--U.P.R.F, Level 2 – Blue Sector Cells (Shadaloo side), 9:12AM--
The moment she stepped into his line of sight, Iwa felt his hot, angry glare falling upon her, she rolled her eyes in annoyance as she stopped before his cell. She noted that he had finish off the bowl of soup and some bread. On account of his background, he wasn't even provided with an eating utensil of any sort.
There was a coffee flavored Swiss roll in her hands and she made sure he saw it before throwing it in his cell. It rolled past John's foot. He looked at it, before then looking back at her. She ignored him and headed further down to a spot that would require him to move forward from his current position to get her in his line of sight again.
Whether or not he was going to eat that was not her problem. The food drops were part of a program specially drafted up for test subjects with high metabolism. Two meals of soup in a bread bowl would last only so long before hunger took over from basic physical tests. Starve too long and the body's metabolism would drop, and when that happens, getting good results from qi fluctuation would be affected since the body would rather preserve energy rather than to waste it in qi drawing or creation.
On the whole, only certain people were authorized to make these food drops, the four lead scientists and herself so far. Her partner too would be informed of this when he came in to relieve her. Of course, that was another underlying reason for the food drops. It allowed Doctor Markus to understand the way the test subjects' thought based on whom they were willing to accept food from. Additionally, it could be used as a form of punishment through denial or preferential treatment.
An uncomfortable thought hit and made her grimace. Maru was up to something, and was probably in trouble again. The squirrel was sending her another one of those panicky waves. She sighed and reached for her mobile phone to see what it was all about.
---------
--A few minutes ago--
Roaming through the vents had made him somewhat thirsty by now. It was quite a long way back into Iwa's quarters. He came to an exit and stuck his head out of the vents to have a look. It seemed like some manner of holding area. Should have some water around. Dropping onto the floor, he scurried around, hoping to find something.
The scent of dogs made him a little nervous so he kept to the walls until he came to a water bowl. Taking the opportunity he drank as much as he could. His fur stiffened when he heard an uncomfortable sound. Looking up, he came face to face with the jaws of a Doberman. Screaming, he leapt of the way when the fangs came crashing down.
Unfortunately for him, his scream caught the attention of several Dobermans and they came to investigate just what the noise was about. And what they found was a tiny bite size morsel of food. Another squeal escaped from him as he leapt out of the way when the dogs charged in. He scrambled this way and that as the dogs chased him down.
He sent a panicky thought to Iwa, hoping for her to come and help him out of the situation. Seeing one of the dogs getting too close for comfort and a dead end in front, he lobbed a walnut at it, hitting it between the eyes. The dog skidded to a stop and the others crashed into it. Taking the chance, Maru scrambled past them hoping to make it back to the safety of air vents.
Before he could even make it there, one of them was already waiting for him there. Stopping in his tracks, he found that the angry pack at his back had already regrouped and were closing in. He was in big trouble now. He readied another nut, determined to go down fighting...
NOT FOOD!!!
He could feel her influence flaring out from his mind hitting the dogs so hard that some of them were knocked off their feet. If he hadn't been with her for so long, he would probably had tried to fight off her influence.
The dogs were puzzled all of a sudden; they regarded the bite size squirrel with curiosity. It gave them a headache as they tried to go against the influence. They shook their heads trying to clear their thoughts. Not wanting to know how long the influence would last Maru took the opportunity to scramble back to the air vents.
~*~*~*~
--9:40AM--
"You know, my boss is already pissed enough at me without me being late."
"Later, I believe," said Jack, indicating his watch.
Natalie sighed. "Right. So what's so important that you had to call me out here?"
'Here' was a secluded beach area, where Jack Carter, her informant and a fellow agent of sorts, stood dressed in casual attire and appeared to be a regular guy enjoying a cocktail drink from the one small kiosk situated where the parking lot ended and the sand began. Natalie wanted to comment that red and white Hawaiian shirts were something he should avoid, but she bit her tongue and simply waited for his answer.
"We know who it is," he replied in a calm, quiet tone while his eyes looked seaward. "I don't think you'll be surprised."
A small crease formed between Agent Wynshire's slender brows. "You've got proof?"
He nodded and pulled something out of his shirt pocket. When he passed it to her, Natalie saw that it was a flash drive. Trepidation thrummed through her briefly when she touched it, as if she sensed some ill portent within the files it contained.
