The Wesker Virus (Resident Evil) (Patreon)

This is a story I've been thinking about writing for years and I'm so happy I got around to writing it! You shouldn't need to have any knowledge of the Resident Evil franchise to enjoy it, as all the relevant context about the series is given in the first few paragraphs.

In the fall of 1998, Chris Redfield had uncovered the truth about the multinational pharmaceutical company the Umbrella Corporation: their business was a front for researching and developing biological weaponry. In their secret laboratories deep below Raccoon City, Umbrella had experimented on countless humans and animals, leading to the creation of assorted horrors beyond human comprehension.

Although most would presume this to be some slanderous accusation, Chris had seen these evils firsthand when he and his police unit investigated the isolated Spencer Mansion on the outskirts of Raccoon City. It was from there that one of the experimental viruses that Umbrella had created, the T-Virus, had been leaked. With this specific strain, the T-Virus had the unique side effect - reanimating the recently deceased as flesh-hungry mindless killers. After a long and grueling battle, Chris was one of the few survivors that was able to flee from the mansion and escape Raccoon City altogether. Despite escaping the horrors of the T-Virus, Chris remained determined to further investigate the Umbrella Corporation until he could bring justice to the friends he had lost during the Spencer Mansion incident.

In the decade since then, Umbrella’s role in the destruction of Raccoon City had forced the pharmaceutical company to publically close, but Chris knew that their operations had persisted in the shadows. Umbrella’s top scientists were still working on the T-Virus and their other biological weapons, in fact they were even selling some of their creations to private militaries all across the world. To Chris and his compatriots, it was clear that  Umbrella’s carelessness would soon risk the downfall of society and usher in the apocalypse if less unchecked, but their attempts to warn the world had them regarded as insane fools at best and lying fearmongers at worst. It didn’t matter how much evidence they found to show that governments were still trading with and even funding the now underground Umbrella, the world was arrogantly determined to turn a blind eye to it, and Chris was certain it would get them killed sooner rather than later.

While the senseless death of his friends during the Spencer Mansion incident was absolutely a motivating factor for Chris’ continued crusade against Umbrella, it wasn’t the sole reason he had remained so focused for ten whole years. After discovering the secret lab underneath the Spencer Mansion, Chris had been betrayed and left for dead by the leader of his police unit, who had secretly been working for Umbrella all along. Albert Wesker had always been a secretive man, but despite this reservedness, Chris had still trusted him like a brother. The breaking of that trust was just as much of a crime in Chris’ eyes as the illegal doings of the Umbrella Corporation, and he had been determined to get his revenge - which he ultimately did.

Eight years after Wesker had left him for dead, Chris had finally caught up with his former commanding officer at one of Umbrella’s secret facilities in Eastern Europe. Their reunion was bloody and violent, and Chris had been stunned to discover that Wesker himself was actually one of Umbrella’s test subjects. Their experiments on him had granted him superhuman strength and speed, and he had easily bested Chris in hand-to-hand combat. This overconfidence also led to his eventual downfall though, as he had turned his back on Chris at the wrong moment and received a bullet to the back of his skull as a result. Chris had hoped that Wesker’s death would send Umbrella spiraling, but he was still receiving reports of new Umbrella labs being discovered across the world.

Finally it seemed as if they had tracked down Umbrella’s last stronghold, and Chris was excited by the notion of taking the bastards down for good. The excitement of finally ending a decade-long war instilled Chris with confidence, but like Wesker before him, the overconfidence would be his downfall. He and his taskforce had been sloppy in their approach, leaving the team to be immediately ambushed by a slew of Umbrella-funded mercenaries. Some of the taskforce had been killed in the ambush, but the rest of them including Chris had been taken prisoner and thrown into solitary cells within the underground lab. It didn’t take a genius to predict why they were being held: they were going to be guinea pigs for whatever new biological weapons Umbrella had been developing.

As he sat alone in his cell, Chris tried not to wallow in the guilt he felt for failing to save the taskforce from the ambush. It was perhaps a small mercy then that he was retrieved from the cell only a few hours after being thrown in there. A bag was placed over his head and his hands were cuffed behind his back before he was dragged out of the cell by the same mercenaries who had placed him there. After some ten minutes of marching, Chris was told to remain still while he was stripped completely naked. Then, upon being prompted to lie down on some sort of cold horizontal surface, the man couldn’t help but shiver as he was promptly strapped tightly against. Once the man had been completely restrained and the mercenaries had verified that he was unable to escape no matter how violently he thrashed about, the bag was finally removed from Chris’ head.

