Step One

[Albert Wesker]

Time had passed. How much, with the constant haze of smoke and ash clouding the skies, and the constant backdrop of fire and molten rock suffusing everything with a dull glow of red...he couldn't say accurately. His watch said it had been hours, though physically it felt like days.

Wesker now stood atop a precarious cliff, his long coat discarded in favor of a much looser cape; just something to ward off at least a little of the ash and volcanic grime, tacky and ridiculous as the thing was. His sunglasses were currently folded, resting tucked into a pocket of his suit. and a pair of binoculars lifted to his eyes as he scanned the horizon. Everywhere he looked it was the same. The occasional plume of the earth belching out a glob of its molten, melted innards, and thick clouds of noxious fumes and smoke. The actual scenery was hard to discern with any accuracy, and any actual details were all but impossible to pick out.

"Do we really need to stick around this place any longer?" Agent HUNK had been silent for a long while now, but finally spoke up. His tone was muffled and quieted by the gas mask he wore, taking the edge off his exasperation and irritation, but it did only a little to hide his ragged, sour mood. "It's dead. There's nothing here of any value to us."

"...patience, mister Death." Though the former executive had long since grown to have his own misgivings about this place and its potential use for anything other than a hellhole to dispose of problems in, he was not so quick to dismiss it entirely. He paused in his scanning of the distant terrain, furrowing his brow. "....hmm." Maybe it was just his eyes playing tricks on him in the shimmering hazes of smog and heat, but...as he carefully adjusted the magnification, the picture came in clearer. Still blurred and indistinct, due to distance and the terrain actively obfuscating it, but it was more certain. "Well, well....I do believe I've just found something that could be a potential point of interest."

At that proclamation, HUNK turned his attention to the horizon, retrieving a pair of binoculars from his belt to peer in the direction his superior had been scanning. It took him only a minute to find it and zero in on the object in question. "...hmm. It's faint. Signs of civilization, maybe." He lowered the visual aid from his helmet. "....you want to investigate, I assume."

A faint grin played across Wesker's face as he lowered his own field glasses. "Of course. I'm curious to know if they subsist on rocks." He could practically feel the groan that his subordinate managed to stifle. "It looks to be a few hours away, if we can maintain our pace up until now. I do hope you're not getting tired, mister Death."

The special agent just shifted his stance in a particularly disgruntled manner. "I don't know how it is for you, being a Prime or whatever...but I'm exhausted. Feels like it's been nearly a day since you summoned me here. Not any time to rest, or anything to eat or drink since then. Still only human."

"...hmph." As he retrieved his sunglasses and slid them back into place, Albert Wesker managed to refrain from a bitter scowl. Only human...yes, that was the problem. Competent as he was...Mister Death was, at the end of the day, only a human, with all of their frailties and necessities. The price paid for having a resourceful comrade, perhaps. "Yes...of course," he finally spoke aloud again. "If there is some sort of civilization there, I'm sure there will be a place for you to rest. And we can see about some...sustenance, as well."

"One last march..." HUNK muttered. "Yeah...lead on, then."