"Look at it, get what you can from it, destroy it. If they find you with it, they won't hesitate to kill you." 'They' meaning either the person in the files, Umbrella, or maybe both.
"Well, at least I have life insurance," she responded in a glum tone as she pocketed the drive.
"It won't do anyone any good to have you dead, Wyn."
Jack looked at her seriously, his short, black hair ruffled by the breeze. In that moment, Natalie noted that he looked older than she'd thought him to be. When he smiled, Jack looked little older than Jin. But there was one similarity the two shared, and it was perhaps the only similarity. In Jack's eyes, she could see that he'd lived more in experience - most of it bad - than most would gain in a lifetime. He was just very good at hiding it, but seeing it as she did now made Natalie wonder what sort of things he had witnessed and done in his work as a mole within Umbrella and who knows where else.
"I'll be careful," she said, extending one gothically bejeweled hand. "I know all this wasn't easy to come by. Thanks for the work you've put into it. You're a better agent than me, that's for sure."
Jack's smile half-returned as he grasped her hand firmly and gave it a small, single shake. "Don't blow smoke up my ass."
She snorted a short laugh and shook her head. "Whatever. I'll see you the next time you call."
With that, she turned and walked back to her car, intent on heading back to the hotel to look at the drive on her laptop. She could call Eddy and have him cover for her, saying she stopped by the lab on the way to work.
Jack watched her leave with the same half-smile, then sighed, took another sip of his drink and watched the waves lap at the shore. 'I'll see you the next time you call.'
Her words came back to him and Jack released a small huff at the rare expression of gratitude for his work. "Yeah, next time, Wyn."
There wouldn't be a next time.
~*~*~*~
--Room 105, 10:12AM--
When Natalie returned to the room, Jin was gone and Freckle was sitting on the bed, twitching his tail with his ears half-turned back, petulant after having been thwarted in his attempts to get 'that man who occupies my space' to play with him. Natalie chuckled, guessing what had happened, and scratched the cat on the head as she passed to sit at the small table where her laptop sat.
Inserting the flash drive into one of the USB ports, Natalie opened the laptop, turned it on and entered her password. In minutes she was browsing the file on the drive... hundreds of them.
Picture files, documents, layouts, and many things that, at a glance, she couldn't guess at. With a sigh, she realized that Jack had given her more than a little proof on the guilt of someone who'd been leaking info to Umbrella - he'd given her everything he had collected as his time as a mole within the facility. She didn't know where to begin... why hadn't he separated what she needed?
Scanning filenames didn't give her much to go on, but then, she was in too much of a hurry to go all the way down the list. Instead, the impatient girl just started clicking.
The images that came up at first puzzled her. They looked like medical documentation of organs and tissue she couldn't identify and tags with terms that were meaningless to her. There were several of these, which now and then she recognized as human organs. Hearts, brains and livers placed side-by-side, two of each in separate pictures. Her brow furrowed, one of each organ was normal, showed what she knew to be normal coloring, size and shape. The ones next to them bothered her. The liver was the first she noticed, discolored and bloated. She thought maybe it was that of an alcoholic or something, then the picture of the brain made her really wonder, with parts of it decayed, sunken while other parts, mainly much of the frontal lobe and other small, selective pieces, looked only slightly off-color. The second heart was also similarly incomplete in its decay, though partial bloating and the coagulation of blood gathered around the outside of the vents was almost sickening.
With the sort of sick fascination and curiosity that makes one look at something that their logic tells them they don't want to see, Natalie continued looking through the files, losing track of time and all thought of what she was originally supposed to be searching for.
~*~*~*~
--Local military base, 11:30AM--
"He can't have gone AWOL..."
"No, he's too much of a tight-ass to buck authority. But he should have checked in some time ago, if not with us, then with his own superiors. I've contacted his unit, they've heard nothing of him," Guile explained as he poured himself another cup of coffee, his fourth since breakfast. Lunch he could live without, caffeine he could not.
"I thought he had a tracker device installed. Didn't he?" Charlie asked, leaning one arm on the doorframe of Guile's rarely used temporary office. The matter at hand was John Heagy, and their inability to contact him.
"He did. It only goes off every 24 hours. He was still on the island when it went off last." When Guile didn't give any specifics, Nash assumed the area had either been checked or the information withheld.
