# Prologue
With the strange, crimson key in hand, Chris Redfield rushed down the corridor to the old library where his partner, Jill Valentine, disappeared. He had been lucky enough to avoid the Licker prowling the halls of this decrepit mansion while in search of the last piece of the puzzle, but as he felt the warm ooze of its saliva dripping from the ceiling, he knew his luck had finally run out.
Chris dove to the floor and avoided the monster's deadly tongue as it whipped at him, his instincts kicking in from years of fighting the beasts. Rolling forward, he raised his pistol and fired off three shots at it as it lunged to the floor, taking it twice in the shoulder and once in the head. The Licker was dazed for a moment, giving Chris enough time to rush forward to the end of the corridor and throw himself through the door, into the library.
Slamming the door shut, Chris grabbed a nearby bookcase and pulled it down in front of the door, books spilling out onto the tattered carpet. The Licker hit the other side of the jammed door with a sick THUMP and then let out a frustrated screech.
"Heh, you'll have to be quicker than that," Chris said with a sigh of relief. He holstered his weapon and pulled the key from his utility belt. "Now, to get you where you belong."
Across the room, Chris walked to the red door that had been hidden behind a tall bookcase that he and Jill had pushed aside as they were searching the room, looking for clues. Of course, just as the bookcase had been moved, a trapdoor on the wall opened up and swallowed Chris's partner.
That had been an hour ago and no matter how much Chris tried to hail Jill on the radio, her end was dead. So, after a jaunt through the mansion, placing statue pieces together in what was once the owner's smoking room, he found a red skeleton key that just happened to share the exact color as the door.
"Don't worry, Jill," he said. "I'm coming."
Shoving the key into the hole, he twisted it and heard a loud click. Chris unholstered his pistol and slowly opened the door, revealing a darkroom, the light inside matching the redness of the door that guarded it. Inside, film suspended from wire over tubs of chemicals, the images slowly developing.
Chris pulled one of the photographs from its place and studied it. It showed William Birkin in a lab, proudly displaying a test tube. Holding it closer, Chris saw that inside the tube was a fetus and at its base was a label with the name, "Albert."
"Dear God," Chris said. "This means..."
"Surprised?" came a voice from behind him.
Chris spun around and aimed his pistol to the figure behind him, but was unsurprised when he saw Albert Wesker.
"I was beginning to wonder if you would ever find that key," Wesker said with a slight grin. His red eyes flashed behind his sunglasses.
"Where's Jill?" Chris asked. "What've you done with her you son--"
Chris froze. So did Wesker. The whole world around him stopped and suddenly became a little fuzzier, as if being viewed behind a screen. A box appeared at the moment everything was frozen that said, "Paused" and then a list of options were given, including "Settings" and "Main Menu."
"Wesker?" Mojo shouted at the TV from his spider-like platform. He threw the controller to the ground, shattering it into a hundred pieces of plastic. "Are you kidding me? Another game with Wesker as the villain? I mean, how many times is that man gonna come back from the dead?"
Major Domo, who had been standing to his right, with a tablet in-hand, said, "It is a shame that not everyone has your creativity, Your Corpulence."
Mojo raised a finger and nodded. "You are quite right, Majordomo. Quite right." He put his finger down on a control panel before the wall of televisions that towered before him. "Let's see if there's anything interesting going on in Marvel."
One of the televisions switched to a screen showing a night-time scene. Two figures stood on a balcony, one a woman, with her back to a man.
"You know Ah can't touch you, Gambit," Rogue said, staring wistfully out into the night. "Ah'd put you in a coma. Or worse."
Gambit pitched his cigarette to the side and moved towards her. "I don't care, chere. Gambit is ready to take dat risk because I...I think I..."
He reached out a hand to stroke her hair, but Rogue rose up into the air. "Don't. Don't you say it. You know we can't be together, Gambit."
The screen went black.
"Unbelievable!" Mojo exclaimed. "They're still doing the will-they/won't-they. That stopped being interesting in the '90s!"
Mojo dropped his face into his clawed hands and began mumbling to himself.
"But the ratings suggest that viewers enjoy nostalgia," Major Domo said.
"The ratings," Mojo said. "What are the ratings for Marvel, right now?"
Major Domo tapped at his tablet. "They are at 14.9 right now."
"What? That's only half of what they should be." He pulled at the tentacled strands of his "hair" in frustration. "This is a disaster. A disaster! We'll be the next G4 if we don't find a way to up our viewership."
Mojo began tapping away at his control panel and one-by-one, each of the televisions brought up a different image. One showed Chun-Li and Zangief in the middle of a Tokyo street, brawling. Another showed Captain America jumping out of a helicopter over a Latverian castle. In another, She-Hulk gave her closing remarks in a trial regarding Eddie Brock. Each screen showed the viewer count small, green numbers in the bottom-left corner.
"Unbelievable," Mojo said, looking at each screen. "Terrible. Terrible. Awful. Makes me want to puke."
Then he stopped on one screen, the numbers catching his eye before the scene behind them did.
105.8
"This can't be right," Mojo said. "We haven't seen numbers like this since the last royal wedding."
Then he caught what was happening on screen. At first glance, it looked like She-Hulk and Harley Quinn in what could only be described as a lazy fight. Their punches were slow and missed one another with ease. But as Harley Quinn threw one punch, She-Hulk grabbed her arm and twisted it around behind her back.
The camera zoomed in to show She-Hulk whisper (rather erotically) in her ear, "That was a mistake, Harley."
It was then that Mojo noticed this wasn't She-Hulk but a very muscular woman in green bodypaint. And "Harley" was just a blonde woman in black and red spandex.
"What...what is this filth?" He looked from that screen to the one showing She-Hulk in her court case and then back.
Not-She-Hulk proceeded to rip the spandex off of Not-Harley, revealing that she was naked, save for a Joker-themed thong. The woman was heavily tattooed and she had a nice, toned body, but her breasts were orb-like from the work of some plastic surgeon.
"What're you gonna do to me, She-Hulk?" Not-Harley said.