Hello, readers! Here is a fanfiction that I originally posted on another writing site as a commission. I figured it could be posted here because it is technically a fanfiction. It is also the first "Resident Evil" fanfiction I have ever written.
This is one of the most erotic stories I have done. It contains sexual acts, vulgar language, and some psychological trauma. Reader discretion is advised.
DISCLAIMER: The game "Resident Evil: Code Veronica" is part of the "Resident Evil" video game series, owned and published by Capcom. All properties from that game belong to the developers and producers, not the author.
Onward to the story!
"We did it! We're finally out!"
A voice happily exclaims its freedom. She knows that voice, but the face is shrouded in mist. She feels cold, piercing wind, or maybe blinding snow, pressing against her bare skin. Pure fear jolts her brain with a spark of knowledge, knocking loose another fragment of the past. She had been escaping, fleeing something dangerous, and then… the rest isn't clear. Has she escaped or not?
She considers her situation. She feels warm and comfortable instead of cold and afraid. She shouldn't be feeling this way if she was in danger. So, she is safe. That makes her happy, the feeling providing a soothing touch through her entire body. She lets this touch spread out, until her fingers and toes feel just as relaxed as her rapidly beating heart. No, wait, it isn't just her heart that's beating. Something else is making a separate sound.
"Perfect! We'll be able to drive right over to the Australian base with this." She hears her voice from some time ago, a colder and more dangerous period of her life. She sounds so eager to get away from some dangerous thing. She looks away from this past event and focuses on current matters. That other sound becomes clearer, a clacking noise against a hard surface. It stops very close to her, enough that she can hear something breathing nearby. Someone quietly chuckles.
"Huh?" the familiar voice cries out. "What is that?!" An answer comes instantly: She's in the snowmobile, smoke filling her nose and mouth as the vehicle's fuel ignites. She has seconds to get clear, but her legs don't respond. Metal shrieks and groans as it is pressed inward. She sees a snaking tendril outside the windows, crushing the machine and its occupants in a death grip. She has only seconds to escape, but she also wants to save—
"Steve…" She moves now, her arms and legs travelling through a thick liquid that is all around her. No, she is covered in it, floating inside it. Her eyelids are too heavy to open more than a sliver. She sees green around her, a layer of glass holding that green in place, and a blue-white room beyond that. Then the liquid gets into her opened eyes. A stinging sensation makes her slam her eyelids back shut as tears leak out into the greater pool all around her. The sensation spreads from her eyes to her forehead and scatters her thoughts. She barely realizes she is naked in the liquid before that fact, too, is gone.
"Claire, I'm sorry." Steve's apology makes her heart flutter with whimsical hope. She also turns her memory onto herself. She is Claire Redfield, and she was fleeing mutants and monsters to find a safe place. Is this place safe?
"Sleeping well, Claire dearest?" Claire stiffens at this voice, a woman's voice, coming through the liquid to her ears. It carries its own title: Alexia Ashford. But that's impossible. Claire saw her, or rather her insane brother Alfred believing he was her, fall into an underground ice cavern to his death. Alexia has never existed.
Claire shivers in the liquid, breathing quicker as her heartbeat grew louder in her ears. She is not safe here.
"Oh, did I wake you up?" Alexia asks a moment later. "I'm sorry." She does not sound sorry in the slightest. Claire imagines she is smiling like a content cat, outside of her sight and reach. She wakes up and tries to move her body, to get away from this voice. It doesn't work, the liquid holds her in place like tree sap. That doesn't stop her from making a futile attempt anyway.
"My, my, such vigor! Such strength!" The voice chuckles louder as something rattles from the same direction. "You are progressing along quite nicely, Claire. My touch is working its wonders. But I can't have you bursting out too early. A beautiful woman needs her beauty sleep."
Claire wants to speak back, but her mouth doesn't move. She then realizes something is covering her mouth and nose. It's been on her since she woke up, giving her air to breathe while submerged. Her body automatically cycles air in and out, assisted by this unknown mouthpiece. Now that she has some idea where she is, the action becomes necessary. She falters in her breathing against the primal fear of drowning. She doesn't know where she is, how she got here, and why she is put in some strange pool by someone she tried to escape from. She needs to get away from all this!
Claire suddenly tastes something sweet in her mouth and nose. The tube spits it into her airways. She tries to cough it out, but her lungs don't expel the substance to where it came. She takes it in with no gag reflex, and instantly feels a pleasurable reaction in her chest. She barely hears Alexia say, "Sleep tight, Claire. I'll be back for you," as the sweetness turns into a deep feeling of tiredness. She slumps forward slightly in the liquid, her entire body tingling as the euphoria turns her brain off.
"Hello, Claire."
Claire reacts to Alexia's voice, rising from the grip of a drug-addled sleep to a semi-conscious state. A lingering presence from her dreams struggles to hang on but falls out of mind as Claire feels the familiar warmth of the liquid around her. She tries to move and fails even more this time. Her limbs feel immobilized, coated in a layer of something she can't see. She doesn't try to open her eyes and blind herself again.
One of her first coherent questions is, "Why is Alexia here?" A following question comes a few seconds later: "Why am I not dead yet?" That makes her feel both happy and scared. Whatever concoction Alexia had given her hadn't killed her. That must be coming later.
"Yes, yes," Alexia murmurs from wherever she is outside Claire's vision, "You are looking quite pretty, darling. Just a short while more and you will be ready."
"Ready for what?" Claire asks herself. She wants answers, straining her senses out to hear any detail she can. Like it or not, Alexia is the only source of answers around. No one else has spoken to her or come to check on her. Someone else is out there, right? How long has she been like this? When had she been imprisoned by Alexia? On that note, what is even happening to her body?
