Fanfic / Familiar Evil

cover by Alex-kellar

Louise's summoning of her familiar was supposed to be the ultimate, final proof that she was truly a mage. But, instead she somehow found herself in a place called Raccoon City on an entirely different world. A world where magic didn't exist, and when that world falls apart, she and the boy who was supposed to be her familiar must fight for their lives against the evil around them.

From the writer of Hunters of Justice and Dust and Echoes trestwho, Familiar Evil is a crossover between The Familiar of Zero and Resident Evil; more specifically Resident Evil 2 (Remake). During the Familiar Summoning Ritual, Louise accidentally sent herself to Raccoon City. After a brief period in the hospital, she was taken by the Hiraga family, who let her stay with them and adjust to Earth. Unfortunately, these happy times could not last, and soon Louise and Saito Hiraga have to face a city now infested with zombies and other threats...

The story can be read on SpaceBattles, FanFiction.Net, and Archive of Our Own.

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Tropes contained in the story include the following:

• A-Cup Angst: Louise is very sensitive about her small chest size, and gets irate whenever someone brings it up. It gets to the point that Saito once shushes a friend who starts to refer to it, fearing that Louise will somehow overhear despite being miles away.
• Adaptational Nationality: In this story, Saito is Japanese-American. His parents are still Japanese, though. They came to the US to work and their son was born in the states, making him an American.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, Saito and Louise are still their respective Love Interests, however the relationship itself is presented in a much healthier light. This is due to their meeting being flipped. Instead of Saito being summoned to Halkegenia by Louise and thus becoming her familiar, inherently her inferior socially, Louise accidentally reverse-summoned herself to Earth, placing her and Saito on a much more even footing. Combined with Louise being removed from the societal pressures which were the root cause of many of her more negative characteristics, it allows the two of them to start off on a much better foot.
• Advanced Ancient Humans: Downplayed. The Varyag were an ancient civilization which existed six-thousand years ago. While their technology when compared to the modern day, as in the late 1990s, is very primitive, they're notable for having mastered steelmaking akin to the legendary Damascus or wootz steel thousands of years before anyone else even began using it. They were wiped out by a plague after having driven out the Markey, who were Brimir's tribe and therefore the ancestors of humanity on Terre.
• Alliterative Family: The Hiraga family consists of Sakura, Satoshi, and Saito.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Due to Louise's inability to properly cast magic, she was ostracized by her family and peers relentlessly. It's how she obtained her "title" of "Louise the Zero", and causes her to assume that no one from Halkegenia will care to look for her after the reverse-summoning.
• Almost Kiss: Still high on adrenaline after all the close encounters with death in the sewers, Louise and Saito nearly kiss while riding an elevator out of there. The teenagers are shaken out of it when the elevator abruptly comes to a stop, and they hastily agree to get moving elsewhere.
• Apocalypse How:
  • A Class 1 happened in Earth's distant past, when the Varyag civilization was completely destroyed by a plague, but humanity as a whole survived.
  • Class 0. The T-Virus outbreak causes a complete societal collapse within Raccoon City in a matter of hours as people are infected and turned into zombies.
  • Unfortunately, Halkegenia isn't free from this either, although theirs hasn't started yet and is of natural causes. Underneath the entire continent, windstones have been growing unchecked for thousands of years, and humanity's technology or magic isn't enough to stop their overaccumulation. As such, once the windstones reach critical mass, the entire continent will split apart and rise into the atmosphere, just as the floating island of Albion did. Unlike Albion, however, most will not have enough windstones to stay afloat, and will inevitably come crashing down. Those who survive will inevitably go to war for the remaining scare resources, potentially driving humanity into extinction. The Halkegenian Church, or at least the upper echelons, is very much aware of the danger and is the reason why they assisted Tristain in getting Louise back from Earth. Especially since Halkegenia is set to reach critical mass in a few years. Unfortunately, their solution isn't stopping the oncoming Windstone Crisis from occurring, it's instead to launch a crusade to reclaim the Holy Land, which in actuality is Earth where they'll evacuate to.
• Apocalyptic Log:
  • When taking shelter inside of an apartment, Louise ends up finding the personal diary of a college student named Samantha who lived there before the outbreak. The diary detailed intimate aspects of her personal life, along with a an account of the events that led to the Raccoon City Destruction Incident, such as animal attacks in the Arklay Forest, reports of cannibals, the disastrous results of the Spencer Mansion Raid by S.T.A.R.S, and the dissolution of S.T.A.R.S itself. The last act prompted her to buy a gun of her own in order to defend herself. Unfortunately, while the gun proved useful for Louise, it was utterly useless for its previous owner as she was infected by the T-Virus, turning her into a zombie which forced Louise and Saito to kill her.
  • They find another one in Dr. Kenner’s lab in the rail yard, detailing his descent from a kindly Determined Doctor into a deranged Mad Doctor.
• Attack Its Weak Point:
  • The giant snake Gorge is incredibly tough, but previous wounds have left it with many blisters on its hide that can be easily pierced. Eventually, Saito tricks the beast into charging near a steel outcropping, which gets caught on a pierced blister and slices Gorge open.
  • The Hunter Gammas in the sewers have tough hides, but Louise quickly realizes that their mouths are vulnerable and wide open just before they attack.
  • When Louise is trying to distract Dr. Birkin, she fires her revolver at the giant eye on his shoulder causing him to stagger.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: In the zoo, Louise and Saito encounter a giant mutant cane toad, which the latter notes is a species already known for being carnivorous and poisonous. The teenagers prepare for a tough fight... only for the toad to suddenly be eaten by a huge mutated anaconda, which doesn't even flinch at the toad's acids, and it wants to eat them next.
