The Rival Company

But their true motivations appeared far more complex for when Umbrella began to suffer following the Raccoon incident, it was WilPharma who stepped into the breach as the world’s leading pharmaceutical company, suggesting the rival company was a much more clandestine firm choosing to operate secretly in the background of global affairs and preferring to stay away from the public spotlight. It is speculated the rival company was more of a global-based network than an actual physical entity, employing spies, military personnel and scientists in various cells that all reported back to a board of overseers. They were not based in any one country and had no central base of operations, rendering them extremely hard to track down by both Umbrella and the authorities.

When Albert Wesker was a confirmed member, the B.S.A.A. and U.S. Government were never able to track him down. Likewise when Jack Krauser joined, he completely dropped off the grid and became a ghost to his former employers. To generate revenue, the rival company had at least several reliable and profitable front companies used to further fund and support their more illegal activities. They were supremely well financed and had a spy network so vast they had operatives planted in many organisations across the world, including agents inside Umbrella and the U.S. Government. They also had major influence inside the global B.O.W. underworld and one of their primary interests was the study of synthetic biology and manipulation of biological devices and systems.

Their corporate logo comprised of two pills crossed over to resemble an ‘X’, possibly symbolising a chromosome. The rival company first came to the surface in 1998 when they hired the services of renowned industrial spy Ada Wong. They wanted her to infiltrate Umbrella’s Raccoon City operations and steal a sample of the t-Virus. Ada accepted this lucrative offer and used her looks and charm to seduce John Clemens, who at that time was chief researcher at the Arklay Labs. The two began a relationship and this eventually gained Ada access to the Arklay estate. Whilst staying with John and carrying out medial work, Ada made frequent secret reports back to the rival company about Umbrella’s B.O.W. program. It was also how they came to know about the existence
of the still in-development G-Virus after John confided in Ada about this top-secret project.

Around the same time, the rival company were contacted by Albert Wesker, an Umbrella employee with an extensive background and one of the key figures in t-Virus development. For personal reasons he wished to defect from Umbrella’s ranks and join them. This defection came about because over the years he had witnessed Umbrella’s leader, Oswell Spencer, cast aside many influential company figureheads when they were no longer useful to him and Wesker believed such a time may come when Spencer may do the same to him. He had initially decided to one-day leave Umbrella after Spencer had ordered him to assassinate his former mentor James Marcus back in 1988. He also believed that the rival company was be the perfect place to further his own individual plans. But the figureheads of this mysterious organisation were initially suspicious and Wesker knew he would have to prove his worth and loyalty to them. But this opportunity arrived sooner than expected thanks to the viral outbreak at the Arklay Labs in May 1998 and all the careful planning by the rival company to
steal Umbrella’s research was thrown out the window. As conditions worsened at the locked-down estate, Ada Wong was forced to abandon her mission and escape with her life. Her lover John had made a dying plea for her to expose all of Umbrella’s wrong-doings through the media and make the outbreak public, but she ignored him at the request of her employers.

With Ada gone, the rival company instead pinned their hopes on Wesker and it was agreed he would join them following his completion of the ‘X-Day’ protocol which involved using his S.T.A.R.S. team members to collect combat data on the various creatures running loose across the facility. But instead of reporting back to Umbrella, he would fake his death and present his collected combat data to the rival company, along with associated embryonic B.O.W. samples and a vial of the t-Virus. To gain more favour with his perspective new employers, Wesker also planned to present them with the combat data and embryo of the Tyrant T-002; one of Umbrella’s most formidable B.O.W.s, as a ‘gift.’

Umbrella had previously ordered the T-002 to be disposed having already safely evacuated its cloned embryo some time earlier, but Wesker planned to let it loose on his highly-trained S.T.A.R.S. operatives regardless and observe the results. The X-Day protocol was carried out on the night of July 24th 1998, with representatives of both Umbrella and the rival company eagerly awaiting the outcome. However, one of Umbrella’s top executives, Sergei Vladimir, believed Wesker was planning to betray Umbrella and did his best to disrupt the traitor’s activities. All through the night Wesker recorded the battles being fought at the mansion which were all uploaded to the computer systems at Arklay. However, Sergei locked Wesker out of the system using the newly installed Red Queen AI, meaning he couldn’t obtain the precious data he’d spent all evening gathering. Even worse, once the self-destruct system was activated by Rebecca Chambers, the emergency situation meant all of the combat data was automatically downloaded to the U.M.F.-013 mainframe at the underground lab in Raccoon City, ensuring Umbrella got all the data and he did not. To compound Wesker’s misery, the T-002 was unexpectedly slain by Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. With no choice, Wesker had to cut his losses and escape from the compound before its destruction. But the night was not a total loss as he still managed to secure a t-Virus sample and the development data for the MA-121 Hunter Alpha.