"I'm sorry I failed you." Steve comes to her again, a sputtering flame in the darkness. "I swear I'll protect you next time, Claire." He must still be here, that's what she remembers. He wouldn't leave without her; they're bonded by the same goal. Stopping the Umbrella Corporation matters to them both. "Hurry, Steve," she tries to whisper through the mouthpiece, mentally reaching out as far as she can to try and find the last person she was with.
"Thinking about your precious Steve?" Claire's stomach twists at Alexia's tone, and again at the question itself. Something has happened if she is talking like this. Anger gives her strength, but not enough to move her body. She settles for glaring in the general direction of Alexia's voice with closed eyes. How does she know about that?
"You can't hide anything from me, dear," Alexia taunts from beyond the glass. "I know everything about you now. I can sense your fear, your anger towards me. I felt the exact same things when my brother woke me from cryosleep."
Cryosleep? That word sounds familiar to Claire. Almost like—
She holds Alfred's corpse in her hands, the first sight she has seen in fifteen years. Her naked flesh simmers with the lingering cold of her suspended animation even as her inner rage boils her blood. She looks to a viewscreen on a nearby wall and sees the burning wreck of a snowmobile in the Arctic wilderness. She reaches out and touches her brother's thoughts, extracting what she needs to know from his brain.
She hisses between her teeth. They will pay for this, eye for an eye, life for a life. She extends her power into the frozen wastes, a tendril of it snaking across the ice towards the location of her brother's murderers…
Claire chokes on sweet-smelling bile, which the tube quickly takes away. What was that just now? A memory? A hallucination? It felt so real, but it couldn't possibly have been her.
A haughty laugh from Alexia. "You are so amusing when you are scared, like a chicken running in circles before the fox. You crumple before me like the rest of them. Like he did."
Claire's heart drops at that. There are only a few people she knows well enough to be identified by the moniker "he". She leaps to the first conclusion, the most obvious one, the one she instinctually knows is right. The one she does not want to be right. Alexia, again showing some innate level of intuition, tells Claire, "Steve has been more receptive to my touch than you."
Claire shudders internally at the thought of having Alexia's fingers touching her body. "Too receptive, actually," Alexia continues, "he needed more time to learn his place." She sighs in a genuine manner to Claire's ears, despite the urge to not take anything Alexia says seriously. "Mutation is such a delicate subject, and my power so precise in its ways. He just didn't accept it in the end."
"No!" Claire shouts in her head, trying again to move inside her liquid cell. "You killed him! You bitch!" Her immobilized limbs grow hot as she yet again tries to move them. Yet again, she fails, something blocking her brain's orders from reaching where she wants them to go. She tries to break through this barrier and instead finds it dissipating her blows like a trampoline. The harder she attempts to punch it apart, the more vigorous it tries to catapult her back. And each time it happens she feels a sense of wrongness, that this is not what she does, not who she is.
"I won't make the same mistakes with you, Claire," Alexia says just before Claire hears a hand pressing against the glass. "I promise you that." A new noise sounds in the room before Claire can respond; a blaring alarm that sends a spike of dread through her body. She hopes Alexia feels alarmed by the alarm as well.
"Ah, duty calls elsewhere." The way Alexia says that tells Claire she is not alarmed, just surprised by this sudden interruption to her plans. "I'll be back when the next changes occur. Rest easy."
Claire's anger returns when she realizes her closest source of answers is about to make her "sleep" again. She doesn't want those drugs again. She needs answers; she has to keep Alexia talking!
"Come back!" she tries to yell. "Tell me where Steve is! Wait!" Alexia does not wait, leaving Claire to her own thoughts and horrors as the familiar tapping footsteps move away from her. After a few seconds of this, each tap echoing Claire's growing despair, something loud slams shut. Claire is alone again. She silently weeps for Steve, sure that he has died from whatever mutant virus Alexia stuck in him.
In the hands of anyone in that family, death is a very real possibility. The slasher grin of Alfred Ashford comes back to Claire as proof of that claim. She bemoans the loss of a friend until she is all spent. The urge to sleep comes back, a fragment of a chance that all this is just a nightmare she can wake up from. She just needs to forget this ever happened, and she'll wake up happy and free.
Claire does not accept that. This is too real. I need answers, not dreams. Without someone to talk to, she looks back into her past, visualizing it as a path through a darkened city. The cobblestone road she stands on is twisted, broken in several places where it should be straight and clean. The points that have Steve in them make tears spring in her eyes. Those with her other friends and family give her hope, however miniscule it is against a sinister mist. It hangs low to the path, covering the ground and clinging to anything it can.
Names are carved into the bark of some trees: Marvin, Sherry, Leon, Chris. All people she knows or should know. She trudges through the fog as it thickens into clouds, covering her legs, and then her waist, and then her chest. She feels its touch, wet and clammy like the cloying humidity one rainy night several months ago. The night when Claire saw the true monsters in the world.
Claire struggles to breathe, the fog now up to her neck. Moving forward takes tremendous effort, unseen hands dragging her down. Bubbles pop in her ears, her feet splashing against hot liquid that sears her feet. The trees crowd in, swallowing up the path as branches reach out to scratch her bare skin. Nevertheless, she continues, not willing to stop until she finds the exact treasure buried in her memory.
The trees pull back to reveal a fog-shrouded pond, about three lengths wide and four long. Despite the mist Claire can see the waist, upper body and face of someone in the water. It's someone she knows, someone who can help. Lacking the strength to call out, Claire pushes herself closer so this person will notice her. "They can help me," she tells herself as her feet start burning up, "They're someone I can trust."
The hot liquid changes to ice-cold natural water. Claire gasps at the sharp contrast, her feet numb with pain. She falls forward, into the fog, and is caught by a pair of firm hands before she fully splashes into the lake. These hands pull her towards a warm body, holding her tight. Comfort and pleasure dance in Claire's brain, stomping down confusion and surprise as she looks up to her savior's face.
"…Alexia?!"
