ʟᴀᴅʏ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ʟʏᴄᴀɴs : ᴋᴀʀʟ ʜᴇɪꜱᴇɴʙᴇʀɢ

ɪꜱ ɪᴛ ᴏᴠᴇʀ?

"Sophia, I don't--" 

"It's the only way, Chris," she interrupted, holding onto the idea of sacrificing herself so they could escape. 

Chris ground his teeth together, thought after thought running through his head. If he let this happen; metal man would come for his ass. It's one thing to piss a guy off, but you take away the one thing that means the most to him and you've just started a war. That could be worse than what they were dealing with right now. Not to mention, Chris had grown quite fond of the woman over the past few hours. She had heart, something he couldn't fathom a bioweapon such as herself possessing. He didn't like the idea of losing another friend. In fact, he hated it.

But, she was right and he had orders. 

Sophia received a nod of approval from the man and her chest swelled as she sucked in a deep breath, "Here goes nothing." One by one, she bent her legs to sit on her knees and Chris knelt in front of her. "Whatever happens...don't wake me up," she tells him. 

He looks at her for a moment, curious as to what he's going to have to see and all of sudden feeling a bit regretful. 

"Chris," she snaps and he snaps out of the daze he fell into, "Promise me." 

There was a moment of silence, but he told her what she wanted to hear, "I promise." 

She sighed, "Okay." Her eyes fell closed, her muscles relaxed, she steadied her breathing and pictured Miranda. Blonde hair and yellow eyes. Black robes and raven feathers. She imagined how it felt having her power run through her body. How she could feel it in her fingertips. She winced when she felt a sudden jab in her right side; that was her sign, "It's working." 

Mirandas callous voice started to become more clear in her head as she spit venomous words at the two men fighting against her. But, so did a few other things. Stinging and burning sensations made themselves more known making it difficult for her to concentrate on much else. But she had to fight it, because she was close; she could feel it.

"Come on, Sophia, you can't give up now." 

She concentrated her attention on the woman before she slipped away completely and screwed the whole thing up entirely. 

Chris, who was still knelt in front of the young woman drummed his fingers nervously on his thigh. This idea of hers was taking a lot longer than he had anticipated and he was afraid of how much time they might have left. 

"I hate to do this, Soph...but can you do this a little quicker?" 

"Shut it, Redfield," she uttered, "You aren't helping...at all." 

And the switch was instantaneous. The next time she opened her eyes, they weren't her own. It was dark, really dark. She couldn't make out Ethan nor Karl, which scared her. What scared her more was Miranda's voice in the back of her mind. Taunting her; threatening her. 

"You think you can save them, Sophia? You think you're strong enough to end me?" 

"Shut up," she mumbled as the blonde woman. She could already feel her starting to break through and Sophia's energy wasn't holding up as well as she thought it would, "I need to hurry." Using Miranda's power, she reversed the dark effect on the room and that's when she found Ethan frantically reloading hit shotgun and Karl hastily making his way toward her, hammer ready to be swung. She shot out her arms, "Wait, wait, wait!" Ethan looked up from his weapon and Heisenberg slowed, narrowing his eyes on her then tilting his head out of curiosity. The now crimson eyed woman focused her gaze strictly on Karl, softening her gaze, "It's me. It's Sophia." 

Heisenberg slowly lowered the hammer down, immediately letting his guard down for her, but Ethan wasn't easily convinced, "Hold on a second!" Sophia looked in his direction and so did Karl, "How do we know that's Sophia and just Miranda playing one of her stupid fucking tricks." 

Sophia head snapped forward and she locked eye contact with Karl. He removed his sunglasses from his face with his free hand, allowing her to see his light eyes. He didn't need convincing; he knew it was her. 

He started to move toward her, Ethan jumping in, "Heisenberg--"

"Shut the fuck up, Winters." The woman breathed out a sigh of relief as he took the side of her face in one hand, "What the hell are you doing?"

"It seemed like you two could've used a little help," she told him, a bit of humor in her tone.

"You need to get out of here, Sophia," he said firmly. He knew where she was going with this and he wasn't going to allow it to happen. He said no once, he doesn't know why she thinks all of a sudden he will have changed his mind, "I'm not doing this with you."

"Karl..." she started softly, but he wouldn't have any of it. He was not going to kill her. He was not going to say goodbye.

"No, Sophia." 

She dropped her head between her shoulders at his pained words, "Why do you have to make this so damn difficult?" She clasped eyes shut as a burning spread within her chest; she didn't have much time left. That meant she was going to have to do this her way. 

She raised her hand to her face and laid it overtop his, pulling it away from her face, "I'm sorry..." 

"What?" He asked utterly confused. She ignored the hurt in his voice and she shoved him back with one of the roots emerging from the ground before flying up into the air out of his reach. 

Her hand hovered over her chest...preparing to rip out Miranda's heart and crush it between her fingers

"What do you think you're doing, child?! Don't you realize what this means?!" 

"Yes," Sophia mumbled, "It means the end of you." 

"And you..." she answered sinisterly.  

She tried not to think about it, "Like ripping off a bandaid." Her whole face scrunched together as she lifted her hand then--

"Sophia, stop! Please! Don't do this!" She froze, inches away from her chest. She could feel her fingers nails against her skin, "You don't understand...if I lose you, I will have lost the only reason I have to continuing existing. Without you...I am nothing." Slowly, his words deterred her; her hand falling back to her side and along with it, the barrier the walls that enclosed them. 

"You fool..." she heard Miranda say before allowing her to regain control of her body. 

A/N: I'm sorry I am late! It's been a busy day, but here ya go! We're not quite there yet, but we are so, so close. I'd finish it, but I kinda like leaving you guys on the edge of your seats ;)