Following the mansion incident, Wesker was still inaugurated into the rival company albeit with a shattered reputation after the leaders were left disappointed his mission was not a complete success. But now they had the t-Virus in their hands, they could begin their research in earnest. With Wesker believed to be dead by both Umbrella and the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members, he could still become a useful operative but would have to prove his loyalty at a later date and restore his reputation. In the meantime, thanks to the recovered development data, the rival company set about sabotaging Umbrella’s most successful and flagship B.O.W. product by creating an improved model of Hunter.

The organisation also retained the services of Ada Wong and in the following months she infiltrated Raccoon City again and learned from a senior researcher that the G-Virus was nearing completion. Wesker knew this individual was William Birkin and learned his former colleague was looking to leave Umbrella upon realising they were looking to take the G-Virus away from him. Wesker saw this as an opportunity to make up for his previous loss by securing both Birkin and his G-Virus for the rival company. The rulers of the organisation agreed and wanted to test his loyalty. Wesker teamed up with Ada, but because he needed to preserve his ‘deceased’ status to the rest of the world, Ada would be the field agent whilst he co-ordinated things from behind the scenes.

To become better acquainted with Ada, Wesker sent her an extensive report of his time with Umbrella with a detailed breakdown of the t-Virus project dating back over the last 20 years. It was also around this time that one of the rival company’s spies watching Rockfort Island was compromised. Umbrella intercepted this intelligence leak and began a three month investigation to try and crack the identity of the spy; an endeavour that would prove fruitless thanks to the organisation’s shadowy network.

With Birkin’s negotiations with Umbrella faltering, and the prospect of him defecting to the U.S. Government becoming very real, Umbrella took measures to increase security around all of their key installations. But shortly afterwards they began to receive reports that agents of the rival company were active in and around Raccoon City. In late September, Wesker soon learned that the U.S. Government, under a plan by Derek Simmons, was also trying to secure Birkin and so needed to accelerate his plans. Unfortunately, Umbrella got to Birkin first and he was assassinated, or so everyone believed until he injected himself with the G-Virus whilst mortally wounded. He massacred the Umbrella Security Service retrieval team and the incident resulted in a biohazard engulfing Raccoon City at an alarming rate.

Whilst Umbrella took steps to contain the incident by deploying their U.B.C.S. forces, Ada Wong went to find Ben Bertolucci, a freelance journalist she had been exchanging information with. It was whilst searching for Ben at the R.P.D. building that she encountered rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy in a meeting that would change her fate forever. Meanwhile, the U.S. Government and Derek Simmons were pushing for a sterilisation operation to destroy the city; – not just to stop the biohazard, but to prevent Umbrella or anyone else securing the G-Virus. Umbrella did their best to stall this action by showing edited footage to the world’s media of the U.B.C.S.’s heroic rescue attempts and using their influence in the senate.

This subsequent delay created a small window of opportunity for the rival company to achieve their goals. In addition, Umbrella had deployed the Nemesis T-Type into town, their latest and greatest B.O.W. and Wesker took steps to ensure its combat data was collected for the rival company. Likewise the same was done with the G-Birkin creature during one of its final battles with Claire Redfield. In the end, Ada apparently failed in her mission by seemingly betraying Wesker to help Leon and when she eventually turned up at the meeting point, she found her contact had committed suicide. Wesker called via video-phone and scathed her, deeming her actions would have severe consequences for their organisation.