"Maybe he just went after her and got carried away. Maybe-"
"People don't just disappear on this island, Nash," Guile snapped. "And Heagy made contact a priority, always by the book. And I had someone check the hotel security feed in the hallway to his room... no activity since we last spoke with him, unless he just hopped up on the balcony."
Oh, Guile didn't doubt that girl had something to do with this... but no one could say what exactly had happened. He sighed. "I just hope the kid's alright. Enough people have turned up dead or missing... and if he's gone, we got nowhere to look for him, and it's likely no backup would be sent. He was assigned here because he likes working alone and if he was captured or killed, he wouldn't be a liability the government would have to worry about. If they didn't think it was worth it, they wouldn't give us orders to go get him even if we knew where to look."
Nash adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "You know, I remember when you didn't need orders to do anything." With that, Charlie walked out of the room, leaving Guile to his thoughts and memories of his younger years.
~*~*~*~
--The Makai café, 1215PM--
Joining Ryu for lunch, Chun Li glared at her lover for the way he was stuffing food down his throat. She suspected that he might actually have an eating disorder. Ryu grunted something as an invitation to sit.
"I checked as discreetly as I could. She hasn't been to her usual joints and the doll shop people said she hasn't stepped in for over two days."
"You're sure she hasn't got tired of playing with those dolls?"
"The forum is in a frenzy over the latest development. According to Mel they were engaged in the battle for the legendary Crocodile Cap of Doom. The fates of three characters are to be decided in her next move. A psychic, an elf and a soldier." She passed him her digital camera to let him view the photos. Ryu frowned on seeing the doll that was reserved for him.
"I look that stern...? Anyway Mel's still in contact with her? I thought Ken sent him back home."
"He managed to convince one of the shop girls to help him with the table top games. Hard to say 'no' to a cute kid like him."
"And you're sure she's not hiding in the woods again?"
"Positive. If she was she would be egotistic enough to leave a clue or two to taunt us."
"She hasn't come back from Kuaui then," Ryu mused, offering Chun Li another piece of ham.
"Unless John has gotten to her. There's quite a number of military facilities dotting Oahu. For all we know Kuaui was to throw us off the fact that he has her. Even he hasn't been seen on Oahu in a couple of days." Chun Li frowned.
"I just hope they don't end up killing each other." Ryu stuffed another piece of bread down his throat.
"One more thing, Ryu. If it comes down to you or me... I'd rather it be me." Chun Li changed the subject. She knew he didn't want to hear this.
"What?! First her and now you? I don't like this."
"Baka. We'll all be in big trouble if they take you. At least if it's just me, they'll still try to lure you. If I really get taken, take whatever information we have and give it to Guile. I would rather bargain with Guile."
"What if she doesn't come back tomorrow for her fight?"
"Then I will have to assume the worst and see if Guile's up for negotiation. Fang chang xian diao da yu (keep the bait line long to catch a big fish). She's the lesser of two evils."
Frowning, the couple continued their meal in silence. Conversation seem to revolved around the same things as of late...
~*~*~*~
--Room 105, 1:25 PM--
Natalie had just opened a file - the very first she'd found - on the FBI leak, when her phone rang, making her jump slightly as it vibrated against her hip. Muttering a small curse with her eyes still on the document, she answered. "Yes?"
"Wyn?! Where the hell are you? You missed an entire briefing on the mission tonight!"
Parker's voice rang angrily in her ear, making her wince and hold the phone away from her head. "There's a mission? Doing what?"
"You'd know if you'd been here instead of in your room fu-"
Natalie scowled and cut him off. "I'm on my way, you prick. I just had something that came up. I'm leaving now." Even as she said this, she pulled the drive from her laptop, replaced the protective cover and glanced around. She didn't feel safe taking it with her... so where could she put it? An idea came to her. She hung up on Parker just as he was about to make another smartass remark and took the cages and tanks out of the closet, replacing them on the table and dresser where they had been before she hid them.
Reaching into Rosie's tank, Natalie gently nudged the spider aside and picked up her water dish. She dug a shallow depression in the dry bedding, placed the covered drive inside and replaced the water dish on top. Rosie was the only pet she could trust not to spill her water, and Natalie also guessed that no one but her or Jin would take the chance of reaching into the tank for any reason.
"Now, be a good girl and guard that for me, kay?"
