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Ethan Winters has something that Chris Redfield calls his angry Ethan persona. It’s the one he witnessed back in Romania, when he thought Chris had killed his former wife, Mia Winters. It’s the one that the four great lords of Miranda’s village witnessed when Ethan mowed through them like he is the personification of frustration and rage. He reaches these thresholds often when he is deeply terrified, and then he is terrified again. And again and again…until the fear just turns into frustration and annoyance. Then this pure irritation turns into pure violence. Claire once coined the term “honey badger mode” when Chris complained about him one night. This led to Claire making him watch videos of little honey badgers picking fights with lions. Chris decided Chris was very similar to these cute looking animals. Just pure, white hot anger. Maddening fury that makes him forget all sense of self-preservation, with only one thing occupying his mind. ‘I am killing this bastard if it is the last thing I ever do!’ However, Ethan has not reached that level for the last three years. Not since the Romanian BSAA branch found Ethan Winters just roaming around the village ruins in a daze, butt naked and confused, three years ago. And two years after Chris thought they destroyed the megamycete. In fact, Ethan had been very cooperative with the BSAA…too cooperative. So much that him, Jill and eventually Leon had to pull ranks and a lot of favours to make sure the idiot did not end up being a willing petri dish. Ethan Winters is now designated as the human survivor of mutamycete infection and the bioweapon asset EW-001 of the BSAA, assigned to handler, Agent Leon S. Kennedy in collaboration with the DSO. Who is also his current boyfriend somehow, but you know what, Chris is not about to question why two natural disasters decided to become HR nightmare. Also, God knows how hard Claire fought the institutions themselves with her TerraSave backing to make sure Ethan Winters doesn’t lose his official status as a person, a human being.
Three years later and Ethan is now a well-recognized field operative who is often deployed for missions involving rescue. Since he is basically mold man, he is able to sense the environment through residual mold in them, which is apparently, a lot. EW. As Rebecca Chambers explained once, Ethan can “sense” the living environment through the bioneural mold network embedded within his body – sensing pressure, temperature, and memory residue. He called it ‘mold mapping’ and that makes him a great advantage when it comes to extraction missions. He can guide his fellow field operatives through convoluted mazes, find hidden paths, and help find survivors. This is why he was also an ideal field operative for an extraction mission with the aim to rescue human experiment survivors, trapped within the Raina mansion property. A mid-level threat that doesn’t really require the explicit presence of veterans. It was supposed to be an abandoned property but clearly this castle like spread is very much occupied by the infected and various BOWs. Another BSAA team was already deployed with the main objective of getting rid of as many infected as they can, and then blow the whole place sky high. So, both teams were on a timer. Ethan’s team, led by an experienced operative codenamed Bear, was leading them with four other soldiers. The survivors were trapped behind a secret door of a huge greenhouse, in south-west side on the mansion grounds. Unfortunately, the greenhouse is crawling with snake like BOWs that look like smaller versions of ‘Yawns’, and the door is covered in mutated carnivorous plant vines and Ivy flower heads that clearly have razor sharp teethes. Chris recognized those as belonging to the Plant 42 family. He was guiding them from the BSAA command center as the team’s Commanding Officer, and Leon was on the comms too as Ethan’s handler. This moldy idiot always jokes about “but he can’t handle all this!” and Leon laughs like he invented jokes. Chris still can’t believe there are two of them now.
The team was well-versed in eliminating BOWs aiming their firepower at the exposed weak parts, so, the yawn snakes were not a major threat. The real hurdle is the mutated plant that had covered the whole wall of the trapped door and a part of the ceiling. Bear and three other soldiers focused on eliminating the plant, while Ethan and another agent took care of the snakes. As they got closer to the plant, Leon realized that some soldiers from Bear’s side were jerking in directions where nothing was there. One of them was even shooting at a random vines part instead of the weak spots. He realized that something was wrong, and then it clicked. They were hallucinating. He told Chris the same who warned the team.
Chris: “The plant is secreting some kind of hallucinogens.”
That filled the room with a lot of tension because the operatives can no longer trust their eyes and possibly even their ears. The ivy flowers are trying to literally eat them too, and vines kept trying to strangle them. That’s when Ethan suggested that he will take care of the plant and the others can keep the snakes away, since those seem to increase in number too. Leon denied the plan and Chris didn’t like the suggestion too but both of them understood this was the best case scenario. Ethan can use his mold mapping to know what attacks are real and what are just illusions.
Chris: “Leon…give the go.”
He could tell Leon is reluctant but as the official handler, Chris did need the official nod. Leon hesitated for a second but then gave his approval.
Leon: “Ethan, you tell us as soon as it gets overwhelming.”
Ethan: “Copy that.”
This plan did go well, five of them got rid of the snaked efficiently, ensuring the creepers don’t reach Ethan while he kept attacking the plant at the right places which is semi-automatic, dodging the right vines and flower heads. Ethan moved quite smoothly but with his signature Ethan-tastic moves, as termed by Agent Kennedy, which means it might not look smooth but it gets the job done. Leon and Chris would eventually see him snapping his head at a direction but he didn’t get distracted, as they could see from the video feed on the soldiers. Then, Ethan yelled all of a sudden at direction, “What?! How!” he shouted. Leon went even more tensed, immediately. “FUCK!” “No, you’re not fucking real!!” he kept claiming with nervousness in his voice.