However, it turned out Ada had secured a sample of the G-Virus from Birkin’s corpse and was ready for evacuation. Wesker decided to comply and provided her with a grapple gun and the location of an Umbrella evacuation helicopter she could hitch a ride on before the city was annihilated. Ada was successful in her escape and reported back to Wesker and the rival company with the G-Virus sample. With her contract fulfilled and nursing severe injury, Ada left the services of the rival company shortly afterwards. She was ready to leave the ‘Ada Wong’ alias behind for good, but fate would eventually bring her back to the organisation. She also severed ties with Derek Simmons after learning he was the one responsible for bombing Raccoon City. She would go on to work for several different organisations over the next few years, including a Chinese criminal syndicate, but Wesker always watched her from behind the scenes and waited for the opportunity to utilise her again. Sherry Birkin had also been secured by the U.S. Government and was the only person in existence to house the G-Virus antibody. But thanks to operatives planted inside influential positions within the government, Wesker and the rival company could still gain access to her if they needed to.

Following the Raccoon City incident, the rival company’s own research began to bear fruit when they successfully created the Hunter II and its poisonous ‘Sweeper’ variant. These were improved models over Umbrella’s original MA-121 versions and this sabotage severely disrupted the success of Umbrella’s flagship B.O.W.

In December 1998, Wesker, using the rival company’s intelligence network, learned of a possible ‘awakening’ on Rockfort Island. He theorised this meant that the legendary Alexia Ashford was still alive and if true, created a possibility that samples of the infamous t-Veronica virus still existed. Again, Umbrella began to uncover evidence that the rival company was plotting against them, believing they were going to launch a direct offensive very soon. They also learned of the Hunter II development and began to suspect that Wesker had survived the mansion incident and was now working with their competitors. Further investigation revealed the rival company had a spy planted on Rockfort Island that had been feeding information back to them. Eventually the spy all but
verified Wesker’s suspicions about Alexia and the rival company planned an operation to capture her.

Wesker led the operation himself and took charge of the organisation’s Special Forces unit that went under the initials H.C.F., meaning Hive/Host Capture Force. The operation launched on December 27th, 1998 and H.C.F. launched an aerial offensive on the island, bombing strategic locations that resulted in an experimental t-Virus strain leaking out across the island. They also sent in ground troops, although many became infected due to the virus leak. Wesker also brought along a consignment of Hunter II and Sweeper specimens to test them in the field. Within hours, H.C.F. had secured 90% of the island’s facilities and systems and eradicated all organised resistance. Although it soon became apparent that Alexia was not on the island, Wesker discovered she was located at Umbrella’s South Pole facility in the Antarctic and made preparations to head there via submarine. Surviving employees from Rockfort were already en route to the base and several of the planes crash-landed into the facility, resulting in another biohazard breaking out.

Wesker eventually encountered Alexia face to face and witnessed her incredible powers. As he’d suspected, the only strain of t-Veronica in existence was the one inside her body, and thanks to the 15 years of cryogenic sleep which had slowed down her circulatory system enough for the virus to adapt to her cells, had resulted in a slightly enhanced strain which he named; t-Alexia. Although she was later destroyed by Chris Redfield, surviving H.C.F. operatives recovered the corpse of Steve Burnside on Wesker’s orders. Steve had earlier been injected with the t-Alexia strain as a test, but had still turned into a hideous creature. With his body secure, the rival company were able to extract the t-Alexia strain from Steve and they became the only organisation in the
world with access to the virus. Wesker had also obtained embryonic samples of more Umbrella B.O.W.s such as the Bandersnatch.

In 1999, amidst the continuing experimentation on Sherry Birkin by the U.S. Government, Derek Simmons took the decision to keep her in protective custody in order to keep her safe from Wesker and the rival company, unaware they already had spies operating inside the government. At the turn of the new millennium, the rival company became extremely active in the B.O.W. market. One of their first creations was the Jabberwock S3; the first B.O.W. in existence to use t-Veronica as a base. The success of the Hunter II and Sweeper also caused Umbrella to scrap their Hunter program indefinitely with clients preferring the rival company’s models.

In 2000 the rival company also worked in conjunction with criminal organisation The Connections following discovery of a fungus-based super organism with psychotropic compounds able to impose a profound control over body and mind when introduced to a host organism. H.C.F. provided The Connections with technical assistance in conceptualising a new form of biological weapon that could turn enemies into allies and hostile elements into willing servants. If successful, this project would eliminate the costs of not only POW handling, but combat itself. It was an ambitious project that could forever change the direction of modern biological warfare and the key element was the discovered ‘vicariant evolution fungus’ more commonly termed as ‘Mutamycete.’ However, for reasons unknown the rival company left this project at an undisclosed time and it was seen through to its completion by researchers of The Connections alone.