• Batter Up!: Saito played in his high school baseball team. As such, when he and Louise are forced to run out into the city, he takes his wooden baseball bat with him to protect themselves. It proves to be very useful against zombies, but unfortunately, gets destroyed during one of their confrontations with Wolfpack.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: When faced with the possibility that either herself or Saito could get infected by the T-Virus and turned into zombies, Louise makes Saito promise to kill her rather than let her succumb to the infection and become a monster. Saito reluctantly agrees, but only if Louise promises the same thing for him.
  • The Rescue Party soon after their arrival in the city finds a dead auto-repair technician named Diego, who slit his own wrists and left a note behind, telling how he was forced to kill his family and then killed himself to avoid being turned by his former friends.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just before Louise and Saito are eaten by zombies, they are saved by well-timed gunshots. Then immediately subverted when their saviors turn out to be Delta Team, the very same people who've been attempting to kidnap Louise and kill Saito in the first place.
  • Echo-Six later does it again when they save the rescue party from being captured by Umbrella.
• Boss Subtitles: Text-only example; Louise comments that the infected anaconda grew so huge by gorging itself on other animals, and Saito decides that Gorge is an appropriate name for the monster.
• Break the Cutie: To both Saito and Louise after Wolfpack breaks into the Hiraga family apartment to kidnap Louise and seemingly kill Saito's parents. Neither of them took it well, with Louise coming out the worst as she blames herself for their current predicament. This was before they ran into the zombies.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Saito has to take the time to individually load each bullet into a magazine prior to use, and no matter how much ammo he currently has on hand, he's limited by the number of physical magazines he has.
• Call-Forward: While at the zoo, Louise and Saito accidently awaken a giant mutated alligator, which escapes into the sewers. Word of God confirms it's the same creature that Leon later encounters in Resident Evil 2.
• Car Hood Sliding: Saito does this when he attempts to drive himself and Louise out of Raccoon City via a police car.
• Cassandra Truth: The gangster that Julio successfully talks down, notices Alphonse's coughing and tries to warn the group regarding the implications, only to be killed by Agnes when he tries to shoot Alphonse.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Louise's attempt to redo the summoning ends up revealing that Saito is supposed to be her familiar. Both teenagers are clearly uncomfortable with all the implications that entails, and uneasily agree to just head home and avoid the topic. This is also pointed out by Echo Six when the Rescue Party explains the concepts of 'familiars' to them.
• Chick Magnet: Saito, as revealed by his father. Apparently, ever since he was a kid he would attract girls to him because he was a nice guy. Until Louise came around, Saito never gave them any real attention, prompting the girls to move on.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: When Louise hears about Saito's past as a Clueless Chick-Magnet, she gets angry and jealous.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: In addition to all zombies having Death Is Gray skin, older zombies exhibit a more rotten appearance. Due to how the infection works, those zombies are tougher. A freshly-turned zombie can be taken out with a single headshot, but an older zombie may require more to finally be put down.
• Complexity Addiction: The city's sewer security system revolves around chess-themed plugs that simultaneously open and close different doors, which is lampshaded as needlessly complex and hard to use. A worker left some notes complaining that upper management refuses to change the nonsensical system, and he had to manually create a cheat sheet just to get it halfway operational.
• Consummate Professional: Most of Wolfpack falls into this. Some, namely VECTOR, allow their emotions to get the better of them, though.
• Conveniently Timed Distraction: A random car crash from outside their apartment gives Saito, his family, and Louise an opportunity to fight back and escape from Wolfpack.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Rescue Party manages to adjust quickly when fighting the undead in Raccoon City along with acquiring better weaponry and gear from an Umbrella cache, however, when faced against modern tactics, courtesy of Umbrella mercenaries, they barely put up a fight and only survive thanks to Umbrella wanting them captured alive.
• Danger Takes a Backseat: A zombie attacks Saito and Louise from the backseat of a police car as they're trying to drive away. Luckily, a barrier prevented the zombie from actually getting to them, but it does distract them long enough for Saito to lose control of the car and crash.
• Death Is Gray: Those infected by the T-Virus and turned into zombies have their skin turned grey and their eyes becoming milky white, making them easy to spot.
• Determined Defeatist: After learning that Reconquista has successfully conquered Albion, killed Prince Wales, and are heavily implied to be searching for the love letter Henrietta sent to him, Henrietta develops this mindset. She comes to believe that her impending political marriage with Germania's Emperor is about to be called off, and her reign as Tristain's sovereign monarch will be tragically cut short. Other than a brief lapse into grief and despair upon receiving the news, Henrietta instead decides that she has nothing left to lose, and so puts everything she has into being as effective a ruler as she can possibly be in the meantime, starting with ensuring that her friend Louise is safely brought home.
  • Agnes dispassionately states that Louise is most likely dead already, either from lack of resources or the zombie plague, and the rescue party has little chance of surviving for an entire week for Pope Vittorio to open another portal, so there's not much hope of getting home. Nonetheless, she then argues that they should try and find Louise anyway, as they don't have any better options.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Varyag inflicted this upon the ancient Markey tribe six-thousand years ago when they blamed them for a devastating plague which afflicted them around the time the nomadic Markey moved into the area. They responded by organizing their entire civilization into hunting them down in a genocidal crusade, chasing them from Scandinavia all the way to Arabia, which is an impressive feat given how much more difficult it was to travel such distances back then. Given how the Markey were, in actuality, Brimir's tribe, they ended up chasing them into an entirely different world altogether, though they apparently didn't survive the effort.
• Doomed by Canon: As anyone familiar with Resident Evil knows, Raccoon City will fall once the T-virus spreads. It begins at the end of Chapter 6.
• Dramatic Irony: The rescue team is paranoid about revealing themselves to Earth natives, assuming that this world is dominated by their ancient enemies the Varyag. The thing is, one of Saito's history classes established that the Varyag were actually wiped out millennia ago, and in the present archeologists have only recently discovered that they existed at all.