The tarantula simply tapped her forelegs in a slow, patient manner. Wyn smiled and stroked the soft hairs along those legs. "That's a good girl. I'll see you later."
She petted the cat on the way out and left the room.
***
A few minutes later...
Jin returned to the room, deciding to change clothes before going to watch Fei's match. He wasn't aware that he'd just missed Natalie, but once he saw her laptop left open, he knew she'd been there.
"Natalie?" She never left it open, let alone on, because - he suspected - it contained a lot of sensitive information. When she didn't answer, he looked at the screen only a moment before sitting down before it.
Even if they were on good terms again, Jin didn't delude himself with the idea that she'd told him everything about the trouble she could be in, or what she was being forced to do. And he didn't see anything wrong with taking what might be viewed as an open invitation for his perusal into her files, even if it was unintended.
He resolved that, for just a little while before Fei's match, he would see what he could find. He opened the "recently viewed" history and began browsing.
~*~*~*~
--The main COF Arena, 3:00 PM--
He stood perched near the center of the arena, basked in the rays of the afternoon sun, his body almost unmoving. Steel blue eyes stared out across the stadium crowd, soaking up the cheers of the masses. Whether he was up against the horns or the fists of his attacker, the celebrity side of himself lived for the moments that came with it: the people's appreciation of his agility, his style, and his graceful beauty throughout it all.
From his left hand dangled a single rose, a deep shade of blood red in color, which he now slowly raised towards his nostrils. Had Vega been in his native homeland, in Barcelona, the roars would have been almost deafening, but the reaction here to his common routine remained satisfactory to him. The Spaniard then took in the rose's aroma - slowly closing his eyes as he did so - and plucked a petal from the flower, dropping it into the clutches of a passing breeze. Blue eyes opened again, and Vega performed a quick spin, tossing the rose into the air to complete the routine.
The rose didn't touch the ground as Vega expected, but had its descent interrupted by an outstretched arm.
"Are you here to fight, or play theatrics?" Fei Long questioned, tossing the rose off to the side. It then became the movie star's turn to receive his share of adulation as he slipped off his lightweight jacket and entered into a fighting stance.
"Very well, Mr. Long," was Vega's reply. Raising his right hand, Vega brandished his famed weapon before him, which shimmered as it caught the light of the sun. He slid the oval shaped chrome mask over his face, which also shimmered like the claw before him, and the assassin settled into his fighting stance.
Fei was the first to attack, lunging forward with a swift wheel kick. Vega darted away from the strike, narrowly ducked under a second leg strike, and countered with a slashing leg sweep. Long hit the ground yet sprang back up just as quickly and burst forward with a blurred punch. The Rekka Ken caught Vega in the chest and Fei Long pressed onward with a blurred body blow and a third, final forearm smash to the chest once more to complete the sequence.
Vega's body crumpled under the strike and fell backwards. The Spaniard wasn't down for long, but what caught Fei's (and the crowd's) attention is the way he got back up, slowly and eerily, like what a person falling on tape looks like when the footage is played in reverse.
This time Vega lunged forward, and Fei Long edged back at the critical second to avoid a claw swipe aimed at his torso. Vega went into a quick roll and thrusted one leg out, where he caught Long just above the ankle in the midst of his retreat, causing him to stumble backwards. Fei regained his footing in time to see Vega leap into the air and hurtle towards him, claw extended for an aerial slash.
"Shien Kyaku!" Long cried as he launched his body into a quick spin and dragged his leg, momentarily swathed in flames, into an upward arc to meet his opponent. Vega instantly threw his hips into a twist, forcing the rest of his body to follow, narrowly flipping over the apex of Fei's attack. Their bodies passed each other and Vega delivered a parting gift as he descended - a claw swipe across the back of Long's left shoulder blade. Fei grimaced in pain as he crashed onto the ground, landing onto his new wound. Vega landed gracefully a half-second later, several feet away.
As soon as Fei Long began to get back up Vega darted forward to inflict more damage. Long managed to block an elbow and a knee before snapping his head to the side to avoid a third claw slash across his cheek. Fei retaliated with a gut punch and a hook to the side of Vega's head, the latter causing a sharp twinge of pain in his shoulder. Long ignored the pain as Vega reeled from the blow, bursting into a short flurry of punches that ended with a wheel kick, directly onto Vega's mask, between his eyes.
