Alexia Ashford

"You want it? You aren't worthy of its power." -Alexia Ashford

Alexia Ashford is one of the three main antagonists of Resident Evil: Code Veronica and featured in extended scenes in Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, and was the final boss in both of them.

Birth
Her story begins with her disgraced father, Alexander, who had damaged almost beyond repair the reputation of the family, once considered as one of the first and foremost of the globe. To restore his lost honor, Alexander started genetic studies whose purpose was to find the gene that regulated intelligence. Succeeding, he took DNA belonging to the ancient matriarch of the Ashford family, Veronica Ashford, and "enhanced" it by including the dangerous intelligence-raising gene and his own DNA. From this union, twins were born-Alexia and Alfred. While Alfred was born with a low-genius IQ, Alexia was born with a phenomenally high one, and was considered the premiere of the two. She was so smart, in fact, she became alienated from her peers and was isolated from everyone except her brother. This isolation embittered her and made her immensely egotistical, though it also allowed her to finish university at age ten and be named the youngest Chief Senior Researcher ever of the Umbrella Corporation.

T-Veronica Foundations
Some time around her twelfth birthday, while she lived in the Antarctic Research Facility, her brother Alfred told her about a secret room in the place, and told her he needed her family gemstone, a large ruby inside a silver choker, to open it. Offering it to him, she aided him greatly in opening the secret corridor. Later, she was informed of the complete truth about her and her brother's births, and both grew immensely hateful of their father. Capturing him, they used him as a test subject for a special virus Alexia had created binding together the remnants of an ancient virus found within a queen ant and the Progenitor Virus. The experiment turned Alexander into the insane monster known solely as Nosferatu. Taking notes on her father's progress, Alexia discovered certain flaws in her virus, and planned to inject herself with the virus to become a superior being. Using the data she had obtained from her father, Alexia discovered a way to harness the full power of her virus: by having herself cryogenically preserved as the virus covered her unconscious body and matured within for fifteen years. She had Alfred carry out her will while she was inactive, and proceeded with the cryostatic state.

Resurrection
Fifteen years after this, she awoke in the body of a twenty-seven year old woman, with the first sight of her new stage being the death of her brother. She sought to avenge his death, and using her newfound powers, she remotely controlled one of the massive tentacles resting below the Antarctic Research Facility to destroy the escape vehicle of the people she considered his murderers: Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside. She imprisoned Burnside and repeated the experiment that created the Nosferatu with her father, only with her own mutant strain. Later on, she appeared to confront Albert Wesker in the replica of the Arklay mansion under the Antarctic. There, she first evolved with the T-Veronica strain into the first step of what, she envisioned, was true godhood, shedding her human skin and hair and turning into a powerful being, that greatly resembled her human stage with gray skin, darkened vessels and arteries, and chitinous growths covering her body as a form of rudimentary armor. Despite the fact she controlled her body's blood (which by then had acquired flammable properties, usable through bloodshed) she was soundly defeated by Chris Redfield.

Death
Later on, weakened by her previous defeat, she once again attacked Chris by fusing with one of the T-Veronica mutant breeder pods, creating countless imperfect larvae to attack him. Despite this, she was once again killed by gunfire. However, Alexia had been ready for a second defeat; she responded by evolving further, shedding the carcass of the breeder pod and becoming a giant dragonfly-like monster, capable of spewing great amounts of flame and absorbing all gunfire. Nevertheless, Chris by then had managed to secure an experimental weapon designed to destroy rogue B.O.W.s, the Linear Launcher, with streams of superheated plasma. Using it against Alexia, the mad dreams of domination of the Ashford family were finished forever-along with another of the families that held a direct link to Umbrella.

Trivia

 * Early in the game's development, Alexia's name was Hilda Krueger.
 * Alexia's final form and destruction mimics her and Alfred's torture of the dragonfly, as shown in the filmstrip in Alfred's trophy room early in the game. Alexia refers to the mass of humanity as "ants" in her journal, and Chris must reassemble a dragonfly to form the key to the Antarctic facility's reactor room; thus, the dragonfly regains its wings. Metaphorically, Alexia's final form resembles a dragonfly, yet she is slain by Chris, "an ant."
 * In the novelization of Code: Veronica written by S.D. Perry, Alexia is depicted as a megalomaniac with delusions of godhood, considering all lifeforms beneath her. Also, she only undergoes the first and second stages of her mutations, perishing after Chris succeeds in blasting off her two lower wings and then directs a blast from the Linear Launcher into her abdomen.