• Dynamic Entry: Delta Team does this when they breach the Hiraga family's apartment during their kidnapping attempt on Louise.
• Elite Zombie: Should a mage succumb to T-Virus infection, they will turn into an Elemental Zombie called a draugr. Not only are draugrs stronger, faster, and smarter than normal zombies, but they are also capable of wielding wild magic without the need for a focus such as a wand, making them incredibly dangerous.
  • Alphonse turns into a water draugr after succumbing to the T-Virus and takes the lives of two people, including Claudette.
• Elsewhere Fic: The bulk of this story takes place concurrently with Resident Evil 2 (Remake). Word of God states that while Louise and Saito might sometimes run into characters or events from that game, the two plots will be largely disconnected.
• Entertainingly Wrong: While tracking down Louise, the rescue team comes across the grisly corpse of Dr. Kenner and clear signs of a struggle. Knowing that Louise was there earlier, they conclude that some unknown attacker murdered the doctor and caused Louise to flee; in truth, Louise and Saito personally killed the Mad Doctor in self-defense, and simply walked away afterward.
  • Julio's assumption that the Umbrella Mercs and the US Special Forces groups are Varyag, even though nearly everyone on Earth are unaware on what the Varyag are and that they are already wiped out ages ago.
• Evil, Inc.: The Umbrella Corporation. They effectively control Raccoon City, using their influence to cover up their crimes and conduct their unethical experiments. They also have an explicit interest in Louise due to her magic that led them to hold her in one of their hospitals for a week against her will.
  • When the Rescue Party arrives on Earth, it is no surprise that Umbrella also takes an interest in them and Sylphid, even sending another USS team to capture them alive.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!:
  • As Becca helps guide Louise and Saito over the radio to the zoo exit, her tower suddenly comes under attack by Wolfpack. Saito, incredulous, questions how they caught up, but then slowly looks at his walkie-talkie; in all the confusion, it'd slipped his mind that the Umbrella mercenaries can track radio signals.
  • Guiche feels increasingly nervous when Montmorency explains how she realized Kirche used the sleeping agents she made to drug and replace members of the rescue team. Showing the empty potion bottle has Guiche realize how extreme the situation has become.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • When stopping to rest for the night in an apartment, Saito and Louise secure the door and briefly scan the rooms before splitting up to more thoroughly search the place and unwind a little, completely ignoring the bathtub filled with murky water when they did so. This nearly gets Louise bitten when the zombie in the bath emerges and attacks her while she's using the restroom.
  • During Echo-Six's rescue attempt on the rescue party, they miss the signs that Alphonse is infected with the T-Virus. Fowler even snipes the mercenary who was about to euthanize Alphonse for said infection. The chaos of the subsequent firefight causes them to not notice the danger until the leader of Bravo Team points it out to them during an interrogation.
• Fallen Hero: Dr. Kenner was once an kindly doctor, who was concerned about reports of a bizarre new disease in the woods. After his colleague Miranda was infected and died, he was determined to find a cure for her sake, but got frustrated with how everyone else was apparently ignoring it. Unfortunately, he slowly grew obsessed with testing his theories for a cure, and started kidnapping homeless people, including at least one pregnant woman, and injecting them with the T-Virus to use as guinea pigs. By the time Louise and Saito run into him, Kenner has no qualms kidnapping and turning innocents in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse, even as it's clear that his experimental "cure" is ineffective.
• Fate Worse than Death: Both Saito and Louise come to this conclusion once the true scale of the T-Virus outbreak becomes clear to them, as well as the horrific effects the virus has on those it infects. Seeing what used to be people turned into mindless, animalistic zombies immune to pain and driven only by an insatiable hunger convinces them that they are no longer people and need to be put down. When faced with the prospect that they themselves could potentially fall into this fate, they promise to kill each other rather than let them turn.
• Feathered Fiend: Saito and Louise come across a flock of T-Virus infected crows who'd claimed an entire street as their territory, eating anyone and anything, including other zombies, that stepped out into the open.
• Fish out of Water: Louise when she first arrived in Raccoon City. Going from a magical society technologically and socially equivalent to the early 1600s to a modern late-20th century city throws her for a loop. Although she was able to adjust fairly quickly, she spends most of her time simply trying to learn as much as she can about her new environment, both to satiate her curiosity as well as potentially find a way back home.
• Fridge Brilliance: At first, it might seem that the author took some liberties in allowing Louise to have access to the Unlock, Telekinesis and Light spells on top of her regular miscast explosions since Louise wasn't able to cast even those basic spells until after the Battle of Tarbes where Louise was in contact with the Founder's Prayer Book and the Royal Water Ruby. However, several chapters before this comes up, Chapter 6 established that when she was younger, Louise read from the Founder's Prayer Book with the help of Henrietta during one of their play dates, essentially unlocking part of her Void Magic much earlier than in canon.
• Godzilla Threshold: While planning out their route to the evacuation site, Louise argues that she and Saito should cut through the mall, despite it being completely overrun with zombies. She believes that a longer route would allow the pursuing Wolfpack to catch up to them, while the zombies in the mall would delay the mercenaries, and the teenagers could scavenge supplies while they're in there. Saito is uneasy with the plan, but ultimately decides that their situation is desperate enough to warrant the risk. Unfortunately, the mercenaries manage to catch up to the teenagers inside the mall anyway.
  • With Wolfpack closing in at the zoo, Saito decides that they should escape through the sewers rather than the normal exit, despite it being far more dangerous than even the mall. He thinks that the mercs will have a much harder time tracking them underground, since they know what's nearby aboveground but have no intel about what's down there. Louise rightfully points out that it's still insanely dangerous, but soon agrees that there's no better option.
