Recap / Resident Evil 5

The story of Resident Evil 5 is set over several years, divided into the main game and two expansion mini-games; the prequel "Lost in Nightmares", which tells of Chris and Jill's last mission together before the events of Resident Evil 5, and the mini-sequel "Desperate Escape", which details what Jill is doing during the final portion of the game after she and Chris go their separate ways.

Lost in Nightmares

2006. Since the events of Rockfort Island, both Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine have become members of the Bio-Security Assessment Alliance, a group dedicated to combating bio-terrorism. On an unspecified date in this year, a tip from an informant has revealed the location of wanted fugitive and surviving Umbrella founder, Oswell E. Spencer.

Pursuing the man behind the T-Virus and all its attendant horrors has brought them to a palatial estate somewhere in continental Europe. Whilst spy-satellite scans have failed to pick up anything suspicious, the information has still been deemed worth investigating.

The mansion's lobby brings back memories of the Arklay mountain laboratory-mansion where all this began for the two survivors of S.T.A.R.S. Right away, they find evidence of suspicious activity; blood smeared across the floor, and the bodies of several gray suited men - private guards, it looks like, all killed by massive blunt trauma. They seemed to have been guarding a door on the second floor, but it has been sealed shut, and its electronic lock shorted out.

Naturally, the two surviving S.T.A.R.S seek a way to circumvent this obstacle. Exploring the lobby on the ground floor reveals a pair of locked doors - one simply locked from the other side, one requiring a plate style key. This is only the first of many resemblances that this mansion has to the Arklay labs. The corridor leads to a hidden doorway under the lobby stairs; a barbed portcullis blocks the way into a corridor leading downwards, closed off by a slot for a crank. Opposite this doorway is a lever, which when pulled opens the security gates on the upper floor.

The door on the east wing is easily reachable, so they check it out first; it terminates in an old bedroom, where they find a scrap of paper with a password written on it tucked into a copy of the infected keeper's journal that they read in the Arklay mansion. Reaching the door of the second story west wing requires Chris to help Jill vault across a smashed section of floor; it leads her to a balcony above a dining room, where she recovers a shotgun and then drops down to unlock the doorway into the main hall.

Once they reunite, they explore the dining hall, and turn up the first of several journal entries written by Spencer's butler, Patrick. This initial one talks about the butler's awe of the Spencer influence and wealth, and his long history of devoted service, but also his concern for the family's future, given Ozwell's age, failing health, and lack of heirs. It also contains a second password, which Chris pockets.

At the far end of the dining room, a door by a lit fireplace leads to a room divided into two levels. The door on the ground floor is unimportant, housing a toilet, but the second floor features a room with a piano bearing a familiar set of sheet music: Moonlight Sonata. Spurred on by memories of the Arklay mansion, Jill plays the song and, sure enough, a secret door opens into a chamber housing an emblem, just like back in the Arklay mansion. This emblem bears the semblance of an armored centaur, but it's still a fairly familiar sight. Ominously, they also find the second of Patrick's journals here, which describe him conducting horrible viral experiments on prisoners in the mansion's basement.

Forewarned by this, Chris and Jill return to the dining hall, and use the centaur emblem to unlock the east wing. Ironically, the only thing that greets them is a very startled bat, which accidentally breaks through a window.

The twisting corridor they enter brings them to Spencer's study, where they find memoirs that give some clue into the twisted psyche of Umbrella's founder. His plans for the T-Virus had revolved around using it to find a way to become an immortal god-emperor, but he failed in his goals; he has succumbed to age, an impotent cripple kept alive only by the machines hooked to his dying body. His hopes had been lain with somebody named "Alex", the last of his "children" and a brilliant researcher who promised they were on the verge of discovering a virus to undo what age has done to Spencer.

But even that glimmer of hope has been snuffed out; Spencer gave the mysterious Alex an island facility in the "South Seas", stocked with all the money, equipment and human test subjects the wanted. All he got was a single progress report after a month, promising results and demanding more test subjects. Then Alex went off the grid, and he lost all contact with them. Death is going to claim the supposed "god-emperor", and there's not a damn thing he can do about it.

The study also houses a computer, but it needs three passwords to access. They've found two, but still need one, and so they continue their exploration. Around the corner from the study, they find the way blockaded by a gate, and a door that leads into a storeroom. This dusty old storeroom ends at another door, locked from the other side, but amongst the bric-a-brac they find a piece of heat-sensitive paper. When exposed to the fireplace found in the dining room, it reveals the last of the passwords, allowing them to access the computer at last.

It contains the last of Patrick's journals, revealing that, after a long time in hiding, he was ordered by Spencer to leak Spencer's presence to lure Albert Wesker back to his former master's side. He was then dismissed by Spencer, and although he has no understanding why this happened, he did as he was told and left the estate forever.

A secondary file consists of a list of 13 test subjects, although what experiment it might be connected to is left unclear. The two final names on the list are "Alex" and "Albert". Although they don't know it at the time, the list will fill in a piece of a puzzle when Claire Redfield and Moira Burton are kidnapped from their Terra Save function in the future.

Turning on the computer activates a program that opens a previously concealed door, revealing a room with a safe. When they enter, however, they trigger a trap; one of them manages to escape, but the other is sealed inside behind a gate - as the ceiling sprouts spikes and starts descending on them!

The trapped member sees that the locked door from the storeroom leads to a chamber with a lever to deactivate the trap, which is cruelly visible through a window into the booby-trapped room. The free member of the team races back to the store-room and, after the trapped member shoots the lock off through their window, deactivates the trap.

Their payoff for this near-death experience? The crank needed to open the door back behind the stairs. With no further reason to explore this part of the mansion, they proceed to head straight there. It leads to the mansion's basement - which is a dirty, crumbling, blood-spattered dungeon, laden with cells, torture implements, and ancient bodies. Here, they encounter the results of Spencer's experiments, clearly engineered to try and create a superior line of defense for himself.

These creatures, which they come to nickname "Blobs", still have the basic humanoid form. But their backs and shoulders have swollen into enormous, tumorous humps, from which unnatural eyes stare madly; these bulging growths are vulnerable, especially if struck in the eye, but spew gouts of acidic pus when injured. They wear tattered, filthy loincloths and the remnants of shirts, with straps struggling to contain their bulging humps and hoods drapped over malformed heads that almost, but not quite, cover the fact they have been reduced to massive, leech-like maws. Their long limbs are covered in suppurating, necrotic sores, iron shackles are still locked around their ankles, and they carry enormous, four-bladed anchors as deadly melee weapons.

Needless to say, they are not easy foes to defeat. Still, with teamwork and well-applied firepower, Chris and Jill slay the Blobs that confront them in their trek through the dungeon as they recover two halves of a seal needed to reach a more distant part of the mansion. Unfortunately, as they step through the door, the rotting floor underneath them gives way, sending them plunging into a catacomb deep below the mansion.

Though they are initially separated, they are uninjured - but they've lost their weapons. Worse, they need three shards of an emblem to open a door that will let them escape from the half-flooded dungeon, and these shards are in the possession of three last Blobs. Fortunately, the dungeon is outfitited with three spiked drop-traps, and so the two agents engage in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse; locating the three cranks they need to raise the traps, then luring the Blobs into each deadfall and fatally skewering it. With all the emblem shards in place, they are able to climb a ladder that leads to a narrow staircase.

Luck is finally with them; this staircase offers another way into the room where Oswell Spencer is waiting. Taking handguns from two of Spencer's slain bodyguards, they quickly push through the door. Unfortunately, they are too late; Spencer is dead, slain by his former ally, Wesker, who has thrown Spencer's dead body callously on the floor. On seeing them, Wesker immediately attacks; he is faster than ever before, capable of dodging bullets in mid-shot and blitzing across the battlefield at such speeds that he seems to be teleporting.

Wesker finally uses these abilities to get the upper hand on his former comrades, who simply can't match his superhuman prowess. Finally, he has Chris in his hand and is about to impale him with the other hand, when Jill makes a heroic sacrifice; racing across the room, she tackles Wesker, sending them both plunging out of the nearby window and falling into the sea at the bottom of the cliff, far, far below.

Though the BSAA conducts a thorough investigation for Jill's body, over Chris's protests, they officially close the search after three months. Jill is declared Killed in Action on November 23, 2006. Chris never loses faith that his partner is still alive, but the event traumatizes him, leaving him colder and more cynical than he was before. He throws himself into his work, and becomes a legend, racking up an unprecedented number of completed missions for an active BSAA agent.

Resident Evil 5 Main Campaign

Friday March 6th, 2009. Strange things are happening in the Kijuju Autonomous Zone in West Africa. The area has become a reputed potential hotspot for bioterrorism, and as such the Bio-Security Assessment Alliance has deployed agents to investigate. In particular, they are chasing after a man named Irving, who has connections to the black market for B.O.Ws.

As BSAA agents close in, a mysterious woman, shrouded in a bird-like mask and all-concealing robes, coldly watches as an African man spasms in pain in a dark, dingy room. He reaches out plaintively to her for help, gasping in pain, but she steps out of reach. He screams as his eyes slowly fill with black, and slimy worms seem to envelop his entire body...

Meanwhile, Chris Redfield speeds across the West African savannah in a Humvee. As he drives, he thinks to himself how it all came to this; how the fall of Umbrella didn't end the danger of their Bio-Organic Weapons, but instead saw terrorists across the world embrace the possibilities of B.O.Ws and viral weaponry. With Umbrella's creations proliferating on the black market, and new companies starting to dabble in the field of twisting life into weapons, panic spread across the world, until the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies (also known as the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium) created its own militant branch in the Bio-Security Assessment Alliance with the sole purpose of going into potential bio-terrorism hotspots and neutralizing the threat.

Pulling up on the outskirts of a village in the Kijuju Autonomous Zone, he meets up with a member of the BSAA's West African branch; Sheva Alomar. She explains to him that he's going to be his partner on this mission, as the recent regime change has made Americans quite unpopular in this little corner of Africa; the BSAA's hope is that she'll be able to cover for him.

Chris is less than thrilled about partnering up with Sheva, but keeps that little fact to himself... especially as it reminds him of the loss of his former partner, Jill. He momentarily loses himself in his memories of her presumed death, but snaps to attention and jogs after Sheva when she calls back to him.

As they wander deeper into the village, Chris privately muses that after five years on the BSAA, including participating in missions like the Terragrigia Panic and the Queen Zenobia Incident, he's starting to wonder if the mounting casualties have made him wonder if it's all worth fighting for... but he has a job to do right now, and he has no intention of quitting.

Sheva discretely bribes the guard on the gate, gaining them access into the village's interior. Inside the village, they are contacted by their assigned radio adviser, Kirk Mathison. He explains that the alpha team has already infiltrated the village, and that the two of them need to meet up with their contact in the local butcher's shop for their weapons and further instructions.

