== Mililani, Oahu ==

Juli listlessly tapped her fingers on her knee and Pablo turned down several residential streets before pulling the vehicle to a stop. She looked outside to see a large single-story house with a wide yard. Palm trees decorated the front and back of the white and gray home.
 

"He's staying here?" Juli asked, surprised.
 

"For now," Pablo answered. He stepped outside, taking a large bag from the back with him as Juli made her way to the front door.
 

Only one ring of the doorbell and the door opened to reveal a man with brown hair and gold wire-rimmed glasses. He was just a few inches taller than Juli, and wore a simple blue polo shirt and jeans.
 

"Wes," Juli greeted with a nod.
 

He stepped aside to let them in. As one of Shadowlaw's agents assigned on Oahu, he had the privilege of staying in a large house – in one of Oahu's quiet, upper-middle class communities.
 

"Nice place," Pablo commented. "Is it yours?"
 

"It was bought as a temporary base about six months ago," Wes informed the two. "About a month ago, I had some engineers make some modifications..." He led them to the study. As Juli and Pablo waited, Wes pushed a sequence of buttons in his cell phone and a portion of the wall moved away to reveal a flight of stairs.
 

The three went down into a room just a little larger than the study that contained a large flat screen on one side, a computer console facing it. On the right side of the wall were clear shelves with locks – they currently held a few artifacts that Bison had been so interested in collecting.
 

Pablo held up the bag he had slung over his shoulder, passing it to Wes. "When are you planning to give those to him?"
 

"Depends when he wants them," Wes answered. "He hasn't asked for them yet."
 

"Maybe he's waiting to collect them all," Pablo said more to himself, yet the other two could clearly hear his voice.
 

"Which reminds me," Wes spoke up. "I'm going to have to send you two out again to retrieve another one..."
 
 

== Penthouse Suite, The Makai ==
 

"This has got to be the must screwed up stuff I've ever seen," a voice declared through the phone. "Who does this? Better yet...who would know about it and try to cover it up?"
 

At the dining table of his current residence for the next who knew how many weeks, Locke settled back in his chair, eyes focused on his laptop, the screen displaying information he had seen earlier on Maui.
 

"Well paid people," came his answer before he closed a file to open another one.
 

With his cell phone on the table next to his laptop, his earpiece on, Locke decided as a precaution, to send the information he had obtained from Nancy Shan to Tanaka. It never hurt to keep extra backups.
 

His eye caught a file that he and Nancy hadn't looked at. He opened it, his eyes skimming a map. "Tanaka...looks like you were right about Umbrella having a facility here..."
  

"Damn, I'm good," Tanaka laughed. "So what are you going to do with all of this?"
 

"It might be best to give it to the authorities," Locke stated, before pulling out the thumb drive from his laptop.
 

"You trust them?"
 

"No," came the flat response. "But if I had to choose who should get this, Umbrella or them..."
 

"Right, right." His friend paused for a while, presumably reading his copy of the files. "If anyone knew you had this...you'd be a dead man."
 

"It wouldn't be the first time an organization would want me dead," Locke responded.
 

"So what do you plan to do?"
 

"I've been researching the background on some of these participants. Some work for the government."
 

"You serious?"
 

"I doubt they're all here because they like attending tournaments," Locke continued, his eyes narrowing slightly. A little too many government contestants, in his opinion. It reminded him too much of the last tournament held on Fighter's Isle...
 

"So what's the plan? Walk up to some tournament participant with government credentials and say 'Guess what? I have some info you might need...'?"
 

A hint of a smile appeared. "I was thinking of something more indirect..."
 
 

== Mililani, Oahu===
 

"Wait..." Cammy pulled the van to stop, pointing to a vehicle in the distance. "I think that's them."
 

Since she received that anonymous tip, she had been following Juli and Pablo Veracruz.
 

"Pretty nice neighborhood," Ginza commented, looking around.
 

"Why are they here?" Cammy asked, puzzled. "Ginza...can you get an owner of that house? Address is..." She held up her binoculars. "Fifteen hundred..."
 

"Already ahead of you."
 

Fingers flew over the laptop keyboard for a few minutes.
 