• Grimy Water: Inside the apartment safe room they take shelter in, Saito and Louise find a bathtub filled with water that's so thick and grimy that they can't even see the bottom of the tub. This is because the previous owner of the apartment was infected with the T-Virus and turned into a zombie while taking a bath. Her body decayed and severely polluted the water, masking her presence long enough for her to attack Louise while she was using the toilet.
• Healing Herb: Arklay herbs, which grow around Raccoon City, are incredibly good at healing wounds, with even a sprained ankle getting healed in seconds. Louise notes that Terre has similar plants, but those are nowhere near as effective, and suspects that Arklay herbs are magic-based, a result of the worlds crossing over at some point in the distant past.
• Heal It with Water: Water mages can manipulate the water inside the human body to speed up and enhance the healing process. Alphonse, a skilled water mage, is able to get his wounds healed after being bitten by a zombie, but the others uneasily notice that he's starting to cough more than usual...
• Hiding Your Heritage: With the exception of Saito, Louise keeps her origins (of being a noble mage from the country of Tristain located in Halkegenia on another world) a secret out of fear that some, like the Umbrella Corporation, would try to exploit her. No one else, not even Saito's parents, is let in on the truth, instead being led to think that Louise was a victim of human trafficking. Once Raccoon City falls, she's both proven to be correct and that all her efforts were in vain. Umbrella did want to exploit her; they just already knew what she was, or at the very least had a pretty good idea, and decided to use the cover of the outbreak for a kidnapping.
• Hope Spot:
  • Louise and Saito briefly find one when they run into a police officer who offers to take them to the RPD for safety. It's immediately dashed as the officer is eaten by a zombie, then turned into a zombie and attacks them. Then, when they try driving away from a horde of zombies, a zombie in the back seat of the police cruiser causes them to crash, leaving them without any means to easily escape the city.
  • Another one happens when Louise and Saito run into United States Special Forces Team Echo Six, who immediately try to get them an evac chopper out of the city upon learning of their situation. Unfortunately, USS Delta Team intercepts and attacks, forcing Saito and Louise to run deeper into the city in an effort to avoid capture while Echo Six covers them.
  • After narrowly escaping the mall, Louise and Saito find a clinic with medicine for their wounds, along with a kindly doctor to help them. Or so it seems; Dr. Kenner soon reveals himself to be a Mad Doctor, kidnapping both teenagers with the intent of using them as guinea pigs.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Saito never actually fired a gun in real life before the zombies arrived, but he was a military history and weapons aficionado and had played/watched/read numerous movies, TV shows, and magazines about firearms before the events of the story. As such, he's able to both recognize and use the Browning Hi-Power pistol recovered from Officer Sanchez' car. He later recognizes an Ithaca 37 shotgun inside a gunstore, allowing him to use it effectively.
• I Know Your True Name: A mundane variant. U.S.S. operatives only use codenames in the field and their identities are closely guarded secrets. As such, one of the tactics the US is using to intimidate captured operatives during interogation is having the CIA rapidly figure out who the operative is and revealing this to them.
• Implacable Man: It doesn't matter how much you throw at it, a Tyrant will not stop for anything until you are dead. Echo Six learns this the hard way during their first engagement with one, forcing them to retreat and call an airstrike just to finally take it down.
• I Read It for the Articles: Saito tries to claim this when Louise finds a dirty magazine in his room. She's not fooled at all, and the paper-thin excuse just sets her off. Saito's parents hear the resulting tirade from the next room over, with his mom muttering that she's told Saito to get rid of the magazine.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: Louise tells Saito this when she attempts to convince him to leave her behind and let Umbrella capture her, believing that doing so would give him a chance to escape. Saito, of course, refuses.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Colbert blames himself after Louise inadvertently reverse summons herself to Earth, believing that the only reason why it happened was because he let her. That if he had done his job and failed her after her first attempt, as he was supposed to, this never would've happened. Headmaster Osmund is quick to refute this, but it doesn't change Colbert's mind.
  • Louise comes to believe this after she and Saito have a chance to process everything that happened to them after Delta Team/Wolfpack broke into their apartment, seemingly killed Saito's parents, and tried to kidnap her. She feels that, had the Hiragas not taken her in out of the kindness of their hearts, the Umbrella Corporation wouldn't have hurt them. She even tells Saito to go on without her so as to save himself, but Saito quickly dissuades her of those thoughts.
  • Louise again feels this after the disastrous events in the mall and the Mercy Clinic, since she chose those destinations in the first place. Once more, Saito dissuades her, pointing out that he agreed with her logic for risking the mall, and there was no way she could’ve anticipated the clinic housing a Mad Doctor.
  • When one of Agnes' musketeers is killed by the mutated Alphonse, Karin shoulders the blame for not listening quickly from Agnes' suggestion and the locals regarding putting Alphonse out of his misery before he succumbs to the infection.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: What tips the Rescue Team off that something very bad is happening in Raccoon City, as there is no way a city that size should ever be as quiet as it is when they arrive.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Chapter 19 has a gangster in a gun handling video talking in a very condescending tone explaining how to handle guns and ammunition of different types. The rescue party is thoroughly irritated by the attitude, but begrudgingly admit that they're now well-informed on how to handle their new stash of weapons.
• Kill It with Fire: The rescue party mages quickly realize that immolating zombies with fire spells is their best option, especially after learning to aim for the head. Still, Colbert advises everyone to rely on low-strength fire magic, or otherwise they'll soon run out of magical willpower thanks to the sheer number of zombies.
• Mage Marksman: Louise ends up using a revolver during the chaos, and after losing her wand, decides to make the gun into her new foci in Chapter 21.