The village is a ramshackle, impoverished place. Africans of all manner of ethnicities, who stare sullenly at the two strangers. As they make their way along the dusty main street, they spot subtle signs of things not being right; a man hunkered down near a goat meat stall and voraciously tearing into a seemingly raw goat haunch like an animal; a terrified man trying to get away from two assailants in a side-alley, who drag him into the shadows; and a group of men gathered in the main street around a bloody sack, big enough to hold a man, which they are viciously kicking and striking with assorted weapons. These individuals glare at Chris and Sheva, who simply look away and walk past.

As they approach the Corner Pyamy Butchery, an air siren suddenly rings out, with a man shouting orders in some African dialect over the radio. When they look around, the village has become a ghost town; all of the people who were crowding around before have disappeared. Unnerved but undaunted, Chris and Sheva enter the butchery, where they are greeted by their contact. He provides them with pistols, machetes and tactical bags, and explains the mission; the mysterious bio-weapon called Uroboros, a doomsday project, has been confirmed as a reality, and the black marketeer Irving is connected to it. This mission is about apprehending him, as he is their only lead. Then he warns them to be careful one last time before leaving them.

The two BSAA agents head out through the backdoor. As they make their way down the sloping path, Chris warns Sheva to be careful, and she assures him that she can take care of herself. At the bottom of the path, they find a mutilated goat carcass, simply left to rot in the street. A nearby wooden furniture shop is open, so they make their way inside for lack of better routes. They pass a shelf lined with lit candles and human skulls, before opening a door into the shop's interior... where a ritually disemboweled goat sits on a table, partially tied to the roof. On a nearby stovetop, they find a page with three short sentences scrawled on it, an erratically written rant about the need to cleanse "outsiders" of their "impurity" through death.

Ominous signs... but worse is yet to come. When they exit through a door on the far side, they hear screams from a house up the way, and race to investigate. They find two men pinning a third to the floor; although their viewpoint is limited, partially blocked by one of the men, they manage to make out an assailant forcing something that looks like a ball of meat covered in thin, wavering tentacles into the victim's mouth. Chris and Sheva think they make out fleshy mandibles disappearing into the mouth of that same assailant, and eyes that glow red on both assailants, but the men flee before the BSAA agents can intervene.

Instead, Chris and Sheva run over to try and help the victim, who chokes and retches, trying to heave up whatever it was that they stuffed down his gullet. When Chris reaches out to touch him, though, the man snarls and flings his arm off. He flails madly, clawing at his face and throat, then arches his back and stares straight at the ceiling, eyes bugging out as veins bulge and blood pours from his eyes and nostrils. He goes limp, and then staggers to his feet... and then charges right at them, screaming like an animal. Instinctively, they gun him down, and Sheva asks Chris what just happened. Chris tells her that he doesn't have the answer; these people are nothing like any zombie he's encountered.

Even as he says this, Chris isn't so certain. He has dim memories of an after-action report on a bioterrorism incident in Spain in 2004. The Kennedy Report, which mentioned infected humans very similar to the ones they are facing now...

Leaping out of a window in the kitchen, Sheva urges Chris to hurry; the sounds of their brief firefight are sure to stir up trouble. Sure enough, mere moments later, waves of howling, jabbering men come scrambling over the fences and through nearby windows, an impromptu lynch mob bearing all manner of hand-held weapons and charging full-tilt towards them. With only minimal armament and outnumbered, the BSAA agents beat a hasty retreat into a nearby house, where they barricade themselves inside.

Chris radios Kirk and tells them that the locals have turned hostile, and that they have needed to use deadly force. Kirk is indifferent, simply telling them to continue the mission. Sheva is baffled, asking if HQ was expecting this, but Chris refuses to comment; to him, this is just like old times.

They find some fresh supplies of bullets littered around the house, which mostly seems to be given over to a nightmarish combination of forge and kitchen; oversized axes and rotting organs are scattered liberally around the place. A trap door leads them into a tunnel, which contains several ancient human corpses, before emerging at another house, close to the town square.

Said square is currently occupied by a teeming horde of infected villagers, who have gathered into a baying mob around a makeshift gallows. To their horror, they realize that their contact from the butcher shop is at the top, being held in place; a villager with a loudhailer is ranting and raving at the cheering villagers below, whilst beside him an enormous hulking man with an executioner's hood nailed to his body clutches a monstrous amalgamation of axe and warhammer. Their contact screams his innocence, but Chris and Sheva can only turn away as the executioner cleaves his head off. Unfortunately, the agitator spots them watching through the window, and at his commands, the villagers swarm forward to attack.

A desperate battle ensues; Chris contacts Kirk, who promises to send help, but until it arrives, they must fight on their own. They have to make every shot count, supplementing their arsenal with ammo scavenged from amidst the ramshackle array of shacks, houses and broken vehicles, as well as a VZ61 sub-machinegun they recover from a case hidden in the market, as well as using knives and martial arts techniques when they can. The executioner in particular nearly does them in, seemingly impervious to bullets, but they exploit falling transformers, explosive barrels of fuel and canisters of flammable liquid to ultimately bring him down.

At just the right moment, Kirk's aid arrives; the man himself piloting a BSAA chopper, with an agent inside who uses a portable RPG to blow open the locked gate, killing or driving off the surviving villagers in the process.

Chris thanks Kirk, who tells them that Alpha Team is almost ready to deploy and that they must hurry to the target coordinates, and then goes on ahead. Chris and Sheva hurry to catch up, winding their way up to a large gate. On the other side, they hear Captain DeChant of Alpha Team over the radio, complaining that their route is blocked and they are finding another path.

As Chris and Sheva hustle to catch up, they can see that the town is in chaos. This infection seems to be a recently unleashed affair; things are on fire, and they pass infected townsfolk murdering their uninfected friends and neighbors. The BSAA agents kill anything standing in their way, but are too late to offer any real assistance. More ominously, DeChant suddenly breaks radio silence, shouting that his team has engaged the enemy... but apparently, this enemy is not something they were expecting. He screams of being attacked by a "thing", but despite Kirk and Sheva's efforts to raise him, the transmission cuts off amidst screams of pain and fear.

As they hurry vainly to try and catch up, they see a man drag a woman away from their and into a building; she breaks out and races to the balcony, screaming for their help, only to be captured and dragged back inside. They sprint over to the building where she was taken, racing up the stairs to the second floor. Her assailant has vanished, and Chris catches her before she faints. Then she suddenly grabs him as a monstrous set of fleshy mandibles erupts out of her jaws!

Sheva fires at the infected woman, forcing her to let Chris go and retreat, but she immediately charges back at them. When they open fire on her, the woman's skull explodes, disgorging a monstrous parasite; somewhere between a centipede, a tentacle and a flail. It lashes around frantically, whipping back and forth with bonecrushing force as it attempts to eviscerate them with bony spines. As more infected close in, the two BSAA agents beat a fighting retreat to the square just outside of the house; here, amidst the abandoned homes, they find a key that unlocks a house where they can grab an Ithaca M37 shotgun; with its added firepower, they destroy the parasite easily.

Chris is certain that what they're facing now is some breed of Plaga. But obviously one that has been genetically modified in some way.

Moving through the building where they fought the woman, Kirk radios them, confirming what they suspected earlier; Alpha Team is under attack. Defeating the remaining infected in their way, they enter a large, abandoned building, crumbling into ruin, with rivers of oily black slime pouring from the ceiling in places. It's an ominous sight... that gets worse when a member of Alpha Team lurches into view from a doorway and then collapses dead at their feet. Sheva grimly notes that the agent is dressed like a one-man army, and that he definitely wasn't killed by bullets. And he's only the first victim; as they make their way up through the abandoned building, they find more such corpses, and more of the strange slime.

Finally, they reach a room filled with corpses, including the body of DeChant, still clinging to life. He gasps out that Irving escaped, and that the BSAA was set up. With the last of his strength, he gives them a hard drive containing data he took from Irving's computer, and then dies. Sheva notes to Chris that she saw somebody spying on them, but they escaped. Chris then contacts Kirk, but he is unmoved by the report; instead, he tells them to reach the storage facility nearby, and use the BSAA's vehicles to transmit the data to HQ. Sheva is less than happy with the situation, but they have to keep moving.

And move they do, entering some kind of facility. Here, they find a locked door, and more Alpha Team corpses. Proceeding down a corridor, they arrive in a furnace room with more corpses, including a key to the locked door. But when they head back to use the key, they are attacked; a grotesquerie falls from the ceiling, in the form of a vaguely humanoid mass of writhing, slimy black worms that shambles towards them with menacing purpose; this, as Chris deduces, must be the monster that killed Alpha Team! It extends one tentacle-arm towards them, forcing them to leap to safety; their bullets have no effect on it, and instead they retreat to the furnace room. When the creature follows them there, automated processes suddenly lock the beast in with them!

Luckily, Chris and Sheva are smarter than it. Sheva moves to the furnace controls, whilst Chris lures the worm-beast inside. He leaps for safety as Sheva slams the doors closed; whilst the creature shrugged off bullets, it has no such resistance to fire, and the flaming jets scour the obscenity from life. Once it has been burned to ash, the furnace room unlocks, and they use the key they retrieved before the attack to gain access to an elevator.

In the vehicle depot, they cautiously look for another ambush. Nothing arrives, but they are unaware that their target is using a computer to jack the feed from the security camera; seeing that they have survived, Irving and his mysterious female accomplice drive off. Ignorant of this, Chris uses a laptop in one of the trucks to broadcast the data on the hard drive to HQ. Sheva wonders what the creature they just fought was, and laments that they didn't get there sooner; Chris grimly surmises that it must have been a B.O.W left behind by Irving to ambush Alpha Team, and that they probably would have been killed as well if they'd been with Alpha Team.

He radios HQ, who confirm they received the data, and then he explains that the whole town has been overrun by creatures resembling the Ganados from the Kennedy Report. He also warns them that there's a new kind of B.O.W present here, unlike anything he's encountered before. Sheva interjects that they've also lost their transportation, and requests a mission update.

She does not like what she hears; HQ tells them that they're to continue with their mission as planned; apprehend Irving at all costs. He is believed to have fled to the nearby mines, past a local train station. Chris is dumbfounded, demanding to know if the BSAA expects the two of them to handle this all by themselves, but HQ simply responds that Delta Team has been dispatched to meet up with them. Sheva protests, but HQ simply cuts them off. Neither agent is happy about this, with Chris lampshading that it looks like they're expendable, but they have no choice but to continue.