"Sam and Mindy Kealoha...married, fifties, self-employed...this is one of their homes in Hawaii...they also own another home in California. Frequent travellers."
 

"Just because they own the place doesn't mean they're living there now..." Cammy pointed out. "Could they be renting it out?"
 

"It's possible..."
 
 

== Unknown location, Oahu ==
 

"He's what?"
 

"I'm afraid so." Back in his temporary office, Riq relayed the events to his supervisor.
 

"Was there anything else?"
 

"Just some information he was willing to hand out."
 

"And it's valid?"
 

Riq glanced at his monitor, instantly recognizing the various blueprints and maps before turning away. "It looks like it."
 

He frowned as a notification in his email appeared.
 

"I'll keep you updated." With that, Riq hung up before opening the email.
 

He scrolled down to see that it was a copy of a police report. Apparently, this particular notification had to deal with a woman named Nancy Shan – one of several connections to Holden. His findings had told him that the woman had been college classmates with Umbrella's now-deceased Director and PR of Marketing. And apparently, she had worked at Umbrella for several years before quitting.
 

Everything was too coincidental for him.
 

His frown deepened as he continued to read the report. It basically said that the hotel clerk at the scene of the crime remembered that Shan had checked in under an alias and that she hadn't been alone when she first arrived. Two Asian-looking men had been with her but they hadn't been with her for long. A few hours later, two men in dark suits had arrived, showing him her photograph and demanding that he tell them where she was staying. He refused due to privacy rules and was shot and passed out. It was the last thing he remembered before waking up in the hospital.
 

Riq scrolled down, shaking his head. The report continued to say that the hotel clerk had died at the hospital. Apparently, he had been given an overdose of painkillers.

        He looked at the ceiling, green eyes narrowing with suspicion. Painkillers. As if he'd believe that...
 
 

== FBI Lab, Honolulu ==
 

"Any thoughts?" Natalie asked the lab tech as he examined a test tube sample of the substance she had retrieved from Reno Tseng's hotel room.
 

He frowned, studying his row of samples, none having reacted with other chemicals he had used to help him identify the substance. "I wish. It doesn't look like any drug or poison I've ever seen."
 

Natalie sighed, glancing at the clock. She still had work to do. "Okay. Thanks, Eddie. Call me as soon as you find out anything."
 

"Will do."
 

She turned to leave as Eddie continued his work. Hopefully the lab would come up with something. In the meantime, she had other people to snoop on.
 
 

== Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, several miles off the coast of Oahu ==
 

"Everything was carried out as exactly as you instructed," Smith said.
 

Harris faced two of his employees, his fingers lightly drumming on his desk. His rugged features were scowling at the moment.
 

"The hotel clerk's dead," one spoke up. "No one will-"
 

"I'm still wondering what the hell happened," Harris cut in. He pointed to Smith. "When you were at Shan's place, you said someone else was there."
 

"Yes."
 

"They kicked you and slammed you against a wall," Harris continued.
 

Clearly disliking that reminder, Smith coughed, shifting slightly on his feet. "Yes...Yes, sir."
 

The security director glared at them before speaking again. "Did you see who it was?"
 

"No...sir..." Dennison spoke up. "He...or she...had turned off the lights and attacked us before we could do anything."
 

"He," Harrison corrected.
 

Smith and Dennison's expressions must have shown confusion, because Harris turned his LCD monitor around, pointing to the document currently occupying the screen. "Ka'anapali Police report. Said that she had checked into the hotel under an alias and arrived with two men. She wasn't alone, you idiots. And whoever she was with probably knew what was going on."
 

"Boss, how do you know-?"
 

"How about the fact that you both had your asses kicked before you barely stepped inside her home? Add that to her going to a hotel and not using her real name. And when you got to the hotel, McIntyre's shooting hand took a bullet by one of your guys' weapons?"
 

Dennison flinched. He knew that McIntyre's partner hadn't wanted to kill the guy. But those were the rules when it came to working for Harris and Umbrella. If you weren't useful anymore, you had to be taken care of. Actually, McIntyre's partner had done him a favor. If McIntyre hadn't been killed, he might have been used for experiments. Their job in Umbrella's security division was to make sure that everyone who knew what Umbrella was really up to didn't talk.
 

