Jill cursed as the pistol barked in her hands. Every shot a bullet she couldn’t use against the
thing
stalking her, the thing that looked so much like a girl, but… No, it wasn’t a girl, she couldn’t think of it that way. She had
eaten
Brad, and not just done it, but enjoyed it. Every shot seemed like she was ringing a dinner bell.

    
It was impossible to tell day from night in Raccoon City anymore. Darkness reigned at all hours, and had since the city had become a series of bonfires that crackled and filled the air with acrid smoke. If Raccoon had been a bit less remote, perhaps that very smoke would’ve signaled for help, called enough attention to bring help past the military blockades… But the mountains all around prevented even that mercy. So as the sun started to set,

    
Being separated in the TV world was a bad, bad thing. And getting worse by the moment. Yukiko’s heart hammered in her chest and her breath tore at her throat as she staggered around another corner, pressing her back to it and leaning there for support, utterly spent, sweat beading on her brow, her school uniform ripped in places from the fight-gone-wrong.



    

    
Already exhausted from the half-dozen Shadows she had soloed on her way from the last arena in the strange shadow otherworld and her battle against Kanji’s Shadow, Chie was not prepared for a fair fight against her own dark doppelganger.



    
Which made the blindside axe-kick her Shadow gave her from behind even less fair than it might have usually been. The b

    
“D.Va, streaming live from the streets of Busan!” The livestream, as always, was packed within seconds of going live. The young Korean gamer was posing for her cameras, a series of automatic drones, against her MEKA, looking casual despite her blue jumpsuit; her almond eyes and her silky brown hair gleamed in the light of the streetlight she stood under (a strategic choice as always). She did her trademark ‘shooting at the camera with he

    
“For the Motherland!” The tattered poster was missing chunks and ragged around the edges; the brick that it had been posted upon was dirty and, despite the early date, was splattered with snow here and there. It pictured a young woman holding a spear, standing like a goddess from myth, over the advancing Red Army. Men marched like toy soldier near her feet, tanks like tin cans rolling by as she pointed her spear Westwards, towards Germany and

The wind was blowing hard and snow fell in giant, thumb-sized flakes as the great transport ships slid silently into the great harbors of Arkhangelsk. Men hugged their coats tightly around themselves as smaller tugs pushed the huge transports into position and gangplanks were lowered, sliding out of the belly of the great beasts. Shouts were exchanged in broken english as ways were cleared.


Then came the great cacophony of a dozen, then four dozen engines st