In 2001, Wesker came into contact with South American drug lord Javier Hidalgo and sold him a sample of the t-Veronica virus in exchange for a significant slice of his business empire. Hidalgo’s organisation, the Sacred Snakes, had a long-running contract with Umbrella to purchase low-cost B.O.W.s, but Wesker convinced them to end that contract and sign up with the rival company instead. He also provided a list of products marketed by the rival company including two new types of B.O.W.

In 2002 following the conclusion of Operation Javier when Hidalgo was killed, former U.S. SOCOM agent Jack Krauser faked his own death and reached out to Wesker, joining the rival company as an operative. The organisation evaluated him closely with his skills and personality being tested both on and off the battlefield. If the organisation didn’t deem him good enough, he could jeopardise their ongoing operations.

As the Raccoon Trials dragged on with seemingly no conclusion in sight, the rival company helped finance and organise a Private Anti-Biohazard Unit alongside other rival pharmaceutical corporations of Umbrella. This money allowed for specialised equipment and weaponry to be provided to all teams. But this equipment was bugged so that operatives of the rival company could monitor and gather intelligence on all anti-Umbrella operations. Throughout all this time, Wesker’s influence within the organisation was growing by the day and as he slowly made his way to the very top of the company, he began to attract opposition from certain sections of the upper hierarchy who viewed his motives with suspicion. For one thing, the t-Veronica Virus, which had been exclusively theirs, was now freely available on the world’s black markets thanks to Wesker’s own indecision. He’d also acquired a number of personal assets and some now started to believe that Wesker’s ultimate motivations did not match those of the organisation.

In early 2003, spies of the rival company reported the existence of a secret Umbrella hangar located in a desolate village in the Russian Caucasus. Because of their financial plight with various business suspension orders and their facilities being under investigation, Umbrella had set up remote hangars in various parts of the globe for storing hidden B.O.W.s, and viral samples preserved in stasis. This particular hangar was located underneath an innocuous looking grain silo at the top of the village and spies reported that Umbrella were hiding a previously unreleased Hunter model known as the Hunter Delta. Shortly after this, the villagers were attacked by B.O.W.s and contact was lost with the rival company operative inside the village. Using their intelligence network, Wesker conducted a comprehensive background check on an old chemical plant located three miles away from the village, discovering that the property rights had transferred to a rich noble family which he identified as Oswell Spencer. In addition, a large amount of foreign capital was invested and extensive
underground building work had been carried out. With this information, he was sure they had located Umbrella’s final base of operations. Wesker intentionally leaked this information anonymously to Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, knowing that this would bring it to the attention of the Private Biohazard Containment Unit, before heading out to Russia himself to collect the Hunter Delta specimens.

When Wesker arrived at the village he found all the residents to be dead. As expected, he also ran into his old rivals Chris and Jill. After initially being trapped in the grain silo with all the zombies, Chris had triggered a dust explosion that had severely weakened the structure of the building. Soon afterwards the floor collapsed and destroyed most of the Umbrella hangar, preventing Wesker from acquiring the specimens he came all this way for. But the trip was not a total loss, for inside the village chief’s house he recovered detailed schematics for the chemical plant that would aid his coming infiltration mission. Soon afterwards he launched a one-man assault on the chemical plant, causing a level 4 biohazard. Less than two hours later the Private Anti-Biohazard
force arrived, whose communications Wesker had been monitoring thanks to the surveillance devices planted inside their equipment. Just as Wesker had planned, Chris and Jill’s team were the perfect diversion whilst he completed his mission. He killed Sergei Vladimir, the new unofficial head of Umbrella, and stole all of the corporation’s archival data within U.M.F.-013 before deleting the whole system and rendering Umbrella helpless.

