Chapter Text
BSAA - Training Simulation
USA
Scarecrow
My fingers tightened on both the pistol and foregrips of my rifle as I pressed myself against the wall. Artemis was, as usual, right on my ass. She’s been like that ever since we were kids, always following me everywhere and assisting me with my various shenanigans. That’s what I get for being the older brother right? Even if I’m only older by like five minutes. I glanced over at the small room Artemis and I had just walked out of and saw the entire thing start to rise into the air to serve as our observation team. Two veteran members of the BSAA were present along with someone equally as important, our squad leader Lieutenant Davidson, who was codenamed “Phantom.” I could see him standing alongside our squadmates Lynx, Veldt and Ceph as well. I liked them. Good soldiers. Reliable. Lynx was the newest addition and my goodness did she ever earn her place on Talon Fang Squad. One of the best shots I’ve ever seen in my life and I’m known as quite the good sharpshooter. She had saved me from quite the situation last time we were deployed in the field. That was 100% my fault too. Ran right into the building with absolutely no backup in an attempt to apprehend the target. What I failed to realize is that said target had a team of bodyguards that nearly turned me into swiss cheese before Lynx started picking them off. Got benched for a bit for that one but I deserved it. That and the lecture I got from both of my parents afterwards. I’ll never forget hearing Jenny’s frantic voice over the gunfire I had barely dodged. Never doing something like that again. Although being benched did have its advantages. I had become very acquainted with one of the medical team during those days when I was supposed to just be doing paperwork as penance (which I did do, so SHUT UP). Man, there is just something about women wearing glasses that just does it for me…
“Hey Crow, you ready,” Artemis whispered into my ear which pulled me out of my daze. We were equipped with an absolute state of the art communications device that was built into the specialized helmets our squad wore. Someone could be like half way across the city, whisper into their mic and I would be able to hear it as clear as if that person was standing behind me. I could even use eye movements to mute the mic just in case I was swearing too loud…which has happened before. Ever been shot in the shoulder? Not fun. Most of the time you aren’t saying “My word, that feels absolutely divine! Please do it again, good sir or madam!” Oh shit…I should probably answer her. My mind wanders at the most inopportune times.
“Yeah, what do they have us run a training sim on?” I asked while looking at the countdown clock. We still had about sixty seconds before the sim started. “Is this a retrieval or containment scenario?”
“Gee bro, mayhaps you should look at the tac computer mounted on your wrist,” Artemis answered and even though she was wearing a mask…I knew she was smiling.
“Right…yeah…good call,” I answered. I could hear the sound of Veldt chuckling too. Ass. I glanced down at the tac computer on my wrist. It displayed our objective. “Secure and contain outbreak of unknown pathogen. Lethal force authorized.” I couldn’t help but chuckle myself. It wasn’t this easy and I knew it. One of the two veteran BSAA people would program the simulation to have targets appear innocent but in reality, we had to check for any signs of infection using our specialized weapon mounted flashlights. They sort of acted like a black light but it wasn’t actually a black light you feel me? It was designed to look for any puncture or bite wounds and highlight infected veins under the skin. The actual targets and innocent civilians were actually high tech programmable combat drones with holo tech to make them look like anything we want. These puppies could mimic any enemy fighting force and I know exactly what you are thinking. No, they are not controlled by an AI. Lt. Davidson and Ceph normally controlled the drones remotely. But that doesn’t mean they make it easy for us either. Plus the blacklight I just mentioned, it’s a modified version to work in a simulated environment. Anyway, this whole training sim was twofold. One, for actual training and two, I think everyone wanted to see if my reckless tendencies have started to subside. Now don’t hear what I’m not saying, I don’t go in guns blazing…except for last time. I think the higher ups wanted to see if I was actually going to focus on protecting my squadmates and innocent people rather than attempt to be a one man army.
The clock was starting to countdown from five and I heard Artemis post up behind me once more and out of my peripheral, I saw her hand hovering over my shoulder. As soon as the countdown finished and the starting horn blared, she tapped me on the shoulder a few times and we started to walk forward. Instantly I knew exactly what kind of “outbreak” we were dealing with. Fungal. Could tell by the body mutations. Plus, it was very similar to the symptoms of a developing case the BSAA had been working on for the past week or so. Not a whole lot of evidence to go on but the BSAA is monitoring the situation. Viral outbreaks haven’t been a thing since 2026 thanks to Leon Kennedy and Grace Ashcroft. Met Grace a few times. Nice lady. Her daughter Emily thinks I’m a really cool super spy! Or at least she did when she was younger. I think Emily is at least in her late teens now. Been a bit since I've seen her. Anyway, Leon and Grace had found something called Elpis which was basically the biggest antiviral drug of all time and that rendered the infamous T-Virus and all the "descendants" of it defective. That was about 10 years ago at this point and at least to my knowledge, there hasn’t been a T-Virus outbreak ever since. Regardless, one of the “infected” drones lunged at me but I spun out of the way which allowed Artemis to place one shot through its head. I didn’t have time to marvel in that display of skill though as another drone, this time mimicking a young business man, had come running up to me. As he got closer, I scanned my light up and down his front, then grabbed him and spun him around before doing his back.
