My very first Tekken fanfic! It is edited now, because after playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (alliteration FTW!) I wanted to make some changes to this. Though the story is still basically the same —Nina coming out of cryo-sleep, finding out about the birth of her son, so on and so forth— it's not canonical. What I mean by that is, there will be familiar events and such, but there will also be somethings never mentioned in Tekken at all which are solely incorporated into this story for the sake of the plot that I've drawn out in my head. Emma Kliesen, Leo's biological mother, is mentioned because it has recently come to light that she has worked for the Zaibatsu at some point when she was alive.
This story may stand alone as a one-shot, but I'm working on creating another story involving this particular situation.
Enjoy~~
My breathing slows, falling out of its robotic pattern. I feel as though I've been sleeping for days, but I know that I have been in the laboratory for at least a few months. As relaxing as it is, excess sleep is a luxury that I cannot allow myself to enjoy, especially while in enemy territory. Though my senses are abnormally heightened during sleep —my line of work calls for such abilities— I still feel unguarded whenever I rest my eyes. Vulnerability is the worst feeling in the world, which is why a dry lump of anxiety clogs my throat when I try, and fail, to sit up.
My body is numb and a simple, leisurely stretch requires an insanely immense amount of effort and energy that I do not have. My eyelids have gained a thousand pounds. This is the first thought that comes to mind and —despite its obvious unlikelihood— the only immediate explanation for my sudden inability to open them. Just seconds after waking up and I'm already suffering from undesirable side effects.
What did that old man do to me? I seethe, inwardly cursing Bosconovitch upon realizing that I can't speak; my tongue is dead and just as uncooperative as the rest of my body. I open and close my mouth, relieving an unnerving strain in my jaw and mechanically forming random words with hopes that the useless mass of pink flesh occupying my mouth will spontaneously spring back to life.
My name is Nina Williams, I mouth the words, not really expecting to speak, but still a bit disappointed at the silence. I am 22 years old, I continue, knowing that the phrase won't sound as coherent as it does in my head. This notion is unfortunately confirmed when incomprehensible sequences of sounds escape my lips; my intended words: I hate Anna Williams, are involuntarily replaced by a strangled chain of muffled groans.
I give up.
I'm mute, I'm blind, and paralyzed. I am completely incapable of moving a single limb or saying a simple word. I am utterly defenseless and I absolutely hate it. I'm only certain of the fact that I'm breathing and my heart is beating, but even this does not comfort me. I lay miserably in my unbearably frozen state and, for a moment, I wonder if my hearing is also impaired. The thought is quickly discarded before the added anxiety can even register. A ton of pressure drains out of my chest as I hear a voice and several footsteps coming toward me.
"I pulled her out of the freezer last month," A man speaks in a horribly heavy German accent. "She should wake in a few weeks."
Bosconovitch?
It sounds like him, but a bit different.
"How do you think she will react when she finds out?" An unfamiliar voice —a woman's voice— excited and eager, yet apprehensive, speaks out.
"I think it best to keep the NT01's —er— . . . existence . . . between us." Bosconovitch says.
"His name is Steve and I completely disagree," The woman hastily replies, her tone much more stern and confident than when she had asked her question. "You will tell her when she wakes up. It is up to her whether or not she wants her son. Not you," She states firmly. I hear them getting increasingly closer until they stop near where I lay.
"Emma listen to me! NT01—"
"Steve . . .," The woman interrupts. "His name is Steve."
Bosconovitch clears his throat. "Steve . . .," He continues, "Is 15 years old now; comfortably situated with his foster family. I made sure that he was in good hands, Emma. What harm would it do NT —I mean . . . Steve to go on believing that Charlotte and Albert Fox are his biological parents?"
An uncomfortable silence follows his question, I being the most uncomfortable; only moments ago I wondered whether or not my hearing had gone. This stifling silence does not sit well with me.
The two continue to ramble in German and I find it strange that I can understand every word they're saying. The woman's voice goes higher and higher in anger while Bosconovitch's voice remains passive and constant. An exhausted sigh echos throughout the room.
"Dr. Bosconovitch," The woman finally speaks. "She's a mother. She's his mother. Have you thought about her in this situation?" More footsteps follow her question and then, suddenly, there is a palm resting gently on my forehead. It takes her warm touch for me to realize how cold I am and I don't fail to note that her hand slightly quivers upon making contact with my skin. "What about what she wants?"
A sinking feeling settles in my chest stretching far down to the depths of my stomach, and I briefly wonder who the hell they are talking about. If this woman's hand on my head is any indication, I would think that these two are talking about me. Except there is no way I can be a mother; I haven't slept with a man in years, and —hypothetically speaking— even if I had given birth in the past I am positive that I would know. What mother wouldn't?
Thinking back on their conversation, another obvious fact comes to light.
Steve is 15 years old now.
I know this Steve boy cannot be mine. Recalling the scientist's words, I feel foolish for even considering that these two may have been talking about me. The impossibility is self-explanatory —I'm 22 years old. Though even with this reassurance, Bosconovitch's proceeding question knocks my confident calculations to their knees.
"Do you really think it's wise to have his mother, a ruthless assassin, come into his life at this point?" My mind grows numb after absorbing the word 'assassin'. Bosconovitch, though often associated with the wrong crowd, does not know many assassins. My sister and I are the only two female assassins that aren't out for his blood . . .yet.
