July 30, 2025 · B2 Power Rooms → B3 Marine Containment, Downing Facility · 02:31 Local
B2 stretched ahead like the guts of a dying machine — massive power rooms filled with humming transformers, sparking cables, and knee-deep black water rising from below. The air reeked of brine, rust, and the thick sweet-rot stench of T-Abyss. Emergency red lighting turned every surface the colour of an open wound.
Alen stepped out first, mask sealed, blue eyes scanning the darkness. Nine-Oh-Nine up and ready. Behind him the squad poured out in perfect formation, rifles sweeping, boots splashing softly in the rising flood.
"Alpha here," Chris said over comms. "B2 confirmed. Water level rising. Stay high on the walkways. Ghost, lead."
Alen phased forward ten meters, reappearing on a narrow metal catwalk above the water. His blue laser painted two targets ahead — Ooze Shooter variants, gun-like arm appendages dripping acidic slime. He marked them blue. Rolando and Dion fired in unison. Voidstrike rounds punched clean through the cores. The creatures collapsed into melting puddles before their weapon-arms could discharge.
"Clear," Alen said. "Push forward. Water's rising faster on B3."
They advanced along elevated walkways that groaned under their combined weight, sparks raining from damaged transformers overhead. Trinity whispered updates into their HUDs — viral density increasing, aquatic signatures below the waterline, avoid direct contact.
Dion planted a shaped charge on a locked security door. It popped with a muffled thud and slid open.
B3 opened before them.
The marine containment chambers. A vast, half-flooded hall of glass tanks and rusted catwalks, most of the lower level already underwater. Emergency red lights flickered across the black surface, turning it into a mirror of blood. Huge pipes along the walls, several cracked and leaking more T-Abyss fluid. The ceiling lost in shadow.
Alen raised a fist. The squad froze.
Something moved under the water. Then the surface broke.
Ghiozzo erupted through the flood — a dense school of infected fish-beasts, silver bodies with too many teeth and bulging black eyes. One leaped onto a catwalk, thrashing wildly before a single Voidstrike round through the skull dissolved it back into the water.
"Keep to the high walkways," Alen ordered. "Do not enter the water."
They moved single file along the narrow metal grating twenty feet above the flood. Emily at the rear, reconnaissance rifle covering every shadow. Charlie beside her, medic pack ready.
Halfway across the chamber the water began to churn.
Sea Creeper.
Three of the feminine fish-like humanoids erupted from the flood — sleek pale bodies glistening, long webbed claws and razor teeth. They climbed the support pillars with terrifying speed, heading straight for the catwalk. John dropped one with a precise headshot. Rolando stitched the second with a short burst of Voidstrike. The third leaped directly at Emily.
She fired once — missed as the creature twisted mid-air. Claws raked across her vest, slicing deep enough to draw blood. Emily staggered backward, foot slipping on the wet grating.
"Emily!" Charlie lunged for her.
The Sea Creeper grabbed her ankle and yanked her toward the edge.
Alen moved faster than thought. He ghost-phased through the metal railing, blue tint flaring, reappearing directly between Emily and the creature. His titanium left arm clamped around its throat while his right hand drove the TTI Pit Viper under its jaw and fired. The Voidstrike round tore through the top of its skull. The creature melted into black slime across the catwalk.
He caught Emily before she fell, pulling her back onto solid grating.
"You good?" His voice was flat and clinical even as his eyes swept for more threats.
Emily nodded, breathing hard, hand pressed to the slash on her side. "Yeah… thanks, Ghost. That thing was fast."
Charlie was already there, spraying the wound with quick-seal foam. "Superficial. Stay off the edge."
Chris's voice cut in. "Nice save. Keep moving. Almost at the B3-B4 junction."
They pressed on. The water lapping at the bottom of the catwalk now. Red lights flickering more violently. Trinity's voice returned — urgent for the first time.
≪ Massive signature detected. Deep section. Malacoda-class. Recommend immediate evacuation to higher ground. ≫
The squad needed no second instruction. They sprinted toward the heavy blast doors at the far end of the chamber.
As they reached the doors, every speaker in the facility crackled to life.
A smooth, cultured British voice. Calm. Unhurried. The specific tone of a man who has not yet encountered a problem he couldn't solve.
"Captain Redfield. I've been watching your progress through my facility. Efficient. But you're already too late."
A pause. The voice continued, quieter, as if thinking aloud rather than performing.
"The work is done. The hybrid exists. Even if you destroy everything down here, the idea survives in the minds of every virologist who has read the right papers and asked the right questions. You cannot kill an idea, Captain. You can only delay it. I look forward to meeting you in the vault."
The broadcast ended. The blast doors began to grind shut ahead of them.
Hidden pumps activated simultaneously. The water level surged — three feet in seconds. The catwalk groaned.
"Trinity — override those doors. Now."
≪ Working. Ten seconds. ≫
The doors slammed shut with a thunderous clang, sealing the team inside the chamber.
The water was already at their waists.
And in the deep black below them, something enormous began to move — a shadow the size of a whale, tentacles uncoiling in the dark.
Malacoda.
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