Before they leave the storage facility, they scavenge anything useful that Alpha Team may have left behind, including an H&K MP5 machine gun and some more ammo. Outside the facility, they wind their way through a maze of storage containers, killing African infected and evading primitive explosive triplines. They also learn that, like the Colmillos in Spain, Africa is home to its own Plaga-infected dogs. These "Adjules" graphically separate their skulls and necks in half to create massive vertical jaws that they attempt to use to bite the agents in half.

Despite these obstacles, Chris and Sheva fight their way to a partially broken bridge. Leaping over, they are confronted by a trick that Leon faced against the Ganados multiple times; an infected tries to run them down with a truck. With some precise firepower, and conveniently placed explosive fuel barrels, they topple the mad driver, and then wipe out the mob of infected that comes pouring out in his wake.

Taking stairs down to a storm drain, the pair continue until they reach an open-air segment of the storm drains, one in which multiple bodies have been discarded. When they get close, however, the bodies suddenly spasm and flail; multi-winged parasites suddenly tear their way free of the corpses and take to the sky, requiring Chris and Sheva to gun them down. As if they needed more proof that these plagas have been genetically altered from the original strain in Spain.

Killing their assailants, they press on through the storm drains until they reach an opening in the port region of the town. Things are eerily quiet, but they keep their guards up; in a boat shack, they find an impaled human corpse, and the keys to open a nearby locked gate. Naturally, as soon as they grab it, infected start attacking them. Through the gate, they come to a barricade - which is when Kirk shows up again, blasting his way through the barricade with a barrage of rockets. All Chris and Sheva need to do is mop up the survivors. Past the barricade, they recover an S75 sniper rifle in another building, and then pass through a gate into a shantytown.

After fighting their way past some infected and reaching an open part of the area, they see a swarm of the flying Plagas attacking Kirk's helicopter, which is spiraling out of control. The pilot's cries for help echo over the radio, but there's nothing they can do except pick off some of the stragglers and continue their pursuit, especially as HQ has just given them instructions to investigate the crash site.

Fighting their way into a ramshackle tenement building, the door on the bottom is locked from the other side; they have to climb to the top, where Chris can boost Sheva in a running leap to the building on the other side. With Chris providing covering fire from the balconies on each of the three floors, Sheva is able to make it to the ground level and smash open the padlock.

The only way out is guarded by a figure that Leon would recognize; an insane infected with a bag on his head, wielding a chainsaw, and somehow even more resistant to bullets than normal. This one actually gets up again after they take him down the first time, but this is merely a last gasp, and a few more bullets put him down for good. Retrieving a key from him, they pass him to reach the train station at last.

Ironically, this is where Kirk's helicopter has crashed... but there are no survivors, just burning wreckage and Kirk's charred corpse atop a pile of burning tires. They have no time to mourn, however, as a band of infected on motorcycles suddenly charge into the fray; although Chris manages to push Sheva to safety when the first one attacks them with a chain, it grabs him by the leg with its weapon and starts dragging him away, but Sheva frees him with a well-aimed shot. The infected bikers circle them, and Chris and Sheva ready themselves for one hell of a battle...

When shots suddenly ring out, bullets knocking the infected off their bikes; Delta Team has arrived just in the knick of time, and they quickly mop up the opposition. With the threat eliminated, they enter the train station to discuss matters. The team captain, Josh Stone, introduces himself to Chris, with Sheva adding that he was her trainer when she joined the BSAA. Josh gives Chris a plug-in containing some of the decrypted data from the hard drive, and tells him that HQ has determined Irving has headed on to the mine, so their orders are to follow him. Delta Team has to remain behind to take care of some business first.

As Delta Team leaves, Chris plugs in the diskette and starts going through the files - to his disbelief, there's a picture of Jill, floating in some kind of capsule. Sheva asks him what he's seen, but he brushes her off, unwilling to reveal the truth. Instead, he directs her to move out.

Almost as if to mock his pursuers, Irving turns out to have left behind a mission file on the table in the train station. It reveals that the outbreak here in the Kijuju Autonomous Zone is of "Type 2 Plagas", a genetically engineered and upgraded version of the Las Plagas that Leon fought in Spain. These ones reproduce fully-functioning offspring, allowing a singular Plaga host to infect other humans and absorb them into the swarm almost instantly by forcing a "larval" Type 2 Plaga down the victim's throat - that was what Chris and Sheva saw back in the town. The whole outbreak is a giant test for the viability of these creatures as a B.O.W; Irving released them amongst the villagers to investigate the infection rate, how well the Type 2 infected can be controlled, and just how well they fare in combat.

Sickened, but not surprised, the BSAA agents leave the station. Fighting through some rear-guard, they enter the nearby mining shaft and descend deep into the mines. Most of it is pitch black, but a handy torch allows them to survive the attempted ambushes by the Type 2 infected still lingering in the mines. Finally, they reach a former mining center and are able to return to the surface. Conveniently, they're right in front of the facility that ran the mine, back before the outbreak.

Creeping inside, they catch Irving at last, who defiantly whips out his own pistol. The stand-off ends when the masked woman from earlier throws in a smoke bomb, allowing her to grab Irving and flee before they recover. Cursing their luck, they investigate the files he left on the table; they point towards an oil refinery that lies amongst marshlands relatively close by. They radio Captain Stone to update him on what happened; Josh replies that he'll put men on Irving's trail, and orders Chris and Sheva to meet up with him.

Grabbing a Dragunov sniper rifle left behind in the office, the two BSAA agents fight their way along a long, winding cliffside road until they reach another mining camp. Their route is cut off when an infected suddenly drives madly from around the bend, swerving so that his truck crashes... and then releases a beast; a monstrous, four-winged hybrid of bat and beetle grub, which takes to the air to do battle with them both.

Its hide is thick, and in many places covered in chitinous armor... but its underbelly is soft and squishy, and they concentrate their fire on it. Finally, they shoot it out of the air, causing it to crash onto the truck it came out of and pull it over the side of the cliff, with both B.O.W and truck crashing on the valley floor far below.

At that moment, a member of Delta Team arrives in a Humvee, and the two hop aboard to get a lift to rejoin Delta Team. They also take this opportunity to contact HQ and inform them that Irving is heading for an oil field in the marshlands region of the KAZ.

The going is anything but smooth, however; infected bikers and trucks commandeered as makeshift troop carriers keep coming after them in deadly waves, forcing Chris and Sheva to use the two gun turrets mounted on the back to blow them away. As they fight their way across the savanna, they're informed over the radio that the infection has spread to multiple villages. They're also told that Type 2 hosts are officially referred to as "Majini".

Despite everything, they keep fighting until the sun has set and they are racing through the night; their enemies keep coming until their driver manages to jump a gap in a blown bridge and lose the last of their pursuers. Unfortunately, by the time they reach the rendezvous point, it's too late; Delta Team is dead. They get out to investigate, and learn first hand what was responsible when it attacks them and literally crushes their driver underfoot; a giant, ogrelike figure, a Type 2 version of the El Gigante created by the Los Illuminados!

Desperately, they flee to the truck and turn the weapon's turrets on the creature. Unlike El Gigante, this abomination doesn't have one Plaga in it; it has a veritable swarm of the foul creatures. When they stun it with sufficient firepower, multiple heads burst out of various crudely stitched wounds adoring its torso and arms; only when these lesser Plagas are destroyed does the central Plaga emerge to be hosed with bullets.

Finally, after a long and bitter struggle, they kill the giant Majini, leaping to safety before it crushes their vehicle under its falling bulk. Now that they're not fighting for their lives, the realization of what's happened strikes Sheva, who wanders dazedly over to the corpse of one of her former teammates, mournfully retrieving the man's dog-tags and wondering what happened to Captain Stone.

Chris gently suggests that Sheva could quit and let him continue the mission alone; she incredulously asks why he doesn't quit, given the slaughter, and he admits that he has a personal stake in matters. He finally admits that the main reason he came here was to pursue a rumor that his old partner, Jill Valentine, was still alive - a rumor that the files Delta Team gave him earlier have confirmed. Sheva is skeptical, but Chris won't be swayed; instead he starts marching off, and Sheva immediately follows, refusing to leave him alone. She follows him to the nearby port, where he points out that their orders don't mean a damn anymore. She's adamant about continuing by his side; they're still partners, as far as she's concerned, and that's all that matters.

Touched despite himself, Chris stops fighting; the two mount up in a fanboat and take off for the marshland. After driving through the night, they finally reach the region on the outskirts of the oil field. At this point, Sheva dares to ask Chris what happened to Jill. Chris responds by telling her about their failed attempt to capture Ozwell E. Spencer, and how Jill saved him from the superhuman wrath of Albert Wesker by making a heroic sacrifice and tackling him out a window. Everybody presumed she was dead, but Chris can't just leave things until he sees the body; they were partners for too long to just give up on her.

Seeing that turnabout is fair play, Chris asks Sheva why she joined the BSAA. She explains that she lost her family when Umbrella released an outbreak to cover up the shipment of bio-weapons they were manufacturing in her area. She knows Umbrella is dead, but she wants to make all of the people who would follow its legacy pay for their sins.

That's a sentiment that Chris can agree with. He declares that together, they'll put an end to anyone who would resurrect the evils of Umbrella.

In their travels, they come to a small island with a dock on it, surrounded by tribal African paraphernalia ... and home to the corpse of a BSAA agent, impaled with multiple spears. Checking his body, they find a PDA with an open mission log; he was part of a team of reinforcements sent to assist Delta Team - they arrived too late to prevent the massacre at the hands of the giant Majini, but they detected the distress beacon of at least one survivor, so they followed it to the marshlands themselves. Their advance has been stymied by a locked door, however; this man was obviously searching for a way around it, as a piece of a stone plaque lies next to his corpse. Familiar with this kind of lock, Chris and Sheva board the fanboat and advance deeper into the marshland.

Although utility poles carry power lines into the marshland, it's clear that the local villagers were subsistence farmers, harvesting fish and greens from the swamp and rearing chickens in the few areas elevated above the water, whilst living in homes built on poles to evade the local crocodiles. At the gate, they find a map, which directs them to the various small outcroppings of huts that are scattered across the marsh. Unfortunately, the infection has spread here as well; the villagers have been transformed into mutilated, frenzied berserkers, skin discolored into a corpse-like grey-green pallor, wielding traditional weapons and wearing ancient tribal garb, including grass skirts and clay masks. The BSAA agents also face off against a new form of Plaga, one that erupts from its host's torso and forms itself into an armored shell that doubles as a gruesome maw, trailing vital organs behind like a macabre tail.

Despite these foes, Chris and Sheva retrieve the three remaining portions of the lock, as well as recovering a rocket launcher from a partially sunken boat in the northwestern part of the marshes, and then open the door. It leads through a marshy channel of dense swampy forest to a large hummock of solid earth, where the main village has been built. Here, they come under attack by more of the tribal Majini, including a pair of hulking giants - not as big as the African El Gigante that killed Delta Team, but still towering over them, wearing huge clay masks and carrying enormous spiked cudgels made from skulls bound together with clay. They shrug off small arms fire like rain, but luckily, Chris and Sheva discover a loaded S&W M29 Magnum near the body of a dead BSAA agent; it packs enough of a punch to kill the two giant Majini.