“Clean,” I said and shoved the drone off in the direction behind me.
“He’s improving ma’am,” Davidson’s voice said in my ear as I scanned another drone while Artemis dropped another two infected.
“I know,” a female voice I recognized answered. Then she added something in a whisper I knew only I was allowed to hear. “He’s my little Zacky.” Dammit Mom! I’m working. Then I heard Artemis snicker. Oh so she heard that too?! Fine! Two can play at this game…but I only had one shot because I needed to focus on the mission, not teasing my sister.
“Laugh it up Jenny-Wenny,” I muttered on our private channel. I heard Artemis scoff and our mom chuckle so that’s a win for Zack! Whoo! I was so busy silently gloating, I nearly failed to recognize a bioterrorist drone in disguise. It was in the middle of drawing its “gun” but I quickly unsheathed my karambit blade and slashed it across its arm. It stumbled backwards into the wall before falling to its knees. I glanced over at Artemis, saw that she was completely fine and then cocked my fist back like it was a rifle bolt and punched the drone right in the face. Realized a little too late that I had pulled what I sometimes dubbed as a “Bozo Maneuver.” The thing I was about to punch with my full strength behind it was not human…it was metal. I was completely ready for my hand to shatter and be placed on medical leave but here’s what actually happened. My fist connected with the drone's head and caved it in slightly. That…that wasn’t supposed to happen. My hand still hurt, yes…but it didn’t feel broken. In fact, it sort of felt like I punched a table in annoyance. Weird. The drone however, was malfunctioning big time. It was doing a lot of jerking movements and tried to lunge at me. I thought otherwise. So did my boot. I delivered what I thought was an absolutely perfect spinning round house kick to the drone's head which took it clean off.
“EX-FUCKING-SCUSE ME?!” Veldt’s excited voice shouted in my ear. “Did you see that sir?!”
“Aye…seems to take after his father doesn’t he?” Davidson answered. I heard my mom chuckle alongside the other female BSAA veteran before someone else I knew spoke.
“He takes after his uncle too,” she was saying but I lost the rest of it because I was on my way to assist Artemis as she was in the middle of reloading her SMG. I checked and eliminated a few more targets while Artemis secured the “package.”
“Got it,” she said. In her hand, she was holding a protective case which was actually filed with simulated hazardous weapons and viruses. I gave her a curt nod, checked the surroundings and motioned for her to follow me. She did so. We took about three steps before the “leader” of this bioterrorist cell came out from behind a corner holding an assault rifle. The thing was motioning as if it was giving us a speech on how humanity is weak and how there’s going to be a new world order or some garbage like that. I shot him in the kneecaps rather than the face. Old Zack would have jumped the gun much earlier and gone for the kill shot but New Zack knew this was a test. As the drone simulated writing around in pain, I walked over, kicked its arms away and searched it for anything useful. I found it immediately. A keycard which was labeled “neutralize.” I walked back over to Artemis. She looked very confused.
“Is there a key slot on that case?” I asked. “And should I inform you of that beeping noise too?”
“Uh…” she began and started to examine the case closer. I watched comprehension bloom on her masked face. There was a countdown timer on the case. It said we had about two hours left. Next to the timer display, was a keycard slot.
“Knowing Ceph, she probably put some elaborate puzzle for you to solve to neutralize whatever’s in there. All you sis,” I said before handing her the keycard. “I’ll cover you.” Artemis got to work while I checked and eliminated any target that got anywhere near us. After about five minutes or so, the beeping of the timer stopped.
“Got it!” Artemis exclaimed triumphantly. Immediately after, all the lights came on and the simulated terrain sunk back into the floor or deactivated. Still, I didn’t drop my guard until I heard “Simulation Complete. All objectives completed” come from the speakers above us. I glanced over in the direction of the observation platform and saw that the crew in there were starting to make their way down. Artemis had removed her helmet and was rubbing the side of her temple. My sister Jennifer, or Jenny as she prefers to be called, stood before me once more. She looked just like our mother except for the hair. It was slightly longer than Mom’s and Jenny tended to tie it in a short pony tail. I removed my helmet too and wiped some of the sweat from my face. I myself was the spitting image of my father although I tended to sport more of a beard than he did nowadays. A short one though. If I let it grow too long it gets itchy…plus the scientist who had captured my affections said I looked incredibly handsome with the short beard.
