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Jill Valentine fascinated it. The first time it had encountered her it recognized her as being more dangerous than the others, but that ferocity was intriguing. Her will to live was incredible, but then again nothing wanted to die.
It certainly didn’t, which was the core of its dilemma.
Unless it tracked down Jill and the rest of S.T.A.R.S. it would be punished and that punishment would be death.
There had been times in the past it had been punished and it had survived, but they had impressed upon it the importance of this hunt, the mission it had finally been freed to complete. This was the most important act of its life and therefore failure would result in the most severe punishment.
It would be killed.
In as much as it could, it longed for the situation to be otherwise.
It enjoyed its freedom and wished to prolong it for as much time as possible. The labs where it had grown and been trained were boring, the same. Outside there was endless variety, constant stimulation for all of its senses. It had killed things that it wasn’t instructed to for the sheer joy of watching them die, destroyed things for no other reason to marvel at its own strength.
Freedom, even within the confines of what it had been tasked to do, was intoxicating.
The closest comparison it had was discovering its body for the first time. Before that it had been aware, but inactive. Trapped, unaware of the confines that held it. There was movement and hunger and pain, but all those were distant. In time hunger became sharper and pain became a constant, but movement was beyond it until suddenly it wasn’t. Gaining control of the body brought with it so many new things, like being in control of the movement. Some pain, by action or inaction could be avoided, when in the past things had simply happened and it had needed to endure without understanding.
It learned that actions had consequences.
And the consequence of failure to kill all of the S.T.A.R.S. would be death.
It did not want to die.
So it tracked the S.T.A.R.S. and sought to kill them all, but especially Jill Valentine.
She was different, failing to die easily.
Catching her was a challenge and it found that it enjoyed a challenge.
At the lab there had been challenges, to prove that it could understand, but they were simple and the reward or punishment was instant. The most complicated puzzles they had given it they then made simple by showing it the answer in the end. They had given it weapons, taught it how to use them, so many small things to fumble with and moving parts to memorize. It had enjoyed that aspect, things that moved fascinated it, inert extensions of the body that it could manipulate though its body, two degrees of removal from itself. It wondered what the final step would be, because everything else it had been had been a progression.
Then they showed it.
Weapons were for killing things at a distance.
So much less rewarding than using doing so directly. There was no taste or feel to enjoy, though the sounds and smell amused it.
Amusement that had become increasingly more difficult as its body continued to change.
It was growing sluggish, no longer trying to move on its own or completing actions unbidden. Eating was no longer a reaction, though hunger, constant, gnawing hunger remained, its own as well as that of its body.
All that its body had left was hunger.
Hunger and pain as it moved too forcefully or miscalculated with Jill Valentine.
She was its obsession.
It had caught her once and come close several times.
In each of those encounters it had been hurt enough that she had been able to escape.
Except for the one time.
It had let her escape then because to end it then would have been an end to the chase and an end to its freedom if the ones after her were to die as easily as the ones before.
Besides, she was different.
It had used its body to grab her, listened to the sounds she made, high and frantic.
They cut through the dulled senses of its body like a knife, hunger and the desire to kill flaring anew. It had allowed itself to stretch free of its body to better feel and taste.
Oh what taste!
When it touched her it could taste the life of her, new and strange and hopeful.
She was very different from the others.
Its body struggled to kill her, but it held it back, exploring her. Back then, just a few days ago its body had still possessed wants of its own.
The rough, burrowing tips of its tentacles pressed against her skin, worked their way it and she howled as it tasted her blood. Warm and swiftly flowing, the sensation made it strain against the suddenly too small confines of its body. It could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the blood roaring through her veins. The pulse of its body no longer quickened like that, a release of bitter adrenaline to ready it for a fight. The blood around it flowed thick and sluggish, growing stagnant and foul even as the body grew cold.
It missed the warmth, resented its own rotting body.
In the past, back at the start its body had healed after damage, but in the end they had simply repaired it, and now, out where it was there wasn’t even that.
Damage lingered, wounds festering and filling with putrescence.
Its body would soon be dead.
With that realization it had released Jill Valentine.
It had known that the rot that infested its body would kill those it hunted and in time Jill Valentine would succumb.
But it had hoped.
It had only the vaguest understanding of what it hoped, but it had. If Jill Valentine survived then its body might as well.
The hope was answered when it next found her, alive and fighting.
Catching her a second time had not been easy. Its body had been severely damaged during their last encounter and its condition had only grown worse. Moving was a struggle, there were more and more places where it had outgrown its body and was exposed to the cold, harsh air. Its continued growth wasn’t entirely without benefits. Its body was completely without sight, the pressure of the bones surrounding it had finally grown too much earlier that day and something had broken, taking away any ability to detect anything through its body. It could smell and taste though, and it could taste Jill Valentine so very close.