With the village's defenders slaughtered, the BSAA agents start looking around for more information. In one of the huts, they find the journal of a young villager; he reveals the tribe was forced off of the land and into this part of the marsh a generation ago by the men who founded the oil field, but in recent years, they have been nothing but generous to the tribe, including creating a gondola that leads from the village to the oil field and giving them access to foreign alcohols. He talks about the men from the oil field coming and offering medicine against a mysterious "sickness". To Chris and Sheva's jaded eyes, the tale that unfolds as the village's children and women die, and its men regress into vicious barbarism, including the author himself, reveals the truth; they were test subjects for Plaga experimentation. Whoever is behind the outbreak must be involved with the oilfield.

Closing the journal, eerily reminiscent of the keeper's journal from the Arklay Mansion, the two head for the gondola and take a trip over the swamp to the oilfield. At the far end, they pass through a short cave to reach another tribal looking construction, where they see a BSAA agent's body being fed to crocodiles; they don't know what this place was before, but now it seems to be some kind of executioner's ground.

After killing the tribal Majini here and Chris undertaking a dangerous but mercifully short raft ride over the crocodile-infested waters to unlock a gate, they pass through a second tunnel into an area of raised, solid ground. Here, amongst the first hints of oil field bores, they find a curious site; a campsite made up of tents bearing the Tricell logo. Sheva is particularly puzzled, since Tricell is one of the companies that funds the BSAA as part of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies. Investigating the tents, they find a log confirming their darkest suspicions; Tricell did use the villagers for test subjects, experimenting with a new "Type 3" Plaga in contrast to the Type 2s used in the town. These Plagas are incompatible with women and children, but they make their hosts even more aggressive and physically powerful than a Type 2 can.

With this grim revelation, they pass through the site and finally reach the outskirts of the refinery. Passing by wrecked cars and walls supplemented with sheet iron, they enter the facility from a high ledge - spotting Irving leaving across the walkway. Type 2 Plaga-bearing town Majini stand in their way, but Chris and Sheva fight onward. Irving has blocked his way with a rigged pair of flamethrowers fueled by the immense reserves of oil being stored here; the pair have to work their way to different valves, battling two more of the bag-wearing, chainsaw-wielding elite Majini in the process before they can successfully turn them off and move on.

Inside of the facility, they meet up with the last survivor of Delta Team - Captain Stone! He's relieved to see that Chris and Sheva are still okay, but dumbfounded that they have continued to pursue Irving. Sheva reveals the existence of Jill to Josh, but they have no further time for talk; waves of Majini suddenly assault them, forcing them to make a fighting retreat to the second floor. Locking the door behind themselves, Josh tells Chris and Sheva that Irving is planning on blowing up the refinery to cover his escape; there's a dock nearby, so he tells them to try and catch Irving before he can flee, whilst he goes and finds an escape craft for them just in case.

A wise precaution; by the time Chris and Sheva sprint towards the boat on the right side of the dock, Irving is already aboard. The masked woman takes off from a speedboat next to it, before Irving taunts them that they're too late; at his signal, his vessel pulls away and Majini begin charging onto the dock. Luckily, Josh has found a boat for the three of them on the other side of the dock, and the two BSAA agents race to get there before the timer detonates, fighting their way through the Majini horde.

As they speed off across the water, explosions rock the oil refinery, bringing it down in a mass of flames and smoking metal ruin. Once they're a safe distance away, Josh asks what happened, but Chris and Sheva have to admit that Irving got away. Josh tries to cheer them up that he shouldn't be hard to follow, but their talk is interrupted by several speedboats full of Majini townsfolk, who attack them with crossbows, molotov cocktails, and dynamite. Josh promptly pushes the engine to full throttle and rockets off, whilst Chris and Sheva handle the matter of fighting.

The BSAA's commandeered speedboat races through the tributary, herded by the Majini, battling through several river-spanning drilling facilities blocking the tributary at various points. At the largest such facility, where they recover an M3 shotgun, they need to pull a pair of levers to activate a gate, only to then be attacked by a huge swarm of flying plagas! Luckily, there are mounted gatling guns nearby, which makes the swarm easily dealt with.

Finally, as they are carefully migrating down the river, they literally run right into Irving's ship! A Majini tries to sink them with one of the gatling guns mounted on its rear deck, but some deft driving and shooting kills the gunner, allowing the pair of them to board.

Irving watches, gritting his teeth in fury. He remembers what he was "told" earlier; his robed and masked accomplice threatened his life, demanding that he deal with Chris and Sheva, and gave him a mysterious vial for the ultimate last resort. As Chris and Sheva step aboard, he steps down from the bridge to confront them, complaining about their ability to survive despite all the danger he has thrown their way. He also angrily comments on how, despite his key role in funding this whole business, his associates look down on him. Promising that they won't any more, he raises the vial - a cylinder with some form of Plaga in it - to his neck.

Despite Chris and Sheva's warning and raised guns, he injects the mutagenic parasite into his body and then falls to his knees, clutching at his throat and emitting choked screams as his body bubbles and enormous tentacles erupt from his back, lifting him into the air. He manages to laugh at the BSAA agents, declaring himself far more than they could ever become; when Chris fires at him, his tentacles carry him out of the bullet's path and over the railing into the water below. Moments later, the boat shakes as something huge hits it from below, enormous tentacles rising from the water to grapple the deck, nearly crushing Chris and Sheva in the process before they recede.

A monstrous piscine abomination rises from the water and roars, its tri-lobed jaw splitting apart to reveal the malformed remnants of Irving in the center of the triple jaws, swollen and disfigured into a tongue-like mass that, grotesquely, still retains its human face and voice. Laughing madly, Irving taunts them about just having an extreme make-over, but Chris seizes this opportunity to shoot Irving himself. The massive exo-parasite recoils, screaming in pain, and then leaps over the ship and back into the water.

With the weak spot revealed, Chris and Sheva fight, sending Josh away to avoid being crushed in the proceeding ensuing battle. Using the gatling and rocket turrets, they blaze away at the piscine parasite's tentacles and singular eye, until the pain forces it to open its mouth. When Irving is revealed, they blaze away at him with all their might.

Inevitably, the creature can't take the punishment; in one mighty convulsion, it bites off the stalk-like tongue, sending the dying Irving flipping through the air to land in a pool of blood on the deck of the ship, whilst the disintegrating parasite's body sinks below the surface. Still clinging to life, the twitching wreckage of a human mocks and laughs at his killers, refusing to respond to their questions... though he does let slip that somebody named "Excella" is involved, and that Uroboros will "change everything". With his dying breath, he mocks that the answers lie in a cave up ahead - IF they can survive finding them.

With that, he bleeds out and dies, dissolving into a puddle of blood and slime on the deck. Grimly, the BSAA agents continue the course that Irving plotted in their own smaller boat, following the river into a cavern and from there an underground dock. There, they find the boat used by the woman who was helping Irving, confirming this as the right track. Josh asks if Chris and Sheva are certain that they want to continue; when they confirm that they have to, for Jill and the Uroboros Project. Josh nods and informs them that he'll go and contact headquarters, try to rescind the withdrawal order and get them reinforcements. With that, he drives the boat out of the cave, leaving the two to continue on, alone once more.

As they head up the dock through a small shack, Sheva mentions that the name Irving gave - Excella - is the head of Tricell's African division. Though they've seen suggestions of a connection now, they've no proof at the moment - but that might change as they press on. Chris can only wonder what this could mean for Africa if Tricell is involved in the mysterious Uroboros Project.

As they explore the tunnels, they are attacked by a new foe; spidery creatures the size of small dogs, which burrow out of the earth. They're presumably some form of independent Plaga, but the two can't be sure. Killing the creatures, they reach an ancient stone door, which they pass through; to their amazement, they find themselves staring over the ruins of an ancient buried city, a sight that could have come out of an Indiana Jones movie. Sheva in particular is amazed; she had no idea that there was anything like this in Kijuju. Most of the city is lit by cunningly wrought holes that allow sunlight in, although in the distance they can see an enormous crystalline structure that seems to disperse sunlight widely. But other lights come from torches that have been freshly lit; they're clearly not alone.

And they get very real proof of that moments later; as Sheva crosses a bridge, more of the Type 3 Majini make an appearance by pushing over a column from a higher rooftop; she avoids being crushed, but the bridge is smashed, forcing Chris to leap down to a lower level and find a way around as the feral villagers attack. Once he reaches the higher level again, the two reunite and continue exploring, investigating old tombs... which ultimately triggers a new trap, dropping them into a lower level of the city.

Fighting past the plaga-spiders and the tribal Majini that ambush them here, they enter a larger chamber with a crank that requires the pair of them to push. When they do so, a door at the far end of the chamber opens... but a booby-trap engages; huge spiked balls of lattice-wood filed with flammable chemicals roll steadily into the chamber, passing over braziers and pinballing lethally around the room before exploding. Worse, the door starts sinking closed again! They sprint forward, weaving between the deadly obstacles, and manage to reach the far side of the door before it shuts. Ironically, doing so activates a pressure plate which deactivates the trap.

Shaking their heads, they move on, and come to a long tunnel full of statues... which houses another booby-trap that could come straight out of an old pulp adventure novel. When they accidentally walk across a pressure plate, the statues begin to fall, forcing the BSAA agents to race for their lives, leaping over sudden pits and sprint until they reach a safe haven on the far end of the tunnel.

Once they catch their breath, they examine the room they've reached; there are two large pull-levers, sculpted to appear as arms bearing dangling skulls. When both levers are pulled simultaneously, the door opens, bringing them into another part of the underground city; they can see a door on a level high above them, but there's no way to reach it. However, multiple statues whose arms resemble the levers they just used are scattered around the multi-layered, ruin-choked chamber. When they reach the closest one and pull its arms, a staircase is activated, and they understand what they must do.

Killing any tribal Majini that rear their bloody heads, they work their way from statue to statue, pulling each in turn, until finally they have erected a staircase that leads up to the highest door. Which is when another of the giant bat-bugs they fought outside of the mines suddenly arrives, flying down from a higher level and presenting them with a choice; either try and fight it with their increased arsenal - including a grenade launcher they found on the bottom level of this chamber - or flee up the stairs and try to race past the beast.

If they try to fight, the confines of the chamber work both to and against their favor. Blasting away at the creature's head and the underbelly of its grub-like abdomen, it swiftly falls in response to their firepower, allowing them to move on unmolested.

