Hours later, inside the safehouse of Sector Seven.
The lighting was soft to the point of being almost "intimate," coating the bare metal walls in a warm-toned disguise.
The ventilation system hummed faintly, masking just enough of the chaos still roiling in the distant city.
Dr. Lyons' lashes quivered. Consciousness slowly surfaced through the haze of sedatives. The first thing she felt was the cold hardness of the folding chair beneath her, then the absence of restraints on her wrists—
That made her raise an eyebrow.
When her vision cleared, a sharply defined face entered her gaze.
Leon S. Kennedy.
The legendary agent sat casually astride a metal crate across from her. His flight jacket was draped over the chair's backrest, and he wore only a tight black tactical vest.
His strong arms shifted with the lazy twirl of a pen, faint scars showing at his rolled-up sleeves.
The ceiling lamp cast shadows in his deep-set eyes, which only made those blue irises sharper.
"Sleeping Beauty finally woke up."
Leon stopped twirling the pen, the corner of his mouth lifting in just the right curve. "Coffee or a sedative? We Imperial agents pride ourselves on service."
Lyons instinctively reached for the back of her neck—
The tingling from where the pulse knife had struck still lingered there.
Her gaze swept the safehouse: a cramped space, one folding table, two surveillance cameras, and a pile of unfamiliar equipment.
No visible guards, which was somehow more unsettling.
"I thought I'd see a room full of cybernetic arms and bionic eyes."
She gathered her loose blonde hair. Her lab coat had been lost in the chaos; now she wore only the standard gray turtleneck of the research division, which unintentionally outlined her figure. "The UED Intelligence Bureau suspects all Imperial agents are half-mechanical freaks."
"Heh."
Leon chuckled. "And I assumed the UED's chief warp specialist would be a balding old man in thick glasses."
His gaze lingered on her long neck for half a second. "Looks like we both wasted sentiment on bad intel."
"."
Lyons' cheeks flushed faintly red.
Suddenly she became aware of how absurd this was—
Captured by an enemy agent, yet thinking about his appearance.
But her professional instinct quickly overrode the awkwardness. "So this is an interrogation, or—?"
"Afternoon tea." Leon, as if pulling a trick, brought two mugs from under the table. Steam curled up with the aroma of real coffee beans. "From the main universe's Jupiter colony. Ten times stronger than that synthetic caffeine you brew in the lab."
As she accepted the cup, their fingers brushed briefly. She drew her hand back at once.
"You're… more human than I imagined."
She sipped the coffee; its richness eased her taut nerves a little. "The intel the UED has says your Empire's agents and soldiers are all emotionless killing machines."
Leon suddenly leaned forward, elbows on knees.
The faint scent of his cologne drifted closer, citrus and cedar mingled—a deliberate psychological ploy, she realized.
"Doctor, do you know why you woke to see only me?"
His voice dropped low. "Because my colleagues wanted to inject you with truth serum, use a neural scanner to rip your memories directly."
His finger tapped the rim of his cup. "But I bet a crate of cigars that I could make you cooperate… more civilly."
In the shadows, a hidden surveillance lens adjusted its focus.
At another safepoint, Chris and Mike watched the scene unfold.
"He's running the old play," Mike said around a stick of gum, shaking his head. "On him, especially with female targets, it works. Just don't let Director Wong find out, or… tsk tsk."
He didn't finish. Chris could imagine well enough what Ada Wong would do to "discipline" Leon.
Chris kept his eyes on Lyons' reddened ear tips. "Effective is good tactics."
Back in the safehouse, Lyons' fingers rubbed the cup's rim unconsciously.
Leon's pupils caught the light, so pale they looked almost transparent, the color of fissures deep inside glaciers.
She suddenly realized—this man might be one of the Empire's most dangerous "weapons."
"What do you want?" Her voice was rougher than expected. "Warp technology? Fleet defense schematics? Or—"
"Conversation."
Leon rose, his tall shadow looming oppressive on the wall. "Like, what exactly does the UED have in Antarctica? Or, say, how much you know about the Xel'Naga."
Outside, the night wind stirred scraps of paper.
The special ops agents hidden in the dark tensed all at once. They knew the real duel was only just beginning.
Lyons' back pressed against the metal of the folding chair, her knuckles white from gripping. Her eyes roamed the room, deliberately avoiding his gaze, finally fixing on a patch of rust in the corner—
A fingernail-sized flake of paint peeled off, shaped like a twisted cross.
"I have nothing to say." Her voice was arid. "The UED raised me twenty years. And you… you're just an intruder—"
Leon sighed lightly and tapped a code on his wrist console.
With a soft beep, he retrieved a metal device the size of a cigarette case from a hidden pouch on his belt.
Lyons frowned.
As a warp-technology expert, she instantly recognized a quantum holo-projector. But this one was far more compact than the UED's military issue.
Her reflex was to critique it professionally. "Your projector is forty percent smaller than our latest model. The energy circuit design is—"
Then she realized what she was doing, and bit her lip sharply to stop herself.
Leon's smile curled at the edges.
He brushed a thumb over the device's top, and a blue beam spread into a translucent interface between them.
"Take a look."
At his touch, a sequence of holograms unfurled like a scroll.
Lyons had to admit the Empire's projection tech was superior—the resolution so high she could see the tremor of eyelashes on passersby, the sound field so precise it felt real.
The first image showed a magnificent golden city.
Streamlined aircraft wove between towering spires. But what shocked her most were the pedestrians—
Humans and various alien races walked side by side. A pearl-skinned alien bent to pick up a toy for a human child.