"Maybe the guys were escorts and she didn't want her reputation damaged since..." Smith trailed off.
 

He looked away once Harris turned his forbidding stare at him. Harris picked up a pen and threw it so it bounced off his forehead. "When you get escorts, do you invite them to your house and then go to a hotel room under an alias name?"
 

"No," Dennison answered obediently.
 

"And do you hire escorts who can also kick people's asses and fire guns?"
 

"No," came the dutiful answer.
 

"I rest my case." Harris turned his LCD back around. "Find out who was with her that night. Somebody had to have seen them. Now get the hell out of my office."
 

The two men left the office to see one of their colleagues waiting to enter Harris' office.
 

Once outside and away from Harris' watchful gaze, Dennison curled his hand into a fist and punched the wall. "Dammit."
 

"We looked everywhere, James," Smith explained to their colleague who had been waiting outside. "No trace. No witnesses, no cameras at this hotel, no license plate numbers, no nothing."
 
 

== One guest room, The Makai ==
 

Natalie slid her card key into the slot before opening the door. After discreetly asking around, she had found out that one Pablo Veracruz had left the hotel grounds several hours ago with a brunette.
 

Once again, she had put Fei Long on watch duty, only this time in the lounge of the lobby, with him casually reading the newspaper, facing the elevators. She'd only been able to give him a detailed description of who she was looking for – unfortunately, any photos of him were left back in Parker's office.
 

She looked around the room, noting a large stack of books piled on the desk. Natalie looked at each of the titles thoughtfully.

Great Sites in Polynesia.
 

She opened it and flipped through, noting that several pages had been dog-eared. Most of them were locations tied to Polynesian myths, where gods or goddesses had resided or performed some great feat or where chiefs and warriors had fought vicious battles.
 

Turning to another side of the room, Natalie opened a drawer and found several small packages and envelopes. Pulling out one letter, in pretty cursive writing, one note read, 'Call me again. Last night was incredible. –Bonnie'
 

Another envelope had a photo and note attached that read, 'I'll be waiting for you.' The photo had a buxom redhead dressed in green lingerie.
 

Shaking her head, Natalie closed the drawer. "Every tournament's gotta have a ladies' man," she muttered.
 

In another drawer she pulled out a folder containing aerial photos and maps of what she assumed to be different locations in the world. She squinted, unable to decipher some of the photos, except one.
 

Stonehenge?
 

Interesting. The guy seemed to have a thing for historical places. But why would he bring his work with him?
 

Still, just in case, she took out a camera and began taking photos of the maps.
 

After searching around, Natalie promptly left the room, leaving everything as it was.
 
 

== Makai's Pool ==
 

"Thanks, man." Luke Blaze left a tip on the waiter's tray as he grabbed his drink.
 

From his position on the lounge chair, he could see several tournament participants engaged in a game of beach volleyball on the beach.
 

Next to him, Alex was perusing the newspaper. The two had just come from a training session on the beach and decided to take a break.
 

Besides, the view was pretty nice. It wasn't very often guys like them could enjoy this type of luxury.

Luke stirred his drink before asking, "Anything good?"

"Mostly tournament coverage," Alex said as he turned the pages in the sports section.
 

"Who's fought so far?"
 

"Fei Long and his partner Jin won a few-"
 

"The actor?"
 

"Yeah. Charlie and his partner Riq..."
 

"Hey, isn't Charlie supposed to treat us with the money he won at the luau?"
 

"Yeah, I think so. Whoever gets through the first round fight, anyway..."
 

"Huh." Luke glanced over at the paper, seeing the current scores. "Maybe we should train some more. Looks like people are having a tough time, and they're not even halfway through their groups yet..."
 

"Yeah, but you did good, Luke," said Alex patting him on the shoulder. "Makoto was good, but you were better. At least you won fair and square, I could barely hold my own against the recent World Warrior himself."

"Yeah, that Ryu guy fights the same way Ken did," said Luke. "There a connection?"

"More than you think," said Alex. "I heard they had the same sensei - a great Shotokan master named - Gouken."