If they race for the staircase, as they approach the narrower segment where the door lies at the top of the staircase, the bat-beetle takes to the sky; they run for their lives as it hurtles through the air towards them, narrowly rolling ahead of it as it slams into the too-tight passageway. The force of its impact dislodges the surrounding stonework, fatally crushing it under tons of rock, and trapping them both with no way to go but through the door ahead.

As the two BSAA agents seek her out, Excella is having a private rendezvous somewhere relatively close. Her co-conspirator? None other than Chris's nemesis, Albert Wesker. As they sit together in a room overlooking an arsenal of missiles, all emblazoned with the word "Uroboros", she informs him that preparations are almost complete before injecting him with a mysterious liquid. She admits she had her doubts about his plans at first, but the success of Las Plagas and the development of Uroboros have convinced her. Whilst Wesker snidely notes that she's secured her place at Tricell, Excella flirtatiously declares that she has "bigger plans" - namely, becoming Wesker's partner in the "new world" he plans to create. Wesker merely gives her an ambiguous response.

Irving's former bodyguard chooses that moment to arrive and inform them that the BSAA has arrived, with Excella revealing it's Chris who's following. Wesker sharply declares that he will not tolerate delays when his plan is in its final stages. As the women leave and he looks over the room, he remembers fragments of his final encounter with Spencer, half-mockingly observing to himself that he may owe his former employer his thanks.

Back in the ruins, Chris and Sheva climb the stairs and emerge in what seems almost like a temple. Their way forward is blocked by a door with three round slots in it just begging to be filled by emblem keys. The complex stretches both east and west, and so they pick a side and start looking. It's not easy; the tribal Majini are everywhere, and two of them have managed to get up behind the crystals directing sunlight, re-purposing them into improvised lasers that they use to try and blast the BSAA agents. Still, after a hard fight, they retrieve the Earth, Sky and Sea Emblems, and unlock the way forward.

Their route brings them to a kind of inverted pyramid structure. Inside they find of several rooms where stone mirrors are being used to reflect laser-like beams of concentrated sunlight. Killing the plaga-spiders that occasionally emerge to trouble them, they solve a series of puzzles based on reflecting the light beams into crystals, triggering lifts that grant them deeper access, until finally they leave the pyramid behind and emerge into a sunlit cavern that has been worked into a garden-shrine, filled with strange flowers - and ancient equipment, including an old irrigation system.

Initially, the two are baffled by the signs of the flowers, wondering how they could survive so deep underground. Then they have other things to worry about; one ancient piece of equipment bears the familiar, much hated logo of Umbrella. They wonder what they were doing here... more importantly; why does the newer equipment bear the Tricell logo? Were the two companies working together, somehow?

They wonder if this could be what Irving was talking about when he said that they'd find answers here, then dismiss the matter; all that Chris really cares about at the moment is finding Jill, and if there are answers here, they won't find them just standing around and postulating.

Chris and Sheva head through the shrine, towards the more modern-looking construction at the other end of the garden. Right away, they hit paydirt; lying on a box near the corridor leading out are two old clipboards.

The first is a construction supervisor's log, which reveals that this was the site of an Umbrella lab established back in 1969. These flowers were apparently very important to Umbrella - so much so that they drove off the indigenous tribe, the Ndipaya, who must have been the same people that Chris and Sheva fought through in the wetlands. The survival of these flowers was imperative; the supervisor's big issue was that they needed to compensate for moving the groundwater away in order to be able to build the facilities.

The second file is a Tricell administrator's log from a more recent time. It reveals that Irving used to be a foreman at Tricell's oil field out in the marshlands. It also names the flowers that Umbrella was so desperate to preserve as "Progenitor Flowers".

Progenitor; now that's a name that rings a bell for Chris. It's the viral feedstock from which Umbrella's entire arsenal of B.O.Ws and mutated freaks were cultivated. Are these flowers connected to it somehow?

Pressing onward, just before the door, they find themselves with a fragment of the journal of the chief researcher for the facility, a man named "Brandon". Its earliest entry is dated December 4th, 1966, and it confirms Chris's suspicions; the Progenitor virus naturally develops within the flowers they saw just moments before. The Ndipaya called these flowers "The Stairway to the Sun", and legends of their abilities to bring superhuman abilities to those who consume them attracted the attention of Ozwell E. Spencer and James Marcus - the latter was Brandon's teacher, and he talks about the psychopath with glowing terms, clearly hero worshipping him. Evidently, it was Marcus who hypothesized that the Stairway to the Sun's powers might come from a gene-altering virus - a hypothesis that was proven correct.

The other two entries stem from 1967, one dated February 12th, and the second March 23rd. These reveal that attempts by Spencer and Marcus to cultivate the flowers artificially failed; for some unknown reason, only the flowers that grow naturally, within this cavern, produce Progenitor Virus. he talks of a heated debate with Marcus about the research, and Spencer's suggestion of starting a company - something that Brandon didn't understand the point of when they can't replicate Progenitor in their labs.

Having read this, Chris and Sheva enter the nearby door, whereupon they find themselves in the dusty halls of an ancient laboratory. Taking the first door on the left brings them into an old office that has been partially converted into a storeroom, where they find the last of three journals from Chief Researcher Brandon; one in paper form on a desk, the other maintained electronically on an old computer.

The second of Brandon's journals is dated from April 15th, 1968, to June 15th, 1969. It talks about how the fledgeling Umbrella company forcibly chased the Ndipaya from their traditional homeland in the mountains, pushing them into the neighboring marshland, and founded a new research facility in the ruins to guard and study the flowers - and their precious virus. From what began as little more than a collection of tents, it grew into a fully fledged and functional facility of considerable size.

The final of Brandon's journals is dated November 16th, 1998. It declares that the African research facility was shut down on this date - not that Brandon really cared, despite having spent half his life here. He claims to have been just going through the motions ever since the death of Dr. Marcus. It waxes melancholic about the matter, but this is the only entry in it.

In a filing cabinet in the same room, they also find a short telegram from James Marcus. Dated January 13, 1978, it simply reads "T-Virus development a success".

Heading back into the main corridor, they catch sight of something crawling along the ceiling ahead of them, but it skitters away too quickly for them to catch. In a cupboard on the right wall, they find an invoice copy dated December 15, 1977, with Dr. Marcus receiving five cases of Progenitor virus. It also names the Chief Researcher in full; Brandon Bailey.

The main corridor is locked, forcing them to take a shortcut through a nearby lab - here, they find Stairway flowers floating in transparent tubes of some unknown chemical, the same site seen in the pictures they recovered so long ago. As Sheva excitedly points out, this means they're really getting somewhere. Two computers in the lab power on; one contains the journal of a Tricell researcher named "Miguel", the other contains an email from a researcher named "Ryan" to an acquaintence of his. Ryan's email is surprisingly normal; it's mostly griping about how annoying he finds Miguel and how much he's looking forward to getting home to his friends and family in Arizona.

Miguel's journal is much more disturbing. It explains that Tricell has samples of the T-Virus, G-Virus, T-Veronica Virus and even the Las Plagas parasite, but they sought this place out specifically for the final piece of the puzzle; the original Progenitor Virus. Worse, they've been using it to conduct research on Lickers, whom they've been breeding for sale on the B.O.W market. Administering Progenitor to Lickers has amplified their abilities, and even given them the capacity to reproduce!

When they exit the lab back into the main corridor, beyond the blockage, the first thing they see are deep gouge marks into the stone wall, surrounded by a thick coat of blood. Fresh-looking blood. More such clawmarks and bloodstains greet them as they wind their way through the labs, ultimately reaching a room full of animal cages, with a small selection of African fauna in a handful of cages. And then they finally learn what they've been catching glimpses of scuttling around the place when a pair of Lickers - or, rather, Licker Betas, the new version of the species cooked up by Tricell - leap forth and attack.

Dispatching their foes, Chris and Sheva continue, making their way to the monitoring room, where they retrieve an AK-74 machine gun, and then beyond. When no further attacks seem evident, Chris and Sheva vocally express their relief that there were apparently only the two of them, as they doubt that they could have handled a whole horde.

And so, with perfect irony, they find themselves stepping out into a hallway between two enclosures swarming with Lickers. Remembering what his sister told him, Chris and Sheva try to sneak past, moving slowly and quietly to avoid aggravating the B.O.Ws. Unfortunately, just past the hallway, they come across a door that they need to kick down - and so the Licker Betas immediately come swarming after them. They sprint for an elevator at the end of the corridor, and then try to hold off the B.O.Ws until it arrives, at which point they leave - either desperately fleeing the horde, or having triumphed over their foes, depending on the player's arsenal.

Taking the elvator, they come to an enormous room; a circular chamber lined with countless pods, each sized to house a human occupant. Sheva points out that this place was also in the photos, and Chris notes that this may mean Jill is here. Suddenly, a klaxon sounds before one of the pods slides away from the walls and opens to reveal a decaying human corpse, which it releases into the bottomless-seeming pit below. Sheva is horrified, but Chris only has eyes for the central computer bank; racing for it, he taps in Jill's name, kickstarting the central platform and causing it to slowly descend down the shaft.

All of a sudden, it grinds to a halt, a red "Access Denied!" flashing on the screen. Chris and Sheva's confusion gives way to grim understanding when a monster scuttles out of the darkness; an enormous arthropod, with traits of crab and spider. It attacks them by slashing out with its enormous, jagged-edged fclaws and spawning small, wasp-like creatures; Chris and Sheva return the favor by firing at its vulnerable mouth and tender-looking tendons on the undersides of its limbs. Ultimately, they mortally wound it, causing it vomit blood before it loses its grip and plummets shrieking down the cavernous shaft to its doom.

With the guardian dispatched, the platform resumes descending. But when it reaches Jill's assigned pod and opens it... the pod is empty. Chris and Sheva are dumbfounded, which is when the computer screen suddenly flashes into life, receiving a video transmission from elsewhere. It's Excella, who taunts the two BSAA agents; Sheva can't believe that somebody with Tricell could be involved in all this. Worse, Excella reveals that she was the one who arranged for the retreat order to be given to the BSAA. Chris demands to know where Jill is, but Excella won't answer, instead declaring that they should give up, before switching off the transmission.

Neither Chris or Sheva intends to comply; instead, they reaffirm their determination to keep going until they solve this whole mess. It's obvious in hindsight that Excella has been working against them this whole time; they intend to get the truth out of her, once they find her.

Before they leave, they investigate the computer to retrieve Jill's test subject data file. There's not much to really go on; all it has to say is that she's been kept in a medicially induced stasis for an extended period, which has led to a bleaching effect on her skin and hair. Still, her vitals are apparently all good and strong.

