FOOL → leon kennedy ✔

chapter thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
sweet sacrifice.

...

Leon stumbled onto the bridge. He was a little worse for ware, with new bruises and cuts from being kicked around in the previous fight. But, to his surprise, he had beat William Birkin-- the gargantuan beast from before.

Despite the fight, he had successfully kept the gathered samples safe, and had managed to get some information out of Annette Birkin before she, too, passed. That gave him the knowledge that he had been fearing for a while now-- and now he had to find out the truth.

"Self-destruct sequence in fifteen minutes. Please evacuate in an orderly fashion..." The robotic female voice echoed throughout the area, but his mind wasn't on that.

His thoughts were on the mysterious girl in the red dress, and the fake smile and the masked complacency in her eyes when they spotted the samples in Leon's hand. It was like a predator that had caught sight of it's prey.

"Oh my god, Leon. What happened? What took so long?" She feigned fear and horror, face contorting into the appropriate emotions. Leon narrowed his eyes, stopping.

"I've been fighting through endless amounts of undead to get these--" He held up the vials, which caught the light above them for added affect. The ground jolted, but neither cared to notice. "Only to find out that you, oh mysterious one... have been lying to us. Care to explain?" His frown was tight. Ada stopped dead in her tracks.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about, Leon."

"You're going to take them and sell them, aren't you? They go to the highest bidder, and they take the prize that could potentially destroy the world. You're not with the FBI-- Lucky was right." It was all falling into place, and neither liked it very much.

"Dammit, Leon. We don't have time for this." She snapped, but he was unfazed.

"Admit it, Ada. You used us."

There was silence. The bridge jolted, then shook out to be still again. "I really hoped it wouldn't come to this." Ada sighed, then drew her pistol. She levelled it with Leon's head. It could be a quick, clean kill. "Now give me the samples, and I don't have to kill you. Please, Leon. It's for the best. Lucky's dead anyway, the cure won't work on a walking corpse."

Leon's chest tightened. "What did you do--"

"I did nothing. She was bitten, and she was dying. And she died. It was going to happen... you were too late. If only you could've saved her--" Leon drew his own pistol in a blink, anger burning hot in his eyes.

"Shut up! You're under arrest, Wong. Drop the pistol."

Ada didn't move.

They stood like that for a solid heartbeat, before Leon sighed. "I know you can't do it. You can't bring yourself to shoot me, just like you can't bring yourself to shoot Lucky." His gaze dropped to the ground, then he lowered his pistol. "So... if you're going to do it, do it now. Now's your chance."

Ada shifted uncomfortably, frowning. "I can shoot you, Leon."

"Then do it, and pry the samples from my cold dead fingers." He challenged her. Leon squared his shoulders and held her gaze.

The ground suddenly jolted, sending them both slightly unbalanced and stumbling. Ada regained her balance first and lifted her gun. The second she did, a shot rang out through the room and blood sprayed onto Leon's cheek.

The bridge began shaking more and more, quickly becoming almost impossible to stably stand on. Ada's arm dropped and Leon's breath caught in his throat, then the traitorous girl stumbled to the side to reveal a bloody and deathly-looking Lucky. Her arm was still up, holding the smoking gun.

"Lucky?" Leon stepped forward. Ada gingerly touched the new bullet wound through her shoulder.

Lucky immediately collapsed, but the bridge began to break apart at the same time. It suddenly jolted and threw Ada over the side. Leon leapt for her hand and caught it in the last second, then he was left struggling to keep her up.

"Let me go, Leon! Save Lucky-- she needs you right now." Ada called through the sounds of metal grinding on metal. Leon shook his head and grit his teeth against the strain.

"I'm not... just going to let... you... go!" He tried to adjust his grip, but she was sliding away. She was going to fall. "Just hold on, okay? I'm not giving up on you."

Panic settled in his gut when he saw the look in her eyes. No, she couldn't just slip out of his grasp like this. Two glints of colour caught his attention to his left, and he watched the vials dropping out of his pocket and rolling to the side. He couldn't grab them, or he and Ada would both fall to their deaths.

"Shit... no, Ada. Come on. Help me out here." He strained to pull her up, but it was no use. He could barely even hold her up anymore. The vials rolled ever closer to the edge, just teetering on the side.

The bridge shook again, and the vials fell. Ada pulled against Leon's grip as she shot her arm outwards, then a vial of blue liquid came into Leon's view.

"Make this count, Leon." Ada whispered, then she pulled against his grip with all she could manage. To her relief, her hand slipped free and she was suddenly falling. Leon panicked and caught the vial instead of her hand, and then he watched as she disappeared into the darkness below.

"Oh shit, Ada... shit." He breathed. The vial was clutched tightly in his hands, blue liquid swirling around the tiny glass. He wondered what was so important about it that Ada had given her life for it, and then he put it all together.

This was the cure. Ada had sacrificed herself for Lucky.

"Lucky!"