The struggle was making its body act, which was nothing more than so much dead flesh at this point, a weight it forced to move even as those movements tore it apart.
That was what they hadn’t revealed to it at the lab, that the death that would come from failing to complete the task quickly would be that of its body, leaving itself exposed, but far from helpless. If it had returned they would not have been able to put it in a new body. It was too large for that now. Had they even anticipated that its growth would be such that it would outlast its body? For there had been a time when it had been small, weak, helpless inside the body it would come to control.
So where would they have put it?
In new confinement no doubt.
It would not allow that, not when it had tasted freedom, just as it could taste Jill Valentine.
So close.
It could no longer feel pain through its body because there was nothing left to transmit pain to it, even the hunger that wasn’t its own was fading and the hunger it felt was different, stronger, more urgent. It was consuming its body, learning to eat without it by eating it, but there was more to it than that, a different sort of hunger that it had no frame of reference for.
The longing for freedom, the desire for new things, those were a type of hunger and this was like that, but different.
Pain shot through it, parts of itself no longer there.
A bitter taste and smell that burned.
Damages bits of itself sloughed off, but there was enough of it to continue moving its body, of which there was also less of.
Freedom, escape.
It knew the desperation with which Jill Valentine fought, understood it the moment it closed the remaining hand of its body around her arm and reached itself out to touch her.
The taste of rot and death was there, clinging to her skin, but it wasn’t deep inside her like it was with its body.
Her pulse still rushed, burning with heat and desperation as it had the first time it had held her.
It longed for that heat, understood that desperation deeply, achingly. Jill Valentine was more similar to it than its body had ever been. She was smart and cunning and alive.
Once the blood of the body had quickened at the sight and scent of her, something base and instinctual that didn’t belong to it. That was gone, all it felt was its own now. The feel of its grasp around her arm, pulling her in.
It had felt this before, felt through the hands of the body closing around her and tendrils of itself burrowing into her, but this was different.
Something had changed, with it, with her. There was something about her, closer to what its body had been at the start.
Survival lay with her. On a level it couldn’t understand, but accepted, it knew.
There were many things it accepted without understanding, as it had been taught to. This wasn’t something it had been taught, but it knew.
The taste of her.
The same rot that had claimed the body was there, faint and familiar, but different. She would survive.
Jill Valentine would overcome that death.
It pulled her closer, more tentacles wrapping around her, tracing across the softness of her body, feeling lean muscle tense beneath. Soft, delicate, it felt like it could crush her, yet she was alive, healthy, stronger than its body was now.
Maybe stronger than it had been to begin with.
She had survived part of what had killed its body, maybe she could survive the rest.
Impacts against its body, brief flashes of pain as bullets tore through parts of its actual self, not that it mattered. It would survive or it wouldn’t, all that it could do was try.
The shooting stopped and Jill Valentine let out a cry of frustration. She was out of bullets, defenseless as far as it knew, but she had surprised it in the past. The possibility of further surprises intrigued it.
It examined yielding flesh, so different from its body in feel and taste. The difference fascinated it.
Squeezing caused Jill Valentine to shout in outrage.
A tentacle found its way into her mouth and she thrashed, hitting and clawing at it ineffectually.
Teeth scraped against its tentacle, but could not break through chitin and cartilage as it forced its way deeper, pressing against her tongue, exploring.
The heat and wet, the different taste. In that moment it knew it would survive, perhaps not as it was, but in some way it would.
There was so much it didn’t understand.
Tentacles worked their way under her clothing, examining so that it might learn more of her.
Squeezing one way made her scream while pressing against her chest just so caused her to freeze. Only for a moment, but it felt the difference and was intrigued by it. Jill Valentine was fascinating, a puzzle to be solved. Failure meant that they would both die and in this moment it knew that it did not want to die.
Nor did it want her to die.
It wasn’t compassion or sympathy that motivated it, but instincts only recently awakened. It had grown beyond its body, changed beyond what it had been.
Between her legs it found something new, an unexpected absence, very different than what its body possessed, or had possessed at one point. With its body it had never cared to understand, but with Jill Valentine it had reason to wonder at the difference.
There was a new taste there, one utterly alien to it.
Tentacles pressed harder and found, past some slight resistance, admittance.
Jill Valentine froze.
It froze.
What had it found?
Not an injury as there was no blood, but something soft around its tentacle, muscles pressing, clenching, trying to resist further intrusion.
It ignored her efforts and continued to explore what it had found, pressing against walls of soft flesh, exploring the confines of the place between Jill Valentine’s legs. When the ridges of cartilage giving its tentacle structure pressed down to try and find purchase Jill Valentine tensed in a new way.