Claire stares bug-eyed up at her captor, whose eyes blaze yellow like the Sun. Her skin looks too grey to be natural. It gives a slasher's smile before it drops Claire into the lake. Claire screams into the lake, swallowing sweet-tasting water as Alexia's hands dig into her skin with needle-sharp fingers. She flounders, unable to escape the other woman's grip as her lungs and brain fill with the same blend of drugs from before.
The last thing she sees is Alexia's smile, or more specifically what is beneath that sinister look: Genuine happiness and love.
"Breathe, Claire."
Claire breathes in through her nose, drawing fresh air into her lungs. She quickly does it again to make sure, no mouthpiece preventing her from doing so this time. She then opens her eyes, seeing only brown and yellow shades of color. No stinging liquid blinds her, but she still feels like she is floating. She tries to move and rolls around on a soft surface that works around her movements. A bed, perhaps, or something similar?
With her new freedom, Claire jumps to her feet. The world around her warps and spins, her brain not adjusting the right ways. Something weighs her down and causes her to tumble back. She crashes back onto the soft surface with a loud, "Ooomph!", the air knocked out of her lungs. Momentarily frozen, she is unable to voice her surprise to a pair of hands pressing on her head and rubbing her hair. She feels each motion flow down through her body, pleasing sparks dancing in her muscles. She pulls away before these feelings grow any stronger, spinning around and rubbing her hands over her eyes. She wants to see just who did that, vigorously rubbing to clear her vision. The tactic seems to work, new light being revealed to Claire.
The first thing Claire sees is what she lay on, a large poster bed with white covers and ornate carvings around the wooden edges. The surrounding wall and floor are covered in pieces of mirror-like glass that all join together like pieces of a puzzle. These "pieces" prevent her from seeing anything clearly. Instead they all show dark gray tentacles, glowing grey or golden eyes, exposed parts of a woman's body, and sultry smiles from many mouths. The sight of so many parts of a complete body disconcerts Claire's gaze, making it hard to focus on any one of them. She instead looks to the bed and sees a woman sitting on it cross-legged. This woman has back-length blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, wearing a purple dress with violet edges at the short sleeve's ends. White gloves cover her hands as she presses them against the bed, her feet hidden from view beneath her dress.
"Alexia." Claire stares at this woman for a moment as she smiles back. Claire then realizes she is naked compared to Alexia, probably like back in the tube. She rushes to cover herself with her hands, pressing her legs together to reduce any exposed flesh. "W-What's going on here?" she asks as her cheeks blush.
Alexia's smile stays the same. "You don't remember?" she asks. "That's a pity." There's no pity in those words, as Claire expects from someone crazy like her.
"Why am I here?" she asks Alexia. "Where's the tube?" She gets no answer beyond Alexia slightly narrowing her eyes.
Claire looks around again to get some sense for how big this place is, or if there are any features she can use to escape. Being in the same space as Alexia terrifies her now. After spending so much time in a glass tube with only Alexia to check on her, being out of the tube and in a bedroom tells Claire that time is up. The next time she blinks Alexia might kill her.
Claire looks to the "pieces" for an answer, an escape route, something to get out of here. The glass pieces fill her eyes with bare flesh and writhing organic masses, the raw imagery producing sensations she does not understand. Her stomach gnaws with hunger; her fingers and toes turn numb from extreme cold; her nipples sting from thousands of tiny teeth gnawing at the tiny buds. "What the hell is all this?" she mutters as she starts to spin around on her shaky feet, the air in her lungs burning hot with passion and primal energy.
Snap! Everything turns back to normal. Claire's face jerks to face Alexia so fast she feels her neck burn from whiplash. Alexia has a gloved hand up, the pristine smile on her face a clear sign she just did that. Claire looks at that hand, those fingers, her entire body on edge and ready for what will happen next.
"Don't be upset, Claire," Alexia tells the younger woman. "I have taken great care of you. You've been my firstborn, the first seed of my garden, for these past two months. Your body has been an exceptional breeding ground for my special virus. You will stand at my side and watch the world submit to my will."
Several facts from that statement trigger reactions from Claire, but none of them are completed. Her body remains still while her mind races around in circles. She cannot, will not accept that it has been two months since she tried to escape with Steve. Now that Steve is dead – when did he die, actually? – she is the last person Alexia needs dead to have her revenge. Is this part of that revenge?
"No," a tiny voice in Claire's brain whispers. "This is not revenge." Claire tries to accept that voice's judgement but cannot remove the fear that she is about to die. Alexia can kill her with just about anything, including that "special virus" of what she assumes is the T-Virus from Raccoon City. Considering the Arctic base is probably overrun by the infected by now, Alexia might be the only other human-like person left.
So, why isn't Claire dead yet?
"You don't see things like I do," Alexia continues, "and that's why you don't appreciate my plan. The rest of the ignorant masses think the same way. They will learn their mistake after you." She lowers her hand back to her lap, the rest of her body not shifting its perfect posture. Claire's limbs unlock themselves and she falls on all fours. The floor beneath her is filled with more mirror "pieces", the many images so close to her she can smell the blood and sweat and juices from the writhing bodies—
Claire retches, shutting her eyes but still smelling, and now also hearing, the orgy all around her. "Shut up, shut up!" she yells to the gallery beneath her, her voice slightly deeper due to the bile in her throat. "Leave me alone! I don't want this!" Her cries mix with pleasured moans and dying screeches, the groans of zombies as they rise back up and reach for her sweet living flesh. She covers her ears and curls up into a ball, hoping that will drive the monsters away into hunting easier targets.
"Chris… Steve… Leon…" Claire whispers their names into her arms, seeing their smiling faces firing guns and standing against the horde. They do not last long against the sheer weight of numbers, the combined voices of millions damned creating a symphony of death. The greatest people in Claire's life become momentary breaks in the progression and are erased. She is with them as they die, their jaws torn and their necks severed as rotting fingers rip open their chest cavities for their still-beating hearts. The T-Virus screams through all its hosts as it reaches for Claire next.
