. X gave a sluggish blink; it could try to speak a word of two, but it wouldn’t have the slightest idea how the attempt would turn out—and it feared it may turn out like the ugly bellows and groans other Tyrants could more easily produce, so T-00 simply gave a creaky shake of its head.

“So, you don’t talk?” Another shake, and Mariposa bit her lip as she processed what this meant for their hours stuck unattended together. “But… you listen?”

It made sure it gave an emphatic nod to this, and then tilted its head as if alertly waiting to listen to her at this very second.

“Okay…” She stepped out with care and no small degree of lingering trembles from the chair, peeking over her shoulder towards the back garden door, “May I… go outside? I wanna see Benji…”

Benji. Dog’s name. The Tyrant recalled. The back garden of the house was a forty foot by fifteen foot rectangle with no known toxic or thorny plants, and it was northeasterly. Getting more and more shade soon. It should be safe; it would not be blinded by the California sunshine, and both sunburn and heatstroke would be less able to get at either of them. Mr. X gave a soft grunt that he hoped sounded affirmative and nodded.

“You have to come with me, huh?” Another nod. “Okay… um… I’m going now.” The Tyrant watched as the small human very warily made her way to the back door, shooting looks its way every few steps as if to brace for the moment the massive form would start pursuing. Waiting until she had her hand to the door’s handle, T-00 started to follow with the lightest shuffling steps it could manage.

The two of them kept about ten feet apart at minimum—keeping close tabs on each other but not being so jumpy or anxious now. This got even easier in the open space of the garden, especially as the golden-furred canine came loping around the side of the dry clumps of Pampas grass and wagged his whole body on sight of the little girl. T-00 planted its back to the house wall close by so it had the widest field of view and the most sun protection, and for a while it was almost as if the parental badgering, the uncomfortable introduction, and the sheer aura of child-endangerment which permeated the whole situation was no factor. The oblivious and overjoyed dog was a big help with that, and Mariposa bounded around with it as they gave the oversized tennis ball chewtoy a new coat of slobber and montane dust before both flopping down on the patio pavers and engaging in the kind of lazy cuddling that Mr. X could only give a curious stare. It had no context for this kind of contact; it sometimes bordered on violent the way she scratched at the domestic canine, but… Benji seemed to like it, and the dog rolling onto her lap and nuzzling her wet nose into her face was even drawing a few giggles. How… uncoordinated. How… how… something that he couldn’t connect the word for, but knew in its bones the concept of.

Shit, damn… something. Other-expletive. It was on the tip of its… tongue? Brain? Subconscious linguistic knowledge? It knew what the “good uncoordinated not-serious companionship stress-relief good thing” was. It knew it. But a good word that summed the idea up had somehow not been something it had been exposed to in the growth chamber, it supposed.

After more than an hour both dog and child were worn out, and their Tyrant chaperone had relaxed more, eyes half-hooded and drowsy. The sound of shoes scuffing nearby had it snapping back to alertness, and on looking down it found a surprise in the form of the little girl craning her neck up expectantly, hand just short of tugging at one of the gigantic hands. Benji padded up close by, wagging away as usual.

“Mr. X, I’m gonna go in now. Can I take Benji with me?”

T-00 remembered the dog being allowed inside before—especially when it was as hot as it had been today, so as he unstuck his back from the pebble-stucco of the wall he gave her a slight bob of the head. Benji led the way with tongue wagging in time with his tail.

In the artificially-cooled interior, Mr. X let out a low huff. His mass was such that it was difficult for him to regulate his temperature once it got much hotter than 25 degrees Celsius. Staying in line of sight of the happy dog and the small child as they curled onto the floor by the couch, tired and joyous, it tried to focus otherwise on letting its system cool off back to normal. But after a moment, Mariposa asked a question, which took the Tyrant a moment to register from its unexpectedness:

“Mr. X? Are you okay?”

The Tyrant gave a forceful nod, which perhaps had the opposite effect as the large droplet of its sweat dived from the tip of its nose to the floor at the movement. Mariposa fixed it with an expression that it felt was familiar—maybe it had tried to aim that one at its own trainers, weeks and months ago…

“Mr. X, do you know where dad keeps the ice cream?”

T-00 truthfully did not, though the swift flicker of its pupils towards the freezer—where anything “ice” would logically go—betrayed something to the small girl. She stood and joined the hulking bioweapon in the kitchen area of the downstairs, pointing to the freezer section of the fridge.