• Magic Wand: Halkegenian mages use foci in order to use magic. It doesn't have to strictly be a magic wand, just something that the mage has formed an emotional connection to. Many mages, including Professor Colbert and Tabitha, use staves instead of wands, while magic knights tend to use sword wands for the extra combat effectiveness. Should a mage lose or not have their foci in hand, they cannot use magic at all until they make a new one. A fact that Delta Team takes full advantage of when they disarm Louise of her magic wand, depriving her of her magic entirely.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Deconstructed. After learning about genetics, Louise ponders whether magic is genetic. Later, in chapter 18, the Rescue Team comes across her diary, which includes her knowledge of genetics and ideas about how it relates to magic... and a family tree she drew, going back several generations, with notes about various physical and magical traits of her family, and with Louise herself unconnected to any of them outside of some lines with question marks on them. There are apparently several pages of this. Karin is both furious and distraught after she reads this, as she realises Louise thinks she's either illegitimate or adopted.
• Master of Unlocking: Louise qualifies, thanks to her magic. While she can't unlock more complicated mechanisms like electronic locks, she can use a simple unlock cantrip to open any physical locks she comes across. This comes in handy both when escaping from Wolfpack, allowing them to open areas they otherwise wouldn't be able to go, and find shelter. Sadly, after losing her wand to Delta Team, this is no longer an option.
• May It Never Happen Again: After Alphonse succumbs to the T-Virus and turns into a water draugr, resulting in Claudette's death, a furious Agnès makes it abundantly clear that neither she nor any of the commoners will make the mistake of keeping an infected mage alive for too long again. Should they be bitten or infected, they will ensure the mage will not turn by any means necessary, including euthanizing them. While Karin and the others fundamentally agree with that assessment, the commoners' willingness to execute them causes a great deal of uneasiness for the nobles.
• MegaCorp: The Umbrella Corporation, par for the course. As Saito notes, Umbrella has been deeply involved with Raccoon City for decades, being the reason why it's a prosperous urban setting. They have hands in everything. Medicine, drugs, cosmetics, shampoo. According to Saito, if you can name it, they have a hand in it. Umbrella even owns and operates several buildings and utilities across Raccoon City, such as most of their hospitals and clinics as well as subways and schools.
• Missed Him by That Much: At the end of Chapter 16, Louise falls asleep several minutes before the rescue party arrives in Raccoon City, with the narration noting that she might've been able to feel the magic from their arrival.
  • The end of Chapter 20 has the Rescue Party realizing with the help of the US Special Forces that they went past Louise and Saito's destination, the Library.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Halkegenian natives tend to get astonished at modern everyday objects on Earth, although Louise has had enough time to get mostly acclimated. Even Karin, focused and serious, catches herself flicking a light switch on and off while marveling at the lights.
• Mythology Gag: A large number of scenes in the fic are references to events, scenes or other details from across the library of Resident Evil.
  • Louise and Saito's encounter with the zombie dog is one to the opening of the first Resident Evil game.
  • They hide from Wolfpack by diving into a dumpster, much like Ashley could do in Resident Evil 4. They later find temporary shelter in an actual safe room, complete with an item box.
  • They later find a Browning Hi-Power handgun in the glove box of a police cruiser, which is exactly how Claire Redfield got her handgun during the opening of the original Resident Evil 2 game.
  • Later on, they find another safe room, complete with a typewriter and stored ink ribbons.
  • Louise acquires her first gun by solving a puzzle, specifically by combing through a written document to find a clue towards the combination of a gun case's electronic lock.
  • After demonstrating the usage of Louise's locking and unlocking cantrip, Saito outright calls Louise the "master of unlocking," a title originally bestowed by S.T.A.R.S member Barry Burton to Jill Valentine.
  • The Ithaca 37 shotgun that Saito and Louise find was trapped behind a grate locked with a padlock and a chain, just like the shotgun Jill found in the Resident Evil 3 remake.
  • The Rescue Team's first encounter with a zombie is a recreation of the famous first zombie encounter from the original Resident Evil, with the zombie hunched over, eating a corpse, before slowly turning its head to look at the team.
  • Saito and Louise discovere a bathtub full of Grimy Water. When they empty it, they get attacked by the zombie lying on the bottom of the tub. This homages a scene added in the 2002 remake version of Resident Evil 1.
  • The zombie anaconda Gorge is an obvious homage to the giant snake Yawn, a boss fight in Resident Evil 1 and its remake.
  • Just before Alphonse fully succumbs to the T-Virus, he mutters "Itchy...tasty...", an infamous line from a document found in the 2002 remake of Resident Evil 1.
• Naked People Are Funny: Averted. In Chapter 21 Louise and Saito have to strip in order to dry their clothes, which are drenched. It's noted that normally this would cause no end of embarrassment for the two, and probably bring some humor into things, but the two of them can't bring themselves to care given the situation.
• Named by the Adaptation:
  • In canon the names of Saito's parents were never revealed, here they are Sakura and Satoshi.
  • In canon the name of Louise's homeworld was never revealed, here it is called Terre.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: VECTOR beats the crap out of Saito after disarming Saito of his pistol and breaking his baseball bat. Saito can't even get a hit in and is nearly killed.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • While escaping from Wolfpack, Saito and Louise take shelter inside an abandoned diner. Inside, they find that all the booths and chairs were piled up against the windows to serve as a makeshift barricade, with pools of blood on the ground, and a mangled corpse of a woman near a broken skylight. There is no indication as to what killed her.^note Although fans of Resident Evil can deduce it was probably either a Licker, a Hunter Beta, or a Drain Deimos, all three B.O.Ws being capable of climbing and Roof Hopping.
  • Later on, when Saito and Louise take shelter in a seemingly empty apartment, Louise is attacked by a zombified woman who was inside a filled bathtub. Other than her heavily rotten appearance indicating that she had been in that tub for a while, there's no sign of how she got infected in the first place.