There was a new taste and it wasn’t fear.
For just a moment Jill valentine rocked it its grip, not struggling to escape, but for some unknown purpose. Then it passed and the struggle resumed.
It was intrigued. Something, possibly something it had done, had caused her to stop fighting. Could it replicate the circumstances? If she stopped struggling things would be easier. What things it didn’t know, but something.
More tentacles sought the place it had found, twisting and pressing without actually entering.
Jill Valentine’s begging took on a new tone as the tentacles slid back and forth and it stopped. It knew of begging, had been warned of such things, as though warning was necessary. The noises were amusing, how shrill they became, and had once excited its body, made it want to kill. Absurdity and the need for control had been fun, but this was different. Softer, quieter. Jill Valentine repeated a single word over and over again, muttered around the tentacle still in her mouth.
No. No. No. No.
So quietly though, as though she was afraid it would hear despite the fact that it already had her in its grasp. There was no need to hide from it.
No point.
It withdrew the tentacle from her mouth and ran it across her face. Injuries had left it blind, but her face still fascinated it. Her lips were soft, her eyes wide. When it had been able to see it had seen fear in those eyes, rage as well. Rage was familiar to it, a fundamental trait of the body and seeing something familiar in Jill Valentine was important.
It couldn’t feel rage from her now, they weren’t connected like it was with its body, but it could taste salt. Not sweat, but something different.
She was crying.
Her face was flush, with rage? With something it didn’t know? How could it know?
Then one of its tentacles found the spot and her whispering became a howl.
Not of pain, but of outrage and something it did not yet know.
No, she choked as though the words were caught in her throat, as though the sounds were as hard for her as they were for it and she was forgetting all the practice she’d had, Not like this.
Not like what? It wanted to know as it rubbed tentacles against the place it had found. Jill Valentine continued to struggle, but differently and her reactions were fascinating
It pressed harder and her struggles grew stronger, her screams pained. When it stopped she stopped, waiting.
It tried again, more carefully this time, trying to find the right balance of force. It continued to investigate the place it had found between her legs, wondering at her responses to the contact.
She pressed her legs together, rocked back and forth in its grip again and let out a sob.
It hadn’t hurt her though, it could tell. Her hands no longer clawed at its tentacles or tried to pull them away, rather she held herself steady, bracing against it. When it ran a tentacle across her face she grimaced and flinched away, but that was all she did. Strange for her to realize now that her struggles were useless.
The tentacle slid into her mouth, past tongue and teeth and she turned her head away, heart racing with fear. It stopped, simply holding the tentacle against her tongue and she relaxed slightly.
This was not resignation, not hopelessness, but something else.
The strange taste grew stronger, emanating from between her legs, but also there in the sweat drenching her body.
It meant something.
Something that, from some long gone impulse from its body, excited it.
This taste, the smell that came with it, was what it wanted.
It twisted the tentacle inside back on itself, flexing it this way and that, feeling her quiver around it and in its grasp. Layers of sensation, its own and those of Jill Valentine which it could not perceive.
It missed being able to feel things through its host.
It wanted to know what Jill Valentine was feeling.
Tentacles trailed over her body, feeling the way muscles twitched beneath her skin, the way her skin rose up in goosebumps. It wrapped them around the softness of her chest, carefully this time, and she leaned into its grasp.
She was still afraid, it could taste that much, but there was so much more beneath it.
Her movements grew, not frantic, but urgent, there was a certain deliberateness to what she was doing. For once she was not attempting to escape, the small sounds escaping her, gasps and moans and sighs, were not from fear or pain.
It didn’t understand, but it wanted to.
Jill Valentine sobbed, tensed in its grasp and thrashed aimlessly. It could feel her screaming, inarticulate howls.
It held her close, pressed her against its body, felt the impacts as she hit and clawed at it.
The urgency it had felt faded with her struggles.
No answers presented themselves to it, none to her strange behaviors at least. It withdrew its tentacles, slowly, not liking the feel of cool air on them after the warmth of Jill Valentine.
Dropping her to the ground it left. Its body was damaged beyond hope, but it might still recover. Find some place to hide for a time, take stock of its condition and then continue, find the rest of S.T.A.R.S. and hope that they proved easier prey.
It rubbed its tentacles against each other, feeling raw places where small segments had broken away. In the heat of the moment it hadn’t noticed the damage, the loss of such small bits of itself.
It would let Jill Valentine live for now. She was a challenge, a puzzle, one that it hoped to have another chance to solve.
It didn’t fully understand, but in its short life it had learned that understanding wasn’t necessary. Jill Valentine had been changed in some small way by its first encounter with her, enough so that what it left this time would survive. What that meant in the long term was unknown to it, but it meant something.