“Can you check if it’s in there? I can’t reach…”

T-00 narrowed its eyes slightly, even as it took two ginger steps closer and reached to open the upper section of the refrigerator. There was a blast of refreshingly chilly vapor as it did so, and after that had passed it blinked rapidly and studied the slim pickings of the contents. There was, however, something which claimed to be “ice cream” within—and in a short motion it plucked the small box from its confines and let the freezer door swing shut and seal while it turned the container about. Not sure what to make of it, Mr. X lowered the package to where Mariposa could read the labels on its side.

“Ooh…” At the way her eyes lit up, the Tyrant had a panicky feeling that it had just disobeyed Ramirez’s orders for this short guardianship period. But then… with how hot it was, and the man’s daughter had just been outside for so long…

“…Are you allowed to have one?” Mariposa hesitated at reaching into the box, still lowered to where she could access it. Mr. X didn’t really have an answer. It assumed “no”, since it had never been given one of these “ice cream” things or even informed of their storage area. Almost as soon as it had managed a short shake of its head, Mariposa had pulled out two of the oblong objects and pushed one into the Tyrant’s free hand.

“I’ll give you one, if you don’t say nothing to papá,” Mariposa smirked. Mr. X lifted up the comparatively tiny frozen treat as it returned the rest of the box to its normal position, and met the child’s gaze again.

He nodded. Whatever the damn thing was, he was starting to smell it even through the foil wrapping, and whatever it was caused unrelenting rivulets of drool to keep forming at the edges of its tightly-sealed lips. Whatever it was was the good stuff, by the nutrient-hungry standards of a Tyrant. And it was cold as ice, still remaining so after more than a minute in the grip of an overheated bioweapon. Why would Ramirez not let his daughter have one of these, if they seemed so good?

Oh.

Oh!

“Ice cream”, as it turned out, was indefinite proof that the universe was fundamentally good. After what by any numerical measure was only a few minutes, the Tyrant felt like it had experienced an hour of sugary and creamy wonder, all from the three-inch chunk of what Mariposa had specified was an “ice cream sandwich”—the brick of vanilla-flavored goodness wedged between chocolate cookies. T-00 barely knew what these specifications meant but committed them to memory anyways. At least, once it had become able to focus on any other incoming stimuli after the intense deliciousness had faded into the past. It let out an animalistic groan of pleasure before it considered how it may sound frightening to its nearby charge; it needn’t have worried, since Mariposa was licking the melted remnants from her fingers with similar noise and fervor though at a higher pitch and smoother, human vocal tones. Mr. X scooped up the foil pieces where they’d each left them and deposited them in the garbage bin. Mariposa had now settled on the rug in front of the television, petting Benji where he lay half-asleep and scanning through stations in search of something she liked. Mr. X eyed the temptingly large, luxurious couch which he generally was not given much chance to occupy; it was close to where his protective target now was, and he would have good peripherals on each side from there… why… not? But perhaps the most important reason was Mariposa:

At the heavy creak of the wood flooring under the rugs behind her, the young girl paused in her channel surfing and caught the bioweapon red-handed halfway to the couch.

“Is the couch, ah… strong enough?”

Mr. X nodded. Somehow, the couch always held. Of course, it was designed to hold at least four humans weighing over two hundred pounds each, so a single Tyrant weighing almost that much by itself would still be within its design limits. Though, it could still be a fluke. It had only sat here twice before now, so it was still possible… Thankfully, even though it did creak and groan very tellingly, the couch did hold well enough that the Tyrant was able to relax. Mariposa started watching something which showed a number of strange animals—they were larger than humans, though by the way they moved slightly lighter than most Tyrants. Or at least more graceful. The camera zoomed and focused, and T-00 realized these were horses—fully-fleshed, healthy-looking horses, much unlike the half-lamed and raggedy one it had seen in person.

“The horse only arrived in the American Southwest by chance… Most experts agree that the wild horses we see here are all descendants of domesticated horses brought to the southern part of the continent by the Spanish as early as the 1400s…” The Tyrant almost managed a frown out of pure confusion; despite what the voiceover said, the visuals of the program showed clearly labelled petrogylphs from the area in question from several thousand years prior to the “1400s” which had horses pointed out by convenient labels.