  • They later come across the mangled body of a S.T.A.R.S. officer next to a nine-foot-tall hole in a wall broken in from the outside. When they listen to a tape recorder he had on hand, they hear the officer's final moments as a monstrous thing crushes his head. Readers familiar with Resident Evil should recognize this as the handiwork of Nemesis, but the teenagers have no idea what to make of it, and decide to hightail it out of there immediately despite never seeing the monster.
• One Bullet Clips: Averted. Saito is very careful to keep hold on all of his magazines, as they're a major limitation to how much ammunition he can use in any given engagement.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Karin notes that zombies behave nothing like necromancy-animated corpses back on Terre. The undead she's familiar with are inert until receiving orders and tend to look lifelike, unlike the independent, man-eating rotting corpses she's now fighting.
• Pants-Positive Safety: Due to neither of them having holsters, Saito and Louise are forced to store their handguns inside the pockets of their pants before they each find appropriate holsters. Saito lampshades how dangerous this is, making sure that he and Louise put their guns' safeties on before putting them away so that they don't shoot themselves on accident.
• Patchwork Fic: Aside from being a Crossover Fic that combines Resident Evil with The Familiar of Zero, the Resident Evil aspect of the fic actually combines elements and characters from multiple games that were set during the events of the Raccoon City Outbreak.
  • Saito and Louise encounter both Birkin, the primary Big Bad of Resident Evil 2, and Hunters Gamma, a monster that only appeared in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
  • Louise and Saito discover a S.T.A.R.S officer's body with a crushed head next to a broken wall and the recording at his death at the hands of a monstrous giant thing, which is obviously Nemesis, the titular Big Bad of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
  • Wolfpack/Delta Team, the Umbrella mercenaries chasing Louise and Saito, are from the non-canon game Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, rather than any canonical entries, with Team Echo Six from the same title also popping up.
  • A few survivor characters from the similarly non-canon Resident Evil: Resistance mode from Resident Evil 3 (Remake) also pop up several times, including January Van Sant and Becca Woolett.
  • Becca also mentions witnessing events from the "Wild Things" scenario from Resident Evil: Outbreak, where a previous group of survivors got holed up in the zoo and had to fight off a zombie siege before escaping.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Louise herself, due to her being a Void mage. She is able to cast a nearly limitless amount of explosions which are powerful enough to turn zombies into chunks. The Halkegenian Church believes she's even more powerful, so much so that the Pope sent his servant/familiar Julio to Earth to recover her for their use in their upcoming crusade against Earth. While Julio is uncertain that Louise's Void magic, and those of the other two unlocated Void mages, will be enough to counteract Earth's technological superiority, Pope Vittorio believes otherwise.
• The Plague: The infamous T-Virus gets loose in Raccoon City. Unlike most examples, though, this turns people into flesh-eating zombies.
• Poor Communication Kills: For once, it works out in the protagonists' favor when Louise and Saito run into Umbrella's agent HUNK. Despite being chased by other Umbrella mercenaries and HUNK himself clearly being a One-Man Army, he largely ignores them; Saito reflects that Umbrella's operational compartmentalization meant that HUNK had no idea they were of any importance.
• Portal Door:
  • How Louise managed to send herself to Raccoon City. She was attempting to summon her familiar (i.e. Saito) to her in Tristain. Instead, something went wrong and the process was reversed.
  • Pope Vittorio plans to retrieve Louise by opening another with his Void magic, sending in a rescue party with materials instructing Louise on how to utilize her Void magic, and then have her open a third to bring them all back home.
• Properly Paranoid: Louise immediately distrusts the Umbrella Corporation, believing that all their "harmless tests" on her are for some nefarious purpose. Saito and his parents think that she's just being overly-suspicious, but of course once Raccoon City falls Umbrella sends mercenaries to capture her and kill the Hiragas.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The members of U.S.S. Delta Team aren't particularly loyal to Umbrella, only attempting to kidnap Louise because it's their job and don't have any real animosity against her. It's implied that many of them didn't particularly find their current job to be pleasant. After Louise almost blows a few of them up during her attempts to escape, however, any issues they had with kidnapping her are gone with BELTWAY and especially VECTOR nursing a grudge for the injuries she gave them.
• Power of the Void: Louise is revealed to be a Void mage, one of the first in nearly six-thousand years. Or at least confirmed, as it is unknown whether Void only just now reemerged or if it always was there just hidden in plain sight. While Void prevents Louise from casting other forms of magic, such as Fire or Water, it does allow her to create powerful explosions from miscasts (which are extremely effective against the undead) and even bring her to another world when she cast a Reverse Summoning Spell.
• Radar Is Useless: Averted. The US Army makes extensive use of radar to keep track of airborne objects while containing the T-Virus in Raccoon City. It was also how they were able to find the rescue party so quickly; they were tracking Sylphid flying around on radar since the very beginning and thought she was a flying BOW, nearly shooting her down several times before Echo-Six was ordered to investigate.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: According to Guiche, Princess Henrietta has been known to be a reasonable ruler. He encourages Montmorency to explain how she was involved with Kirche drugging soldiers from the rescue team before the guards discover what happened. Sure enough, when she explains how she was taken advantage of and genuinely didn’t expect this situation to happen, the Princess only punishes Montmorency by confiscating her alchemy equipment and potions indefinitely.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: A gun handling video in Chapter 19 has a veteran of a local gang harshly degrading anyone watching for being obscenely incompetent with handling guns and ammunition, bringing up an incident where someone failed to shoot at police because all his bullets were loaded in backwards.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Louise and Saito, respectively. This is reflected through their wardrobe, as Saito typically wears his blue hoodie, while Louise takes to wearing a red jacket once she arrives in Raccoon City.
• Red Shirt: While in the sewers, the teenagers run into a surviving worker named Pete. Upon learning that they know where people can evacuate, he agrees to guide them out, but quickly gets eaten by a monster instead. Still, Saito later finds his notes about how the byzantine sewer system works, which is immensely helpful.
