The absolute audacity of Leon Kennedy trusting Ada Wong - Part3
He just shot the president. His friend. He tried to escape Tall Oaks with the few survivors left, but they died anyway, and for whatever reason, he’s still alive. Seventy thousand people were lost, Hunnigan informed him. Now he’s working with Helena, who claims it’s supposedly her fault the president is dead. She keeps feeding him loose information, telling him to just wait until they get to the cathedral.
Then, when they finally get into the cathedral, there’s a weird lab underground. Because of course there is. “None of these were here a few days ago” Helena tells him, looking at a weird, barely human-shaped thing inside a tube. He can’t help the nasty side-eye. So, she was here.
As if everything wasn't overwhelming and catastrophic enough, Leon doesn’t have to walk much further into that lab to find a tape labeled “Happy Birthday, Ada Wong.” Does she have anything to do with this? Birthday? In a weird underground lab? He immediately plays the video, only to get even more confused. Shocked, even.
He watches the woman he’s known for more than a decade emerge from a cocoon, a chrysalis. Being born as it's sadistically put. The C-Virus. Project Ada. As if she were something to be created, tested, mutated. More than twelve thousand motherfucking failures for one single success, the one who looks right at him through the lens of the camera. The one with the face that is so unmistakably hers. A clone? It has to be, right?
He’s speechless. Is this what Helena wanted to show him? Does she have something to do with this? No. It only means he will go even longer without answers about what the actual fuck he just saw with his own two eyes.
When Helena asks, "That woman, or whatever, do you know her?", he can hardly blame her for that phrasing after that tape. But Helena isn’t giving him much info herself, and Leon… Leon doesn’t talk about that. Besides, does he even truly know Ada after what he just saw? The answer: “Kind of.” Safe. Short.
After their little secrets contest about who can hide more information from whom regarding his “friend” Ada and Helena’s sister, they finally find Deborah. They try to save her, only for her to suddenly self-combust into another cocoon. Deborah emerges from the chrysalis, but before anything else happens, she gets hit by an arrow. He turns around, aiming his gun at the intruder.
Only to see her. Not the creature covered in pupal fluid, born from a project. The one he knows.
He lowers his gun and forces Helena to lower hers, too. He asks Ada what the hell is happening, but he should have known better than to expect a straight answer. Nobody is giving him that today.
But the walkways won’t hold for long, so he doesn't have time to process, just action and moving forward. And since Ada is here, of course they’re... well, working together despite... everything. It’s just what they’ve always done, right? Even with the horrifying possibility of her being a C-virus mutated project clone thing hanging over his head... he can think about that bit later. Right now, he has to defeat what’s left of Deborah. Then Ada hands him a ring and says it will make sense later. Why the hell not. He takes it.
When they defeat her, Helena tells them what happened. The “suits” who were pressuring Hunnigan earlier (Derek C. Simmons) were behind all this, the man responsible for national security, and he killed the president. And forced Helena to breach the president’s security, a chain of events that ended with Leon pulling the trigger on his own friend. As if that’s not enough, Ada says it sounds like Simmons, which means she knows the man. Yeah, he had just watched Ada being "born" back at Simmons lab, but hearing the confirmation? Leon attempts to ask again, and again receives a vague answer before she leaves. Will Leon ever know what the hell is going on??
Everything goes from bad to worse when the tables turn: Simmons outright accuses Leon and Helena of the president’s murder. Now they are fugitives. Suspects. Helena asks him if they can trust Ada, and hell if he’s sure at this point, but despite everything… he can’t bring himself to say a firm no either, not with their little “history” right there. It’s definitely not an easy question to answer. But the ring Ada gave him opens the Simmons family tree door they need to get through, and it really did come to make sense later, as Ada put. She's still acting very much the same as always, if you ask him. Giving him these sorts of “gifts” on her own secretive way.
(It can be just me, but after seeing her again, working with her again, and having her help him again, Leon seems to be a bit more, I’m not sure, relaxed, maybe? He genuinely thanks her for the “gift”, even without her being there. He’s not absolutely sure of course, but familiar? Less weary/shocked?)
Already in China with a very chaotic arrival, he sees her again, now in a blue dress. He calls out to her, but bullets rain in her direction. She leaves with her grappling hook before giving any answers. Classic her. Leon and Helena get into the place she just entered, time to get some answers… or not, since apparently, there’s someone following her who very clearly called her a target, and huh. He doesn’t like the sound of that. Then Ada’s voice echoes through the place: “Glad you could stop in. Like what I’ve done to the place? Hope you enjoy your stay" and then she laughs. Not funny haha, funny weird.
After some chasing, he finds her and asks her to stop because they have to talk. The understatement of the century. She dismisses him. And when he does finally manage to reach her, two men have her cornered, pointing guns at her, and Leon can’t have that. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t answering his questions, that she refused to stop to explain what was going on, or that she sounded different; it just doesn’t matter when someone is pointing a gun at Ada. The first thing he does is disarm whoever is aiming at her, he doesn’t even check who it is, it doesn’t matter. He fights them and grabs his own gun when he has the chance, when Ada is right behind him, and whoever was threatening her is in his crosshairs.
Then, the fog of fight passes, and Chris Redfield of all people is standing right in front of him, equally confused. Neither of them drops their weapons though; Chris’ objective is to get to Ada, and so is Leon’s at that moment but in a very, very different way.
