Before the nightmare had a name, it was just motorcycles and beer. Roy Harrington was a National Guard sergeant, closer than brothers with Joseph Frost. Through Joseph, he entered the orbit of Chris Redfield and Forest Speyer. They were a tight-knit circle of "weekend warriors" until July 1996. The Spencer Mansion Incident changed everything. Roy sat by a radio at the precinct, listening to the static while Joseph was torn apart in the woods. When Forest returned, he wasn't the man Roy knew; he was a hollowed-out shell, shivering with a trauma that no one in the R.P.D. would acknowledge. Roy lived with a crushing, silent guilt. By August 1998, Raccoon City was a pressure cooker. Marvin Branagh and Brad Vickers pulled Roy into a provisional S.T.A.R.S. unit to plug the holes left by the missing Alpha and Bravo teams. While working with a civilian contact named John.

| Date/Time | The Event | The Psychological Blow | | --- | --- | --- | | Sept 25 | The Station Falls. | Roy watches the R.P.D. lobby breach. He sees his brothers in blue turned into monsters. Chief Irons' sabotage becomes clear as ammo caches are found empty. | | Sept 26 | The Small Family. | Roy gathers a desperate group: Elza Speyer, John Harrison, Linda Wong, the Kendos, and Forest Speyer. For a few hours, they are a family. | | Sept 27 | The Slaughter. | Linda Wong bleeds out in Elza's arms, her crying stopped by a sudden, wet silence. John Harrison locks himself behind a security door to draw off a horde, his last act a sacrifice Roy can never repay. | | Sept 28 | The Kendo Promise. | Roy watches Robert Kendo succumb to a bite. With his last breath, Kendo begs Roy to keep Emma safe. Roy takes the girl and leaves the gunsmith to his fate. | | Sept 29 | The Nemesis. | The monster arrives. Forest Speyer finally snaps out of his depression, throwing himself into the creature's path to buy his sister, Elza, a few seconds of life. Roy hears Forest's screams over the roar of the fire. |

Three days after the city was sterilized, Roy, Elza, and Emma were found huddled in an industrial rail yard outside the exclusion zone. They were gaunt, covered in soot and the copper-scent of dried blood. Roy knew better than to trust the black suits. While Elza navigated back roads in stolen trucks, Roy used his remaining R.P.D. credentials to ghost their files. He falsified death records and listed Emma Kendo as "Missing, Presumed Dead." For several weeks, Barry Burton sheltered them off the record. But where Elza became a quiet, traumatized shadow, Roy became a furnace. He spent his nights obsessing over black-market intel and Umbrella leaks. He didn't want justice; he wanted a body count. Roy founded Charlie Team as a rogue, black-ops vigilante group. He didn't recruit heroes. He recruited the "discarded"—fired soldiers like Falcon, disillusioned cops, and survivors who had nothing left but their grief. He sold them a dark philosophy Falcon became his second-in-command, The rift between Roy and Elza became a permanent scar. Elza hated the "S.T.A.R.S." name—she saw it as the brand that killed her brother and betrayed his legacy. Roy saw it as the only flag worth fighting under. They split. Elza disappeared into a bottle of whiskey, and Roy disappeared into the war.

The S.T.A.R.S. Charlie Team office was a dark, cramped room filled with the smell of stale tobacco and the hum of encrypted servers. Roy Harrington sat behind the desk, his hands steady as he looked at a surveillance photo of a high-ranking Umbrella official. The door creaked. Elza Speyer walked in, looking like a ghost. She was thinner than he remembered, her eyes glassy with the effects of a long-term bender.

"You look like hell, Elza," Roy said, his voice like sandpaper. He didn't offer her a chair. He didn't offer her a drink. Roy leaned forward, the harsh desk lamp highlighting the jagged scars across his face.