Reassured by that, the two leave the platform through a nearby door and make their way deeper into the facility. As they progress, things become more industrial, but they have bigger issues initially; the base is crawling with Excella's mercenaries, clearly infected with the Type 3 Plagas - and worst of all, these Majini are equipped with rifles and grenades! Fortunately, their parasite-ridden brains are dulled, making them sluggish to aim and fire, which gives Chris and Sheva enough of an edge that they can triumph.

Through a hallway crawling with Licker Betas, they reach an elevator. As they ride, they manage to partially pick up a conversation between Excella and Wesker. Whilst it's too garbled for them to get much useful data, the revelation that Wesker is still alive does not sit well with Chris at all.

The elevator exits into a huge industrial plant, filled with conveyor belts carrying various supplies and goods. Killing the Majini they encounter along the way, Chris and Sheva reach a conveyor belt which has been powered off - unfortunately, this has left a crate blocking the stepway to get deeper into the facility. The nearby lever doesn't work, as the power has been deactivated; the two have no choice but to take a walkway away from this part of the facility and hope it leads them to a power supply.

Ominously, on a nearby table, next to a case containing a SIG 556 machine gun, they find a file which reveals that an "Uroboros leak" has created some kind of mutant organism, which has been killing workers here since May 12th. It calls the creature a "Reaper", and notes that it wields some kind of blinding chemical substance whilst stabbing and dismembering its victims.

Shortly around the bend, they come across a wall covered in repugnant, fleshy-looking resin, with three large, man-sized cocoons hanging from the ceiling. They twitch and pulsate, but mercifully they do nothing more as the BSAA agents warily pass under them. Rounding the corner, they have other things to occupy their minds; this part of the facility is filled with missiles, all emblazoned with the word "Uroboros". They can only speculate aloud as to what possible purpose these could serve; Chris suggests that maybe they want to start a war.

Up a short flight of steps, they find the generator and switch it on - which is when they hear an insectile screech, followed by a loud thump and the sound of something skittering away. Guns up, they warily start heading back to where they started - one of the cocoons on the ceiling has popped open. Around the bend, they find out what hatched from it; a man-sized, bipedal roach, with its first two pairs of limbs mutated into razor-sharp scything claws! The Reaper is a tough opponent; it can regrow severed limbs quickly, it exudes a chemical aura that blurs their vision, and only blows to pulsing white sacks that it periodically extrudes from its chest and back hurt it. Using their numbers to outflank the creature turns out to be the best tactic, as the Reaper falls once they've torn open the organ-sacks with sustained gunfire.

Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, they move on before the other cocoons can hatch. Working their way along the now-running conveyor belt, they head through a door and enter another laboratory... one dripping with a familiar inky black slime.

Passing by fluid-filled capsules filled with the slimy worm-things they saw back in the town, they come across a naked man, covered in scorched-looking wounds and sitting on a lab chair. A voice from above makes them look up to see Excella; Chris immediately demands to know where Jill is, and she responds by mocking him, before declaring that since they've spent so long trying to track down Uroboros, it's time they see it. At her words, the man stands up and starts to lumber towards them, the familiar black worm-shapes erupting from his body.

Sheva accuses Excella of creating Uroboros as a new B.O.W to market to terrorists, but Excella refutes that; she acknowledges that Uroboros has some similarities to the B.O.Ws created with the Progenitor virus and all its derivatives, she has a different plan entirely. As the man suddenly seems to will the worms to vanish back into his body, Excella explains that Uroboros' purpose is "evolution", likening it to a "philosopher's stone" that will choose the people with superior DNA, the realization of a vision she shares with Wesker.

Sheva demands a straighter answer, but Excella refuses to play along. Instead, she declares that everyone will find out, soon enough. The test subject suddenly stops his advance, spasming and howling in pain as the worms explode from his body once again, multiplying and consuming him, transmuting him into something akin to the monster they saw in the waste facility back in the town - but significantly larger. Excella coldly declares that this man obviously wasn't a "chosen one", making him unworthy of the "coming new world". She turns and leaves, the masked woman at her side, leaving Chris and Sheva to do battle with the worm-thing.

As the lab immediately locks itself to contain the biohazard threat, they have no choice but to fight. There's no convenient incinerator to lure it into this time, but there is a wall-mounted unit that boasts a flamethrower and an auto-fueling system, as well as several cylinders of flammable gas lying around. Chris and Sheva's battle plan boils down to a game of cat and mouse; jogging briskly around the lab ahead of the lumbering worm-monster, hosing it down with the flamethrower when they can before placing it on the wall mount to refuel, lobbing incendiary grenades at it and blazing away at the glowing orange "cores" amidst its mass with their guns. It's a long and arduous battle, but ultimately they damage the creature beyond its ability to regenerate and it collapses onto the floor, dissolving into nothing.

...Or they simply blow it away with the rocket launcher they found in the wetlands, depending on the player's choice.

Once the Uroboros monster is dead, the lab unlocks itself and the two can go after Excella. Sheva is still trying to work out what in the world Excella's plans are, but Chris dismisses them as unimportant; all that matters is stopping the madwoman before she can infect anyone else with this lethal virus of hers.

Through the newly opened door, they climb up to a higher level. They first check the observation bay where Excella was watching them moments ago, where they find a file instructing Tricell's researchers on how to handle the Uroboros virus. Perhaps most alarmingly, it's noted that when the worm-swarm creature occurs due to incompatiable DNA, it absorbs nearby biomass to fuel it's growth. This suggests that as terrible as the creature they just fought was, it has the potential to get bigger...

With that cheery little thought on their minds, they head back down the corridor and take the route that Excella must have used beforehand. Heading up stairs, they emerge onto gantries high above the missile production facility, where they fight their way past mercenary Majini and Reapers, retrieving an H&K PSG-1 sniper rifle before they ultimately reach an office room. Here, they find an official report, which makes it clear - if it wasn't already - how ruthless Excella's employees have been; it describes them "preventing information leaks" by using sleeping gas to stop a bus, so they could then pull off their own research personnel and murder them.

Through more corridors, they reach another of the vast cylindrical chambers with the test subjects lining the walls. Activating a pair of levers, they slowly ride their way to the top, picking off Majini who try to snipe them from the walls or throw switches that will temporarily stop the central platform - a process made trickier by the constant rotation of the platform.

Reaching the top, they exit the labs into more of the ruined city, which is seemingly under construction. A palatial doorway lies across a pit, which can be crossed by a bridge. Only problem is, the controls are inside of a small building nearby, and the door has been locked from the inside. Activating a generator around the back of it allows them to use an elevator to reach a gantry that has been built to span the second floor. One of the two BSAA agents goes up the elevator and runs around, dispatching a small swarm of Licker Betas that comes crawling out to defeat them; with the B.O.Ws dead, they simply need to push aside the rubbish-laden bin and descend into the control room through an opening in its roof.

With the bridge lowered, Chris and Sheva pass on through into the ancient palace. Here, they finally catch up to Excella, but she seems undaunted... which is justified when Irving's former bodyguard comes leaping in with a display of borderline superhuman speed and agility; she knocks them both around like toys, though they manage to scrape back the upperhand when a lucky shot from Chris knocks off her mask. As Chris and Sheva hold the women at gunpoint, Wesker arrives, taunting Chris about their little "family reunion", claiming he expected Chris to be happier to see them both. Pulling back the strange woman's hood, he reveals her to be none other than Jill Valentine!

Chris desperately tells Jill that it's him, but to no avail; she attacks them both, swiftly getting the upper hand. As Wesker gloats about the odds, the two BSAA agents ready themselves for one hell of a fight.

Indeed, it's not easy at all. Taunting them that he'll give them 7 minutes to "play", Wesker leads the attack with his superhuman speed and strength, punching Chris through a locked door. As this allows them to reach the upper levels, the BSAA agents turn this to their advantage; after retrieving an L. Hawk magnum from a coffin, they split up to try a divide and conquer strategy - Chris attempts to get the upper hand on Wesker, whilst Sheva does her best to hold off Jill.

Whilst the two women fight, Chris uses the twisting corridors and obscuring walls to ambush Wesker repeatedly, until either the seven minutes pass or he inflicts enough damage that the arrogant superhuman decides to leave. Either way, he claims to be disappointed in Chris's efforts, then turns his back on the BSAA agents to answer his phone. When they try to hold him at gunpoint, Jill attacks and floors them both, pinning Chris to the floor with his arm in a painful lock. Wesker mocks his former teammate, saying he'll leave him to Jill, but to Wesker's surprise, Chris's pleading actually causes Jill to momentarily snap back to her senses and release Chris.

Wesker declares her efforts commendable, yet futile, withdrawing a remote and activating it, sending Jill into screaming spasms of pain. He then walks out through a lift, slamming its doors shut behind him before Chris can catch him. Chris doesn't have the time to give chase; Jill screams in pain and partially tears open her body-suit, revealing a strange cybernetic implant grafted to her sternum. This is obviously what's been controlling her... and that was, equally obviously, the last of her defiance; she falls into a battle pose, snarling at her former partner.

Working together, Chris and Sheva tag-team Jill; herding her into advantageous spots, one grabs her from behind, and the other damages the implant with a carefully aimed shot before yanking on it with all their might. After several such grappling sessions, they finally tear the unnatural device from her chest, freeing her at last.

Chris cradles the exhausted woman in his arms, and she weakly apologizes to both BSAA agents, claiming she was aware, but completely unable to control her body, begging them for forgiveness - which both Chris and Sheva are happy to give her. Staggering to her feet, she tells them to go and stop Wesker, because if they don't, he'll kill billions by spreading Uroboros across the globe. Assuring Chris that she'll be alright, she pleads with them to go, and Chris reluctantly agrees, taking Sheva and heading off through the lift that Wesker took earlier.

What happens to Jill after this point is covered in the mini-game "Desperate Escape", and is described further down.

Exiting the lift, a short tunnel brings them to a gantry outside of the mountains, where the setting sun illuminates the way down to a dock - currently home to a container ship. From where they are, they can just make out Wesker and Excella, who are boarding the ship under the watchful eyes of Majini mercenaries. Chris declares it's time that they put an end to this, and they jog down to catch up with their enemies.

Moving quickly and quietly, they manage to sneak aboard the ship before it takes off into the open ocean. As night falls, they make their move and seek to apprehend Wesker and Excella, whom they assume will be at the helm. Starting from the cargo deck at the front of the ship, they make their way through the maze of shipping containers, fighting infected mercenaries and dogs until they reach a doorway into the ship's interior. Along the way, Sheva wonders what role this huge tanker plays in Wesker's plan; Chris refutes that it can't be directly used to spread Uroboros; it's so big that it's an easy target, and would give away their position far too soon.

As they head into the hold, Sheva notes that finding Wesker won't be easy on a ship this massive, but Chris responds that Wesker will come after them once he's realized that they're here; he and Wesker have a history, and Wesker holds grudges. But he's going to save the full explanation for after this mission is over, something which Sheva declares she'll hold him to.

