The 8-inch-thick blast doors sealed behind Anna and Xiaoyu with a loud metallic thud. Anna had asked Xiaoyu to follow her here, the top secret subterranean level of the G Corporation Headquarters, as "one more little favor" before Xiaoyu would begin her real assignment: Spying on Shin Kamiya.
"And here we are," Anna announced. "G Corporation's most prized exhibit."
They were standing in front of a large circular pool that was built into the ground and held what looked like dark purple oil. The surface of the pool pulsated with a dim violet aura, and it seemed to bubble more excitedly as the two women walked toward the edge.
"What is this?" Xiaoyu asked with a befuddled look on her face.
"This liquid is an unidentified sentient lifeform we discovered during our research," Anna explained. "She originated from a natural spring of sorts, but we were able to transport most of her material to this holding tank for safe keeping. We call her Unknown."
Xiaoyu rolled her eyes as she scoffed.
"That's the best name you guys could come up with?"
"Our scientists have more important things to do than come up with clever names," Anna replied in an ambiguous tone.
A small portion of the pool started to rise up. Waves of the thick goop fell away to reveal a woman with short black hair. Wading in the water at waist height, she was wearing nothing but a few concentrated blotches of purple slime on her chest. She stared at Anna and Xiaoyu intently with burning yellow eyes.
"What the…?" Xiaoyu stammered. "That looks just like Jin's mom."
"Jun Kazama, yes." Anna nodded. "But only in appearance. Nothing about her biology is actually human."
Xiaoyu continued to look at the strange being in frightened amazement.
"This is the form Unknown chose to mimic for herself," said Anna. "We still haven't been able to figure out why. She… doesn't talk much."
She pointed down toward the murky artificial pond.
"She can't leave her nest without withering away. This pool is basically one massive heart that sustains her entire existence. She needs to integrate with another physical organism before she can move around on her own."
The bubbles on the tar's surface formed an almost straight line between Unknown and the edge where Anna and Xiaoyu were standing. Several small, gel-like tendrils overflowed from the spring and became stuck to the toe of Xiaoyu's orange slipper.
"Yugh," she grimaced in disgust as she lifted her foot.
"Aw. It looks like she's taken a liking to you, Xiaoyu," Anna said affectionately.
"Well I haven't taken a liking to her," Xiaoyu grumbled as she tried to wipe her shoe off on the back of her other ankle. "This stuff is gross."
Anna stretched her arm around Xiaoyu's back and patted her on the shoulder.
"It's fine. This is all I wanted to show you anyway," she said in a suspiciously cheerful manner. "Let's get you all set for your assignment, shall we?"
Xiaoyu nodded anxiously. She just wanted to get this ugly spying business over with so the G Corporation would leave her alone. She didn't even want to help them to begin with; they were forcing her into it. In her growing impatience, she didn't stop to wonder why she had been taken on this seemingly pointless sight-seeing tour.
"Yeah," Xiaoyu said in relief. "The sooner we're out of here, the better."
Anna struck. She pushed Xiaoyu's shoulders forward and thrust her hip into the girl's side, making her lose her balance and sending her sprawling forward.
"Whoops!" Anna exclaimed, innocently turning her eyes in the opposite direction.
Xiaoyu screamed as she plunged into the ominous writhing soup. The Jun-like entity began to move through the water, slowly wading toward her fresh prey in gentle black ripples.
The slime rapidly dissolved Xiaoyu's orange qipao. One of her pigtails became unbraided as her hair clip melted away. She sank deeper and deeper into the pool like it was neon quicksand. When the water was almost up to her shoulders, Unknown grabbed her from behind and steadily pushed her down the rest of the way. She leaned over Xiaoyu's sinking head, drowning her captive under her soft motherly bosom.
Xiaoyu's ooze-covered bare feet kicked out of the water and put up one last struggle. Then she disappeared under the frothing waves completely.
Anna watched from the edge of the pool with her hand on her chin and a satisfied look in her eyes.