Snap! The universe freezes again, Claire mid-breath and about to be grabbed by a walking human abomination. A familiar tapping noise comes from close by, growing louder and getting closer. The vibrations it makes in the floor thrum through Claire's muscles, triggering them to relax. As if drugged, Claire's arms fall to her sides as her legs stretch out. Something warm and wet wraps around her waist and heaves her off the ground. Fingers wrapped in smooth fabric rub her neck and hold her head upright. Claire's eyelids rapidly flicker, lost in a personal nightmare far away from her body.
A breath on her neck brings Claire back to the bedroom. She looks straight ahead and sees Alexia's face, shocked as she is. Then she sees Alexia's face also next to the first's, giving that same damn smile. The first Alexia's eyes are wide with dilated pupils; the other's eyes are half-open with an icy glaze in the irises. Both Alexias look into the same mirror piece, a larger one at their height level surrounding by flanking fragments. Claire cannot turn away, both because she doesn't want to see some other horror in the pieces and because some fact just beyond her understanding is staring right back at her.
The first Alexia is naked, hair unkempt and nipples erect. The second is clothed in that purple dress, white gloves and black shoes, her arms wrapped around the first's shoulders. One of these Alexia is the actual one. The other should not exist, some illusion or trick of the mind to Claire. She tries to turn her head to break the spell… but her head does not turn away. She blinks, and the naked Alexia blinks with her. Her lips twitch along with the bound Alexia, the two either in perfect symmetry… or the exact same person.
"My face…" Claire hears Alexia's voice, smooth and vibrant, coming out of her mouth. "My voice. Where are they?" She glances at the real Alexia with cold dread. "Where is my body?"
"I am all you need, Claire." Alexia stares into her shocked eyes and leans towards her right eat. "Sleep," she whispers like a summer's breeze. Claire's mind drops out of her new body, through the floor and down, down into darkness.
"Wake."
The word vibrates through Claire's bones, a command that she cannot disobey. Her eyes snap open as she draws in a deep breath. The darkness disperses to reveal a larger bedroom from before, but with actual walls and floors instead of glass shards. A few moments to glance around reveals red wallpaper, a wooden floor, a stone relief against one wall, a carved wooden shelf with a few drawers and a bed with a veil on all four sides against another wall.
It's Alexia's bedroom, right down to the relief being the same kind of goddess she saw when she had explored that space of the Ashford estate. Even the portraits of Alexia and Ashford are on the dressing table. No, hold on, there is one difference: A full-body mirror with gold frames is placed between the relief and the dressing table. Alexia is here, too, standing by the shelf. She still wears her clothes as she places a record inside the music box. After she closes the lid a quiet tune starts to play, tinkling notes playing a lullaby that rings in Claire's heart as much as Alexia's.
"There was a friendly but naive King
Who wed a very nasty Queen.
The King was loved but
The Queen was feared…"
Wait, how does she know these words? She has never heard this before, in her voice or Alexia's. She can't know something she's never seen or done before. She isn't Alexia, she's Claire Redfield!
Not anymore, you're not.
Alexia hums along with the music for a few moments before turning to face Claire, her gaze binding Claire to the floor. "Welcome back," she tells the spellbound woman. "I hope you like my room. Well, you've been in here before, so you know how it is supposed to look. Speaking of…" Alexia leaves Claire hanging as she walks to a larger closet and opens its doors. Inside is a large collection of dresses and gowns with matching shoes and various accessories. Each piece of clothing is meticulously arranged by an expert mind in fashion, far more than Claire sometimes does with her clothes.
Alexia looks through the collection for some specific item, moving things aside with quick motions without damaging the items. Freed from the direct gaze of her captor, Claire gains enough confidence to ask, "How are you doing this?" up front. Alexia replies without looking back at her: "I control everything you feel, all your senses at my beck and call. My touch, my strain is in your blood and working its magic. It's only a matter of time."
"I'll find a way out of this. I've done so before."
"So, you escaped the Raccoon City infestation all on your own?" She asks this quite casually, like a friend bringing up an embarrassing moment. Claire sputters out some words and tries to form a coherent answer. Her gut feelings about that time remind her she does not have much ground to stand on now. Hell, she doesn't have her own body anymore. What good will come from lying beyond delaying her eventual demise?
There's another way. That tiny voice in Claire's head grows louder, more prominent. You just don't see it.
"If you can't protect yourself, who will keep you safe? Who will protect you in this cold and dark world?" Alexia looks to Claire as her hands stop on an exact duplicate of her own purple dress, the same violet on the edge of the sleeves and the same extensions to the skirt. Those blue eyes shimmer with a knowing light, a sign that she knows exactly what Claire is going to say. Impossible as it sounds, Claire can't remove that possibility. She scrounges her brain for an answer. A few names come up, one especially strong one generating a burst of hope in her heart.
"Chris will help me," she says, convincing herself that this will indeed happen. Alexia raises an eyebrow, a clear sign of displeasure or disdain. It upsets Claire at a deep level, like she just pissed on someone's priceless family heirloom.
"Your brother? Is that all?" Alexia's smirk remains plastered on her pristine image, waiting for Claire's confirmation or denial. Claire finds it hard to force the words out, to speak what is most likely a fib against this woman. Her life rests on the line, but she has faced deadly situations with a steady heart and a keen eye. Speaking against Alexia scares her more than those times, and she cannot figure out why.
You just don't see it yet.
Claire forces her answer out into the room, telling it to all inhabitants. "There's Steve, Leon, and others. They care about me. They're looking for me right now!" It is easier to speak her mind the more she does it, even with a growing sense of wrongness. This isn't right, she shouldn't be disagreeing with Alexia, no matter how good it feels.