But Leon does ask Chris to put his gun down, and he explains that Ada is a key witness and that they need her. And it all happens too fast. Chris is angry, sweating, screaming “She’s the one who did all this!” and Leon tells him it was Simmons, but Chris is too angry. He says he lost all his men because of Ada, and then Leon finally shouts back that he lost 70,000 people because of Simmons, including the president. BSAA x Government.
Leon is angry, too. Tired, physically and emotionally. And he doesn’t know much about Ada’s end of this mess. He doesn’t know what the hell was that clone. He doesn’t know where she knows Simmons from. He can’t prove that what Chris is saying isn’t true.
When they met back at the catacombs, Ada was still the same. She helped him and Helena. He doesn't have much time to ponder anything, but that doesn’t make him waver at all. The thought of putting his gun down and letting Chris, his trusted friend, keep threatening Ada, doesn’t cross his mind. He holds his aim.
“She’s working for Neo-Umbrella, you know what that means?” Chris asks him. Leon’s never known who Ada is working for, or why, but nobody would understand it like he does.
“Yeah, I do.” Leon answers.
And because Chris of all people is way too straightforward, he adds “And you’re still going to protect this woman?” No witness, he didn’t buy that. Their dialogue doesn't match, each one dealing with his own mess.
Leon barely misses a single damn beat: “I am.”
They don’t move, and Ada grabs that opportunity to run away with her grappling hook, almost blinding them in the process. Piers runs after her, and Helena immediately worries that he will kill her. Now calmer, Leon turns to Chris, reassuring him that they ultimately want the same thing. Still, he doesn't let Chris leave before adding that he knows Chris will do the right thing. He trusts him. For now, he and Helena have to focus on their actual target: Simmons.
Helena asks him if he doesn’t regret not following Ada, and he answers that they will just have to worry about her later. With the original mission back on track, Chris told him the BSAA would handle Ada, and Leon trusts they will.
And then, he and Helena do defeat Simmons, and it’s finally over. He actually smiles… only to immediately get contacted by Hunnigan. Sherry and Jake have been abducted. To make matters worse, Chris screams at him through the comms to get out of Tachi seconds before a missile carrying the airborne C-virus hits the city. The air gets polluted, and people start turning right before their eyes. At least he and Helena are okay, and he knows Sherry and Jake will be fine because Chris is on his way to rescue them.
Chris tells him she’s dead, and Leon has to stop for a moment. “Copy”, he answers and swallows hard. Helena asks if he’s ok, he doesn’t answer. The city is in chaos, hell broke loose too fast when he thought everything would be fine. Survivors, they need to look for them and then leave.
Except that some moments later, like a fever dream after Helena and he are thrown by an explosion, a helicopter appears, and the one driving it is none other than her. He’s never been more confused in his life. Does this have anything to do with the clone thing? Who (or what) did Chris watch die, then? Not that he has time to think; he never does. He has to get into action and fight the BOWs around them. Ada helps them from the helicopter, shooting nearby zombies.
On top of that, Simmons isn’t dead. They find him again, and so does Ada, still in her helicopter, flying above them. Simmons tells Ada she disobeyed him, that she messed with the virus. And whatever the actual fuck he’s talking about, whether he’s talking about his Ada or the clone isn’t clear to Leon, the one thing that matters is that Ada is not on Simmons' side. Actually, she’s fighting against him alongside Helena and himself. Deep down, Leon knew it, regardless of every single thing pointing out the opposite. Finally, they defeat him again, and Ada hovers above, pointing the searchlight at them. She gestures with her head and flies toward the roof.
Helena says something about hoping that the elevator still works, but Leon can’t help but stare as the helicopter flies up, still confused, wondering. Helena notices his staring. “What’s wrong?” she asks him. Honestly, what isn’t wrong should be the right question to ask.
Ada’s always been a mystery, but this? This is downright insane, every single bit of it. He’s lost. He doesn’t know what to make of it, but what else is he going to do but follow her lead? Nothing, and it’s what he answers Helena. Nothing’s wrong, sure.
Inside the elevator, he watches the explosions under them. He stays quiet, thinking. Helena notices, it’s obvious he’s in turmoil. She gets closer to him and asks him if Ada is more than just a friend.
What does he even answer to that?
Nothing. There's nothing to be said.
It wasn’t a question, Helena is smiling at him, and then she points out that he has feelings for her. For Ada Wong. He smiles back, but doesn’t answer.
And of course, the elevator they’re in suddenly explodes and they have to jump and climb the elevator cable to get to the rooftop. And Simmons is alive, Ada is fighting him alone. Simmons hits her with a particularly strong blow and she doesn’t stand up right away, Leon naturally jumps into action (and from the elevator cable to where she is) to help her, just like she helped them so far, proving that he, once again, was right in believing her.
She doesn’t wake up. He rests her head on his thigh. That can’t end like that. Simmons is talking some nonsense about Leon not being half the man she needs. He doesn't answer that bit, but when Simmons tells Ada to come with him, calls her his love and says they’re going to be together forever? Oh, no, Leon can’t have that.
Leon tells her to wake up. The Ada he knows is strong, a survivor, always standing strong by the end somehow, no matter the situation. If it’s really her, he knows she can pull through this.
After their “actual last fight with Simmons”, they stand apart from each other, he can’t help but wonder what even is she? Why is she helping them? That’s actually Ada?
His doubts disappear when he receives a text from her. She leaves. He doesn’t go after her. Whatever is going on… It’s her, and they will meet again, she said it in the message herself.
And at the rooftop where she texted him there would be a little “parting gift”, there’s a helicopter so he and Helena can escape. And inside it…
All the evidence they need to prove their innocence, handed to them just like that, like a gift.
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