EPILOGUE - KRAUSER, NEMESIS & MOM LALONDE
"Back to Aether and Beyond"
Her skin was crawling.
Mom Lalonde had shuffled along with the rest of the group as they were ushered into the portal. Perhaps normally she'd have been intrigued by the appearance of their apparent tormentor, Elliot, but with the senior Lalonde's body feeling as if it would fall apart at any moment, her mind became focused instead on leaving this sordid universe. Her teeth chattering and her pink eyes dilated, Mom looked absolutely manic as she turned to Krauser and took hold of his wrist.
"We have to go now," she said, staring into his eyes. Krauser looked for more ravaged by the virus than she did but somehow seemed far more in control of himself. Perhaps having a strange pathogen ailing his body was something he was used to, but that was far from the case for Mom. She wanted nothing more that to throttle Umbrella for their manipulation, but she knew now that going back to them was her best shot at fighting this thing.
And then getting back to her daughter.
Krauser simply made suit to follow after Mom and motioned for Nemesis to do the same. The virus had left him looking akin to an abomination with his right arm completely shifted into some kind of grotesque blade with yellow puss dripping down from it.
But while Mom most likely sought a cure for her ailment, Krauser couldn't help but stare in muted admiration. The power he had been craving for so long was finally his. Sure, it had taken some time to fully expand itself within Krauser's system but in the end, it turned out being worth the wait.
He was more powerful than he had ever been before. Superhuman strength was at his beckoning call and his blade could slice through anyone foolish enough to stand in his path. Not to mention that he had followed Wesker's orders to a T and kept the Nemesis in perfect condition. But then the brief thought crossed his mind. It was thanks to Wesker that Krauser was set on the path of finding some way to fix his injured arm. Yet he had found it by allowing some virus to take root in him and turn him into some kind of sideshow freak.
But at least the benefits outweighed the negatives. He had no family to worry about, no friends to alarm. He just had his duty and that was all a loyal soldier like him ever needed. Keeping Lalonde and Nemesis safe was just another part of that.
With a small nod, the woman whisked the pair away quietly from the group, trying to catch her bearings all the while. When she felt they were far enough away from prying eyes (and in control of her own bodily functions), Mom held up her arm and pulled back her sleeve to reveal a second wrist device. That it mildly resembled the one the resistance had given them had amused the senior Lalonde before.
"It's going to be unstable," Mom declared as she tapped at the device.
"Wormholes upon wormholes are tugging this universe from every side. Let's hope Umbrella put good trust in their engineers." The nature of these wormholes and the unstable nature of this universe was something ultimately beyond Mom Lalonde's understanding. Though it was a subject that highly intrigued her, she was not confident she would fully grasp the ramifications of this event, no matter how many lives she lived.
As a portal opened before her, she mused how interesting it would be to speak to this Elliot.
"Let's go."
The mother stepped through the portal, eager to get back to the Aether facility.