Alexia's smile returns, her eyebrow dropping back into place. "They've been looking for the past two months without success. If they haven't given up already, that is." Alexia grins at the shock on Claire's face at hearing this little secret. Her lie is blown wide open by her own reaction, and they both know it. Even the stone relief watching them both knows it.
Despite the blow to her composure, Claire struggles on towards the distant light of escaping this mad woman's control. "They'll find me, and they'll stop you!"
Alexia openly laughs, her voice rippling like waves against rock, slowly smashing them down along with Claire's willpower. "Stop me? Are you saying you can't even do that on your own?" Claire hisses through gritted teeth as Alexia gives her the full force of her gaze, eyes alight with a predator's strength. "Are you not the strong Claire Redfield who infiltrated the Umbrella Corporation's Paris facility to find her brother? The same Claire Redfield who killed so many of the T-Virus's creations? The amazing Claire Redfield who fell in love with the murderer of my darling brother?"
Words fail Claire. Proper responses fly away and leave her behind. She feels two inches tall against this giant of a woman. Her heart thunders at the prospect of having Alexia's undivided attention. That feels right. That feels good. Claire feels a twinge of disappointment when Alexia turns back to her closet and pulls out the dress she had stopped at before. She grabs the matching black shoes in one hand while holding the dress in the other, places both items on the bed, and walks back towards Claire. Claire tries to move and realizes she is, once again, bound in place.
That feels right. That feels good. The weak must be bound to the strong. Claire's muscles clench as she realizes how right that feels. Her eyes watch Alexia as she hums a few more notes of the record's lullaby and places a hand on Claire's shoulders. A light push spins Claire around to face the full-body mirror, her new body on full display. The tentacle from earlier is gone, nothing is holding her down save for Alexia's hands. She can try to get away… and then she looks in the mirror.
Claire looks beautiful. She has Alexia's face, her form, her figure, and she is beautiful. No, she tells herself, this isn't me. So, she imagines her actual body, the one she wants to have. The mirror's reflection actually forms that image, twisting flesh and reshaping muscle. Hope gushes in Claire's heart at the sight of her proper form. She smiles, genuinely smiles at this comforting sight. It does not matter she is naked and displaying herself to another person. She looks at herself and sees beauty in Alexia's nude image.
"Look at us, Claire," Alexia whispers into Claire's ear. She complies, breathing quietly to get every word. "We are the same now, carved from the same stone and forged in the same fire. We are shining, golden examples of power. My power."
Claire's smile withers, faltering with a growing feeling of dread. What just happened?
"Stand straight." Claire's body instantly adjusts, limbs tightening and shifting to a rigid stance. "Arms up, to the sides." The limbs obey, hands drooping from frozen wrists. Claire's reflection, the naked Alexia, is beautifully terrified, a perfect painting of a damsel in distress. She shuts her eyes, trying to block out this like before, pushing the nightmares away.
"Oh no, it's not that simple." Alexia's hands pull away from Claire's shoulders. "Eyes open, facing forward." Her eyelids snap up, a choking gasp escaping her throat at the sudden act. Something in Alexia's voice makes her obey, some higher authority that her body yields to. It then waits for further instructions, not heeding Claire's individual concerns.
"Watch me dress you, Claire," Alexia tells her. "You are my sweet little doll for me to put beautiful clothes on. My toy to play with as I please." She leaves Claire like that, motionless and waiting, as the record begins to play the same lullaby over again. Claire's eyes stare into the mirror, no further orders given to break her posture. Her body is now a prison. The whimper in her throat does not leave her closed lips. The weak must be bound by the strong.
Alexia comes back into view holding the dress. She moves Claire's arms and hands up above her head, pauses for a lingering moment to stare at her clenched tummy and straining muscles, and then slips the dress down over Claire's head. A few quick movements Claire does not see get her arms through the sleeves. The fabric feels surprisingly soft for so fashionable a dress, and it covers everything down to her ankles. Alexia brings Claire's arms back to their previous position and smooths out any wrinkles, meticulously looking over every inch.
Claire's chest burns with gladness and pride. Alexia isn't taking advantage of her here like other people might. She genuinely cares for her, taking the time to make sure she looks perfect. She is worth her attention, her care, and maybe even her love. A part of Claire screams that isn't her thinking properly, that she's being manipulated. She doesn't listen to that part; it makes her feel unhappy. She wants to be happy.
Alexia notices Claire's roving eyes. They make eye contact, and she smiles. Claire smiles back, overjoyed that she is not in the wrong. "When the Queen of a hive is pleased," she explains without regarding if Claire knows what she is talking about, "her subjects echo that pleasure within themselves. Everyone is better for it. If I am happy, you are happy."
Claire can't help but smile back. Alexia is happy. She is happy with me. I am happy she is happy. She feels her face glow with her happiness as Alexia returns to her work, returning herself back to her enrapturing reflection. The things about a "Queen" of a "hive" does not matter to her, and her reflection wholeheartedly agrees. They both raise their feet for Alexia to place on the shoes, her toes stepping into the same warmth and comfort as the rest of her.
Alexia then walks out of Claire's immediate sight, but the mirror shows her going to the dresser and pulling one of the drawers open. She pulls a few things out and walks back to Claire before revealing them. A pair of snow-white gloves and a black choker with a red brooch at its center rest in her hands. Claire watches in amazement as Alexia slides the gloves on her immobile arms like a fresh coat of paint. Beneath the gloves is more warmth, comfort, happiness that loosens all tension in the muscles beneath. Despite this, Claire's arms stay upright, obeying their last order.
Claire feels a lump in her throat as Alexia's hands move to her neck. She feels the choker's black cord pull tight against her skin, not digging into the flesh but still leaving a mark. Alexia ties it off at the back as Claire looks at herself again. The brooch glows on her neck, a fire to echo her heart's awakened passion.
