Vendetta Ch. 6 - The Gift
By Dare

Chun Li held up a specialized Chinese wu shu uniform; a flowing blue silk tunic, trimmed with gold. A folded white sash embroidered with water dragons and a pair of white hair ornaments lay in a neat bundle in one corner of the box.

She remembered this outfit. As a child, it had been the only thing that Chun Li had of her mother's, her only legacy. All she had known is that the silken uniform had been worn by her mother during her days in the Peking Opera, before she had met Chun Li's father.

After she had died, he had kept the uniform, hoping to someday give it to their daughter. But Chun Li had been too small even for the costume's slight dimensions and they had put it away, waiting for the day she could wear it.

That day had come.

Almost unconsciously, Chun Li began to slip the uniform on over the orange unitard she wore. As she did so, Master Gen's words ran through her mind.

So much of what he had said was true of her. In many ways, she had forgotten what she was fighting for. In the beginning, it had been to avenge her father. Later on, it was because Bison was threatening the world. But soon, it had become revenge. Pure, unadulterated revenge, and not for her father, or for the people who met their end because of Bison. The revenge was for herself. She hated Bison for what he had taken away from her. How she had suffered. She had stopped caring about the people she was supposedly trying to protect to somehow satisfy her selfish need to ultimately get even.

The uniform fit perfectly. It felt comfortable, familiar, somehow. It felt right. She then started on the hair ornaments. She undid the braid her hair was done up in and let her chestnut locks spill down her back as she returned to her thoughts.

But what to do now? Resign from the case? It seemed like the most straightforward thing to do, but not the easiest. Revenge or no, she had devoted much of her life to this assignment, and she wanted to have a hand of some sort in its resolution. She wanted to see this through to the end.

But if she did, would it be worth it? Would all the years spent hounding Bison be worth the life she could have led?

Would it be worth the lives of the innocents, like Donny?

Would it be worth her soul?

When she was done, she stood up, the ornaments comfortably in place. Chun Li strode over to the nearest fish pond and peered into its mirrorlike surface, where her heart caught in her chest.

The image staring back at her was that of her mother. Chun Li's eyes began to tear up again, but not from sorrow or grief, as they had these past long years. These were tears of joy.

She had never known her mother, but through the love her father had carried within him the day he decided to save the uniform she now wore, she felt as though both her parents were standing there alongside that pond with her. Her mother was reflected in her face, and her father was reflected in her heart.

Suddenly, a lot of things became clear to Chun Li.

She owed it to her father's memory to make sure her own life was not wasted in the most futile of ways. She shuddered at the thought that she had forgotten his zeal for life in her own foolish attempts at revenge, and in doing so had forgotten him.

No longer.

Suddenly, with a whoop of high-spirited laughter, Chun Li threw herself back into a flip, going from that into a one-handed cartwheel, and from there into an aerial somersault. She literally bounced from one end of the garden to another, leaping and spinning in the air like her master's nickname for her. It had been a long time since she had done so, and it made her feel alive.

Landing, Chun Li found new strength in her stride as she walked towards the training hall doors.

She knew what she had to do. It was not too late to make a fresh start for herself. She would drive right over to headquarters right now and resign from the case, if not from Interpol itself.

Walking into the main hall, she noticed something was wrong, even in her gaiety.

The lights had been turned off, and she was sure that she had turned them on before going out into the garden. Master Gen couldn't have turned them off, because he had gone off in a different direction after their talk.

*Someone's here.* she thought.

Suddenly, Chun Li felt a rush of air, and reflexively dropped and rolled to the right. She felt something just miss her, and when she got to her feet and turned, she saw that there were three thin slashes in the wall near where she had just been standing.

She threw her hand to the wall and switched the lights on.

"I see that you were all that Hirotaka said you were." said a light, yet malevolently smooth voice. That voice belonged to a man standing in the middle of the room. A tall, rather handsome man, no doubt a Spaniard, with long voluminous golden tresses tied back in a pony tail. A noble of some sort, if his attire was any indication. He was clad in a white silk shirt open to the midriff, as well as indigo trousers and stockings. His hands were clasped behind his back, a detail Chun Li was very wary of.

"Before you ask, Hirotaka is our agent who you so graciously pulped yesterday. A fine bit of work, too, if I may say so. He seemed to think the same, that is until he met with a most unfortunate accident in jail a few hours ago."

*Agent?* Chun Li thought. *Shadowlaw!*

"Who are you?!" she demanded. "What do you want!?"

The Spaniard made a tsk-tsking noise. "Don't you know it's rude to speak in that tone, my lady? For your information and pleasure, I am known as Vega. And what I want-"

Vega's green eyes narrowed as he smiled evilly.

"-is you."

"Me." Chun Li said, every muscle in her body tensing at that response.

"Yes. Or rather, it is my employer who wants you. Wants you dead, that is."

"Bison."

