“All right, Hypnos, buddy.
We’re here.” The helicopter settled smoothly onto the landing pad of Umbrella Europe’s Sixth Laboratory, and Paris spread out beyond the facility.
Huh.
Paris actually looks pretty good around this time.
At least it’s nowhere near as chaotic as it gets later.
“Whoa, man.
I’ve gotta say, that whole look of yours is seriously cool.” A talkative man emerged from the laboratory.
Huo Xiu recognized him immediately: Luis Serra, one of the researchers assigned to Laboratory Six, a scientist involved with the Nemesis Project, and a specialist with considerable expertise in parasites.
Luis, radiating the easy enthusiasm Huo Xiu associated with a Spaniard, immediately started complaining about how suffocating life inside the lab could be.
The atmosphere during research had been anything but pleasant.
For all his chatter, though, Luis knew where the line was and carefully avoided mentioning classified work.
“Luis, that’s enough.
Don’t pester our guest.” A calm, authoritative woman’s voice cut through his monologue.
Luis visibly winced and stepped aside as a woman emerged from the building and offered Huo Xiu a formal greeting.
“Mr.
Hyp, please excuse him.
I’m Christine Henry, director of Umbrella Europe’s Sixth Laboratory and the Loire facility.
Christine is fine.” Her manners were impeccable.
Huo Xiu, however, had never heard the name before.
Maybe she exists in canon but simply never appeared directly.
It would make sense.
Laboratory Six had never received much attention in the main story; its major relevance lay in developing Nemesis, serving as one of Luis’s workplaces, and later being attacked by Morpheus.
“It’s no problem.
Nice to meet you.
I’m Hyp Hoffman.
If you’d rather keep it simple, just call me Huo Xiu.” Since she had introduced herself, refusing to return the courtesy would have been rude.
Still, although Huo Xiu did not know the woman personally, he recognized the look in her eyes immediately.
She’s after something It was the calculating look of a merchant—or a fox.
People like that did not show kindness without a reason.
If they treated someone well, it was because they expected enough value in return.
No matter how courteous she appeared, he could not simply take her words at face value.
One careless step and she might strip him clean of everything useful before he realized what had happened.
Still, she had not asked for anything yet, so there was no point inventing motives for her.
The last thing he wanted was unnecessary trouble at a critical moment like this.
He glanced at the sky.
It was almost exactly noon, and he had left that morning.
That was fast.
“We’ve already received the relevant information from Sheena Island.
Your onward flight has been scheduled for this afternoon.
Before then, however…
would you be willing to do us a favor and assist with testing our newest B.O.W.?
We will, of course, guarantee your safety.” Huo Xiu’s suspicion had been correct.
As a high-ranking Umbrella executive, Christine knew far more than an ordinary researcher like Luis, including Huo Xiu’s true identity.
She had learned about him during the conference.
A self-aware B.O.W., huh…
When Umbrella first reviewed the Hypnos Project and saw that it contained virtually no provisions for controllability, the company had immediately classified it as a failure.
A B.O.W.
was a weapon.
If it could not be controlled, then no matter how powerful it was, it amounted to nothing more than a ticking time bomb.
But once that supposedly rampaging B.O.W.
demonstrated genuine self-awareness, Umbrella’s attitude changed.
At the very least, he could be treated as a product trial.
A self-aware B.O.W.
might even become a crucial key to opening the door to human evolution, and his evaluation would continue both here at Laboratory Six and later in Raccoon City.
Facing him in person, however, made Christine far more nervous than any report had.
If the being standing in front of her truly decided to kill her, no one present could stop him.
All she could do was choose her words carefully and steer the conversation as best she could.
“Sure.
No problem.” A product test at this point in time…
There’s only one thing it can be: Nemesis.
That thing was no pushover.
Fortunately, this was only a controlled test, which meant they would fight in a designated arena.
Nemesis would not be able to exploit all of its usual advantages there.
That gives me a real chance to win.
They soon entered an enormous underground testing chamber.
It reminded Huo Xiu of one of the combat testing areas from The Darkside Chronicles: wide, empty, and built for violence.
Retractable targets stood throughout the range, while researchers operated the facility from behind ballistic glass.
Only a small number of personnel had been admitted, all of them senior staff directly beneath Christine and already cleared to know about Huo Xiu.
“Retract the ranged targets.” A researcher pressed a button.
The targets slowly descended into the floor, and armored panels sealed over the openings.
“Nemesis command parameters confirmed.
Deploying specimen!” The ceiling opened.
A Tyrant wrapped from head to toe in a black restraint suit that looked almost like a body bag dropped from above and landed solidly opposite Huo Xiu.
From Huo Xiu’s perspective, the thing was a giant.
“Nemesis…
Come on.” He pulled off his gloves and tucked them into the pockets of his restraint coat.
Electrical signals fired through his neurons, carrying a conscious command to every Hypnos cell in his body and ordering them to shift rapidly into a combat configuration.
His bright blue skin darkened.
Claws erupted from both hands.
Muscle mass surged across his frame until the military coat that had hung slightly loose around him became tight against his body.
Blood flow from his heart intensified.
The transplanted second heart swelled so violently it nearly pushed visibly against his skin, but the combined pressure of flesh and restraint suit held it in place while it pumped enormous volumes of blood through his body.
His spine and skeletal structure hardened further, reinforcing his growing frame.
Huo Xiu’s height climbed from roughly six feet to nearly six-foot-eleven.
Even then, he had only reached the scale of a T-103.
Beside the eight-and-a-half-foot giant in front of him, he was still visibly smaller.
His face, however, had not become especially monstrous.
It remained largely human.
Every researcher stared without blinking.
God against god.
The data from Sheena Island had told them the Hypnos Tyrant’s design goals and biological characteristics, and that knowledge only made them more excited.
A one-of-a-kind legendary B.O.W.
stood before them, about to fight the supreme creation of their own laboratory.
Which Tyrant was stronger?
They were about to find out.
Nemesis moved first.
It accelerated so violently that its body nearly blurred from view, moving at a speed ordinary eyes struggled to track.
Then it unleashed one of its simplest and most reliable weapons: a fist that came forward like an artillery shell.
Even without equipment, that punch was enough to kill most mission targets outright.
Nemesis already possessed terrifying raw strength.
Combined with its absurd speed, the mobility and short-to-mid-range striking power provided by the NE-α parasite gave it combat performance superior to a standard T-103 even while unarmed.
Its fists had crushed nearly everything put in front of it.
Even a Hunter could offer no meaningful resistance before having its skull smashed apart.
This time, however, the punch stopped.
Huo Xiu caught it.
His claws sank into Nemesis’s wrist, puncturing the temporary restraint material around the arm and drawing a roar of pain.
Then Huo Xiu hurled the much taller creature bodily across the chamber.
Nemesis reacted instantly.
Tendrils from the NE-α parasite shot from both wrists and stabbed into the wall, allowing it to redirect its momentum and land solidly rather than crash into the floor.
That single exchange had already told it what it needed to know: in close combat, it could not beat Huo Xiu.
If Nemesis attacked from range with the parasite, Huo Xiu could simply grab the tendrils and drag it back into melee, making the disadvantage even worse.
This battle, however, was only a test—not a mission it was required to win.
It had not been issued any weapons, and the open arena gave it no terrain with which to control distance or wear down its opponent.
Nemesis calculated the situation and reached the best possible decision.
To the stunned disbelief of Huo Xiu and every researcher watching, Nemesis retracted the parasite tendrils into its wrists, slowly raised both hands, and copied the universal human gesture of surrender.
The meaning was unmistakable.
It gave up.