  • One of the Muggle members of the rescue party, Erard, is killed during their first zombie encounter.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Averted. Louise's starter gun is a Smith & Wesson Model 36 LadySmith revolver. Not because she or Saito feel revolvers are cooler, but simply due to the fact that revolvers would be easier for Louise to use and understand due to them being comparatively simpler than semi-automatic pistols like Saito's Browning Hi-Power. After upgrading, she decides to keep the gun and make it into her new focus due to having lost her wand.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: The rescue party encounters a horde of huge zombified rats while in an apartment building. The mages desperately resort to Kill It with Fire just to escape, with most of the vermin presumably destroyed when the entire building goes up in flames.
• Run or Die: The teenagers have to flee after encountering the mutated and insane Dr. Birkin; their various guns barely slow the creature down, and even a flashbang grenade only stuns it for a few seconds. Plus, it's fast enough to keep pace with them, and they need to repeatedly distract the monster before finding an escape.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Once hurled into the hell that is T-Virus infected Raccoon City, and Saito and Louise decide that their only course of action is to get out as soon as possible. Unfortunately, with both the zombies and Wolfpack, it's easier said than done.
  • January Van Sant, while grateful for being rescued by Louise and Saito, decides that I Work Alone and declines to accompany them. Umbrella was already targeting her for her hacktivist activities, but assumed she died in the zombie outbreak, so she doesn’t want to reveal her survival by going up against Delta Team.
  • Upon arriving in Raccoon City, the wind spirit disguising Sylphid immediately flees back through the World Door.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: While scavenging a gunstore, Saito manages to find an Ithaca 37 shotgun which he immediately nabs for himself. He immediately proves its effectiveness by wiping out an entire flock of T-Virus infected crows.
• Shout-Out: Plenty of references to both late 1990s America and other zombie media are made throughout the story:
  • Before the outbreak, Louise and Saito see Saving Private Ryan in a movie theater, as its theatrical release date was around that time. Saito also mentions other movies releasing around then as well, including Armageddon and The Mask of Zorro.
  • At one point, Saito and Louise take shelter in a Blockbuster.
  • Saito once predicts that the U.S. government is going to drop a nuke on the zombie-infested Raccoon City, as "it might be the only way to be sure."
    • Saito later quotes Hicks as he says he's going to keep the shotgun "for close encounters." Lampshaded immediately by Louise who points out that this isn't the time for movie references. When Saito counters that saying it took a little bit of the stress off, Louise joins in by quoting Hudson, saying "Game over, man." which Saito points out doesn't fit their current situation.
  • The chapter where Saito and Louise cut through the Raccoon City Mall is titled Dead Rising. The movie Dawn of the Dead (1978) is also namedropped.
  • Saito shouts "Get your stinking paws off her, you damn dirty ape!" when shooting a zombie chimpanzee moving toward Louise.
  • When Saito is guiding Louise around the sewers via a fixed-camera system, he compares the situation to Dino Crisis. Word of God admits that the game came out in 1999 while the story takes place in 1998, but gives a Hand Wave about the Dino Crisis games essentially replacing the Resident Evil games as Capcom's in-universe big hit.
• Sleep Deprivation: Kirche suffers from this, prompting her to ask Montmorency to make her some sleeping potions. She's actually heavily exaggerating how tired she really is. While Kirche hadn't slept for over a day when she asked Montmorency for the potions, that was only part of a broader plan to acquire enough sleeping potions for her, Tabitha, and her familiar Sylphid to take the place of three commoners in Louise's rescue party.
• Slice of Life: The initial chapters detailing Louise's generally pleasant time with the Hiragas in Raccoon City before it all goes to hell.
• Steel Ear Drums: Averted for once, as the frequent gunfire starts to affect Louise and Saito's hearing. Saito notes that even with Arklay herbs for healing, they're risking permanent damage unless they find some ear plugs soon. He also mentions that Umbrella sells special ear plugs that protect eardrums without affecting hearing, presumably to Hand Wave all the Resident Evil protagonists who play this straight.
• The Stoic: Tabitha doesn't let her emotions get shown all that often. That being said, after being her friend for so long Kirche has learned how to read the subtle cues she gives out.
• The Virus: The T-Virus, which is manufactured by Umbrella and responsible for the Zombie Apocalypse in Raccoon City. It was accidentally released when Umbrella's attempts to secure the G-Virus from Dr. Birkin leads to it contaminating the city's water supply.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Louise threatens to shoot herself in the head after Delta Team catches up to her and Saito in the Raccoon City Mall, disarms her of her wand, and nearly kill Saito. She does this to prevent them from kidnapping her and releasing their own hostage in Saito, and since Delta Team's mission is to recover Louise alive and unharmed, the threat has teeth.
• Summon Bigger Fish:
  • In order to escape from Delta Team at the Raccoon City Mall, Louise ends up pulling the fire alarm, thus attracting all of the nearby zombies and forcing the mercenaries to deal with them instead of kidnapping her and Saito. It works, allowing her and Saito to barely escape.
  • Happens again in the zoo, as with Delta Team closing in fast, Becca releases the zombie elephant Oscar to slow them down.
• Superpowerful Genetics: During a quiet moment, Louise and Saito speculate that Halkegenian magic is only found in nobles and not the commoners due to it being tied to a recessive gene. Numerous commoners likely have that gene, but can't utilize it due to a non-magic dominant gene, which the upper class avoided thanks to noble marriages.
• Take Off Your Clothes: After getting too dirty and grimy in the sewers, Louise and Saito have to take their clothes off for washing and drying. Despite the Ship Tease between them, the situation is too tense and nerve-wracking for either to try anything, and they're mostly just uncomfortable.