"Assassin or not—" The woman starts, but is interrupted by an unusually talkative Bosconovitch; his words causing further confusion, but simultaneously forming and fueling my killer intent.
"Nina Williams isn't necessarily the motherly type. I didn't have her impregnated so that she would have someone to call her mommy —a miniature Richard Williams."
My lazy tongue burns, venom crawling up my throat at the news of my impregnation and the brief, impertinent mention of my father —the only person that I have ever loved. If I could open my eyes, Bosconovitch would see death.
"I needed to perfect my research —fill in the holes and tie all the loose knots."
"These people are not lab rats Doctor," The woman hisses. I imagine her face curved in shocked disgust. "You cannot do with them what you please."
This woman must not have known Bosconovitch for long. He's a pitiless man, a scientist before anything else —even fatherhood. Thinking on that, I fleetingly toy with the idea that maybe Alisa hadn't died in a shootout all those years ago. Maybe she was an involuntary test subject for her father's experiments and his obsession with eternal life. If this is true, the result of it —her death and his constantly failed attempts at her resurrection— is darkly ironic.
"I know that Emma . . . ." I hear pages turning and more steps. "I took extra care of the Williams sisters. I would have more than a blood bath to expect if they were to come out of my project harmed in any way."
"Yet you had someone impregnate her while she slept?" The question, obviously rhetorical, received an answer none the less.
"Well . . . yes," He says in a tone that almost sounds like of course! "Both of them actually, but it hasn't killed them or even hurt them for that matter," He quickly adds, as though it is enough to justify his blatant disrespect for my body. "When they wake up they will bask in their prolonged youth, there will be no evidence of them ever having been with child, and I will have improved years of work." The old man's voice trembles in excitement, my body, my life nothing more than a science project in his eyes.
"Why," the woman sounds genuinely curious. "Why are you doing this?"
Yet another long pause and they speak again.
"Deine Tochter tot ist, Bosconovitch. Sie können keine Wiederbelebung der Toten."(1)
"Wir können nicht zu sicher sein, Emma."(2) He says, completely disregarding her grave tone. "This experiment was a success after all!"
"The Williams sisters are the only females that produced the desired result of my work,"
I assume the other women froze to death.
". . . well physically anyway. Mentally, the women are still stuck 15 years in the past. Sadly I could do nothing about that, but, rest assured, I am working on it."
The woman's fingers twitch uneasily on my forehead. She's probably deathly afraid of the maniac that stands before her, wondering whether or not she will be the next one lying motionlessly in my place. That explains her silence.
"Though time had stopped for her, and she hasn't aged a day over 22," He continues. His enthusiasm seems out of place here; I imagine his greatest pleasure in grade school was presenting his science fair project. "Unlike the others before it, the fetus that grew inside of her 15 years ago was still able to develop perfectly —just as normally as any other fetus in spite of the fact that his mother was frozen in time."
Fifteen years ago? My mind races, trying to fit 15 years into the few months that I thought I'd spent in this laboratory.
I've been asleep for fifteen years.
I've been violated and impregnated against my will.
I'm completely immobile, wholly at the mercy of a mad scientist who I want to murder in the slowest, most painful way.
I want to scream and thrash, or at least to be allowed the slightest of movement; just enough to wrap my burning, blood thirsty fingers around this man's miserable, wizened throat and never let go. Luckily for Bosconovitch, my arms and legs are cement blocks refusing to budge, and I drown in my hatred as a man who violated my trust and my body —both of which I do not give so easily— stands alive and well, still breathing less than 10 feet away.
"Her sister, on the other hand, was, or rather, is incapable of conception. Though the cryo-sleep has shown the same physical results in both women, I believe something went wrong with the younger one," His voice takes on a pitying tone, though I feel his distress lies within the fact that Anna is likely a botched experiment —an overall waste of his scientific resources. "She's barren now, but a beauty she is. One would never guess that she's 35 years old."
Anna.
Judging by what he has just said, she must have followed me into this experiment. I bet she has no clue of what she has gotten herself into.
If Anna is 35 now that makes me 37, I mull over the old man's words, realizing that this also makes the information from earlier perfectly possible, the numbers, the calculations, they all fit together.
I have a son.
Deceptively placed in and pulled out of my body.
I have a son that I don't want —that I will never want.
I will murder you Bosconovitch! I try to shout in an angry, intimidating voice, but I moan pathetically —not a single word coming out how I want them to— and I feel the woman's hand jerk off of my head as if I am on fire.
"Is she awake?" The woman asks. Brisk steps rush over to me and it takes some time for me to believe that Bosconovitch, in his late nineties (well past his hundreds considering the 15 year time lapse), can walk so quickly. Another hand, notably more rough and aged, now rests where the woman's hand was only seconds ago.
"Yes," He replies, his voice soft, distant, and, much to my amusement, laced with a hint of fear.
(1) "Deine Tochter tot ist, Bosconovitch. Sie können keine Wiederbelebung der Toten." = "Your daughter is dead, Bosconovitch. You cannot revive the dead."
(2) "Wir können nicht zu sicher sein, Emma" = "We cannot be too sure, Emma"
Reviews are much appreciated!