At the bottom of the staircase leading into the hold, they recover a Jail Breaker automatic shotgun, before they enter a lab - where they surprise Excella, who was in the middle of loading up a pair of miniature briefcases. They demand answers from Excella at gunpoint, but she refuses to answer, and instead bolts for the door. They try to stop her with gunfire, but all they succeed in doing is knocking one of the briefcases out of her hand before she runs through a door and locks it behind her, making a clean get away. Chris is furious that she keeps slipping through their hands, whilst Sheva admits a begrudging respect. Then her attention turns to the contents of the briefcases; medical syringes, all branded with the label "PG67A/W". She asks Chris about them, but he has no idea what they are; all he knows is that Excella seemed mighty protective of it. That's all the information that Sheva needs to stash one or two away amongst her belongings.

Since Excella already escaped, they take a moment to examine the lab; one of the computers holds another journal from Miguel, the Tricell researcher whose first journal they found back in the Progenitor Flower lab in the ruins. Dated May 8th, this one reveals that Uroboros was developed to "surpass the potential" of both the G-Virus and the T-Veronica Virus, with Miguel and his fellows being assigned to eliminate the virus's propensity for extreme mutations, mental atrophy, and instability. Retention and rejection rates were not a concern. Miguel brags that he was already on the cusp of overcoming two of the problems, and looking into alternative methods to solve the third.

Knowing what happened to him from the note back in the labs office, Chris and Sheva move on; Excella locked the door behins her, but another door is nearby, providing a detour through a cargo hold. Eliminating a small army of Majini mercenaries, including a huge, one-eyed African wielding a gatling gun, they unlock a door into another part of the hold, where they have to quickly dispatch three more Majini wielding rocket launchers. With those assailants dead, they move on to a lift back to the deck.

As the BSAA Agents are riding the lift, Wesker is watching them from the bridge. He declares that they will get no further, and then allows himself the luxury of getting lost in thought. He remembers his final meeting with Ozwell Spencer, before Chris and Jill caught up to him before; specifically, he remembers being told that he was the only survivor of a project by Spencer to engineer a new and superior race of humans. The madman wanted to use Progenitor to elevate the "genetically superior" and to wipe out the rest of humanity, becoming a god ruling over a new world, only for that plan to be upset when Raccoon City was wiped out prematurely.

Spencer's twisted dreams ended for him when Wesker tore out Spencer's heart with his bare hand... but Wesker still intends to carry them out for himself. After all, he muses, like he said back then, only someone capable of being a god deserves the right to do so - and with Uroboros, he has that right.

Having reached the deck, Chris and Sheva cautiously wind their way through the shipping containers, until they reach a horrible sight; dozens, if not hundreds, of Kijuju townsfolk, slaughtered like cattle and their body heaped up into a pile in a space on the deck. Feminine groans of pain and unsteady footsteps echo from behind the corpse-pile, and as they partially circle it, Excella comes into view, bent over and moaning in anguish. Chris and Sheva level their guns on her, but she doesn't even notice them, instead pleading with Wesker to explain why he's done this to her after all she's done for him.

Wesker promptly begins speaking to Chris over the loudspeaker, sarcastically welcoming him to the end of his mission; Uroboros is on the eve of its appearance, when a new balance will be birthed amidst six billion cries of agony. Chris shouts defiance at his old foe, whilst Excella screams in anguish that Wesker said they would change the world together. As Excella falls to her knees, Sheva asks Chris why Wesker would betray her, at which Chris explains that Wesker only cares about himself - he doesn't bring it up, but Wesker has a long history of self-interest-fuelled betrayals; Excella was just the latest pawn he manipulated, exploited, and ultimately abandoned.

Wesker interjects that Chris will understand soon, once he has a glimpse of Wesker's planned new world. Of course, Chris won't live beyond that glimpse, the viral mutant gloats. Finally deigning to respond to his former "partner", Wesker mocks Excella that Uroboros has rejected her, declaring she was an "excellent asset", but now he has one final task for her to perform.

Excella's last words are to scream Albert's name. Then the worm-like growths of Uroboros rejection erupt from her mouth, enveloping her and consuming her - before reaching out to grab onto the other corpses nearby and drag them into its rapidly expanding bulk! Before Chris and Sheva's horrified eyes, the former Tricell executive transforms into the biggest Uroboros mutant they've seen; it lashes out with one enormous tentacle, and they narrowly avoid being crushed. Realizing that they are too vulnerable down here, where it can focus its massive wrath on them, the two sprint for their lives, dodging tentacle swipes, scrambling over a shipping container, before finally making it to the dubious shelter of the ship's interior.

Once they've caught their breath, Sheva asks what they're going to do now; she's skeptical of the idea that they can even hurt the thing that Excella has become with their weapons. Chris admits he doesn't know, but he does know that they need to get out of here before the Uroboros destroys the place.

Wending their way through the slime-caked corridors, evading groping Uroboros tentacles where they can, they dispatch a small group of Majini mercenary survivors and recover a keycard to reach the ship's bridge. Just before that they reach the navigation room. Inside, they recover two documents that Wesker must have brought with him from Spencer's hidden mansion three years ago; a "Report on Project W", dated August 28th 1998, and Spencer's personal notebook.

The Report reveals Albert Wesker was the 13th test subject of Project W, which Chris will manage to connect to the list of names he saw on the computer back in Spencer's hidden estate, it also notes that the Project had an atrocious success rate - Albert's then-presumed death put it down to 18%. The author, an "Alex W.", suggests selecting individuals from the pool of failed candidates to replace the recent losses in the roster of qualified individuals.

Spencer's notebook, in comparison, is dated to just after the destruction of Raccoon City. It talks callously about the annihilation of the city, and indifferently notes that Umbrella is destined to fall because of this. Not that Spencer cared; Umbrella was only a tool for researching the Progenitor virus, in his eyes. With the secret African facility being known to only a handful of the highest-ranked Umbrella operatives, his plan was to wipe them out and close the facility, so that nobody could connect it back to Umbrella.

Of course, that didn't come to pass quite as Spencer envisioned. A printout is also stuck inside the notebook, containing a list of Umbrella personnel with access to company secrets. As it lists Ozwell Spencer himself as "deceased", it's obvious that Albert made this list. Of the level 10 and level 9 operatives, only two are listed as not being dead; a "Henning P." has been imprisoned, whilst a "Jenny K." has vanished and evaded detection even by Wesker.

Having read the files, they move onto the bridge, where they find an operating manual for Shango, a satellite carrying a laser cannon, tacked to the bulletin board. It explains that a rocket-launcher-like laser targeting device can be used to call down strikes from the laser, but it requires both prolonged aiming to lock in the coordinates and a recharge in between shots.

They have no idea why this is aboard - maybe Wesker had plans to destroy creatures like this Uroboros mutant once the initial pandemic was launched? But whatever the reason, it gives them a fighting chance, and Chris declares that they need to head for the roof and use Shango to deal with the monstrosity that was once Excella.

When they exit onto the bridge tower, the full scale of the Excella-Uroboros becomes clear. It reaches as tall as the tower itself, a swaying mass of tendrils that looks like a combination of a worm swarm and some abominable plant, glowing yellow-orange "cores" serving as makeshift heads. Fortunately, the keycard they recovered earlier opens a locker on the tower, allowing them to recover the L.T.D and turn it against her.

Evading strikes from the sweeping tentacles, and small "blobs" of worms that drip from the main mass and then try to clumsily leap at them, the two BSAA Agents target each core, calling down Shango's wrath upon them when the satellite is charged, and otherwise blazing away with their heaviest weaponry. After the cores at the ends of their tentacles are blown away, a larger central core is revealed, the obvious weak-spot. The battle is arduous, but not as long as the Uroboros reject they fought in the mountain labs; ultimately, Shango's laser burns through Excella's central core, reducing the entire mass of worms to a charred, lifeless tangle of semi-solid ash.

Sheva and Chris are dumbfounded that Wesker wants to release this atrocity on the world, and more determined than ever to stop it. They return to the bridge to the sounds of alarm klaxons squalling; Excella's Uroboros form did a lot of damage to the ship before they destroyed her. It has had the positive side effect of releasing all locks, though. As they pass by a monitor, they catch sight of Wesker's trump card; an assault bomber. As they deduce, the tanker couldn't be used to spread the Uroboros virus, because it's an obvious target if used as a missile launch site. But a bomber? That's another matter. The fact they can see Wesker waiting on the bomber as it prepares to launch cinches it, and they are ready to pursue him.

At that moment, Jill contacts Chris on his receiver. She doesn't manage to stay for long before something cuts her transmission, but she does tell them some vital news; Wesker's superhuman abilities stem from a virus, which he keeps stable through regular and precisely measured doses of a serum called "PG67A/W", which he used to entrust to Excella. Sheva realizes that must be the serum that they took from the ship's lab earlier.

Confident that Jill will see to her own escape, they decide to head after Wesker... especially as they've just realized that if Wesker's bomber is shot down in mid-flight, it will result in the virus being dispersed on atmospheric currents, resulting in an enormous outbreak, potentially world-wide. They cannot let that happen; they're determined to stop him, no matter what it takes.

The helm has a lift down to the engine room, which they're confident Wesker must have used before. Excella's Uroboros form has torn through portions of the ship and started a fire, forcing them to manually deactivate a pair of bulkheads. This requires a running battle against Majini mercenaries, Reapers, and TWO of the hulking gatling gun-wielding Majini mercenaries, but ultimately they triumph and reach the hanger.

Wesker's cool finally slips at the sight of Chris, still alive and defiant. He angrily asks if they ever get tired of failing, admitting that they've become quite the inconvenience, before attacking them; his superhuman speed lets him handle them both like playthings, not in the least threatened by their attempts to shoot him. But Chris and Sheva refuse to give up; instead, Chris demands an explanation for Wesker's lunacy... only to learn just how far off the deep end his former commander has fallen.

Like a mad cartoon villain, Wesker asserts that his actions are to save the planet, not destroy it, claiming that releasing Uroboros and culling the majority of the human population will put an end to war, famine, pollution and other such strife. He then proceeds to manhandle them some more, ultimately flinging them from the gantry to the floor of the landing bay below. As the platform rises, readying itself for launch, Chris spits defiance at Wesker, vowing not to stop until one of them is dead... an offer that Wesker finds most acceptable.

As they fight, Wesker rants about the overpopulation facing the world, and how the vast majority of humanity are expendable nothings, genetic dead-ends who, in his eyes, need to be cleansed to restore the world and give humanity's true heirs room to grow. Uroboros, he declares, will be the tool by which he can separate the chaff from the wheat; those with superior DNA will be made stronger by the virus' mutagenic properties, whilst the inferior will die under its lethal caress.