After taking a moment to adjust to the harsh cold lighting of his new environment, Chris quickly discovered that aside from the two mercenaries who had brought him to the room, the only other individual present was an elderly man in a scientist’s lab coat. Upon narrowing his eyes in the man’s direction, Chris quickly began to grow enraged as he found himself staring directly at Ozwell E. Spencer, Umbrella Corporation’s founder. The once-renowned scientist hadn’t been seen in public since fleeing the United States during Umbrella’s court trial, but Chris had never forgotten the man’s face. Even more so than Wesker, Spencer was responsible for everything that had happened in Raccoon City and beyond. He was a creator of pure evil, yet he seemingly felt no form of remorse for any of the damage and death that his scientific experiments had caused.

“I’ve waited a long time to get my hands on you, dear boy,” Spencer proclaimed, his voice mixing calculated cruelty with earnest admiration. “You’ve caused me a lot of grief over the years, but I’ve always looked forward to our eventual meeting. I’m so glad that it’s under these circumstances.” As he spoke, the old man walked around the table, his gaze fixed on Chris’ naked body. “I’ve always known you’d make a fine test subject.”

“You won’t win,” Chris spat out defiantly. “Even if it’s not me, someone will eventually burn Umbrella to the ground and you’ll be forced to pay for your crimes.” Over the years Chris had amassed a small army of people whose lives had been ruined by Umbrella, and they wouldn’t give up on their mission simply because Chris was off the radar. Destroying Umbrella was bigger than any one individual, it was about keeping the world safe! Chris was as good as dead already and he knew it, but he would remain defiant until the very end.

“Someone considers themselves to be a hero, don’t they?” Spencer remarked in mocking fashion. “It sounds like you have quite the speech prepared for me. Alas, I don’t have much interest in hearing it. To tell you the truth, I’d much rather get down to business than waste time talking about the ethics of my company’s work with a meathead like you…” The old man’s lips drew back into a thin smile as he leered down at his captive for a brief moment before turning away and grabbing something from a nearby tray. When he turned back around, Chris could very clearly see that the object in Spencer’s hand was a syringe filled with a jet black liquid.

“What is that?” Chris asked through gritted teeth, already knowing that he’d hate whatever answer was given. Becoming another one of Umbrella’s experiments was perhaps his worst fear, and it was becoming a reality with him unable to do anything to stop it. It didn’t matter how much he struggled against his restraints, he wasn’t strong enough to break free. Besides, even if he did, he was totally unarmed and unprotected, and the two mercenaries standing quietly at the back of the room seemed eager to put their guns to good use. No matter how things went, he was as good as dead.

Spencer looked from the syringe to the man on his operating table, the sociopathic smile still plastered across his aged face. “Well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you…” he began, moving the syringe down towards Chris’ arm. “This is the latest batch of a project I’ve spent the past twenty years working on. It’s not the T-Virus or any of its derivatives, so you needn’t worry about becoming a brainless zombie. No, this little chemical will actually increase your brain functions, as well as your physical capabilities. You’ve seen it in action yourself, actually!”

“This is what you did to Wesker, isn’t it?” Chris realized in disgust.

“Spot on, dear boy. Wesker wasn’t the first to receive this chemical, but he bonded with it better than any of my previous patients. He was quite the prime specimen and made for such a good lieutenant! It was such a shame that you took him from me… so it seems fitting that you’ll help bring him back.”

At the mere suggestion that Wesker might be able to return from the grave, Chris’ stomach twisted into a painful knot. “Bring him back?! You’re talking crazy, Spencer!”

“I carefully modified the chemical with strands of Wesker’s mutated DNA,” the scientist explained, content to ignore Chris’ outburst. “If my calculations are correct, which they always are, then exposure to this chemical should cause a complete rearrangement of your genetic structure. The more dominant genes will completely eradicate and replace their weaker counterparts.” There was pride in Spencer’s tone and a maniacal glee in his expression as he continued: “In simple terms: Chris Redfield will be gone and Albert Wesker will be back with us once more - stronger, faster and more ruthless than ever!”

Then, before Chris had the chance to reply with a scathing comment about how Spencer had clearly fallen off the deep end into insanity, the needle of the syringe was stabbed into his neck. Chris could feel the chemical being injected into his bloodstream and in just a few short seconds he was suddenly wracked by an intense bout of pain, the likes of which he had never experienced before! An almighty roar burst forth from his lips as he writhed violently against his restraints, all while Spencer and his mercenaries looked on in fascination. They were treated to quite the unique view too, as Chris’ physical transformation began in tandem with the pain he was experiencing.

