[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 746 - How Do You Get Him to Calm Down First? (Patreon)

Rotor blades tore through the howling wind. More than a dozen military Black Hawk helicopters flew in tight formation through the night sky, racing toward Georgia.

Inside the cabin.

Leon was pinned to a stretcher, lashed down by high-tensile tactical straps.

It wasn't enough.

The dark-red muscle tissue covering his right side seemed to have a will of its own, writhing and swelling without pause. That massive closed eyeball twitched every few seconds. Each twitch pulled a sound from Leon's throat, something low and inhuman that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

The special agents assigned to guard him kept their weapons up. Their palms were soaked through. Not one of them dared get close.

President Arthur was huddled in a corner seat, face drained white, staring at Leon like a man watching a building collapse in slow motion.

Chris stood at Claire's stretcher. Her face was pale, but the wound on her chest had closed completely. Her breathing was steady and strong.

Then Leon's eyes tore open.

The deep-blue pupil in his right eye blazed with something savage.

"ROAR—!"

Snap.

A strap rated for several tons of pull force ripped clean apart.

The cabin exploded into chaos.

"Sedatives! Two more doses, give him two more doses!" Arthur's voice cracked into a shriek.

Ada kicked the medic sideways, the man had a syringe in one hand and was shaking so badly he couldn't have hit a wall.

"Useless. Conventional drugs are less than water to him."

Her eyes locked onto Leon.

His left eye flickered. A thread of clarity surfaced.

"Stay..." His jaw was clenched so hard the tendons in his neck stood out like cables. The veins across his forehead looked ready to burst. "...away from me..."

He was burning his last scraps of consciousness to hold the G-Virus back.

This was the only thing about G1 that still looked human.

From G2 onward, reason would be gone entirely. No more flickers. No more warnings. Just the monster.

And he couldn't hold it for long.

A second later, his left eye went dark again, swallowed whole.

Ada didn't hesitate. She crossed to the communications console, switched to an encrypted channel, and patched through to the Atlanta base.

The signal connected.

"This is Ada."

"Ada?" Rebekah's voice came through. "Is it over on your end?"

"There's been a complication. Leon injected himself with an incomplete G-Virus sample."

Silence on the other end. Total, dead silence.

Then, a few seconds later, a sharp inhale.

"He did what."

"That's not the conversation we need right now. He's in G1 form. His consciousness is cycling, lucid, then feral, then lucid again." Ada's voice was level. "We're still airborne. At this rate, he goes completely berserk before we reach base. He could tear this aircraft apart."

"Ask William and Marcus. I need a temporary suppression method."

A burst of static. Then Rebekah came back, her words coming fast.

"Dr. Birkin is in the lab. I just asked him."

"The G-Virus's rampage is caused by uncontrolled high-speed cellular proliferation. The process burns through an enormous amount of energy."

"The only solution is to keep him continuously exhausted."

"If his physical reserves are fully drained, the G-Virus enters a dormant phase to recover. While it's dormant, he can't cause destruction."

Ada's brow tightened. "Drain his strength. How? Bleed him out?"

"No, no, no!" Rebekah cut in immediately. "Physical trauma only stimulates the virus to accelerate evolution. He'll get stronger."

"It has to be..." Her voice dropped. Stumbled. "...that kind of consumption. The kind that goes with the instinct."

"What instinct?" Ada pressed.

A long pause.

"...Reproduction."

Rebekah pushed through it, clearly forcing herself to keep going.

"Leon has Genetic Assimilation, right? The G-Virus's highest-priority directive after evolution is reproduction. It will frantically seek out targets with highly compatible genetics and initiate transfer. That process burns through an extraordinary amount of the virus's energy." She exhaled. "As long as you follow its instinct — let it complete the act — Leon will enter a prolonged weakened state."

Reproduction.

Mating.

Ada's gaze swept the cabin.

Highly compatible genetics. Fully assimilated. The only candidates in this world were Mutants he had completely converted.

Right now, in this cabin, that meant herself and Claire.

But Ada knew exactly where she stood. She was a Mutant, but she had never been inoculated with a G larva.

Claire's chest was a different story. Growing inside it was a G larva Leon had placed there himself.

