Of Love, Honour and Revenge Ch. 33
By Matt Lawson

Ten minutes later, much to the annoyance of both Cammy and Sakura, Dan led them to the control room’s entrance. Two guards were posted in front.

“Two guards. Think you can handle them?” Dan whispered to Cammy.

“What do you think?” Cammy replied sarcastically.

A trompe-l’oeil smile of affection painted itself across his lips. “We’re still of the opinion that this is a good plan are we? No second thoughts or anything?”

Cammy disembowelled him with a look as she readied her gun to fire semi-automatically. Dan continued. “If I recall my military history correctly, there was a most famous Japanese general called Kamikaze who made a name for himself by his rather original approach to battle. Comforting to know we’re treading in the footsteps of one of the truly great military thinkers.”

Cammy ignored Dan as she simply walked up towards the two guards and fired a round into each of them before they had a chance to raise their own guns. They both slumped to the floor.

Cammy picked up their weapons, two MP5Ks and two backup SIG-Sauer P220s, and threw one of each to the amazed Dan, strapping the MP5K onto her. She then took out a keycard from one of the guards.

“Wait here.” Cammy said to Sakura. Sakura complied and hid behind the wall. As soon as she was ready, Cammy faced the door, and slid the key card through the slot.

The doors opened, and Cammy and Dan walked in, guns ready, and immediately faced about a dozen Shadowloo agents, guns aimed at them.

“FREEZE!!”

They looked at each other, then darted away from each other to hide from the fire.

After the first agent fell to the floor, smoking from the force of Ryu’s Hadoken blast, several agents charged at the couple, ready to strike. Chun Li dashed forward with unparalleled speed underneath one of the agents who flew overhead. Ryu jumped up with a kick, sending the agent flying back. Turning to face another agent, he span low and foot sweeped the attacker to the floor, flipped back to his feet, then slammed his foot down to his chest.

He turned to see Chun Li smash her foot into the head of the attacker that he kicked out of the air, felt a hand on his shoulder, then span his fist into the agent’s face, then back-fisted another attacker. Turning to face another running agent, he ducked, slammed his shoulder into the enemy’s gut and flipped him over his shoulder. Ducking a spinning kick, he blocked a back punch, punched the man’s face, blocked another back punch, then punched him into his side, then slammed his fist into the enemy’s chest, sending him to the floor. Finally, he side kicked the next agent’s face, then his groin. Ryu simply walked past and pushed the completely stunned and doubled-over enemy away.

Meanwhile, Chun Li slipped off one of her spiked bracelets, punched it into an agent’s throat, casually threw the bracelet into another man’s face, stunning him, then punched him away. Elbowing an agent in the stomach, doubling him over, she did a spinning roundhouse into another agent’s head, then punched the defenseless man in the face, sending him spinning to the floor. Ducking, she punched the next agent in the knee, uppercutted him away, then attacked in exactly the same way to the following agent. She turned to see Ryu run past and jump-kick an attacker that was just about to attack Chun Li from behind with a butterfly knife.

“Thanks!”

“Behind you!”

Chun Li turned and ducked to avoid a sweeping punch, then uppercutted him back onto the floor. The agent flipped back to his feet, then kept leaning backwards to avoid several punches. She then spun herself on her feet to avoid an unsuccessful lunge, grabbing a knife from his holster, and slammed her fist into his head. The man stumbled into the wall, then lunged at her again, only to fall to the floor when Chun Li flicked the knife into his chest.

Ryu leant sideways several times to avoid some lunges by an agent using a bo staff. At the fifth lunge, Ryu grabbed the staff, pulled it out of his hands, then spun round and slammed it into the agent’s head. Finally, he span the staff and flung it underneath another agent, dropped the staff and slammed his fist into the agent’s chest.

Ryu stood up and saw only himself, Chun Li, and a number of Shadowloo agents lying on the floor.

