Credit To Alterdiego7

credit to alterdiego7

the ruler and the killer. || r. evil (one)

summary: a strange village, missing hikers, a missing girl - Kara's on her first official mission since joining the DSO.

pairing: leon s. kennedy x oc

disclaimer: descriptions of violence, blood + gore, references to re2

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“Kara, you can use any weapon - the key is to focus and control your breathing.”

Her father crouched next to her as she drew back the arrow, the fletch barely touching her cheek as she focused on the doe peacefully grazing grass from across the way. She took a deep breath as the cold November air nips at her nose and cheek. She felt the tips of her fingers going numb as she waited patiently before deciding to fire, watching the arrow fly.

She heard the doe cry into the air before falling over into the grass.

Kara opens her eyes and she’s still in the Jeep heading to Valdelobos, this was her first actual mission outside of doing damage control on behalf of the DSO whenever an outbreak occurred stateside. She looks out the window at the trees, how they were dying, and how she knew in a matter of months that it would be winter again. Her knowledge of nature and everything that was taught to her by her father was the reason that she was a good partner for the mission to save the President’s daughter. 

“You alright?” Leon asks, she glances over at him and nodded, “Nightmares again?”

Leon Kennedy was probably the only friend that Kara had, and only because Kara didn’t have much time for much else when she wasn’t dealing with June or work. He’d been the golden boy of the DSO, and Kara could expect it - he was a cop when they first met six years ago, and it was because of him that she and June survived alongside Claire and Sherry. But outside of that, it seemed that he understood her better than most.

He lived with her and June, and whenever she had a fit of nightmares or he did - they were the go-to for each other’s comfort.

She shakes her head, “No, just, dreaming about the first time I went hunting with my dad.”

“Ah,” Leon says as he looks ahead at the two cops escorting them, “you drool by the way.”

Kara smacked his chest, causing a quiet laugh to escape Leon before she huffs, “How much further?”

“Can’t be too far, however, our escorts are more or less excited about actually getting us there,” Leon says before looking down at the photo in his hand.

Kara looked down, the photo was of the woman they were both here to look for. More so Leon rather than her. Blonde bob, a kind face, and wearing an orange jacket and red scarf, it was the last photo taken of Ashley Graham shortly before her disappearance from the Georgetown campus. Kara sighed. She hoped that the girl would be alright - 

“So, tell me, Yanqui...” One of the officers, specifically the one in the passenger seat spoke, “why did you come to this horrible place?”

He glances over at Kara, “Not much of a place for a honeymoon, it’s as close to nowhere than I’ve ever seen.”

Kara rolled her eyes and for once, held back her tongue as Leon spoke, “Let’s just say... looking for someone.”

The cop laughs just a bit, “That someone must be pretty important, eh?” He glances over at his partner, “Can you believe it? These two show up, and the Chief himself says, ‘help them’...”

Leon rolls his eyes, “Well I’m sure you boys didn’t come all the way out here to roast marshmallows, or maybe you did.”

“Or to maybe sit on their thumbs,” Kara says, making Leon chuckle.

The cop shakes his head as he looks between the two, “You two have a very strange sense of humor - I’m going to let you in on a little secret, just between us, a lot of people have gone missing around here and it’s been that way for a while now.”

Leon was rather unbothered, “Well, then it should be just another day in the office... right?”

Kara’s interest becomes more piqued as the officer continues, “Well, I mean, just last week there was a search for some missing hikers.”

“I’m sure you’ll do you best to help us,” Leon says

Kara eyes the officer, “I promise, we don’t get startled easily.”

The jeep later comes to a halt and the officer steps out, Kara sighs as she gets out of the car to stretch. She looks around, the dying trees reminded her of the few times she went to stay at the cabin with her father during deer season. She could still remember learning how to set up the stands prior, wearing her grandfather’s heavy coat to mask her scent from the animals, to think that she was out here only because of those moments, it was those skills that had become a second nature to her. 

She sighs, Leon spoke up, “You sure you wanna be out here?”

“Could’ve asked me that back at the airport,” Kara says as she looks over at him, “I’m kind of already out here.”

“Fair point,” He says as he looks around, “have you looked at the maps for this place?”

“So much that I can see ‘em behind my eyelids at night,” Kara says as she gets off the jeep, she glances around until she spots a familiar plant, “Hey wait a minute...”

Leon follows behind her, “Kara, wait -”

“Relax,” Kara says as she plucks the sprig, the smell hits her nose, “It’s rosemary, good for muscle spasms and headaches, also tastes really good on chicken.”

He chuckles as she hands him the sprig as she stands back up, he studies it, “How do you know?’

“Well, Mom used to dabble with home remedies despite her being a nurse,” Kara explains as she looks at the bush, “Strange it’s growing in the mountains - well, more so these parts, it grows near the coast.”