"Capital of the New Rome sector," Leon said evenly. "The most ordinary of the Empire's tens of thousands of colonies."
Lyons' nails scraped her cup.
This contradicted completely the UED reports of "the Empire enslaving its citizens."
The feed shifted to a spaceport.
A medical ship marked with the Imperial dragon crest was unloading. Containers clearly labeled "Free Medicine, for the Ruco Sector" were lifted by mechanical arms.
Then, Astartes from the Emperor's Sons Legion escorted the supplies planetside, administering injections to disaster victims personally.
"Last year, one of our colonies suffered a plague. When nature strikes, the Empire provides full relief and reconstruction free of charge."
Scrape—!
Lyons shot to her feet, the chair screeching harshly on the floor.
Her chest heaved; at some point, the top button of her uniform had come undone.
"This proves nothing!" Her voice shook. "Carefully staged propaganda. The UED has charity too—"
Leon switched off the projection. The safehouse fell silent.
He leaned forward again, elbows on knees, a stray lock of blond hair shadowing his brow.
"Doctor, do you know why I showed you this?" His voice was suddenly soft. "Because three Earth days ago, we intercepted a UED order to the Antarctic base—prepare to initiate the 'Purification Protocol.'"
?!
Lyons' pupils shrank violently.
That codename—known only to the highest-level scientists—stabbed her spine like an icepick.
"Impossible." Her lips trembled. "That's a last resort…"
"A last resort against what?" Leon seized her wrist, grip firm enough to hold her, but not hurt.
The coffee on the table had gone cold, an oily film on its surface. The old ventilation system hummed with mechanical rhythm, like a countdown.
Lyons realized she was standing at a crossroads far more dangerous than any lab experiment.
Leon switched the projector again. This time, it showed today's midday scene—Homelander wreaking havoc in the UED capital.
?!
Her breath came shallow and rapid now, her chest rising sharply with each intake.
Her fingers twisted together, bloodless from strain, eyes locked on the hologram of that red-caped figure holding up the battleship wreck. Her lips trembled, no sound coming out.
Leon flicked the projector. The view sharpened—
Homelander braced the crashing warship with both arms. The ground beneath cracked under the impact, yet every residential district within five kilometers was untouched.
"Impossible…" Lyons' voice sounded distant. "The human body can't endure that—"
"It's no longer human." Leon shut off the image. The device clinked softly on the table. "Its codename is Homelander. A strategic bioweapon, upgraded by our Bio Division many times."
The lights flickered. Outside, a heavy vehicle rumbled past, its vibrations rippling the coffee surface.
Clearly, Homelander's departure hadn't calmed the UED. Troops still patrolled heavily around the capital, a transport aircraft passing directly overhead.
Lyons stared at the ripples in the cup, as if they held an escape from reality.
"You made this… monster…" Her voice rasped. "Just to prove you're stronger than the UED?"
"Heh."
Leon actually smiled, though with weariness in it. "We built and rebuilt it to fight the things that really threaten humanity's survival."
His fingers tapped the table. "Like the Purifier Virus your Antarctic base is cultivating."
Lyons jolted violently.
The reaction was too obvious, even to her own shame.
Her nails dug into her palms, but felt no pain—her nerves long since dulled by countless chemical burns in the lab.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
She repeated mechanically, but her eyes betrayed her.
Leon didn't call her out at once.
Slowly, he pulled a cigar from his inner pocket, clipped the end with his knife, and lit it.
The tobacco's richness soon filled the cramped safehouse, blending oddly with the bitterness of coffee.
"Doctor, what is the Purification Protocol, really?" He blew a smoke ring. "You're one of the few who know the virus's true dispersal mechanism."
The projector lit again, displaying a stream of complex data.
Lyons recognized it instantly—the quantum warp viral deployment model she herself had designed.
"Using warp tech to inject a pathogen across an entire planetary surface…" Leon read the header softly. "Brilliant. And brutal."
Lyons' stomach twisted painfully.
She remembered that late night, submitting her final report to the military committee—the fanatic glint in the general's eyes.
She had thought it was admiration for science. Now she realized it was the excitement of an executioner beholding a new device of torment.
"They promised me—" Her voice was barely audible. "Only in the most extreme circumstances…"
"Like fighting the Empire too long, then realizing they can't win?" Leon sneered. "Do you know how many innocents in the Koprulu sector would die if this virus was released? Twenty billion? Thirty?"
The ventilation hum suddenly rang harsh in her ears.
Lyons now noticed her back was drenched with cold sweat, her lab uniform clinging to her skin like a second layer of shame.
"I didn't have a choice…" she murmured, more to convince herself. "Every researcher signed the secrecy pact…"
Leon leaned in. Smoke from his cigar veiled between them, his eyes glinting coldly through it, like knives pressing against her throat.
"Now you do."
Outside, footsteps approached quickly, then three knocks at the door—two long, one short.
Without turning, Leon gestured. The noise outside vanished.
"Come with me." He stood, his shadow engulfing her completely. "Not as a captive—but as a scientist who can stop her own people's extinction."
The coffee on the table was stone cold now, its greasy surface like a murky eye reflecting Lyons' pale face.
She looked at the rusty cross-shape in the corner and realized she stood at a fork in humanity's history.
"And if I refuse?" She forced herself to meet his eyes.
The agent's face didn't change a bit. "Then I'll give you a gun. With a single bullet…"
Leon's voice was utterly calm as he finished: "To know yourself."
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