• Terminator Impersonator: The T-103 Tyrants are hulking, emotionless, biological monstrosities that can take nearly anything thrown at them with barely even receiving a reaction in response. Just one of them crashing into the intense firefight between Echo Six and Wolfpack is enough to get both teams scrambling to get away.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Kirche has this reaction once Tabitha is ordered to insert herself into Louise's rescue party and report back. She knows it's a horrible idea that's likely to blow up in their faces, but she goes along with it anyway because she doesn't want Tabitha to go through with it alone.
• Too Clever by Half: While scavenging in the mall, Saito grabs and tests a pair of walkie-talkies, figuring they’ll be useful if he and Louise ever get separated. Unfortunately, he forgets that Delta Team has much more advanced equipment, and the brief test lets the mercenaries track them down.
• Trapped in Another World: This time, it's Louise who got sent to another world. It is also Saito who looks after her along with his family rather than him becoming Louise's familiar.
• Uncertain Doom: Saito's parents are last seen in the clutches of Delta Team, and haven't shown up since then. Saito and Louise certainly believe they were killed, but there's no concrete evidence one way or the other, while the narrative segments following Wolfpack's point of view conspicuously avoid the topic. LUPO does later claim that they're still alive, but she had every reason to lie at that point, and the teenagers don't believe her anyway.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Pope Vittorio plans to save as much of Halkegenia as he can from the upcoming apocalypse by invading and taking over Earth. Not only does Earth have a massive technological and industrial advantage, Halkegenia only has a population of around 80 million, and the Pope believes they could save at most a few hundred thousand. In 1998, the year the fic begins, Earth had a population of nearly 6 billion. Going by Vittorio's estimates, that would mean the only country on the North American continent (so not counting the Caribbean or Greenland) that they might outnumber would be Belize, the least populated country on the continent, and the US Army and Army National Guard had over a million soldiers in 1998. Even if he managed to bring all 80 million, they'd be outnumbered by Mexico, who had a population of nearly 95 million. Louise, after having been on Earth for a while, even writes in her diary that she notes that America alone could defeat all of Halkegenia, with Julio in a bit of disbelief and denial upon reading it.
  • The rescue team's plan for tracking down Louise is largely based on the assumption that she's still just an easily-frightened and helpless schoolgirl; none of them realize that Louise has become a hardened Action Survivor instead.
• Unsafe Haven:
  • Umbrella set up several reinforced safe houses throughout Raccoon City, as ordinary-looking houses with independent power generators, hefty food and weapon supplies, and durable exteriors. However, when Wolfpack needs to utilize one, they find it overrun with zombies anyway; they speculate that some Umbrella worker was unknowingly infected before sheltering there and infecting everyone else inside.
  • The city's public library was set up as an army-guarded evacuation point, with Louise and Saito spending several chapters doing everything they can to get there. Unfortunately, by the time they arrive, the place has been completely overrun and abandoned, rendering much of their previous efforts All for Nothing.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Tabitha, when she was young, was a very lively and outgoing girl. Then, once her father was murdered and her mother was poisoned into insanity, she became very quiet and withdrawn.
• Weapon Grip Failure: VECTOR clotheslines Louise in order to get her to lose her grip on her wand, allowing him to take it and run off with it.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 6. It starts out with the usual Slice of Life antics from before, but the end of the chapter has Louise and Saito attacked by a dog. A rabid, mutant dog. The downfall of Raccoon City is now in motion.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Kirche says this practically word for word when trying to placate a nervous Sylphid regarding their upcoming mission. As she puts it, both Kirche herself and Tabitha are powerful and skilled mages who should be able to handle nearly anything sent their way, and combined with the rest of the party they are going with they should be fine (unless they run into an elf, but she doesn't think this is likely). Unfortunately, Kirche is immediately proven dead wrong when a Description Cut shows Louise and Saito barely fighting off a horde of zombies.
• Who Would Be Stupid Enough?:
  • VECTOR declares that Louise and Saito wouldn't be dumb enough to run into the infested sewers, before pausing and admitting that they are desperate and stupid enough to do that.
  • Montmorency thinks this about the rest of the students when she hears how three guards were drugged with a sleeping aid and replaced for the rescue team. While she might not have the highest opinions of their intelligence at times, she believed none of them would do something that stupid due to the potential fallout ruining them and their families. But that doesn’t stop her from getting an uncomfortable feeling that she played a part in this…
• You Are Already Checked In: When discussing their plans to infiltrate Louise's rescue party, Kirche brings this exact thing up. They know Karin will not let them come openly, so they have to replace three of the commoners and take their place. Should the commoners they disguised themselves as show up, questions would immediately be raised. Kirche plans to resolve this issue by drugging their targets with sleeping potions, thereby allowing them to get in unnoticed.
• You Are Worth Hell: When Louise is convinced that the only reason Wolfpack is chasing them down is because they want to kidnap her, she tearfully tells Saito to leave her behind and save himself. He immediately refuses, telling her that no matter what happens to them, he's with her to the end.
• You Keep Using That Word: Lampshaded; Dr. Kenner claims that his insane experiments are to create a vaccine to cure the zombies, leading Saito to angrily point out that vaccines don’t work that way. The doctor admits that he only uses the word because most people wouldn't be familiar with the correct term of "viral suppressant".
• You Killed My Father: Saito believes that Wolfpack killed his parents during their attempted kidnapping of Louise. This fuels an intense hatred towards them. At the same time, he knows neither he nor Louise are in a position to do anything about it, so they focus on escaping rather than revenge. LUPO later claims they didn't kill his parents and that they are being held in a safe house, but since she is trying to get him and Louise to surrender and come peacefully, it is unclear if she was telling the truth. Saito thinks she's lying.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Saito's parents attempt to hold off Umbrella's mercenaries to ensure Saito and Louise can escape. Their counterattack doesn't last very long, unfortunately, but it does buy the teenagers just enough time to run.

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