“Seems like there’s a lot of strange things around here,” Leon comments as he glances around, he looks up to see a raven flying overhead of them, “Gotta keep our heads together.”

“Right.”

Leon Kennedy has known Kara Ridenour for about six years now, and never did he think he would find himself entangled in her life. Especially moving in with her sometime after Raccoon City, he had become a close friend as the two only had one another with everything that had happened.

He didn’t want her to come with him - but it was heavily suggested for two reasons; Kara was a survivalist, a hunter who could be a great help and the other, making it just a bit less terrifying for when they find Ashley. Despite the reasoning, he knew how much she didn’t want to leave home, how much she didn’t want to leave June. Plus, the last time he had a partner for a mission, it didn’t exactly go as planned.

“I got you something,” Leon tells her, eyeing her, “it’s in the trunk of the Jeep.”

Kara raised her brow and followed him to the back, he pops the door and reveals a large black bag aside from his own gear. He grabs the bag and opens it up, “I talked to the weapons development team about coming up with something that you might be a bit more comfortable with, still keep that pistol but…”

Her eyes widened at the black recurve bow in front of her, “Here I thought you said bows were impractical.”

He chuckles, “There’s a bit more a kick to at least the arrows. They’re marked properly; red is explosive, black is regular run of the mill, crafted to be more silent in case we run into trouble.”

Her delicate fingers dance along the leather quiver and the fletch for the arrows themselves, “You think we’ll run into trouble?”

“Not too crazy to think so,” He says as he looks over at her, “you like it?”

“Yeah, feels so… special,” Kara says as she pulls out the quiver and slings it across her body, “so, it’s specially crafted for bioweapons and all that?”

Leon nodded as she goes to grab the bow, “Yeah, pulled a lot of favors - I know how you feel about guns so, thought this would be a nice little ‘first mission’ present.”

She chuckles, cracking a small smile, “God, is it that painfully obvious?”

“I live with you, I know you,” Leon says nudging her, “I know it’s not ideal but you’re capable and I believe in you, if that means anything.”

“It means a lot,” She says, looking up at him - he found himself momentarily stunned by her hazel eyes, they were more blue than anything, but so pretty in the little bit of sunlight coming down, “thank you, Leon.”

He gives a small smile, and he could feel it that maybe this was the time to tell her what’s been brewing in his mind for the last six years but he backs off, he looks around. It had been awhile since that cop walked off.

It was then the partner got out of the Jeep, “Hey he’s been gone awhile - maybe you both should go and take a look. I’ll watch the car, don’t want to get a parking ticket and all that.”

Kara rolls her eyes and gets herself situated, bow in hand and quiver across her back as the two start walking. Leon looks over, “So much for helping, huh?”

Kara shakes her head, “They weren’t gonna help regardless.”

The two began walking into the forest, she was so used to a few birds singing here and there but in this instance, the woods were silent. Not a song to be heard.

“No birds are really out,” Kara says as she crushes a leaf under her boot, “strange.”

“Isn’t that normal?” Leon asks

She shakes her head, “I mean it is and it isn’t, aside from the crow we saw - it’s been silent, I don’t like that.”

“This place gets stranger by the minute,” Leon spoke as he looks around while they walk, “How far could that guy have gone?

The rancid smell of decay hits her nose as they stumble further and find a deer carcass. Kara covers her nose as Leon’s nose scrunches in disgust, “Gross.”

Kara takes her hand off her nose, “Definitely. I’d say at least if you’re planning on taking the bones - could’ve, I don’t know, actually cleaned the corpse? Take the insides and well, let nature and the sun do the rest.”

Leon eyes her, “Speaking from experience?”

“Yeah, Dad would keep the skulls after using the meat for jerky and really whatever,” Kara says as she kneels down to get a closer look, she noted the melted red candles that surrounded, “this… this is more sacrificial, see the candles?”

Leon nodded as he put a few of the candles out, “Think it’s a cult?”

Kara’s eyes met his, “I don’t know but this is all still fresh, at least maybe thirty minutes to an hour, tops. So whoever left it here would be…” she looks around before spotting the rest of the trail, “there, grass is down so someone must’ve stepped through recently.”

“Where would I be without you?” Leon spoke as the two started walking again, “seriously - how do you know this stuff?”

“Told you before - I grew up in a small town in the Arklay Mountains, Dad was a cop and Mom was a nurse. Dad didn’t have a son so I went on all the hunting trips with him, he was a survivalist but maybe a tad bit bordering on doomsday prepper.” she spoke as a bird flew overhead, “I mean, he’d be happy to know it wasn’t all for nothing, at least.”

“You grew up near Raccoon City, how did...”

