Guero friends!

Sent to some Latin American jungle with first-time partner, Jack Krauser, on some mission called Operation Javier, erstwhile zombie-slayer Leon Kennedy passes the time by spinning yarns about people he has never met and events he has never witnessed.

Here, Leon regales his partner with the tragedy of Steve Burnside:

“And then, as the lovely Claire Redfield is about to be drawn and quartered by the Alexia beast, an unrecognizably generic Chris Redfield can only swat helplessly at Alexia’s barbaric tentacles. Is this the end for our plucky heroine? Nay! Just when all seems lost, the last shred of human compassion inside gruesome B.O.W. abomination Steve Burnside somehow emerges to conquer the darkside of his diseased soul, and he hacks at Alexia with his mammoth battleaxe, freeing his darling Claire. Alexia is wounded, yes, but Steve has not struck deep enough, and before she retreats, Alexia signals her farewell with a spear-headed tentacle, shot forth and impaling our fair-haired boy monstrosity, a fatal blow. For some reason, Steve shrinks back into the saintly, smooth-skinned young go-getter he once was, even though none of the other infected creatures ever did when they were killed. Claire rushes to his side and speaks words of strength and grit, willing herself to believe that he might actually pull through. Chris stands behind her, trying to remain inconspicuous. She takes Steve in her arms, weeping over this doomed youth who had vanquished the demon inside and saved her life. Steve’s pale head rolls to the side, and with his last breath, so gentle that even a woman could not be that gentle, he whispers the words he has longed to say to her: ‘I love you.’ His voice, as soft as a feather falling on a pillow, can only be heard by her, and the words slip like the last grains of sand in an hourglass, exhaling the final moments of an unlikely hero’s misspent life. . . .

Krauser, did you catch all that? Krauser! Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”