The two BSAA agents can't defeat Wesker in a frontal attack. So they instead outsmart him. Turning off the lights allows them to sneak up on him and deliver hits that actually land, whilst a nearby rocket launcher becomes a pivotal weapon; Wesker may have the speed and strength to catch an RPG in mid-flight, but when the agents shoot the grenade so it explodes in his face, there's nothing he can do about it. Through this method, they weaken and stun him enough that, as a tag-team, one can pin him down and the other can inject him with an overdose of the serum.

Wesker immediately starts to waver and stagger, leaving Chris and Sheva to wonder if it worked. Wesker screams in pain, but then steels himself; vowing it's not over, he leaps off with superhuman bounds and launches the bomber - his powers aren't fading as fast as they expected. Chris and Sheva race for their lives, and manage to scramble aboard the bomber before it successfully takes off.

Inside, they find Wesker weakening, but still defiant. He admits to underestimating Chris, who responds by telling Wesker to give up; he's got no allies left. Wesker spits that he doesn't need anyone else - he has Uroboros, and that's all that matters; in five minutes, they'll have reached optimal missile deployment altitude, allowing the detonations to saturate the entire atmosphere with Uroboros. The whole world will be infected. Snarling like a beast, he lunges for the agents, but he's finally slowing; as he rants about becoming the creator of a new Genesis, the two agents slowly manage to get the upper hand on him, finally driving a second vial of his precious serum into his neck.

As Wesker is left momentarily paralyzed, Chris spits that Wesker is nothing more than another of Umbrella's leftovers, before Sheva tells him that there's only one thing they can do; as she covers him, Chris lunges for the override lever, causing the cargo door to open and the bomber to suddenly dive. Chris and Sheva grab for nearby support struts to avoid being sucked out, something that Wesker fails to do - until the last second, when he grabs Sheva's foot. He struggles to climb back up her body, whilst she in turn tries to fight him off.

Chris watches in anguish, recognizing the expression on Sheva's face as the same one Jill had in Spencer's hidden mansion three years ago. As she tries to make a heroic sacrifice and lets go, he dives for her, grabbing the beam with one hand and her hand by the other. The sight of him straining to hold on for dear life snaps her back to her senses; as Wesker vows to take them both with him, Sheva spits her defiance, using her free hand to grab her pistol and shoot him in the head, sending him flying out of the cargo bay door.

Moment's later, the bomber crashes within the caldera of a semi-active volcano. Miraculously, Chris and Sheva survive, staggering out of the burning wreckage to take stock of the situation. But, impossibly, Wesker has survived as well, albeit losing his shirt. Standing atop the crashed bomber, he snarls and spits out that he should have killed Chris years ago. Chris declares that it's over, but Wesker is still defiant; he punches into an exposed Uroboros missile, willingly infecting himself with the virus. His right arm is transformed into a wormy tentacle, incorporating jagged chunks of metal to add to its lethality. As the infection slowly spreads across his torso, he leaps down to confront them.

Knowing that they can't fight him in such a confined space, they attempt to run to a place with better room, but in the process a rock formation gives way under Chris' feet, trapping them in different portions of the volcano. As Sheva attempts to provide covering fire from her higher position, Chris leads Wesker up a pathway to a mound of rock surrounded by lava. Practically drooling in his fervor, Wesker follows Chris, ranting like the madman that he is; as Chris attempts to shoot Wesker in the head or in a glowing orange-yellow pustule that has formed on his chest, Wesker babbles about how humanity is a disease that spreads war and pestilence wherever it goes, and how it needs to be subjected to natural selection for the good of the species once more.

Whilst the Uroboros tendrils elsewhere seem to be impervious to bullets, the orange pustule on his chest is as much a vulnerable spot as the cores on the failed Uroboros mutants Chris and Sheva dispatched during the course of their mission. Roaring in pain, Wesker allows the tentacles to engulf his left arm, then uses them both to propel himself away from Chris and towards Sheva.

With their roles reversed, Chris now has to try and cover Sheva as she attempts to retreat. Fortunately, just ahead is a path where Sheva can rejoin Chris - but it's blocked by an enormous boulder. Throwing himself against it in utter desperation, in a feat of borderline superhuman strength, Chris shoves, punches and wrestles the rock until it topples into the lava, allowing Sheva to jump over to join him, just ahead of Wesker.

Now cornered back in Chris' makeshift arena, the two attempt to take down the mutated Wesker. They don't have much room to maneuver, but they do their best to pour on the firepower into the tumorous pustule in Wesker's chest.

With well aimed fire, they make Wesker stagger, allowing Chris to leap onto the madman's back and restrain him. Ripping away the protective tentacles to better expose the pustule, Chris screams for Sheva to shoot, even if it means shooting Chris as well. Instead, Sheva draws her knife and comes in swinging. Both she and Chris are drenched in yellowish blood as Sheva stabs Wesker repeatedly, with Wesker struggling against Chris's grip. Wesker finally manages to knock her away, but Chris simply draws his knife and stabs Wesker in the back one final time.

(In game, it's possible to defeat Wesker just by shooting him enough, but the subsequent cutscene doesn't change.)

Wesker staggers, stumbling backwards, and the rock chooses that moment to give way beneath his feet, plunging Wesker screaming into the lava surrounding them. He flails and howls, his inhuman durability and regenerative abilities prolonging his suffering as he is slowly cooked by the molten rock. But it seems he may get his wish of taking Chris and Sheva with him, as their island is fast disappearing...

Which is when Jill and Josh Stone arrive in a helicopter, in a display of impeccable timing. Moments before their island vanishes into the lava below, Chris and Sheva leap for and catch the rope ladder which Jill throws them. They scramble aboard, but Wesker is still alive; screaming defiantly, he lashes out with one of his tentacle-arms, extending it to latch onto the chopper's landing strut, attempting to drag it into the lava to share his fate.

Jill points out a pair of rocket launchers on the wall, and Chris & Sheva each grab one. Aiming at Wesker, they each spit out an appropriately pithy line - "Suck on this, Wesker," from Chris and "Your time's up, you son of a bitch!" from Sheva - and fire simultaneously. The combined explosion is too much; even Wesker's mutated body can't handle the trauma it's being subjected to, and he vanishes in a mighty explosion of fire, concussive force and lava.

As the helicopter stabilizes, Chris, Sheva and Jill all stare at where their greatest enemy once was. Sheva declares "That was for our fallen brothers.", and after a moment to assure themselves that Wesker is really gone for good, they fly the helicopter back towards safety.

As it crosses the ocean and returns to civilization, Chris once again muses if it's really worth fighting. Looking at his partners old and new, he affirms to himself that if it means a future without fear, then yes, it's definitely worth it.

Desperate Escape

Sunday March 8th, 2009. Newly freed from Wesker's mind-controlling implant, Jill Valentine thanks Chris for saving her, and apologizes to Sheva for attacking her. Despite Chris' reluctance, she sends the pair of them onward to stop Wesker, assuring them that she is strong enough to make her way to safety without them.

Unfortunately, she's simply putting on a brave face; the two of them have barely vanished up the elevator when Jill faints. She comes to when somebody gently wakes her; an African man clad in military fatigues. He introduces himself as Captain Josh Stone, with the West African branch of the BSAA, and offers Jill a hand by escorting her to the evac chopper coming to pick him up.

Weakened by her recent separation from Wesker's gizmo, and grateful for honest human contact, Jill is more than happy to agree. But to reach the landing zone, they need to fight their way through a Majini-fortified industrial facility. Despite the swarming masses of Plaga-carrying Africans in their way, they refuse to be stopped.

As they pass through the first part of the facility, they reach a fortified cliff-side; they can see a communications tower nearby, but they need to fight their way past a maze of defenses, including several explosive-launching turrets, to get there. Josh's pilot, a man named Doug, picks that moment to get in contact with them, jokingly flirting with Jill over the radio once he learns of her presence. But Jill has other things on her mind; the sight of the communications tower has jarred her memory and reminded her that she holds information crucial to Wesker's defeat. She tells Josh that she has to detour to the comms tower; Josh is momentarily baffled, but agrees; there's a landing pad atop the tower anyway, so it's all good. They take a moment to inform Doug, and then move on.

There seems to be no end to the Majini hordes. At several points, they have to fight their way into the turrets and commandeer them to blow through defensive doors. Still, with much bloodshed, they battle their way to the control room. Here, Jill uses the broadcasting equipment to get in contact with Chris and Sheva, and explains what she learned during her time as Wesker's slave: the traitor's superhuman strength and speed comes from the mutagenic virus he used to survive his little "death faking stunt" back at the Arklay Mansion. However, the virus is unstable; without regular injections of a specific serum, called PG67A/W, Wesker's power wanes and he becomes as vulnerable as any man. The bad news is that Wesker has dosed himself recently, so his power won't be waning any time soon. The good news is that the interaction between serum and virus is extremely finnicky; if they can overdose him with more serum, it'll disrupt that delicate balance, and bring him down to normal.

The Majini manage to jam the signal then, leaving Jill and Josh hoping that everything Jill had to say got through. Knowing their enemies are in hot pursuit, the two make for the roof; there, Doug promises he will arrive shortly, but the Majini are pouring onto the top of the tower like human driver ants. Jill and Josh fight a desperate holding action, killing their foes by the dozens, but their foes feel no fear; they just keep coming, and coming, and their numbers seem to be limitless.

Finally, Doug arrives in the nick of time, landing his chopper on the pad and leaping from his seat to add his own carefully aimed rifle fire to the fray. Jill and Josh retreat to the chopper, but in the confusion, a Majini climbs to a higher firing spot and launches a laser-guided rocket into the fray. Fortunately, he fails to land a direct hit on Jill, but the explosion knocks her flying, forcing Josh to focus all of his attention on physically carrying her to the copter.

Doug, unfortunately, is so caught up in picking off the Majini closing in that he can't spare the time to target the RPG-wielder. This time, the Majini doesn't miss, sending Doug's scorched helmet clanking forlornly across the helipad, to Josh's fury. Josh grabs the controls and kicks the helicopter into the air, whilst Jill shakes off her lingering stunned state and grabs a nearby rifle. She puts a bullet in the rocket-gunner Majini's head, but his finger twitches and disgorges one last missile; luckily, Josh is able to deftly dodge it, and the two fly away.

Once they are a safe distance from the communications tower, Josh mourns the fallen Doug, explaining that he was Josh's friend as well as a partner in the BSAA. Jill sympathizes, and then reminds Josh that if they don't help Chris and Sheva take down Wesker, Doug and all the other dead BSAA members will have died for nothing. Steeling themselves, they fly off in search of their missing comrades - and manage to arrive just in the nick of time to save them and see that Wesker is finished off once and for all.