Not long afterwards, Umbrella were dissolved completely after Wesker testified anonymously in court using evidence from his copy of Umbrella’s archives. With Umbrella no more, the path appeared clear for the rival company to ascend to the forefront of biological weapons technology. However, things quickly began to change as many of Umbrella’s assets had leaked onto the black market by ex-employees and were now finding their way to other pharmaceutical companies and terrorist organisations who started up their own biological weapon programs.

Later that year, the rival company discovered that Wesker had been in contact with operatives from Tricell Inc and supplied them with information on the t and t-Veronica viruses. He also leaked Umbrella’s perfect strain t-Virus onto the black market, intending to trigger a global era of bioterrorism and
further arousing their suspicions over his true intentions.

By 2004, Wesker had risen to the very forefront of the rival company. Armed with the fruits of Umbrella’s research his influence could no longer be ignored and he had achieved wealth, status and honour. But there were those within the rival company board of overseers that viewed Wesker as an ‘uncontrollable spark that could burn the organisation from within’, and believed he was using them all to further his own goals. They had already confirmed his secret contact with Tricell and many came to believe he was planning on betrayal. The rulers of the rival company judged Wesker as a cancer that was slowly spreading and feared his influence was now too mighty to stop. Wesker’s private goal was to resurrect Umbrella Corporation in his own image.

The years he had spent secretly studying anti-B.O.W. research, exploring countermeasures, tactics and techniques to totally neutralise the viral weapons of all combatants in a conflict would see his new Umbrella change the balance of the world by controlling the very flow and direction of modern global warfare. This secret research on anti-B.O.W. weapons and countermeasures was solely for his own profit rather than that of the rival company. It was the ultimate egotist’s idea that only he hold these countermeasures. It was around this time that Ada Wong mysteriously came back into the fold and contacted the rulers of the rival company. She had a private personal objective of her own, and use of the rival company necessitated her taking one step closer to achieving that goal. Naturally the rulers of the rival company reacted to Ada’s sudden contact with puzzlement, scepticism and mistrust. They were well aware of her background as a spy and a history made up entirely of false footsteps, lies and misdirection. Many of the rival company’s top executives believed she was trying to infiltrate them at the behest of another organisation.

Aside from her accomplishments in Raccoon City which led to ‘Ada Wong’ becoming a legendary name in the underground spy network, nothing concrete was known about her. Some execs were rightly mistrustful of her intentions and called for her to be eliminated, but then the rulers decided instead to adopt a strategy to draw in Ada. By now the rival company were embroiled in a power struggle with Albert Wesker whose influence was fast becoming too powerful to ignore. The rulers of the rival company feared being usurped and wanted rid of this ‘malignant tumour’ that could destroy them all. Aware of their past working history, the rulers wanted to use Ada to suppress Wesker and function as a watchdog towards him. Although there was no reason to trust her
unconditionally, they figured that even if her ultimate motivations still harboured treachery, it would still be beneficial because if the two kept each other in check their most inconvenient actions as double agents would naturally be restricted for the organisation, at least the executives judged it so.

In view of this, Ada’s reinstatement into the rival company was permitted. Ever the professional, Ada performed her role perfectly, and whilst remaining cautious she approached Wesker making the most of the position she kept at the organisation. She was soon recognised by the rulers as a capable intelligence gathering agent on Wesker’s plans when used as a pawn. Egotistical and supremely confident, the arrogant Wesker was planning a takeover of the rival company and appointed and personally chose people to work for him. He wanted trusted followers to recreate Umbrella in his own image and favoured earnestly faithful and cunning wolves with sharp, piercing fangs rather than those he saw as foolish hounds. Jack Krauser was one such example who bought into Wesker’s ideal to recreate Umbrella with absolute certainly, viewing it as the only way to bring order and balance to the insanity plaguing the world.

With Ada, Wesker perceived she had a character he liked and skilfully built an alliance with her to put her under his control, or so he thought. He wanted to use Ada as his most highly valued trump card in the crucial aspects of the plans he devised. But Wesker was no fool and also did not fully trust Ada’s
motivations. He correctly assumed his own movements would be handed back down to the top brass of the organisation through her. Soon enough information began to leak, and he conversely actively wanted the information to leak. He wanted the other executives of the rival company to know that he was planning something big, and this was the revival of Umbrella. Faint traces of his plans created an unnatural rut in the accumulation of information through the rival
company’s intelligence channels. As the top brass of the organisation tried to piece together this intricately interwoven mixture of internal speculation, they were too busy worrying about Wesker to recognise Ada’s personal motivations.