"He must've been pretty powerful to teach those two guys the moves they know," said Luke. "Too bad Makoto's own karate wasn't defensive enough against my own martial arts style. The kid had spunk though. I even offered her maybe a lesson or two from my own dojo after the match was over...she just scoffed and turned it down flat."

"Aside from being more of a tomboy character than Sakura, she got issues of her own - namely fighting in the honor of her own father and master and the dojo she and her grandpa run - or so I heard."

"I guess so," laughed Luke. "Maybe next time she'll have better luck."

"Ain't about luck, Luke," said Alex. "Skill, heart and a whole lotta guts in this game."

"You said it," said Luke. He took some of his drink, frowning. "They got me the wrong one... I'm going to the bar, I'll be back..."

Getting up from his chair, Luke walked several feet before he spotted another person sitting near the pool and was eating some leftovers from the hotel continental breakfast, namely some donuts, Danish and a cup of coffee to go with it. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, black cargo pants and sneakers and had a mop of unruly hair and wore a pair of shades.

Luke recognized him as another of the tournament entrants. "Hey..aren't you one of the fighters in the contest?" said Luke, approaching him.

"You bet I am," he said between bites of his glazed donut he was munching on. "You wanna an autograph?"

"Uh, no, not really." said Luke. "Just wondering who might you be since you're in the COF as well."

The man wiped off his hand on his shirt and shook hands with Luke. "Volpe - Aaron Volpe - at thy service, good sir," he said.

"Luke Blaze," he said. "You're the second other fighter I bumped into these past couple of days."

"Yeah?" said Aaron. "Who was the other?"

"Don't really know," said Luke. "All I know is I got a whiff of his cigar smoke and got a little sick and annoyed."

"Cigar?" said Volpe. "Oh yeah, he was the guy who went up against that Birdie guy in the qualifying matches...I think his name is... Riq something... but that's all I heard lately."

"Riq...?" said Luke. "Huh, well I hope he fights better than he smokes."

"Yeah, I don't know why some people would wanna pollute themselves with such crap like smoking."

Volpe then finished off his last donut and then started on the cheese Danish and coffee.

"Anyways," said Luke. "What's your biz in this contest, pardon me for asking?"

"Well...not much to tell, except that I saw what you could win in the contest just for beating up people."

"Just the prize money huh?" said Luke. "Well...you'd better aim and hit hard if ever wanna win big in this, man."

"I guess so," said Volpe. "Well, it's been pretty easy so far for me, after I beat that lug Sodom in San Fran. But I'll be on my toes."

"Yes, that's what I wanted to ask you, what kind of fight style do you use?" said Luke. "I didn't see you in action recently."

"You really wanna know?" said Volpe. "It's close to kung fu and not close enough to anything you might know."

"Hey, I fought many styles no matter how unorthodox, I'd just like to know what else I'm facing, if I ever hope to face Ken or Guile."

"Those guys eh?" said Volpe. "Okay then, tell ya what. I found a nice garden area in the back yard where we could spar. But I warn ya... you might not be ready for what I got in my arsenal."

"Well, ya won't know if ya learn right?" said Luke. "Besides, it'd be just a little spar, nothing big really, just to compare styles."

Volpe finished off his coffee and Danish and got up. "Okay-doke... let's go then," he said.

The two fighters then walked off to the little area where they would spar.

While they walked off towards the exit, Luke noticed someone standing alone near a vending machine up against the wall.

He wore a black tux-like suit and had long black hair, he seemed to have a strange evil aura about him.

"Hmmmm..." he thought. "... I think I saw him here at the hotel yesterday before I went jogging. I wonder, is he a fighter as well?"

Luke then turned back to Volpe and where they were going.

"Something wrong?" said Volpe.

"Er, no nothing really," he said. "I just thought I saw something back there."

The man against the wall was Shing Venom. He was resting a bit after his excursion with the Shadaloo facility he unearthed recently.

It was small victory, but not one he was satisfied with. There was no sign of the villain named Bison - nor would anyone there tell him - before he either injured or killed them.

"No matter how long it takes me." he thought. "I shall unearth this Bison, and his Shadaloo empire shall become my own. It's time I let the world know that the Venom has returned once again... to poison his enemies!"

Shing then turned towards the stairs that went to the suite he was staying in.