Chun Li spoke up amidst the silence, picking up her dropped CZ 75. “We’ve got to find Cammy and the rest of the gang.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

Holding her hand, Ryu ran with Chun Li out of the room of the dead, and towards where they hoped they would find Cammy, the intention of escape clear in their minds.

Hiding behind computer terminals, Cammy and Dan couldn’t fire off any rounds, with fear that they may end up hitting the terminal, so that it would be useless.

“This is ridiculous!” Cammy shouted over the noise. “We can’t even move!”

“Great plan, Cammy!” Dan shouted back, “General Kamikaze would be proud!”

Cammy replied back with an insult, but the noise of the gunfire drowned out what she said.

Back outside the control room, Sakura hid behind the wall, hearing the gunfire from the control room, and realising that Cammy and Dan weren’t firing back. Then she noticed that none of the gunfire was aimed towards the door.

If she could pull off a Hadoken and distract them, she could buy them some time to fight back. But she still felt weak, and she was still technically a beginner in the basics of Shotokan, she hadn’t been able to master the Hadoken. Could she be able to pull it off?

Only one way to find out.

She closed her eyes and concentrated, remembering what Ryu said about ki, trying to channel it through her arms into her hands. She suddenly felt the flow of ki drain when a stray bullet hit the wall nearby and she lost her concentration, and felt a rush of anger.

A warrior fights with skill, not with anger.

She concentrated on these words, and calmed down, holding the flow, and passing it through her arms again. When she opened her eyes, she gasped as she saw her arms surrounded with electricity. But she did not feel any pain. She turned and faced through the entrance. The gunfight still raged on, but she did not let it distract her. She placed her left foot back and cupped her hands behind her, channeling the remaining energy into a small ball between her hands. One of the Shadowloo guards noticed the girl surrounded by lightning and raised his gun to fire. At that moment, Sakura thrust her hands outwards.

“HADOKEN!”

The fireball leapt out of her hands and flew towards the guard with blinding speed, slamming into his chest and sending him backwards onto the floor, unconscious.

The other guards stopped firing with astonishment as they saw the sight.

“NOW!” shouted Cammy.

She set her FAMAS to automatic, and fired short, controlled bursts into the distracted guards. Jumping up, she took two steps off the wall, and flipped over, still firing, behind another set of terminals. Dan followed, running down the corridor towards the guards.

Cammy then noticed shots were being fired behind her as well as in front, and saw three guards on the platform above where sat Bison’s throne. Dropping her FAMAS, she jumped onto a terminal, letting Dan take care of the guards at the front, sprang from the terminal into the air, and grabbed the platform with her hands. She then used the momentum to pull her legs between her arms onto the banister and flipped herself onto the platform itself. She then kicked the back of one of the guards, sending him falling to the floor below. His neck broke as his head made contact with the steel floor.

One of the guards turned his weapon to fire, but Cammy jumped, flipped herself up, grabbed the trigger of his rifle in mid-flip, and grabbed the guards head between her legs. She flipped her body, sending his body somersaulting over with her in a Frankensteiner throw. In mid flip, she pulled the trigger, firing the weapon into the final guard, and slammed the head down onto the platform floor, watching as the guard behind fell as well from the gunshot. She picked herself up and watched as Dan kicked the final guard into submission.

“All clear!” Dan cried out.

Cammy ran to Bison’s throne and began to work out how to operate the outside communication system. Then she smiled as she watched Sakura march down towards Dan, immensely proud of herself.

Down in the VX chamber, the mines counted down.

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

0…

The Thermite Plasma exploded in a hail of fire, evaporating the VX gas, the warheads, and anyone unlucky enough to be caught with it, alive or dead.

Outside, Guile noticed a large plume of fire erupt from a hole in the floor.

“What the h*ll was that?”

His question was suddenly answered by a English-accented voice suddenly erupt into his earpiece.

“White Knight to the U.S., White Knight to the U.S., come in….”