She continued to operate faithfully and displayed nothing other than the façade of truly serving the rival company, as if her greatest pleasure was accomplishing her mission. For her part, the deception continued and her personal objective, whatever that was, was slowly moving closer to completion.
It was during a routine mission that Ada intercepted an e-mail from a researcher named Luis Sera pleading for help and protection. This was how the rival company came to know of the Las Plagas parasite that was in possession of a cult known as the Los Illuminados. Luis sent her small tissue samples she secretly fed back to the rival company who quickly determined the parasite possessed high potential for military applications. Wesker also took a keen interest in the organism and sent Jack Krauser to Southern Europe to infiltrate the Los Illuminados and gain the trust of their leader, Osmund Saddler. Luis contacted Ada again and begged her to take him into protective custody. The rival company wanted samples of the parasite, but Wesker also desired them for his own faction to aid with his oncoming corporate takeover.

To halt his relentless ascension to power, the organisation’s top brass demanded any recovered Dominant Plaga sample be returned to them and that Wesker be prevented from acquiring it all costs. This was to be Ada’s ultimate loyalty test; she would have to choose a side. When Krauser failed to secure Saddler’s trust and reluctantly had to call Ada for assistance, she seized her chance. In the end, Krauser and Saddler were killed by Leon and Ada was successful in retrieving a Dominant Species sample. Wesker was extremely pleased and organised her evacuation from the island. Thanks to her, he believed Umbrella was now one step closer to its re-establishment. But as ordered, Ada betrayed him and sent the Dominant Plaga back to her executives of the rival company instead. Wesker was disappointed by Ada’s ultimate betrayal but was not altogether surprised and had a contingency in place for such an occurrence. He later acquired a dead Dominant Species Plaga by recovering Krauser’s corpse from the island. He extracted the specimen and cloned it. This setback to his plans only delayed the inevitable and the power struggle that continued within the rival company eventually ended with Wesker assuming total control regardless.

Over the next two years, Wesker continued his plans to revive Umbrella but found himself increasingly distracted by thoughts of his old master, Oswell E. Spencer. What started as a simple curiosity soon descended into a dangerous obsession thanks to the principles of the Wesker Children project subliminally pulling at his strings. The obsession became so intense that Wesker used all the rival company’s power, money and time, and finally discovered Spencer’s location in 2006 when Ada Wong provided the information as an olive branch.

There Wesker learned of his origins and Spencer’s plan to create a new race of super humans to rule over as a god. Wesker severed his own chains by killing Spencer and decided to take over this plan. Homo sapiens had interfered in his own plans too many times and clearly there was still room for evolution. However, shortly afterwards Wesker was presumed dead following a fight with old enemies Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. Suddenly the rival company found themselves without their leader, and their resources severely strained thanks to his relentless quest to track down his former master. What happened next for the organisation is unclear, but it is believed executives loyal to Wesker led the group and continued his vision of resurrecting Umbrella.

A deal was struck with a contingent of former Umbrella employees, many of whom had genuine intentions of atoning for the sins of Spencer’s original corporation. The new rival company leaders submitted an application to the U.S. Government via Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, officially applying for the reorganisation of Umbrella Corporation. The official mandate provided was to atone for sins of the old Umbrella and the complete eradication of illegal biological weapons. This ambitious pledge promised to put a stop to not only anyone who was engineering or selling bioweapons, but those who supported those efforts as well. The name ‘Umbrella Corporation’ was to be retained to demonstrate that the new employees took responsibility for the mess of the original company and had a solemn promise to fix it.

Naturally this application was met with a heavy degree of scepticism, but following thorough checks, a final decree was entered and the assets of old Umbrella were released to the rival company executives under heavy sanctions to redeem the dark legacy of the original corporation.

In 2007 Umbrella was formally revived as a Private Military Company. Since the company’s trademark was changed following rehabilitation, the company logo was altered and its flagship colours changed from the traditional red and white to blue and white. ‘Red Umbrella’ commonly refers to pre-rehab and ‘Blue Umbrella’ refers to post-rehab.