Although Chris’ body was already trim and muscular thanks to years of intense training in the gym, there was still room for his body to grow, and that was precisely what it did. Each of his muscles inflated like balloons, with his pecs and thighs receiving considerable attention in particular until he had packed on an extra forty pounds of pure muscle. At the same time, Chris’ hands grew larger and his fingers thickened while his fingerprints warped to further pull him away from his true identity.

His hair was the next part of him to change, the color was rapidly stripping out of Chris’ dark mane as his dark brown shade lightened to a highly bleached blond. In tandem with this color change, his hair’s wild style was rapidly tamed as the hair became slicked back under an obnoxious coating of styling wax.

It was only a few seconds later that Chris’ facial features started to shift and twist, with his cheekbones rising, jawline becoming more square, and his brow more pronounced. The various scars on his face that came as a consequence of his ongoing struggles against Umbrella healed up in an instant, without any sign of them ever being there. Chris’ lips thinned and his nostrils widened, but the biggest change was in his kind eyes, as the light blue irises were corrupted into a blood red. A sudden intense pain in his eyes forced them closed and another howl of agony escaped his lips, this time ringing out at a lower and more menacing timbre.

In all of thirty seconds everything Spencer had predicted had come true: the man on the operating table no longer bore any resemblance to Chris Redfield. He was instead a perfect physical recreation of the one and only Albert Wesker, with further changes happening under the surface. Chris’ upstanding morality was stripped away to be replaced by Wesker’s arrogant greed, and the love he had for his troops, his friends and his family was uprooted, with its place filled by an intense loathing for any pathetic individual who didn’t aspire to the greatness that only Umbrella Corp could bring them!

The pain finally subsided and the man fell still for a brief moment. Then, with the strength of ten men, he ripped through the restraints keeping him pinned down. “My eyes…” he growled, instinctively turning his head towards where he could feel Spencer was standing. The naked Wesker reached out his hand and one of the mercenaries quickly hurried over to deposit a pair of sunglasses in his open palm. Once he had placed them upon his face, Wesker was finally able to open his eyes without experiencing a sharp pain in response to the light. He looked down at his naked body, then up at Spencer. “My mind… It's foggy. How did I get here?”

“We brought you back from the dead, my dear boy,” Spencer explained, approaching the result of his latest experiment. “From the ruins of Chris Redfield rises Albert Wesker!” he declared proudly, clapping his hand down on Wesker’s muscular shoulder.

“Chris Redfield?” The name awoke several intense feelings within Wesker: rage, hatred, disgust. Strangely though, he also felt sad that he would never again be reunited with the man who had once worked under him. He had greatly enjoyed playing an extended game of cat and mouse with Chris, but it seemed like that was now over. With his greatest adversary now out of the picture, Wesker immediately knew that he would need some new prey that would be able to go toe-to-toe against him. Luckily though, it didn’t take long before some ideas began brewing in his revitalized mind…

“You and I are going to reintroduce Umbrella to the world and force them to recognise us as their new masters,” Spencer explained, “I’ll be a god, and you - you’ll be there at my side as my right hand man!”

As the founder of the Umbrella Corporation spoke, Wesker ripped off the restraints around his ankles, swung his legs over the side of the operating table and rose to his feet. The mercenaries averted their eyes at the sight of his naked body but Wesker felt absolutely no shame. Why should he? They were right to be in awe of his body, so perfectly built that it appeared to be sculpted by the gods themselves, and they were also right to fear his wrath if they stared too long. He was certain that everything about his person, from his bulging muscles to his thick nine inch cock to his heightened strength, made them nervous and he loved knowing that was the case.

“I do like the sound of that,” Wesker agreed, turning his attention towards his maker. A smirk settled on his lips as he tilted his head to the side, although his thoughts were as well hidden as his eyes behind those dark shades. “There’s just one issue with that, Ozwell… I’m no longer interested in being second best.”

Using the lightning fast reflexes that had been gifted to him in the operation, Wesker thrust his hand into Spencer’s chest, breaking flesh and bone as he did so. His fingers wrapped around the old man’s heart and he quickly pulled it free from his body, ending the scientist’s life in an instant. The pair of mercenaries reacted in shock but they didn’t dare raise their weapons; they knew that they would be as good as dead if they dared to challenge him!

“Things are going to change around here,” Wesker declared, letting his maker’s remains drop to the ground and then discarding the heart onto the same surgical tray that carried the now-empty syringe. He no longer needed Spencer for anything, but the man’s research (which Wesker knew was recorded in great detail on Umbrella’s computer system) would definitely help with his future plans. A brand new world was about to be born, which Wesker would shape it in his image, and now that the pesky Chris Redfield was out of the picture for good, there was absolutely nobody left to get in his way…