Hey, all. I wanted to get this out before Christmas, as sort of a present. Or something. Updates may or may not be regular, We'll have to see what happens.

Before I started with Redemption, I decided that Rain, for whom the story was named for (sort-of, It's kind of a long story), so I whipped this up to better explain how Rain and Ada first met (Would you look at that? I'm tying all of these stories together!) Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Ada Wong. Or the year 1992, in case you were wondering.

"Our time has come, watch me set it off.

Its been a while, but we back -

So you can count it loss.

We lay and wait, don't hesitate

When opportunity knocks.

Break the locks and rush the gates,

Seize the day - we got moves to make.

Its got to be now

'Cause were half past late..."

P.O.D. , Set it Off.

BEGINNINGS

1992

"Shit," A raven-haired assassin muttered as she ducked down behind an overturned table. Bullets whizzed over her head and a few hit her feeble cover, spraying wooden shrapnel on the velvet rug beneath her.

Ada Wong, a freshly-deployed spy, found herself in the middle of an impromptu firefight, and judging from the burning pain she felt across her shoulder, she wasn't doing so well.

She brought her pistol p to the side of the table and pulled the trigger, causing a quickly-becoming-familiar pain to shoot through her wrist.

The entire mission had gone right to shit a mere twenty minutes after it had started, with her accidentally tripping a sensor in the lavish mansion's security system.

That fucking door, how the hell did I forget about that?

Ada fired once more, her arm beginning to get sore. She raised her entire body in one motion and brought the handgun up to her eye. Two people were hiding around a corner at the end of the corridor, which had once looked nice - cherry-oak furnishings, milky-white walls and gorgeous, expensive paintings on the walls. Now they were riddled with bullet holes and many of the paintings rested on the floor, torn and ruined.

With a learned mechanical accuracy, Ada aimed up on the corner and fired, dropping one of the guards. The other one turned the opposite corner and she picked him off quickly. A thin stream of smoke rose from the barrel of her weapon as she waited for anyone else to come through, the adrenaline leaving her muscles.

I'm going to need to call for some serious backup.

Satisfied for the moment, she holstered her weapon - noting how itchy and uncomfortable the thigh holster felt on her bare skin - and checked her shoulder. A bullet had grazed her, leaving a pinking scar running across her otherwise flawless skin. Her black dress hadn't fared much better, she found out, as a gust from a nearby window swept it into view, showing her a neat hole at the bottom.

Wonderful. I liked this dress, too.

Ada reached for the new phone strapped to her side, pausing to admire the piece of equipment. Cellular devices such as this one were expensive, and the ones with large square-inch screens were hard to come by - just another testament to the money her company held.

As she watched the screen, pressing the numbers, the shiny plastic surface caught her reflection and showed it back to her, revealing a young, 18-year old Asian woman with dark, sweat-soaked locks clinging to her temples.

Is this what you want to become? Is this what you want to do for the rest of your life?

Ada sighed as she brought the device up to her ear, back up to a corner of the wall when the ring sounded on the other line.

-

Officer Jake Preston stood outside the room owned by private Rain, or "Dead Rain", as he'd liked to be called. The solid wooden door that stood there had a golden "38" attached to it. He rapped his knuckles against it lightly.

"Yeah." He heard Rain confirm, and he opened it. A dim, golden light poured over him and sank into the near-black hallway, and as he entered, he found the source - a small table light was on, shining on black pieces of equipment that lay on the desk. Rain was hunched over them.

A quick look around the area confirmed that the brown-haired kid in front of him wasn't particularly sentimental, yet still held a somewhat sophisticated taste. The walls were bare, no paintings on them to make it feel like home. A small television stood in the corner of the room, and a lather sofa was in front of it. The kitchen was entirely stainless steel.

Jake walked toward Rain, who he could now see was cleaning a weapon. He looked up, flashing his quick, emerald eyes at him before continuing to reassemble his weapon.

"Good evening, Officer." He spoke quietly.

"Shouldn't you be out partying and getting drunk at some celebration instead of being at you dorm, doing nothing?" He asked. Tonight had been the night that he, along with the rest of the trainees, had graduated from the company's rigorous service training program. The program was devised into two divisions: Special Operations, and Covert Operations. The two divisions had a tendency to work side-by-side, and was designed to produce the best of the best - and although Rain hadn't graduated at the top of the class, he wasn't far from it.

"The first - and most important - lesson of the academy; always be ready for anything." He replied, not looking away from his work. "If I'm out partying, I may not be ready for a problem that may arise. We have to always be ready in this line of work. If I had not been here, right now, you wouldn't be giving me my first job."

Jake was amazed, as always. rain was one of those guys who knew what was happening before it happened.

"Very good," Jake said, suddenly feeling a tad insignificant in front of this man. "I'll be brief, then. You remember Ada Wong, don't you?"

There was a pause. "Yes. 18, Chinese descent. Covert Operations division. I've worked with her before."

"We sent her on a mission, but things haven't really gone as planned."

"And you need someone who isn't drunk out of their fucking mind to go get her." He locked the slide of the pistol into place, his hands moving with precision and accuracy.

"When can you leave?" Jake asked.

Rain lifted his handgun up off the desk, sliding a magazine in. "Right now."

-

One Hour Later

Ada fired off her final round and it caught the guard in the jaw, shredding through his neck and connecting with his throat.

This is not good.

Another one came at her, gun aimed on her head.

"We have you surrounded," Someone behind her said. Two more above her on the balcony that overlooked the foyer she was in appeared, weapons in hand. "Surrender now."

Well, so much for this.

Ada dropped her weapon and put her hands in the air, standing up. She had been so close to making it out the door. She had the package the company wanted in hand - she could have completed the mission had things not worked out so poorly.

And now I stand here, waiting to die.

The one in front of her approached slowly, obviously not taking any chances with her.

crack.

It was a sound Ada wouldn't forget for a long, long time. The sound of a stone being thrown at a window, cracking it. The window that had suffered the mistreatment was, incidentally, the one that the guard was closest to, and he immediately shifted his attention to it. Suddenly the glass exploded with a loud crash, and the guard fell, a bullet in his head. Ada ducked down, not sure what to do. The guards around her didn't either,apparently, as they watched the window with just as much confusion as she felt.

She looked behind her in time to see the guy behind her get wasted as the window next to him exploded, too - only this time a large mass of person in all-black crashed through with it. As soon as he appeared he was gone, behind a large desk.

"What the fuck is this?" One of the two remaining guards asked, his tone lending itself to disbelief.

Ada kept her gaze glued on the desk, and was relieved when a familiar black gas mask shot up from it, along with an arm holding a very large pistol. It was someone from the company.

The man didn't take any time in taking down the guards, taking down both with pinpoint accuracy. Ada stood up when he did, scooping up her weapon before walking over to him.

"Who the hell are you?" She asked, unable to come up with a better question.

"Well," Came a voice behind the mask. "I'm an interesting guy. I can be a lot of things - your greatest salvation, or your ultimate damnation. Perhaps -" He stopped in mid-sentence, raising his weapon past Ada and firing. She didn't need to turn to know that he hit his mark. "Perhaps," he restarted, pulling his mask off and revealing someone she knew. "I can be both. Dead Rain, at your service."

A little insight into exactly Ada and Rain got into the position they're in now. The song is meant to represent their desire to use their new found abilities - now that they're full-fledged assassins, that is. Update hopefully soon?