“Nowadays, amongst the dry chaparral hills and the prairie plains, wild horse herds roam under the protection of a conservation branch of the US government—allowing for a certain number of wild mustang horses to be corralled, auctioned off, and trained to become domestic horses once more so that the many thousands of their wild cousins can continue to run free…”

Why these apparently thousands of creatures could not do so without something of this sort occurring every year did not make particular sense—but thankfully the program moved on swiftly to another animal from the same region:

“The Harris Hawk is another wondrous creature found in the American Southwest—one which boasts the title of the only bird of prey in the world which will hunt in packs.” T-00’s eyes flashed at the swift movement on the screen as several handsome-looking birds swept into view, and then looped joyfully into a thermal which took them high over a desert landscape. “Working together in the harsh arid environment, the Harris Hawks can between a group of three catch more than ten times the number of small rodents and reptiles as their closest relatives could on their own, making the cooperative arrangement entirely worth it. Falconers have begun capturing and taming these magnificent birds, bending their amazing talents and social habits to their own purposes…”

… There seemed to be a pattern here. Animal was found useful—animal got caught and used for human interests. It almost seemed like all of the fanciful camera shots of wild things running and flying and the long-winded narration was just introduction to this idea. Mariposa apparently found this as dry and bizarre as they Tyrant did, and switched the channels again until she landed on one that cycled through daytime gameshows.

“Alright, Karen—tell me something that frequently gets replaced on a car!”

“Ummm… the mirrors?”

This did not appear to be a very smart answer, and yet somehow the answer appeared among the top five of some kind of overall results. The most obvious explanation was that everyone shown was so terrible at operating motor vehicles they had to replace their broken-off mirrors often. Maybe that was the appeal of this game—to watch teams of perhaps the most foolish and ignorant specimens of humanity put these attributes on display to amuse the audience.

It felt its head bob lower and awoke with a start—panic shooting through it as it realized it had started to drowse mid-watch. But there was… something wrong? No, not wrong; different. There was a slight warmth and pressure up against its side, and the arm on that side was propped up on a low, soft object.

Mr. X started to move the arm to try and find the flat surface of the couch again, but froze as his palm bumped instead on the frail shoulders of the small girl. It craned its neck down fraction by fraction, trying not to move any other muscles; Mariposa had, beneath its notice, crawled up onto the open section of couch beside the bioweapon, wedging her tiny frame under its limp forearm and nestling her head into the crease and folds of its Limiter coat where its waist met its lap. As if the monstrosity’s leg was a comfy pillow. T-00 blinked as its bleary thoughts woke up further in order to race to the logical conclusion: It had clearly not just “started” to doze off… a sting of unease lit up in its chest and its hackles rose at the thought it had lapsed in this duty. It was supposed to protect her—if she had left the house again—or if that was the moment a rival company sent their agent—or if by pure accident she had gotten injured or threatened—

Ramirez’s daughter suddenly shifted in her sleep, more onto her back, and as she did so her slender arms grasped up and ended up around the Tyrant’s arm. She was utterly dwarfed by the limb alone, and even the tight hug she had around it was barely making it through his tough sleeve and even tougher skin. Regardless, Mr. X could feel it, and the change had jarred him out of the panic spiral. The Tyrant’s heavily-wrinkled face softened up, and it studied its charge for a moment to ensure she was safe and well. It settled down once more, noting the low angle of the orange-gold sunlight streaking in through the kitchen windows; it estimated the time to be well over an hour later than Dr. Ramirez had said he would return. Its eyes flicked over to the child’s backpack hanging over the backrest of the chair, then to the wind rustling through the Pampas grass outside the window, and then the color and light of the vapid programming still on in the background.

Ramirez did not return until it was almost dark, and aside from the façade of a bright and attentive reunion with Mariposa that he’d plastered over his clearly exhausted and aggravated inner feelings, the man did not linger on the surprise long absence and instead started throwing together something he’d called “mac and cheese”. Mariposa did not seem enthused, but she tolerated her father’s lazy cooking—especially since she had secretly pilfered the ice cream earlier. The doctor snappishly ordered Mr. X to take up a sentry position outside and leave them to their family time; the Tyrant grudgingly obeyed, shooting a pointed glance down at the lower cabinet where the nutrient gel base was stored but its yearning being ignored. It supposed it would have to wait another few hours. Very unfair, considering it had pulled so much additional weight that day. The bioweapon snorted once it was prowling its usual route in the dark. It was hungry, not starving. There was no danger in waiting a little longer. Mr. X would abide.

#Mr. X #Mr X #resident evil #Tyrant #T-00 #T-103 #re2 #resident evil 2 #fanfiction #fanfic #Umbrella #B.O.W.#part 4 #Dr. Julian Ramirez #Mariposa Ramirez #a mix of the events of RE1 and other prequel games going on far away #also fluff #as fluffy as dangerous biomutant living weapons get #Mr. X is bewildered at the child endangerment going on and he IS the child endangerment

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