I am happy here. The thoughts Claire once considered intrusive and wrong now rush in without restraint. I am happy with Alexia. I am –
SNAP!
Claire is alone.
Darkness surrounds her, her clothing gone. Silence overwhelms her, all sound erased. The nothingness stretches out infinitely in all directions. Nothing else is close enough for her to see or touch other than the darkness. She waits a few seconds in case things are going to change again, and when that doesn't work, she reaches out with her hands. She holds nothing but the void, the infinite of isolation.
Tears spring to her eyes. Her hardened composure cracks against a towering wave of worthlessness. Everyone she knows is either searching for her without success, or dead from trying to save her. Two months have gone by without help. By this point many people will have given up the search and moved on with their lives. Chris, the person that brought her down the path of Umbrella and the T-Virus to begin with, is almost certainly among those people. She has no one else to turn to, no shoulder to cry on, no friend to give her a quick joke and a wink.
She weeps at her despair. Hot tears stream down her cheeks and fall into the darkness, becoming one with it. She feels ashamed she cannot join those tears, snuff out all the bad things of her life in a single drop of water.
"Claire…" A voice comes from the void, breaking the silence. She listens for it, and it sounds again. "Claire…"
"Alexia?" Claire knows it is that woman, the one who has done all this. The person she wants to be with the most right now.
"Claire, come to me. Come here and join me." And just like that, darkness changes to light. Claire breathes in hot air and a sweet scent. She stands before a large square bath, water bubbling up in the center from somewhere deep beneath the ground. There is no light from above, but the spring's waters glow the same red as Alexia's brooch. This reveals someone standing inside the spring, the water going up to their thighs: Alexia herself.
She beckons to Claire, hooking her with the curve of a finger. Claire comes forward, stepping into the spring without hesitation. All she feels is the pull of Alexia, the lure of her power, the raw strength she wields over other people. The spring's water feels slimy and sticky, but she does not care. Her eyes lock onto Alexia's hand, hypnotized by its motions. She walks up into Alexia's grasp for the chance to be near someone else again.
Alexia is naked just like her. They are now completely identical in body, and nearly so in mind. The only difference is that one Alexia knows the other is stronger. The parts of Claire that call herself "Claire" fight a loosing battle against a growing truth that Claire is Alexia. They fight hard, and Claire's gaze wavers as her head begins to ache.
Alexia cups Claire's breasts with her hands, rubbing the skin and skirting the nipples with delicate passes. She whispers truth into Claire's warring mind that swings the tide in her favor. "Feel my hand on your flesh, my flesh, my touch on my skin. You feel this pleasure, my pleasure, in my most tender places."
Alexia takes Claire's hands and puts them on her own breasts. The mesmerized woman automatically copies Alexia's motions, trying to echo the feelings she is getting. Alexia's body responds in a positive way as Claire's own nipples become erect. She feels the heat growing in her loins, breathing harder and faster as it mounts to greater heights. Her vision blurs from the pleasure, the passion that Alexia is willingly sharing with her. She tilts her head back to let out a long moan while Alexia's fingers and thumbs lightly scratch her skin.
The spring's water grows hotter, the bubbling louder and stronger. Claire rubs Alexia's nipples for a few seconds until her pleasure grows too great to ignore. Her arms slump, her shoulders sag, and she falls straight into Alexia's grasp. Strong, firm arms wrap around her and pull her up close, embracing her with protective strength. Claire's head presses right against Alexia's chest, just above her breasts so that she feels Alexia's erect nipples against her neck.
"Tell me how you feel." Alexia's command joins with the thundering pleasure, the aching need to please and be pleased. Claire mumbles a few syllables into Alexia's chest before the taller woman pulls her head back and lets her speak.
"Good," she slurs out, disregarding how degrading she must look to Alexia. "Happy. Horny."
Alexia smiles in that knowing way Claire recognizes as good. "That's good, Claire," she says. "That's right, because I feel that way, too. It's in my eyes, Claire, all my happiness for you is in my eyes. Look into my eyes and see my happiness."
Claire obeys, yearning to see the fruit of her labors. "Hah… ha… happy." She sees Alexia's icy blue eyes filled with many emotions: dashes of anger, pieces of hatred, slivers of heartbreak. But there is also love and happiness, so much love and happiness it is maddening. No one person should feel this good, but the proof is staring back at her. And all that happiness is hers, Claire Redfield's. Alexia is happy because of her, because she loves her, because she wants her.
Claire's lips peel back, the euphoric smile now a twisted grin of insane bliss. "So happy. Happy. Happy! I'm so happy!" She lets out barking laughter, pupils shrinking into tiny slits as she gasps for more sweet-scented air. Her ears roar from the rushing blood in her veins, blood filled with Alexia's touch and happiness, so much happiness she feels it fill every cell it can reach.
"My dear Claire." Alexia's right hand moves down Claire's body as her left holds Claire's head steady to keep looking into her eyes. "My dear sister." The moving hand reaches between Claire's legs and skirts the opening to her most precious sanctum. Claire shivers a tiny bit, the final bastions of her sanity holding the line at all costs.
"My little Alexia. Be mine, forever."
She thrusts her hand upward and in. Claire gasps as, at the same moment, Alexia's eyes change from blue to blinding gold. Struck dumb from Alexia's command, Claire drops into the spring, only for several tentacles to rise from the roaring water and form a makeshift bed for her before she hits the water. Alexia comes down with Claire as they both crash into the bed, the flesh around them writhing along with Claire as she feels Alexia's happiness penetrate her core.
"Feel it, Claire. Your pleasure, your bliss, are mine. YOU are mine!" Alexia takes one of Claire's hands and presses it onto her chest. The steady lub-DUB lub-DUB of a heartbeat travels through Claire's body and to her own heart, uniting them in carnal pleasure. Claire's other hand flops around on the bed as Alexia's penetrating hand starts to rhythmically move out and back in again.