Some hairline fractures appeared around the impact of Fei's strike but the mask doesn't break beyond that, yet Long could see the stunned look in Vega's eyes, and the opening it provided. In a smooth motion Fei hopped into the air and reached the arc of descent, where his left leg lashed out to meet the top of Vega's mask. The mask fell away from his face and skidded along the floor, whilst Long's right leg caught the now-exposed bridge of Vega's nose to finalize his Rekku Kyaku technique.
Vega clenched his teeth through the pain and reacted with a wild swing of his right arm. Fei instinctively jumped back, and was immediately thankful that he did, for instead of having his torso disemboweled he escaped with three light marks across his midsection. 'All that's missing now is a room of mirrors,' he joked to himself as he observed the parallel cuts.
The damage assessment on Vega was just as evident as Fei Long's. On his chest and shoulders were several bruises, but the biggest one was just beside his nose, under his right eye, which began to leak a trail of blood. More telling was the near-crazed expression on Vega's face, a sharp departure from the figure that had been soaking up the crowd moments ago. Steel blue eyes narrowed menacingly at Long, the only warning Vega gave before lunging forward.
Fei Long ducked as the claw passed overhead. With a frustrated grunt, Vega went into a lower, backhand slash but this time Fei leapt up. The movie star was unable to completely avoid it, for the tip of the claw just caught the side of his leg, tearing through cloth and flesh. Long screamed into clenched teeth as he fell out of the air onto the ground.
Vega brandished the claw before him briefly as he prepared another slash, but Fei Long demonstrated just how resilient he can be. As Vega closed in, Long burst into a Shien Kyaku, throwing his leg at Vega's wrist and cutting off the attack. The claw was dislodged from Vega's arm, whilst Fei Long's leg continued its ascent to strike Vega across the chest and send him flying.
Vega rose yet again, his arms slumped forward and gaze focused downward. Off to the side was his claw, now mangled and useless due to the force of Fei's fiery leg. Long broke off into a dash, seeking the finish, and it's then he realized his mistake.
Shadaloo's deadliest assassin snapped his head upward suddenly, a wild grin growing onto his features, shortly before he unleashed his Scarlet Mirage technique. Metal toe boots crashed into flesh repeatedly as Vega performed several backflip kicks, the final one catching Long under his chin. A trail of blood from Long's mouth marked the arc of his descent before he crashed onto the ground.
Fei staggered up only to sense a shadow swoop over him, before he was grabbed from behind. Vega arched his body back forcefully, driving Long into the ground with a strong German Suplex. Vega threw his legs up, maintaining his hold on Long to end up back behind him. This time the Spaniard went airborne, setting up a flying, more brutal German Suplex. The back of Fei's skull and neck struck the ground roughly, and the rest of his body dropped helplessly.
Vega flipped away and stared unsympathetically at Fei Long's prone, facedown form. He was about to burst into a chuckle until Fei's body began to stir and turned over onto his back. The crowd, many of them believing the fight to have been over, became unglued as Long got back to his feet with a kipup.
-*-
"Nice..." Luke Blaze commented amidst the roars of the crowd. "It's like something outta a movie." The irony of his words hit him and he gave a grin at the thought. Well, time to see what happens next...
-*-
Vega sprinted at the battered Fei Long, throwing a punch that met his bloodied forearm. Vega flew into a blitz of attacks, forcing Fei onto the defensive. Long hopped back from a lunge kick, then burst back forward. Vega attempted a roundhouse aimed at his opponent's left shoulder, but Fei Long suddenly dropped into a roll, building up the momentum to execute one of his deadliest techniques.
"SHIEN HIRYUU KYAKU!"
Vega's world momentarily became engulfed in flames like the ones surrounding Long's leg, as he was carried airborne by the continuous force of Fei's kicks, in an enhanced version of the Shien Kyaku. A crushing blow across Vega's jaw soon ended the technique - and the fight along with it.
As Fei Long spun away from Vega's falling body, he suspected that Vega was far from unconscious. Once both of them hit the ground, Fei's slowly walked over to Vega in order to confirm his assessment. The Spaniard lay still, his eyes half-open and his body racked with burn marks. He was somehow still conscious but clearly too weak to pick himself back up quick enough, thereby rewarding Fei Long the victory.