Glenn Arias

He had a reputation for being a calm and composed businessman and was part of a group specialising in theoretical science. As well as being an international arms dealer he founded AGUA Industries; a legitimate company specialising in the development and distribution of drinking water and other wide-ranging products. Arias’ activities soon brought him to the attention of the international community. He liked to do business anywhere there was a major conflict and did not discriminate, willing to sell his products to anybody who had the means to buy. He had operating bases across the world, including business headquarters in New York and a safe house and experimental laboratory in the Queretaro region of Mexico.

Eventually, Arias’ deals became so shady he was targeted in a drone strike believed to have been orchestrated by his former employers at the CIA. He was due to marry his sweetheart Sarah at a private ceremony attended only by his closest family and work colleagues, amongst which was his bodyguard Diego Gomez, and Diego’s daughter, Maria. A smart bomb was dropped onto the wedding venue, killing almost everyone, but Arias managed to survive because Diego protected him. His brother, sister, cousin and his beloved Sarah were all killed in the blast, and Arias harboured resentment towards Diego for saving him and not his wife. All that remained of Sarah was her severed arm and wedding ring. Arias kept the arm and had it cryogenically frozen.

Following the blast, Arias went underground and his death was never confirmed due to his body never being found. He began to immerse himself in the clandestine world of illegal biological weapons, seeing a gap in the market following the collapse of global conglomerate Tricell after they became implicated in the development and production of the deadly Uroboros Virus. Thanks to his network of criminal contacts he quickly identified the country responsible for the bombing of his wedding and abducted all 14 individuals involved in the operation from the drone pilot to the commanding officer who authorised the strike. He tortured them all over a number of months before submitting them to zombie experiments.

Arias began purchasing and selling B.O.W.s, and began developing a new virus strain with an emphasis for infected individuals to determine friend from foe and attack only selected targets. Likewise he wanted the ability to vaccinate protected individuals and render them impervious to harm. He figured this specific trait would make his virus more marketable as a weapon. He may have gained personal revenge for the killing of his wife but he still harboured blame on current society. He began to feel bitter towards humanity and believed them to be defective. Turning humanity into zombies would remove war and conflict, and expunge basic primordial desires, leading to the abolition of contradictory actions such as rape and sexual assault. His new virus would become known as the Animality Virus or A-Virus for short, and Arias believed it would be superior to similar strains developed in the past by previous organisations. He would use it to avenge the flaws of humanity.

His search for a control mechanism for the A-Virus led him coming into contact with surviving members of the Los Illuminados, the religious sect once led by Osmund Saddler and responsible for a Las Plagas outbreak in the rural regions of Southern Europe. Although the cult was all but destroyed following that incident, surviving members and sympathisers still remained and harboured revenge on the American government. Arias struck a deal with them and was given access to the original research conducted by Luis Sera that led to the development of the Dominant Species Plaga. Once the A-Virus was completed, Arias would repay the Los Illuminados by causing a large-scale biohazard on American soil. Arias applied the DNA nucleotides from the Plagas into the A-Virus, successfully creating a fusion that allowed for a unique control mechanism. He also used the A-Virus to enhance Diego Gomez who had been badly injured following the bomb blast at the wedding and turned him into a hulking Tyrant-like creature. Likewise the A-Virus was applied to Maria, and she became a highly effective drone, expunged of all human emotion other than when around her father.

Arias continued to operate in the shadows, adopting the modus operandi of Tricell and Neo-Umbrella by selling biological weapons to terrorists and countries at war. He was a very intelligent man and extremely proficient at his work. He was on Interpol’s most wanted list and numerous attempts were made to locate him without success. He had a vast network of sources and had ties with numerous traitorous individuals inside the U.S. Government and scientific research groups linked to the World Health Organisation.

Eventually the location of one of his hideouts was determined after Cathy White, an undercover agent of the B.S.A.A., managed to infiltrate herself inside one of Arias’ organisations. She fed information back to the B.S.A.A. confirming Arias was now in possession of B.O.W.s. but she was soon found out and eliminated alongside her son, Zack. But the intelligence Cathy provided allowed for the Mexican GAFE to mobilise a raid to arrest Arias at his mansion in Mexico, with Chris Redfield along for the ride as an observer. But Arias had a vast intelligence network and knew of the mission to arrest him. All none essential personnel were infected with the A-Virus and the mansion was booby trapped in preparation for the army’s arrival. As a result, the entire military unit was killed and only Chris Redfield survived, despite Arias besting him in hand-to-hand combat.