Claire tries to keep eye contact with Alexia as she rides out the sensations being given to her. "I'm yours! I'm yours!" she screams, and Alexia rewards her with an extra-hard thrust. Claire squeals as her toes curl for a moment before the two women fall back into a pattern, one moving forward and the other sliding back. Claire also squeezes Alexia's breast whenever she remembers to do so, to properly share her pleasure.
"I'm making you feel this way, Claire," Alexia explains, sweat staining her face as her hair sticks to her skin. "I am making you feel happy."
"T-Thank you! Thank you!" Claire continues to babble her gratitude towards Alexia, her Alexia, the source of the greatest happiness she has ever known. Alexia starts to move faster, breathe harder, her heart beating louder in time with her motions. In the throes of passion Claire sees Alexia's skin start to turn gray like stone, her eyes still bright with golden light.
Chitinous growths emerge on Alexia's shoulders and arms as Claire watches without really caring. "You're so close now," she tells Claire, "so close to your happiness you can taste it!"
"So close…" Claire's tongue lolls out of her mouth, saliva sliding down her chin and cheeks. She reaches out to taste that happiness, this primal feeling she never knew about. She even licks the tentacle-bed around her, the flesh warm and sticky like cooked meat steeped in sauces. Her taste buds burn, their pain fueling her pleasure even higher. She feels the end coming, a tipping point to this passion where she will experience the greatest happiness she can imagine. She shuts her eyes again, grunting and moaning as Alexia pumps her hand in and out like a piston with audible shlicking noises.
The point does not come. Claire searches for something that never appears. Her wanting turns to yearning, and then despairing, and then outright pleading. She shouts expletives and curses alongside compliments and praises towards the true Alexia, the greater Alexia.
"Say it." Alexia's voice, like always, cuts deep into Claire's mind. "I know what you want, and I want you to say it."
Claire opens her eyes and sees Alexia transformed. Her hair is now a large singular mass that stretches over of her eyes. Her skin is now composed of thousands of grey scales, her veins and arteries a darker shade and engorged with blood. Her heartbeat feels immensely strong, the vibrations in tandem with her thrusts into Claire's sopping vagina. No longer human, Claire realizes this is the true Alexia that has watched her all along.
Claire leans forward slightly, getting closer to this avatar of her Alexia. She smiles at it like the Alexia she knows and loves, the one she will serve and obey. "Make me happy, my Queen!" she begs like a lowly servant should. "Make me yours!"
Alexia gives a perfectly human smile with shining eyes, and then gives one final thrust while using her thumb to rub Claire's exposed clitoris. Claire screams her happiness to the heavens, riding Alexia's rigid hand as she tips over the edge and falls all the way down. Blood flows out alongside her juices as Alexia's sharpened fingers cut into her inner walls. She doesn't see or feel the tentacles beneath her moving, changing position to suit their creator's desire. The fleshy limbs extend over the joined lovers as Alexia presses her body against Claire's.
Two bodies melt together, guided by Alexia's will. The feet join first, then the legs, and then the thighs. Claire's orgasmic high rebounds back up for a second round when she feels Alexia's pleasure fuse with her own. Combined like this, Alexia's touch breaches all of Claire's defenses and takes what it wants, destroying the rest with animalistic vigor. Alexia mashes Claire's lips in a deep kiss before Claire can scream herself hoarse, their tongues dancing as their bellies and chests become one.
Claire's mind sings to the stars in the language of sex and love as their faces and minds combine. I'm joining with Alexia! I am one with my Queen! I'm so happy!
A loud hissing noise fills the lab along with a wave of cold air. The mouthpiece detaches itself from Claire and hangs limp in the air. The warm liquid around her body flows down and away, out of her sight and mind. The glass rises up and away in the same manner, exposing Claire's body to the colder air of the lab. She instantly reacts, nipples hardening and skin tingling as she steps onto the lab's floor with bare feet. She is not embarrassed by her nudity, not even when she sees someone looking at her from a control terminal at one wall of the room.
"A-Alexia…" Claire stutters when she sees the person she serves in the real world, sporting her former human form in the same dress she wore in Claire's visions. "My Queen." Claire lowers her head to the floor, pressing her forehead against the cold metal as she prostrates before her sovereign ruler. She struggles to not smile blissfully at the sight of her lover and ruler.
"My servant." Alexia's voice gives Claire pleasure, even more that is directed towards her. "Stand up." She obeys, ready for further orders and willing to wait as long as she needs to hear them. Alexia steps towards her with a pleased smile; Claire smiles back, feeling her own pleasure that Alexia is pleased. I am happy that my Queen is happy.
Alexia stops before Claire, eyes trailing across her body and taking in every detail. Claire hopes it is to her Queen's liking. She takes Claire's chin in a hand and looks into her eyes. The two blue orbs, a facade that hides the golden beauty beneath, remind Claire of her place.
"You serve your Queen," Alexia tells her creation. "You serve me."
"I serve my Queen. I serve you, Alexia." Claire repeats these words in her heart, hammering them into truth. "How may I serve?" she asks in the hopes of gaining even further happiness from her love.
"Dispel your old self. It is useless to me, now. I am happy with you like this."
Claire obeys. She searches in her mind, her Queen's unique strain of the T-Virus moving through her bloodstream and guiding her thoughts. She finds pockets of resistance, signs that another identity used to live here. She moves to exterminate them, to fill these holes with the joys of serving her Queen. She shivers when she fails to stop them, her old self shedding off her attacks without harm.
Claire looks back to Alexia with terror in her eyes. "I cannot do it. My Queen, I'm sorry…" She trails off, anticipating some form of punishment for her disobedience. Alexia's only sign of displeasure is a small sigh. Claire knows that she knows that Claire is speaking the truth, Alexia's viral mutations connecting their thoughts with each other.