Xiaoyu burst out of the dark slime, flinging her head back as she gasped for air. Jun's lifeless form floated face-down in the water behind her. As Unknown's old form was absorbed back into the ooze and disappeared in the dark pool, Xiaoyu calmly waded to the edge.
As she climbed on to dry ground, long veils of deep bluish-purple silt remained draped over her naked body and condensed into a quasi-solid form. The garment mimicked the style of her ill-fated orange qipao, only with long sleeves and tar-like faux-spandex shorts in place of her baggy silver shorts. A separate layer of purple sludge hung down to her thighs in the front and back, forming two flaps of a skirt on her bacterial "dress." A chemical reaction in the slime created the illusion of glowing yellow embroidery on her shoulders and along the seams of her outfit.
Her dark oily hair was left hanging freely down her shoulders. The slime on her face reacted with her skin and left her with a more mature and mysterious appearance. It gave off the impression she was wearing moist black lipstick, black mascara, and heavy black eyeshadow.
Then there were her eyes. Two fiery yellow orbs swirling with inhuman power. They became slightly less intense as she dried.
Anna leaned close and peered up and down, tsking to herself as she inspected all of Xiaoyu's curvaceous and grime-laden features. The Xiaoyu-creature acknowledged Anna with nothing more than a tiny smirk and a lighthearted "Hmph."
"Hm. You're a little short for a high-grade bioweapon," Anna said. "But I think you'll do."
She moved back and entered the security code for the door's locking mechanism.
"I'd say you should get yourself cleaned up, but I guess that's not really going to make much of a difference for you now," she said deviously. Tiny drops of purple slime rolled off of Xiaoyu's saturated body and congealed on the floor.
The door's steel panels slid apart, opening a path back to the surface levels of the G Corporation.
"Now get to work, Xiaoyu," Anna ordered.
Xiaoyu passed through the doorway in silence. Anna watched her become smaller and smaller as she walked down the long industrial tunnel. Each of her footsteps was punctuated by the soft echo of her damp, violet-stained slippers squishing against the concrete floor.
Kazuya appeared at Anna's side, shaking his head as he kept his arms crossed. He had watched the entire fiendish scene unfold from the shadows.
"I don't understand your strategy here, Anna," he said coldly. "You could have just sent her out after you briefed her."
"This is our insurance plan," Anna replied. "We don't know who or what Mishima will be sending to compete with us. If things get rough, we want our little secret agent to be able to fend for herself. The untapped powers of Unknown will make her invincible."
"Fend for herself? You've turned her into a walking doomsday weapon."
"She's our doomsday weapon. This lets us keep her on a leash. Xiaoyu might get stubborn and decide she doesn't like working for us, but Unknown would never betray us after we brought her such a lovely snack."
"You don't even know how much of her is Xiaoyu and how much is Unknown, do you?"
"I'd say it's about half and half, if the symbiosis trials with the lab mice are anything to go by. She's just conflicted about her identity like most girls her age. She'll adjust."
"What about that… thing she's wearing?"
"What about it? The academy doesn't have any uniform regulations, they won't mind. I think it looks cute on her. It's got a certain New Age Shanghai quality. Of course, the host is pleasant on the eyes herself."
"But it's moving."
"No, it's just very fluid. See that? It's all in rhythm with how she walks. It was made with a new type of synthetic fabric. It's the latest fashion overseas."
"What if someone starts wondering why that's the only thing she wears?"
"Then she'll just have to mix up her wardrobe a little and mold it into something else while no one is looking. Unknown Matter is shapeless in its native form."
"Are you sure they won't be suspicious about her condition? We don't even know how well an Unknown carrier will interact with other people."
"She'll be fine. She's just a shy girl who wears a lot of makeup. They'll think she's going through a goth thing."
"What about when they see her eyes?"
"We'll say she's wearing contacts."
"I've never seen contacts that flash and swirl around like that."
"Use your imagination. We can set up a dummy corporation and say it specializes in 'signature lenses.'"
"This is insane, Anna." Kazuya shook his head in defeat.
"We live in an insane world, Kazuya." Anna smiled. "This is fool-proof."
Author's note: Alisa's screwed.