Raccoon City's Upheaval (End)

"This isn't starting already, is it?" Listening to the nonstop sirens from police cars and ambulances echoing through the streets, Shen Fei understood—the virus had likely leaked.

Even though he had anticipated this for a while, when it actually happened, Shen Fei was stunned for a good moment. He turned and walked straight into the orphanage, pulling out the weapon he had prepared earlier.

In truth, this so-called weapon was nothing more than a fruit knife. Although firearms were easy to come by in America, it was clear that Shen Fei didn't have the means to obtain one right now.

The reason he grabbed a knife was that activating the Op-Op Fruit's ability required a blade, functioning like a scalpel. Whether he would need a weapon for future activations, Shen Fei didn't know, but for now, it was necessary.

Just as Shen Fei was about to leave the orphanage with the knife, Sister Lina ran in through the front door, quickly slamming it shut. Spotting Shen Fei, she immediately called out to him.

"You can't go out now. There are rioters everywhere." Without waiting for a response, she grabbed Shen Fei and pulled him further inside. Helpless, Shen Fei could only follow the nun back.

For the Raccoon City Police Department and Raccoon City Hospital, today was an excruciating day. Rioters and wounded had flooded in.

The group from the orphanage was quickly gathered together by the nuns and staff to prevent any accidents. The earlier incident had left the nuns and workers here deeply consumed by self-blame.

Looking at the fourteen children in the room, some only a few years old, not even able to walk yet, Shen Fei let out a deep sigh. These past few days, he had been trying to avoid thinking about this problem—he had the will but not the power.

Bang.

Just as some children were crying and the adults were trying to soothe them, the front door was suddenly shoved open. Shen Fei looked up and froze, because he recognized the newcomers—Jill and Rebecca.

"Officer Jill." Sister Lina looked at the fully armed Jill and Rebecca walking in with confusion.

"No time to explain. Come with us now. This city is finished." Jill's right arm was still wrapped in bandages, a trace of blood visible on them.

"What happened?" It was clear Sister Lina trusted Jill deeply. Though she asked, she was already directing the others to prepare the children for action.

"It's a long story. Let's get out of here first." Jill's face was extremely grim as she spoke.

Jill never imagined that the Umbrella Corporation would be so deranged as to release a virus inside Raccoon City. She attributed the city's chaos entirely to Umbrella's machinations.

After escaping from Umbrella's strike team, Jill and Rebecca had planned to lie low until Chris returned to regroup. But to their surprise, before Chris could come back, Raccoon City had already fallen into such turmoil.

Seeing the chaos on the streets, Jill's first concern was for Lina and the orphanage children, so she and Rebecca came here.

"Let's go." Soon, the group exited through the orphanage's back door and boarded a milk truck Jill had prepared. After everyone was seated in the cargo area, Jill and Rebecca took the driver's cab and set off.

"Lucky break." Squeezed into a corner of the cargo area, Shen Fei finally breathed a sigh of relief. With these two around, his chances of escape had greatly increased.

Though he was a bit worried about Sherry's situation, thinking of Leon and Claire, he set that concern aside.

"Good thing it's not Leon driving, and Chris isn't here either." In the Resident Evil game series, Leon was a notorious vehicle killer—riding any transport with him required extreme caution.

As for Chris, he was famous for being a teammate-killer, especially male teammates. So far, the only one who could team up with Chris and survive was Leon.

"As long as I leave this death trap, it'll be a vast sea for fish to leap and a wide sky for birds to fly." With the Op-Op Fruit's power, Shen Fei was already full of hope for the future.

Bang bang bang.

A continuous burst of gunfire shattered Shen Fei's daydream. Then the vehicle screeched to a halt, followed by a loudspeaker announcement from outside—Raccoon City was under quarantine.

The reason was simple: an unknown infectious disease had broken out in Raccoon City, and no one was allowed to leave until the cause was identified. Naturally, some didn't believe this excuse, and since this was a country where carrying firearms was legal, a firefight broke out.

The result, of course, was a victory for Umbrella Corporation's strike team sealing off the city. The gap in weaponry was too vast. Seeing that these soldiers really would open fire, those who had been clamoring to leave Raccoon City immediately backed down.

Faced with this situation, though deeply unwilling, Jill and Rebecca turned around and left. This time, however, they didn't return to the orphanage. Instead, they wound through backstreets to a small villa far from the city.