"I see you've heard of him. How fortunate, for he has most definitely heard of you. You've been a busy little bee, haven't you, Miss Inspector Chun Li of Interpol? Every little buzz you make interrupts Lord Bison's plans. And he finds that most annoying."

"Remind me to cry, if I ever get around to caring."

Vega chuckled at her dry humor. "A fine joke. What isn't a joke is that when Lord Bison gets annoyed, people get hurt. Like your 'friend'. Donny, wasn't it?"

Chun Li's face darkened. "What do you know of Donny Yinyang?"

"Oh, just about nothing." Vega said matter-of-factly. "But enough to know that you just can't pass up an opportunity to throw him around a little, even if it's out of affection or some other such nonsense. Besides, he was the best little honest thief in all of China. Which is why I gave him a little call yesterday, to get him to do a little job for me."

Chun Li's eyes were ablaze with anger. "You! You're the one who set Donny up!"

Vega laughed again. "Actually we set you up. That common rabble served as bait. It's a pity, isn't it? If not for you, he'd be alive right now."

Her teeth ground together as she dropped into her stance. "Monster." she growled. "You're going to pay for that."

Vega laughed a third time, a braying, mocking laugh. "Somehow, I don't think so."

He brought his hands out from behind him, Chun Li prepared to leap out of the path of a bullet if need be. But Vega carried no firearm. Instead, his right hand was sheathed in a gilded bracelet and velvet glove, with three long deadly-looking blades radiating outward from the top of his hand. It was similar to the fighting claws some ninja used, but more ornate, and much more sharp.

In Vega's other hand was a white mask, made of a strong plaster or wood it seemed, that he slipped over his face. Chun Li had done a study on European facades in university, and she recognized this particular mask design as being similar to the one the infamous torturer known as Torquemada was said to have worn. It was named the Mask of Agony.

Vega slashed at the air a few times before falling back into his own battle stance.

"All the tricks and weapons in the world won't save you." Chun Li said. "I'm taking you down."

"That would be possible, if it were simply you and I. But, by a reason far beyond my understanding, Lord Bison has chosen to saddle me with............ 'assistants'."

As if on cue, two more men entered the room. One, an American, was beefy, brutish, and wore camouflage fatigues. He was ugly, stupid-looking, and unshaven, with a baseball cap atop his messy brown locks.

The other man was lean and hungry looking. Looking of indeterminate age, he was dressed all in black, save for his face. His hawkish nose and bushy eyebrows gave him the appearance of a hunting bird of prey.

"Allow me to introduce Crank Howard and Helmut Klatsch. They're a bit low on the Shadowlaw ladder, but they get the job done. Crank made a name for himself in the American underground fight circuits as "the Mechanic', until he discovered he liked taking things apart a bit too much. Klatsch is an Austrian assassin, a master of the Indonesian martial art pencak silat. He is wanted in four continents for many things done to many people."

The two men came forward to stand at Vega's side.

"From what I know of you, Inspector, is that you might surely defeat these two in a heart beat. But even if you faced me alone you wouldn't have a chance."

"We'll see about that." Chun Li snarled, readying herself. "Come now, Inspector, three against one? Those odds are definitely not in your favor."

"Would three against four suffice, then?"

Chun Li turned to see that Master Gen, Yun, and Yang had appeared behind her. She exchanged a glance with the master, and then returned her attention to her enemy.

"Who's the geek in the silly Halloween mask?" Yun piped up, chewing and popping a wad of gum. "Betcha he's reeaalllly ugly lookin'."

This remark seemed to enrage Vega. "Insolent little pup! Hundreds have died at my hand, thankful to have been slain by one as handsome as I! I am Vega, known in Barcelona as the Beautiful Death!"

Yun was unflapped by this little rant. "Riiiiight. Howzabout I just call you 'dork' for short?" Then, he pushed off on his skateboard and hurled himself at Vega.

"Yun, watch out!" Chun Li screamed.

Yun leapt, board and all, and began to descend towards the Spanish Ninja, until he saw a flash of steel. He backflipped off his skateboard in mid air, a mere instant before Vega's claw cleaved it in two.

He landed back where he had started, while his skateboard hit the ground in two separate pieces.

Yun was aghast. "That was my favorite board, butthead!" he yelled. All Vega did was laugh that shrill, mocking laugh.

He was about to hurl himself at Vega again, until his brother stopped him by grabbing his pigtail.

"Oww!" Yun protested. "Yang, what's up with you?"

"I believe," Yang said in his infinite calmness. "that there is a better strategy here that getting killed. Grandfather?"

Master Gen pondered for the slightest moment and then said. "You boys handle the big fellow, Chun Li will-"

"Vega is mine." she stated.

"Are you sure?" Master Gen said, hopeful that his earlier words had not been wasted.

Chun Li gave a slight smile. "Don't worry, Master." she reassured him. "I know who my enemy is."

Master Gen's thick beard hid the grin creeping at the edges of his mouth. "Very well. I'll take the last one, then."

"Come, little sheep!" Vega called, impatiently. "The slaughter awaits."

And then the battle began.