𝐒𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 || Leon S. Kennedy

i.i - The Explanation

Leon S. Kennedy was a real character.

To some, his personality was dull, shallow, and mostly flushed and diluted by copious amounts of alcohol. Not many people could exactly claim they got along with the male, especially if those few people haven't had contact with the agent in years.

After Spain, Leon changed even more dramatically than he had once Raccoon City had been a distant memory. After the conflict between himself, Umbrella Corporation, and the United States Government, he had been forced to work under the very people he despised. Though climbing the ranks quickly, becoming one of the government's finest agents and most useful weapons, he was still missing far too many things and people in his life.

Pushing them away for their own good, and allowing himself to slip further from his morality. The line between losing himself completely and maintaining the last few shreds of himself he forgot he had left was thin. It only got thinner the more he was practically killing himself.

Scientists, behaviourists, and psychologists alike all agreed on one claim:

Humans are designed to connect and attach to other humans in order to thrive in life. We are biologically designed to need this connection with others as much as we need food and water.

In a sense, Leon was denying that claim despite knowing his connections were still evident with old friends, or people he wished to talk to but couldn't bring himself to do it.

Chris Redfield knew the extent Leon had gone to keep people from seeing him in a destitute state.

"Why would you need his files?" Chris crossed his arms expectantly, raising a brow in confusion to Valerie who was pacing around the room. "I know it sounds odd, but I promise you that it's for a good reason." Valerie's argument proves to be futile, an unamused expression on her friend's face. He hummed in response, making his way closer to her. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into, Valerie," Chris sighed deeply, "he isn't the same person he was years ago." Chris's words were a small plea to convince Valerie to just drop this. He wouldn't want her to go to Leon and ask for help knowing full well that he would decline, and leave her feeling disappointed. Whatever her cause was. It was likely not worth the effort of tracking down the troubled agent.

Her eyes narrowed on Chris, knowing he would continue to argue with her on this. "Luis and I-we have a theory, Chris. You know our field of work. If this theory proves to be right..." Valerie trailed off, allowing him to connect the dots.

"There's another strain?" The air in the room became tense as if it knew the gravity of the situation at hand. Valerie closed her eyes for a moment, loosing a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

"We don't know completely, there isn't enough evidence in our labs. Small samples. But we can't allow other people to retrieve more samples until we know more. So he proposed the idea we do it ourselves-"

"I told you that you should have left him in Spain! He's putting everyone in danger." Chris was seething, but his tone remained hushed so those in neighbouring offices and rooms couldn't eavesdrop. "Listen to me, Redfield." She grabbed the collar of his shirt and brought him to her level, ignoring the height difference and how uncomfortable it was for him. "You don't know Luis, you don't know what exactly he and supposedly Leon witnessed fully, so let me spell it out." She let go of him and backed away a few steps, taking deep breaths to battle her skyrocketing nerves from the boldness she had displayed.

"We studied samples of dirt and debris. Nothing but some odd behaviour and DNA patterns of vegetation. But the leftover corpses of those infected by Las Plagas were decomposing normally as if the virus was non-existent." Valerie explained what she and Luis had spoken about after they had gone back into the lab, and what information they scribbled down on stray sheets of paper.

"Did the virus not die when the host did?" Chris inquired, his voice smaller than it usually was, mostly from hidden amounts of fear he tried to keep behind when he swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Only some. Upon inspection from other samples of peculiar bugs, which Luis requested we tested, we realized that small sums of Las Plagas were within the bug. If those bugs had offspring, theoretically, those babies would also be infected."

Luis and Valerie had small samples of pieces and fragments from the rural area of Spain delivered to the lab discreetly and under the radar of their peers. From a willing participant that Valerie wasn't aware of, but Luis had known in previous years. That's how they have the small amount of information that can't get them far unless the experiments and tests go further.

"This part I thought up, and it could be a long shot," Valerie averted her eyes to the floor for a moment, "the food chain. Food webs."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Chris didn't understand where this was going, but he still tried his best to understand. Science wasn't exactly his forte. Let alone viral biology.

"The animals that eat the bugs and their offspring now have the virus, but in a smaller dose. But if people eat those infected animals without knowing after they've been hunted and sold...then the virus spreads to us. It keeps coming the more supposedly infected animals come to stores and shelves."

"Why do you need to go to Spain?"

"We need to find the extent of this version of Las Plagas and cure it. The previous extraction method and vaccine to postpone the effects no long work." Valerie bit the inside of her cheek, hands braced on a desk in the room she and Chris were in.

"Dammit," Chris said through gritted teeth, facing her completely and nodding. "He won't help you, you get that?"

"He will. I'm very persuasive, Chris." Valerie sent a smile his way, though the lingering fear of her and Luis' discoveries refused to leave her mind no matter how hard she tried to push the unwanted feeling away.

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AUTHORS NOTE: I know some of this may not be completely logical, but I'm trying to pull from things we had learned in my many science classes (because I love science), to try and make it fathomable. But it'll make sense later on.

This chapter sucks bad I know so this won't reflect writing later on, next chapters will be more descriptive I hope.

Thanks for reading!

- K