"Jill, what exactly happened?" Sister Lina asked nervously.

"Let's talk inside." Jill and Rebecca helped bring the children into the villa.

"That's how it is. Now we have to hold out until the military arrives." After briefly explaining the situation to Lina, Jill and Rebecca went out to scout the surroundings.

Their earlier experience at the Mansion had taught them that even if the area seemed deserted, caution was still necessary.

"Rebecca, stay here and protect them. I'll go investigate." In the villa's basement, Jill opened a hidden chamber and pulled out a large cache of weapons.

"This is...?" Rebecca stared in shock at the arsenal before her. She never imagined there would be so many weapons here.

"This is Chris's rest stop." Jill explained briefly.

As members of Raccoon City's STARS, they usually had little to do. Since the city was far from any metropolis, minor issues were handled by the police. With plenty of free time outside training, Chris had set up a small shooting range in the suburbs for target practice.

Chris was a man who loved weapons—something Claire's skills and familiarity with firearms made obvious.

"Be careful." Watching Jill, fully armed and ready to leave, Rebecca said with concern.

"Don't worry. You keep an eye on things here."

"What the hell are you people trying to do? Have you lost your minds?" In the Police Chief's office, Brian rarely raised his voice, shouting into the phone.

"That's none of your concern. Just do what we've arranged, and someone will come to pick you up. Then you can take stacks of green bills anywhere you want."

"That amount isn't enough anymore. Double it." Brian made an outrageous demand.

"No problem." The line went dead.

"Idiot." The man who hung up sneered coldly.

"Sister Rebecca, can you teach me how to use a gun?" After Jill left, Rebecca was alone guarding the villa's entrance. Shen Fei thought it over and walked over.

"Use a gun?" Rebecca looked at Shen Fei in surprise.

"I don't know what's going on, but seeing how you two are acting, something big must have happened. If I learn to shoot, I can help you a bit."

Shen Fei was the oldest among the current orphanage children; the others were all under ten. Most of the kids around twelve had already left the orphanage.

"Alright." After a moment's thought, Rebecca nodded in agreement. She immediately pulled out a pistol, removed the magazine, and began teaching Shen Fei.

Shen Fei had never used a real gun before—toy guns, of course, didn't count.

"I never thought using a gun would be this hard." After Rebecca's instruction, Shen Fei finally understood why, in biohazard games and movies, landing a headshot on a zombie was so difficult.

A hundred shots, a hundred hits—that was only in the movies. In reality, achieving that level wasn't impossible, but it wasn't something just anyone could do. It required at least a massive amount of bullets for practice. Ordinary police officers and civilians never had that kind of opportunity.

Claire being that skilled was really thanks to Chris's strict demands.

Back then, Claire had resented her brother forcing her to train in these things. Hand-to-hand combat was one thing—it could handle small-time thugs—but marksmanship seemed completely unnecessary. It wasn't until she entered Raccoon City that she realized how foresighted her brother had been.

But for Shen Fei, none of this was necessary. Under the power of the Op-Op Fruit, he quickly familiarized himself with every component of the firearm. As for marksmanship, just a few practice sessions and he'd be closing in on sharpshooter status.

For ordinary people, a gun's recoil was hard to overcome, but for him, that problem simply didn't exist.

Shen Fei's learning progress left Rebecca astonished. She had originally only intended to teach him how to use a gun, but now she could go deeper—not just firearms, but also some of STARS' combat methods and experience.

Rebecca might look a bit frail on the outside, but she had passed STARS' assessment and fought her way out of both the Training Facility and the Mansion. Real combat was the best way to sharpen a person's abilities.

Rebecca was someone who had fought a Tyrant, killed a Giant Serpent, and taken down the Leech Queen.

If one were to evaluate Rebecca's current strength, she was already on par with a full-fledged STARS member.

While Shen Fei was here learning firearm usage and STARS knowledge, Raccoon City was experiencing its most chaotic moment. Gunfire echoed everywhere.

Strangely enough, in the midst of such turmoil, there were still people taking advantage of the chaos to rob banks, convenience stores, and shopping malls. Their ultimate fate? Joining the zombie horde.

"Wolfpack in position. Operation commencing." As Raccoon City plunged into massive disorder, the Umbrella Corporation hadn't given up on hunting down STARS members. Their most elite squad had been deployed, and their first target was Chris's villa.