Leon: “What is it, Ethan?”
Chris: “Winters, stay calm.”
But Ethan was already tweaking, even his aim got worse. Bear shouted at Ethan if he needs support but he told the captain to stay away as the hallucinogens would be worse on him.
Ethan actually closed his eyes, and tried to shoot at the vines through mapping alone. It helped but then Ethan started hearing screams too. Screams that sound very real, and very familiar. He fired with more passion and one of the flowers almost latched on his left shoulder. He could hear Leon and Chris in his ears but suddenly they screamed in pain too. The mapping, shooting, sounds of violence behind him, screams of death, Mia screaming in pain, and then…he heard Rosemary crying the way she cried when Miranda broke her apart. Ethan felt painfully hot rage bubbling in his gut, he was annoyance was cranked up to 11, and now he was tired of the fucking plant ivy psychedelics. He wanted to get his hands on these flowers and tear them apart! FUCK THESE IVIES!!
The next thing Chris saw, he will never forget, as he saw Ethan Winters, for some genius reason…DISCARD HIS HEAVY WEAPONS. Threw them on the ground as if they personally offended him. He threw his rifle, semi-automatic, shotgun, and only kept his magnum, “wolfsbane” on him. And then, Ethan pulled out a damn MACHETE from somewhere. Where did he even find that?! Leon audibly said “what the fuck??” and he realized that Chris and others were asking his boyfriend what the hell was he doing. Ethan only said “Getting the fucking job done!” Then…Agent Winters started climbing the wall vines to cut the flowers off! Chris stood up physically, “…WHAT IS HE DOING?!” and Leon looked seconds from cardiac arrest. On the live bodycam footage was Ethan is scaling carnivorous mutated vines as these are trying to trap his limbs, he hacks at them. Fuck, he even bit off some of those. Ethan kept moving around like a monkey and hacking flowers apart with his huge machete, while hallucinating. He was definitely still hallucinating because he kept yelping, and whimpering at random nothings sometimes. He even shouted, “Release me, fish boy!”, “Ugly fucking coat!” and “I quit my job!” in what context?? No one knows. But the command center let it happen because it was working, this madness was actually working. Flower heads lunged toward Ethan and each time, he hacked one apart mid-air, and kicked another away violently screaming “STINKY ASS!” with a passion. The command was stunned in silence and one tactical analyst even whispered, “Stinky??” Ethan continued rampaging like an angry chimp and even head-butted one flower that snapped away, as if it was just as flabbergasted as everyone watching. Even the soldiers on the field were screaming and laughing, cheering him on!
Leon: “I am going to pass out.”
Chris: “GET HIM OFF THE WALL, BEAR.”
Bear: “Sir, I don’t think I can anymore.”
No one argued with that because it looked like Ethan has decided to go full angry gardener. Whatever he saw or heard, it activated his spite response. He took it very personally.
The final flower was the largest one and slower, near the ceiling root structure. It tried to move around Ethan, to bite his ass, apparently. Ethan Winters decided that he will get up close and personal as he jumped straight at it. His bodycam footage captured how he just got the right footing on it, grabbing the flower head, and forced its maw open. The he drove the machete directly into what looked like the “throat area.” Someone whispered “deep throat” and Chris glared at them. Ethan then shot at all the weak parts with his wolfsbane, while hanging from the now dead flower head the whole time. The plant BOW convulsed violently, as it started breaking apart and disintegrating. The entire root systems collapsed as Ethan fell on the ground with a thud. That made Chris cringe a bit. He still needs to work on his landing. He looked at his friend, and Leon was holding his head, looking like he stopped breathing a while ago. There was complete silence across comms as everyone realized just how batshit crazy this was…Then Ethan opened his mouth, “Heh. Not my favorite flowers, baby”, obviously talking to Leon S. Kennedy.
Leon: “BABE!”
Chris: “WINTERS.”
Petnames again?! How many times--!!
Chris: “Official channels, BOTH OF YOU.”
Leon made sure that Ethan stopped hallucinating before he went and helped other agents to clean up the rest of the few snakes and infected, left in the greenhouse. Once Ethan gave the go that path is clear, the team under Bear’s lead, was able to complete the rescue operation quite swiftly. After that, there were no big surprises and no further escalation. As the rescue team, got to the extraction point and got airborne, offensive team gathered all the information they could, set up the explosives, and blew up the property to smithereens. Back in the BSAA command center, Leon finally looked like he could breath. He was sweating, hair pointing everywhere after he kept holding his head in frustration. Chris felt bad for him, it must have killed him to not be able to reach Ethan when the latter was losing his mind. He turned towards Chris with a mixture of astonishment, annoyance and relief in his eyes, pointed at the screens, and just said…
Leon: “Honey badger mode?”
Chris, now wheezing for some reason: “Yeeahfff yeah! Honey badger mode!”
Maybe Chris Redfield has lost his mind too because now he could not stop laughing. When Ethan finally returned to the HQ, he got the scolding of the century from both Leon and Chris.