I was checking and securing my pistol as everyone from the viewing platform approached. The three women in the front looked rather pleased and I had been right about who had shown up afterward. My aunt. She was walking alongside my mom and Captain Sheva Alomar of the West African branch of the BSAA. Wonder why she's here...my aunt that is. Normally, she's doing work for that TerraSave company. Jenny and I are really close to her. She often helped out mom whenever dad was away saving the world and whatnot. Except for that Alcatraz thing when I was, what 5ish? Mom, Dad and Aunt Claire were away dealing with that. We had Sherry Birkin and Barry Burton watching us during that time. That's also something else I should mention. As Jenny and I are the children of two of the most hated people in the bioterrism cells, we were kept secret for most of our childhood. Only a few people knew about us. Aunt Claire, Uncle Leon, Sherry and Barry. We still went to school yes and eventually we started using our real names too. Remember that Elpis thing? Around that time.
“Lad, I do hope you know that drone’s comin’ outta your paycheck,” Davidson said, stopping in front of me with his arms crossed. He was a man in his early 40s with brown hair and beard with flecks of gray in both. I looked a bit confused.
“Uh…what?” I asked before I noticed that Davidson was smirking slightly. This dude loves his damn jokes...
“Dude, you took that thing's head smooth off,” Veldt responded with a grin of his own. “With an absolutely killer spin kick!” He was around the same age as Jenny and I so we had that going for us. He did like to call himself a “ladies man” and I’ll admit, some of his tactics did work whenever we went out for drinks. Over his shoulder I could see Lynx and Ceph examining the destroyed drone. I didn’t really get a chance to observe any closer because my mom, Sheva and my aunt had blocked my vision. My aunt was the only one who looked visibly amused but I could see through my mom’s stoic expression any day of the week. You know how you can tell a lot about someone’s facial expression by looking into their eyes? My mom’s eyes showed nothing but warmth even if her entire face showed no emotion.
“So, this is him Jill?” Sheva asked my mom. “You were right. He looks just like his father. And I’ll be damned if that one over there isn’t just the miniature version of you.”
“Yes. He and his sister are my little miracles,” Mom responded. I heard Jenny groan a little behind me and I myself turned a bit red. Come on mom! Not in front of the squad! Uncool! She…she wasn’t wrong though. For a while, she and dad didn’t think they were going to be able to have kids. Long story short, back in the day my mom was captured by infamous bio-terrorist and virologist Albert Wesker. Douchebag basically tortured and experimented on my mom for the better part of three years before she was saved, funnily enough, by my dad and Sheva. After mom was saved, she and dad actually got together as a couple after years of being “best friends.” Mom had a normal life for a bit with dad but, you know, duty calls and my dad answers every time. Still though, fuck Wesker. He stinks and I don’t like him.
“I will admit, sometimes I do manage to confuse Zack with his dad on multiple occasions,” Aunt Claire added. “He even used to try and get his uncle to marry me much earlier than when he actually did. Chris used to do that whenever he drank a little too much with Leon. Except in Zack’s case, it was much cuter. Especially because he thinks the world of his dad and mimicked him often. Something about ‘continuing the bwood-wine Auntie.’ Adorable.” Mom smiled in reminiscence. She’s done the same thing. There was a time when I was home from college right and Mom mistook me for a younger version of my dad. Specifically when they were members of STARS. It was early one morning and she must have forgotten that dad was already in the kitchen when she passed me on my way downstairs.
“Ok. Can we debrief or am I going to have to be subjected to my childhood memories in front of everybody?!” I retorted before anyone else could say anything.
“Yes, right. Good call. This way,” Davidson answered. We all started walking back towards the observation area but I could hear Jenny sniggering at me. Not my fault that when I was four years old I thought Aunt Claire's then boyfriend Leon Kennedy was the coolest guy ever next to my dad! I realized my mom was the closest to me and I could see she was still upset about what was going on. In the heat of the training sim, I had forgotten all about it too. So did Jenny. She stopped sniggering and a glance in her direction told me she was thinking the same thing.
Chris Redfield had been on a routine check up of a BSAA office in Eastern Canada. He was supposed to be back nearly a week ago…