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Tifa had something to prove.
When Luke introduced her to Skadi and Riven, she'd immediately sensed the dynamic. Skadi was calm, unbothered—if she had feelings for Luke, she wasn't the type to compete for attention.
Riven was different. The hostility radiating from the exile was palpable.
Another rival, Tifa thought. Fine. I'll show her what I can do.
A Reaper lunged at them from a side corridor. Tifa pivoted, planted her foot, and kicked.
The creature didn't just fly backward—it rocketed across the hallway, slammed into the far wall, and literally exploded on impact. Pieces scattered everywhere.
Luke watched with a mixture of admiration and mild depression. Tifa was absurdly powerful. Compared to her, compared to Skadi and Riven, he was practically helpless.
At least I have Yamato.
He'd arranged with his companions beforehand: let a few Reapers through. He needed to test whether the demon sword could permanently kill these things.
Three Reapers broke past the others' guard, charging straight at Luke with predatory hunger.
He drew Yamato.
The iaido technique wasn't quite right—Yamato was designed for a different style than traditional battōjutsu. So Luke did what Nero did in the games: he just swung.
The first strike came down vertically, splitting a Reaper clean in half from skull to groin.
The creature didn't regenerate. It didn't try to reform around the wound. It simply dissolved into ash, as if the demon blade had severed something fundamental.
It works.
No time to celebrate. Two more Reapers were already in striking range.
Luke's movements were rough, unpracticed. But the Sparda bloodline had enhanced his baseline reflexes enough to keep up—barely. Reapers were fast, terrifying to normal humans, but Luke wasn't quite normal anymore.
Two more cuts. Two more piles of ash.
"Luke, are you okay?"
Tifa appeared at his side, concern evident in her expression. She'd seen him facing multiple Reapers alone and nearly panicked.
"I'm fine." Luke smiled, sheathing Yamato. These creatures were less threatening than guns, honestly.
But Tifa's behavior continued to puzzle him. If she saw him as a substitute for Cloud, she shouldn't be worried at all. Cloud had fought Sephiroth. Cloud had saved the world multiple times. A few vampires would barely register as threats.
Why was she treating him like he was fragile?
The question would have to wait.
Deeper in the facility, alarms blared.
Gitano Dragonetti watched the security feeds with mounting concern.
"It's them."
Luke Foster and his people, carving through the research center's defenses like they weren't even there. Gitano had seen what these individuals were capable of. He'd hoped they would never turn that capability against his interests.
So much for hope.
"Release Subject One," Gitano ordered.
This could be an opportunity in disguise. Subject One was their most advanced prototype—a successful fusion of Reaper genetics with something... else. Something that made the creature almost unkillable.
If it could stop Luke's team, excellent. If not, well, Gitano could always apologize and offer compensation later.
Steel blast doors slammed shut throughout the corridor, trapping Luke's group in a sealed section.
"They're trying to contain us," Riven observed.
The doors were impressive—reinforced alloy designed to survive explosions, structural collapse, the kind of threats a research facility might face during an experiment gone wrong.
They were not designed for Skadi.
The Deep Sea Hunter examined the nearest wall, judged it less reinforced than the doors, and simply punched through it.
"This way," she said, stepping through the hole.
They bypassed three more seal attempts before the facility apparently gave up trying to stop them with architecture.
Then something else attacked.
A black blur, moving faster than anything Luke had seen in this building. It shot out of the darkness like a bullet, aimed directly at him.
He didn't even have time to draw his sword.
CRACK.
Tifa intercepted the thing mid-flight, meeting its charge with a punch that would have crushed a car engine. The collision sent both combatants flying—the black shape into the ceiling, Tifa skidding backward into Skadi's steadying hands.
"Thanks," Tifa said, shaking out her fist.
"Don't mention it."
The shadow creature—Subject One, presumably—peeled itself off the ceiling and dropped to the floor. It moved wrong. Like black mist given solid form, or solid form pretending to be mist. The visual effect was deeply unsettling.
"Looks like they made something interesting," Luke muttered.
This wasn't just a Reaper. This was something new. Engineered, refined, probably weeks of development ahead of the creatures they'd been fighting.
Luke didn't feel like giving it a fair fight.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out a Javelin launcher.
The FGM-148 Javelin was an American-made portable anti-tank missile system—fire-and-forget guidance, top-attack profile, capable of defeating any main battle tank in existence. The version Luke had dropped from Prototype was even better: Blackwatch had optimized the minimum engagement distance, making it viable at close range.
Subject One sensed danger and tried to dodge.
It wasn't fast enough.
The missile leaped from the launcher, accelerated instantly, and caught the shadow creature dead center.
BOOM.
The explosion filled the corridor with fire and shrapnel. This wasn't a grenade or a rocket—this was a weapon designed to punch through the reinforced top armor of a T-90 tank. The warhead's penetrating jet could burn through 750mm of steel.
Subject One didn't stand a chance.
In the monitoring room, Gitano Dragonetti stared at his screen in disbelief.
"What the fuck."
He'd expected a battle. A test of Subject One's capabilities against worthy opponents. Data that could be used to refine the next generation of enhanced vampires.
Instead, Luke Foster had pulled out an anti-tank missile and ended the fight in one shot.
Who brought military ordnance to a vampire laboratory?
This guy, apparently.
The smoke cleared. The corridor was wrecked—walls scorched, floor cratered, ceiling partially collapsed.
Of Subject One, nothing remained.
"It's not the Hulk," Luke said, lowering the spent launcher. "Why would I play fair with bioweapons?"
He'd learned this lesson from every survival horror game he'd ever played. Tyrants looked scary, but a single rocket usually dropped them. The G-mutant William Birkin? Rocket launcher. Mr. X? Rocket launcher. Nemesis? Believe it or not, rocket launcher.
Super-soldiers and bio-organic weapons were terrifying in close quarters. At range, with proper firepower, they were just targets.
"Let's keep moving," Luke said, stepping over the rubble. "Someone's been watching us. Time to have a conversation about what they've been doing in my city."
Tifa fell in beside him, impressed and slightly alarmed by the casual display of firepower.
Riven followed, her earlier hostility temporarily replaced by grudging respect.
Even Skadi raised an eyebrow. The Doctor continued to surprise her.