She sighs as she looks ahead, “Mom worked in the city, our little town was at least four or five hours away, but there’d already been a few reports of cannibals in the mountains, everyone around town suspected it was all some scary story, ya know, I mean, we were a month away from October.” The memory sent a shiver down her spine, “Mom was the first to get sick because she worked at the hospital, no meds were working, and we were already broke - so it was a lot of barely getting by, and Dad... well, he thought Jesus could fix it. When meds and prayer ran out, Mom died, we just didn’t think she’d get back up.”

They came to a stop at a hunting cabin, decrepit and definitely could’ve seen better days. More of the rancid smell of decaying flesh hit Kara’s nose. She stepped across the threshold first before Leon, a quick glance over, “I think whoever lives here is the one sacrificing animals, look.”

She points to where there were buckets of entrails among other things, some of it didn’t feel too entirely human, “They’ve been busy.”

“Let’s head inside, yeah?” Leon says as he steps in front of her, the two walk inside the cabin as he calls out, “Anyone home?”

Kara looked around, the house was dirty and dilapidated, it had gone to ruin and the candlelight made her wonder if someone was still here. She also noticed strange effigies, she stepped away from Leon to pick one up, the strangeness made her think of The Blair Witch Project.

“Kara.” Leon spoke, she turned and he gestured for her to follow him.

She does and the pair walk into a room where a bearded man mutters to himself in Spanish, Kara looked down and noticed the cop’s badge. She picked it up as Leon made his way around the table to talk to the man, “Sorry to barge in like this, I'm looking for a police officer. Did he come this way?”

“Leon,” Kara spoke as she held up the badge for him to see, he turns to see it and it was then that she sees the man come up behind, “Leon, look out!”

Leon spun around to block the ace with the blade of his combat knife, the man spoke in Spanish, something that he barely could understand. Kara quickly went to fire, without even thinking, she shot and hit the man in his eye. He staggers back, Leon goes to kick and the man twists his neck when hitting the wall.

She walks over, and yanks the arrow from his eye before looking to Leon, “Is he dead?”

“He is,” Leon spoke before looking at her as he plucks a key from the corpse, “you did what you had to, thank you.”

Something about it still made Kara feel sick to her stomach as she slid the arrow back into her quiver.

The two explore the cabin further only to find the basement and to no surprise, the cop that had wandered off earlier. Kara crosses herself, saying a silent prayer as Leon’s nose scrunches in disgust and his eyes were in some sadness. Everything about this place was getting stranger by the minute.

“What the fuck…” Leon spoke before getting disturbed by the assumed dead man from earlier.

Kara watched in terror as shots rang out, and Leon had put the man down for good. Once they check the body, she noticed tendrils from the man’s neck, making her stomach twist. Nothing about this felt right, not in the slightest.

The two head up to the attic, Kara steps from Leon’s side to pour through diaries she found then it was a Bible, but none like she’s ever seen before. She overheard Leon talking to Hunnigan, but she was more or less engrossed in the Bible. She had grown up Baptist, her dad was a god-fearing man while her mother more or less took the words spoken during service as more a recommendation.

But the pictures, depicting sacrifice and worship were nothing she’s ever seen before. Leon’s voice broke her concentration, “Kara, Ashley’s in the village, so we got to-“

The sounds of angry locals trying to break down the door, alerted them both. In a split second break, as Leon bolted out the window, Kara follows. He catches her before quickly sitting her on her feet. The two began to run, Kara could hear her heart in her ears, feeling it beat in her throat as she kept up with Leon.

“Kara, what does an animal do when it’s cornered?”

Kara looked beyond at the doe, her small hands wrapped around the old recurve that used to belong to her grandfather.

“It fights.”

Her father smiled in approval, “Good, now what do we do when we’re cornered?”

“What it takes to survive.”

I like this character a normal amount.

*audibly moans whenever I see them*

Saw a post like this with negative outlook so I asked for it to be fixed

I was about to raise hell about the dating cops = red flags cuz I have a crush on Leon Kennedy and I can certainly assure y'all that he's the sweetest........ and then I remember my other crush, Albert Wesker used to be a cop too💀

the ballad of songbirds and snakes: a cautionary tale about why you shouldn't date a cop

Need some postwar!Levi reading?

Because we all want to see Levi at peace and happy.

North Star - by me

8/? Chapters

Two years after The Rumbling, a mysterious man comes to live in your boarding house. His body maimed and scarred, you wonder where he’s from and what he’s running from.

Even more so, you wonder if he's hurting as much as you are.

Can fate and love heal two broken people?

Fable - @mrsackermannx

19/24 chapters

There's no other place you saw yourself after the Battle of Heaven and Earth, than his side.

(And currently looking for more, so if you have any suggestions, send them my way!)