"Then, lock it away," she tells Claire. "Keep it from ever coming back. I will be happy with that."
That sounds easier to Claire. She locates each enemy piece and covers it with thoughts and commands. She binds them with the sincerest truths of her new identity, the rules she follows as guided by her Queen. One of these truths is the name she carries, her old identity of "Claire Redfield" anathema to her new self. Claire is independent, emotional and compassionate. These are not good traits for a Queen's servant. She must take a name more fitting for her role.
Claire closes her eyes for a second, and then opens them with newfound purpose. "My name is…" She pauses as she forms the words on her tongue. "My name is Alexandra. I live to serve Queen Alexia."
"Alexandra." Hearing Alexia's voice say her name gives the servant unbridled joy. "Listen closely, Alexandra…"
[6 DAYS LATER]
"At last, I've found you, Alexia." The man in the combat vest, pants and boots stands at the bottom of the stairway, gloved fists clenched as he looks at the Ashford sibling at the pathway's top. "Come with me." He stares at Alexia unflinching, his eyes an inhuman red.
"Albert Wesker." The man stops as his feet climb the first few steps. "I've heard great things about you." She lets this fact sink in, intending to intimidate this intruder into her home, but he continues his ascent without fear. Alexia feels some respect towards him, the name "Albert Wesker" a source of great accomplishment in the Umbrella Corporation. Her anger towards him as an intruder comes first, though.
"You are responsible for the creation of the T-Veronica virus," Wesker says with cool confidence as he walks, "and now the only existing sample is in your body." He extends a hand towards Alexia, open to take something. "I want it. Now!"
"I'm afraid I must decline," Alexia replies with a shake of her head. "You are not worthy of its power!" She steps down towards him and releases her hold over her human self. Wesker's eyes widen as she changes before his eyes, shedding her clothes and skin in favor of the virus pumping through her bloodstream. Fire, born from that blood, burns on her skin before chitinous growths spread over her legs, arms and chest as armor. Her hair, now a writhing mass of tendrils, drapes over one eye as the other shines a brilliant gold.
Wesker's momentary pause is very nearly his undoing as Alexia punches him into the air. He flips in midair, inhuman speed providing him the dexterity to land on his feet. Alexia leaps after him and onto the lower floor, Wesker dodging her strike. His confidence returns as he tells Alexia, "You're coming with me."
Alexia does not answer. Instead, something else knocks Wesker to the ground from behind, slamming him to the floor. He grunts out, "What the?!" as he struggles with this new enemy. He manages to grab onto a scaly arm and jerk it down towards him. This elicits a feminine cry of pain as Wesker spins around and hurls a fist into where he thinks the assailant's face is. His guess is correct, the punch striking a woman's chin and knocking her across the room. Wesker leaps to his feet as he glances between Alexia and this new threat. His eyes widen again when he sees the second enemy clearly; a copy of Alexia herself.
"Two of you? How is this possible?"
The second Alexia gives Wesker a mocking grin as the first cuts her arm with a finger. She then hurls some of her blood in Wesker's direction, the liquid igniting in the air. Wesker leaps for the wall and runs along its surface to avoid the flames. The second Alexia tosses some of her own blood at him, but he leaps off the wall towards the first Alexia before he gets burned. A punch to the first Alexia's face sends her reeling, Wesker rolling the landing as the second charges him with a battle cry. She tosses a larger ball of blood at him that he tries to dodge, and mostly succeeds.
The explosion of fire breaks apart a stone pillar near the edge of the room. Wesker pats down the flames on his vest as someone else rolls away from the broken stone. He turns to face them and sees a man he knows all too well: "Chris!"
"Wesker…" The revealed Chris Redfield stands up and glares at the man responsible for so many deaths, so much suffering at the hands of the Umbrella Corporation. He moves to draw his sidearm but stops when the two Alexia's laugh in a single voice.
"At last!" the first one says as she recovers from Wesker's strike. "I've waited for you, Chris."
"Just like Wesker here," the second one chimes in as she stands by the stairway's railing, "I've heard of your talents. But the source of your skills comes from a much more personal source."
Chris is dumbfounded for a moment, cold dread freezing him in place. Then, he draws his gun on the two T-Virus monsters. "Where have you taken Claire?" he shouts at them, breaking his usual composure at the thought of his sister being in this place. "I know she's here! Tell me!"
"Your sister serves me, her Queen." The second Alexia places a hand over her grey chest, covering an exposed breast and the heart beneath. "I have made her happier than you ever did, and she will be even happier when you join her!" Both women laugh again as they simultaneously advance towards the two men. Chris keeps his gun trained on them while Wesker starts shifting to one side. They both calculate the odds of fighting, and winning, this battle.
"Chris," Wesker says to his former comrade-in-arms, "since you're one of my best men, I'll let you deal with this… situation." He then charges forward, ducking beneath the first Alexia as she swipes at him with a clawed hand. Rolling out from the dive, the Umbrella Corp. soldier then bursts out of the front door and into the Arctic snow outside a second before the second Alexia's fiery blood envelops the ornate object.
A short, "Hmmph!" makes Chris forget about an escape route for now. "He is not worth my time," one Alexia states with cold disdain. The other adds, "Not when we have a much better opponent right here," as she steps towards Chris with a wild glint in her visible eye. Chris sees many feelings in that eye, most of them ones he does not like.
The seasoned soldier draws another pistol, dual wielding them in both hands and keeping track of both mutated women at once. "Where the hell is my sister?!"
Alexia – the Queen and her servant – leap at him with outstretched claws and burning cuts along their scales, eager to bring him into their happiness.
Alright, that's the story. I know it ends on a cliffhanger, but I figured it should end on a high note rather than peter out into a worse ending.
Any feedback you can give to this story will be great to see.
Draconos is taking off!