In the G-Virus's calculus, Claire was the perfect host. The only vessel capable of absorbing the full force of G1 without breaking apart.

Ada switched off the communicator.

She turned around.

Leon roared again. The second strap snapped. The special agents stumbled back. Chris had his gun up and white-knuckled but couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.

Ada walked to Claire's stretcher, still working out how to open this conversation.

"I heard everything."

The voice was quiet. Worn thin.

Claire's eyes were open.

They were still clear, none of the animal savagery that lived in Leon's right eye. But deep inside her pupils, something flickered. A faint trace of the same dark gold.

"Claire! You're awake!" Chris was across the cabin in an instant.

Claire raised one hand and pushed him back. Gently, almost.

Chris stumbled two full steps backward. He hadn't been ready for the strength behind it.

Claire sat up.

She looked at Leon, still fighting against the straps, still roaring, still barely contained. She looked at the deformed arm, at that massive sealed eye.

No fear. Not a trace of it. Only something that looked dangerously close to longing.

"Ada."

She turned her head.

"You don't have to hide it from me." Her voice was quiet and very steady. "I know what needs to be done. I'm a G-organism too. I understand this instinct."

Chris looked at his sister. Then at Ada. "What are you two talking about?"

"Chris." Claire's eyes settled on her brother. Calm as standing water. Deep as a grave. "Take everyone to the forward cabin. Lock the door. No matter what you hear, you don't come in."

"Claire, you've lost your mind. He's a monster right now. He will kill you."

"He won't."

Claire stood.

Her clothes were in tatters, soaked dark with blood. Her steps were perfectly steady. The G larva had done more than close her wound, it was already remaking her from the inside out. She could feel it, a pull she didn't have a name for yet, something deep and cellular reaching toward the man on that stretcher.

For Leon, she was willing.

"Now," she said, "it's my turn to save him."

She walked to his side and reached out, pressing her palm gently to his face, that face contorted with pain. Her fingers were steady.

Leon's struggling stopped.

Not for long. Just a moment. Just enough.

Ada didn't waste it.

She grabbed Chris by the back of his collar and hauled him toward the forward cabin. The man had nearly thirty pounds on her. She didn't slow down.

"Let go of me, Claire!" He fought every step.

"Shut up." Ada's voice was a blade. "Do you want Leon dead, or do you want your sister dead? Pick one."

She turned her head and swept her gaze over Arthur and the special agents.

"Everyone. Forward cabin. Now."

She drew the pistol from her hip. The round chambered with a clean, crisp CLICK.

"Anyone who peeks."

She let the sentence finish itself.

Arthur was already moving. The special agents followed. Ada dragged Chris through the doorway still struggling.

Bang.

The door slammed shut. Locked from the outside.

The wide rear cabin held only two people now.

Under the dim red pulse of the emergency lights, Leon's breathing came in rough, animal bursts. His reason had gone under again. The massive deformed claw lurched upward and shredded through the last strap.

He sat up.

That enormous eye snapped open. It found Claire and didn't move.

No killing intent. None at all. Only possession, pure and total and without limit.

Claire didn't step back.

She met that gaze, the one that should have turned her legs to water, and she reached up and slowly pulled the zipper of her torn jacket down.

It slid off her shoulders.

Fair skin. And at the center of her chest, where a wound should have been, only a faint shallow scar remained. Fully healed.

Beneath it, something was beating. Strong. Steady. Not quite the rhythm of a normal heart.

"Come on, Leon."

She climbed onto the stretcher and settled across his lap, wrapping both arms around that massive frame, the dark-red scales, the swollen muscle, the body that barely looked like a man anymore, and pressed her face against that great pulsing eye.

"I'm willing."

The roar that came out of him shook the walls.

That was the G-Virus finding its perfect host. That was ecstasy.

His left hand, still human-shaped, still his, yanked her in by the waist. The deformed claw came up and tore away the last of the fabric between them without ceremony.

Outside, the wind screamed past the fuselage.

Inside, the temperature climbed.

The energy of the G-Virus had found somewhere to go.

➤ Next: Get Him Into the Lab — Now