Arias disappeared again and resumed his pact with the Los Illuminados, pledging to honour his part of the deal by using the A-Virus to cause a large scale outbreak in New York City. He contaminated the water source in the Great Lakes area of the United States with the latent form of the A-Virus. He then used his Agua Industries corporation to bottle the contaminated water and distribute it across the country. Over time, hundreds of thousands of innocent people all became unknowingly infected. But one small setback to Arias’ plan was the unpredictability of the A-Virus in its infant form. On certain rare occasions based on undetermined circumstances, the latent form of the virus would activate on its own, and in a four month period this caused approximately 20 small outbreaks in and around the Great Lakes area. The B.S.A.A. contained these incidents and the infected bodies were studied by the authorities who determined that a deadly new viral strain was in play. Worse, tissue samples were extracted by specialised research teams and individuals such as Professor Rebecca Chambers used advanced supercomputers to create experimental vaccine treatments. Rebecca reported her initial findings to the W.H.O. which were then sent out to various research organisations across the world. This research was leaked back to Arias who determined Rebecca’s proposed vaccine research was incomplete, yet still successful enough to potentially disrupt his plans.

As a result, he instructed Maria Gomez to cause a biohazard at Rebecca’s place of work, the Alexander Institute of Biotechnology in Chicago, and use the A-Virus to kill her and her team and destroy the vaccine research. At the same time, Arias was also finalising the details of the New York attack. Because enough of the populace had consumed the contaminated Agua water, he would use tanker trucks to disperse the stage 2 trigger virus in airborne form, thus turning everyone into zombies. Any key individuals within the biohazard zone would already be inoculated with the stage 3 vaccine and be immune to mutation and attack. The Los Illuminados later informed Arias that the operational order had been stolen by Patricio, a former member and envoy from the cult to the outside world. They had Patricio’s family as hostages and believed he was trying to warn the D.S.O. about the impending attack.

The attack on Alexander Institute was a success and the vaccine development data was destroyed, however, Rebecca escaped with her life after already trying the trial vaccine on herself and had already taken a digital copy of the data. Arias tracked her to Colorado where she went with Chris Redfield to locate D.S.O. agent Leon S. Kennedy. By curious coincidence, Patricio was also in Colorado and was looking for Leon. Arias originally planned to have both Rebecca and Patricio killed, but had a dramatic change of heart when he saw Rebecca’s face for the first time. Her resemblance to his late wife Sarah was uncanny and therefore he decided he wanted her taken alive. Maria and Diego used a team of mercenaries to abduct Rebecca and kill Patricio.

On Arias’ orders, Rebecca was brought back to his headquarters in New York. Arias had a virtual mock-up made of the original wedding chapel he married Sarah in and had Rebecca dressed in the same gown. It was later revealed that Arias had preserved the lives of many of his close friends and family killed at the wedding by reanimating them as zombies. But although he succeeded in reviving them he had yet to find a way to stop them decomposing. Arias was impressed by Rebecca’s intellect and her breakdown of the A-Virus, but insisted her vaccine was obsolete as it lacked the essential mechanisms required to stop the infected from attacking vaccinated individuals. He confessed he wanted to redo his wedding and became angry when Rebecca spurned his advances. Instead he decided to infect her once again and surgically graft Sarah’s preserved arm onto her body, insisting that would change Rebecca’s mind about him. He also brought forward the timetable for the New York attack as he believed the B.S.A.A. were already on their way to rescue Rebecca. The date had originally been scheduled for the following morning but now the attack was to begin right away.

As tanker trucks loaded with the trigger virus began dispersing the airborne toxin across town, Arias used the antibodies in Rebecca’s blood to create a more potent trigger virus strain, but in order for it to work, it had to be administered via direct injection and would take approximately 30 minutes to take effect. Arias watched as New York quickly descended into chaos and reflected that perhaps the world burning in flames was what he always wanted after all. He believed his growing army of the dead would change the world for the better, correcting the imbalance caused by recent wars. He would hit the reset button the world and his B.O.W.s were the right tools for the job, ready to bring down the world’s most powerful nations one at a time. But unlike others before him with similar machinations who were mentally unstable, Arias knew exactly what he was doing, and was motivated by nothing other than plain revenge.

Arias released numerous zombies out of holding areas to take care of Chris and Leon who quickly arrived at his headquarters to rescue Rebecca before eventually confronting Chris on the rooftop by his penthouse apartment. He shot Rebecca in the leg with his favoured firearm; a long-magazine Glock 18 and engaged Chris in a fight to the death. Arias matched Chris like for like in both firepower and close quarters combat in a brutal battle where both took turns in gaining the upper hand. Eventually they spilled over onto the fragile glass rooftop of the building’s central atrium and as Arias pounded Chris with a succession of punches, the glass cracked underneath. At this point he was blinded by rage and anger and Chris was eventually able to propel Arias over his shoulders where he fell through the glass and plummeted down the atrium and was left mortally wounded on the floor far below, his body completely broken.

As a contingency for such an occurrence, Diego Gomez was programmed to shed his power limiter and mutate should Arias die, that was his trigger. At this point, the Tyrant-like Gomez mutated and bonded with Arias’ body in a technique not unlike that of the Queen Plaga bonding with Ramon Salazar. See B.O.W page for more information.  

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