Following the official reestablishment, the remnants of the rival company crumbled and word spread amongst other groups and organisations that they had collapsed completely, but its top brass lived on and were now running this new Umbrella. Although the majority of ex-Umbrella members employed by this new group had genuinely honourable intentions, the executives in charge of the PMC did not. When Wesker was finally killed for real in 2009 following the culmination of events in Kijuju and the Uroboros project, his private assets were seized and all his secret anti-B.O.W. research was discovered. This information was used by Umbrella’s researchers to develop a new array of specialised firearms and the products and experimental data left behind by Wesker were inspected in-house and further researched. The fruits of this research would later be extremely effective in redeeming most of the original Umbrella Corp’s dark legacy.

At the same time, the former rival company executives began a series of clandestine, ultra-top secret experiments designed for the purposes of operative training, prototype-equipment development, combat data acquisition, and a revival of the Close Quarters Battle Zone (CQBZ) battle system originally designed and favoured years earlier by Hunk. These experiments were running from at least 2011 and were classified from the rest of Umbrella. At the heart of these tests was operative training for a new paramilitary unit dubbed ‘Umbrella Corps.’ The instigator for these experiments was a former associate of Wesker and a close follower of his work.

In 2012 he took a great interest in experiments performed in the isolated village in Southern Europe, the site of the infamous Las Plagas outbreak in 2004 and an incident the rival company had direct involvement in at the time. This mysterious executive had a great deal of knowledge about this location and was interested in the mutated Ganado specimens. Only the best operatives made it into the ‘Umbrella Corps’ unit which was essentially a successor to the original U.S.S. teams.

In early 2013, a highly-promising operative came through the experiments unscathed. His codename was 3A7 and his unexpected survival led to researchers naming him the ‘New Grim Reaper’, effectively making him Hunk’s successor. ‘Umbrella Corps’ also field-tested prototype weapons and equipment, and the unit also attracted secret corporate sponsorship from other global organisations. The ‘Zombie Jammer’ was one such product and this was perfected and later made standard issue. A variant of this unit was sold to Chinese company Shen-Ya Pharmaceuticals in 2014. The experiments continued under the orders of the executive and looked for talented operatives worthy of a place in the coming world order.

It appeared one of the executive’s targets was to train Umbrella Corps ready for eventual war with the B.S.A.A. who would be their main obstacle to controlling global biological warfare. Umbrella Corps were deployed throughout 2015 and 2016, entering quarantine zones all over the globe, engaging in conflicts against other corporations with nebulous interests in bio-weaponry who had hired mercenaries to enter restricted, virus-infected areas to steal assets, samples and acquire valuable data. The Umbrella Corps units were highly classified and not disclosable because of U.N. sanctions banning the PMC from possessing their own paramilitary units.

At the same time, Umbrella PMC continued to redeem their name and thanks to Wesker’s anti-B.O.W. research had developed a number of specialised firearms, including the Albert 01 Samurai Edge and the Albert 02 shotgun. These weapons were tested and supplied to various anti-B.O.W. organisations including the B.S.A.A. To further build up good PR for Umbrella, they even developed a working relationship with the B.S.A.A. and had Chris Redfield working for them as an observer for several missions. Although by this point the B.S.A.A. were convinced of Umbrella’s honourable intentions, Chris himself was not so sure and used his new observer role to investigate the motivations of the company from within.

In 2017 he took part in ‘Operation Lurking Fear’ which was a mission to apprehend Lucas Baker. By this time Umbrella were tracking down criminal organisation The Connections and had reliable intelligence on the E-Series bioweapon and Mutamycete fungus thanks to their secret co-operation on the program back in 2000 when the rival company and H.C.F. provided technical assistance to the group. This mission ended in success when Lucas was killed and his transaction to send all the E-Series data to unnamed buyer was stopped. All this subsequent data was later recovered and retained by Umbrella…

Ten years after their reformation, ‘Blue Umbrella’ PMC has done much to redeem the legacy of Spencer’s Umbrella and put to rest the fears of the world although many lingering doubts still remain. Their true motivations still remain dark and mysterious. Nobody knows their leaders are the former rulers of the rival company and the executive in charge is following Albert Wesker’s original vision. Even long after his death, the ghost of Wesker continues to pull the strings behind world events…

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