"This is probably going to be expensive, isn't it?" he said as they walked. She didn't want to take a cab and risk him claiming to the driver that she'd kidnapped him. Being in such close quarters as a car just seemed like a bit of a bad idea. Sure the streets were filled with people, but she wasn't stuck with any of them in a vehicle that could jet them off to the nearest police station. It'd be relatively easy for him to alarm someone by showing that they were cuffed to each other. Until they got to the hospital, she couldn't risk taking them off, or he might bolt. She was pretty fast, but he was like a gazelle. Legally, she supposed, she was a bit in the wrong here, but that was only because she didn't have the evidence to show Vega for who he really was. Her actions were just if they ended up preventing another crime, or leading to his detainment. He seemed fine on his feet, no balance issues, he could walk normally. She couldn't say she was terribly concerned with his comfort and well-being, anyway.

"Poor you," she said. "It's not like you're rich or anything."

"What are you saying?" he asked. Not annoyed, but confused. The bizarre, but usual, as of the past few hours.

She shot him a look, telling him she wasn't going to play along. With a nod of her head, she indicated the bank at the end of the block. There was bound to be an ATM, so she said, "Why don't we check, since you're so uncertain?"

He made a little humming noise, the corner of his lip pulling back. As they approached the bank, he finally said, "Okay. Maybe this will prove to you I'm not whoever you think I am." She led him in, not realizing what an awkward task it was to open a door while handcuffed to someone. She gave him his card back, having kept his wallet to avoid losing it, or for him to ditch it somehow so she couldn't get into his hotel room. He ran the card, staring thoughtfully at the screen as it asked for a PIN. He guessed, and it was wrong.

"Don't pretend you don't know it," she said.

"I'm not pretending," he responded defensively. He tried another, and let out a frustrated sigh. Third time, and it worked. "I haven't used that number for years." He pushed the button to display his savings. She glanced over at him, and his eyes were wide. He uttered a shocked curse in Spanish.

"Yeah, so poorly done for," she said, a hand coming up to her hip. It was the kind of wealth she could dream about, but never really see herself attaining. Not that she was driven by financial gain. The work she did was more important to her than money, and the thought of bringing Bison and his followers to justice was more motivational than any amount of cash.

"This is..." he started, then took a deep breath. "This can't be right. What I inherited from my mother was not anywhere near this. So much of it was spent on her treatment. This-" He started to bring his right hand up to run it through his hair, but met resistance. He'd forgotten his arm was cuffed to hers. "What is going on? Are you sure this is mine?"

"It's not funny, the way you keep pretending not to know," she said. She closed the transaction, and yanked on his hand. "Come on. Let's go and get the proof that you're playing some weird game." He still seemed dazed as they left the bank, but at least she'd cut off one way for him to refuse the hospital visit. It made her a little more certain that all of this was an act. If he was looking for excuses to not get examined by a doctor, it could mean he knew she was on the right track to proving him wrong.

At the hospital, he tried again to mess things up, further impressing upon her that her first assumptions about him had been correct. She'd uncuffed them, and he hadn't run. They approached the desk, and when he was asked for his name, he responded, "Andres Quesada Navarro." She kicked him in the shin, lightly, to get his attention. He hissed and glared at her. "What was that for?" he whispered angrily.

"That's not your name," she whispered back, digging out his DNI card from his wallet.

"Don't tell me what my own name is!" he said in a rushed, low voice. "This one sounds made up anyway! No one's first name is 'Vega' in Spain, and 'la Cerna'? Shouldn't it be de la Cerna?"

It didn't greatly concern her whether his name sounded authentic or not, and since she wasn't from his culture, she'd never been struck one way or the other about whether or not his name sounded unusual. She knew he'd try to screw things up by giving false information to the hospital, and shouldn't have trusted him to talk to anyone in the first place. She put the card on the desk, waiting for the woman to turn back around and face them. Chun-Li smiled sweetly to her. "No, he gave you the wrong name. That's why we're here," she explained, handing the ID over to her.

"Okay. Fill these out, someone will be with you in a moment," the woman said, handing back the card and a few papers.

Chun-Li took them. She wasn't going to let him fill them out. He'd just ruin that, too. "Sit here," she ordered as they approached a row of chairs, and he did. She copied information from the card, but that only answered so much. The easiest part was writing in the reason for his visit. She wrote 'head injury', and gave a brief description of how his behavior seemed abnormal. He wouldn't be able to change the story once he was alone with a doctor, at least. "Are you allergic to anything?" she asked, glancing at the impressive list of things a person could have a bad reaction to.

"Not that I know of," he answered. Then he gave a short, ironic laugh. "But what do I know? Maybe that's different, too."

She ignored him. "Are there any major illnesses that run in your family?" she asked.

"My mother had cancer..." he responded, and sounded hurt. She caught the way his head hung down after he said it. Like he expected her to know that. She wrote it in.

"Do you take any kind of medication?"

He sighed, obviously annoyed now. "You should know all of these things," he said, taking his head in his hands. "What is happening to me?" He groaned a little, ran his hands into his hair.

"Take that as a no," she mumbled under her breath, marking the box. It was as much as she could fill out, anyway. She pushed the clipboard towards him, and said, "Sign that." He sat up, glanced at the page wearily, like he was ready to flop over and fall asleep. But he took the pen, and started to sign the form. Chun-Li stopped him when he finished writing the first name. Grabbing his hand, she took the pen from him. "Do I have to do this part, too?" she asked angrily, scribbling over what he'd written. She looked at his DNI card again, held it to the paper, and did her best to emulate his signature. Maybe it was wrong to forge a signature, but he still wouldn't cooperate, and this was too important. What choice did she have? She took the forms back to the desk and sat beside him again.

There was a tense silence. She obviously didn't want to be there, and he obviously felt bad about something. She caught his lips moving a few times out of the corner of her eye, like he was going to say something, but he always stopped himself. Maybe he was getting closer to admitting he was lying to her. That he was playing some stupid game. But he stayed quiet. Someone eventually called for him, and at first he didn't respond. She had to tap her foot against his to get him to look up. Even now he was still dedicated to his act. She watched as he disappeared down the hall, following a nurse.

She knew it could take awhile, and let out a sigh at her lost evening. So much for a nice dinner, or hitting a bar. But this problem was too pressing, and she couldn't just let it go unsolved. There was a slightly exciting prospect of figuring out a way to get together the evidence to have him arrested and prosecuted, so she tried to focus on that. If he was here on assignment from Shadaloo, it was almost certain that if she could get into his hotel room, she'd find enough evidence to bring him to trial. But then she had to think about the legal aspects. She didn't have a warrant to search anything, and if he refused to let her search the place-which she was certain he would-it'd give him time to get rid of anything.

The wait got boring quickly, and she drew out her phone. She checked her social media accounts, envious of photos from friends who were actually enjoying their Friday night. Ken and Eliza were in Paris. He was always jetting off somewhere. She liked traveling, but she'd never met someone who did as much of it as Ken. She supposed Ryu could give him a run for his money, though. There was a picture Julia had recently posted of Guile's daughter, Amy, helping him shuck some corn for dinner. Cammy made her feel a bit better, making a self-deprecating remark about an evening of Guinness, fish fingers, and the campiest 80's movie Netflix had to offer. So she wasn't the only one with a night in alone. But even that sounded more appealing than babysitting an assassin pretending to be amnesiac.

She switched gears, trying to keep her interest in a game, but failing. She tried reading next, glancing through headlines, but ultimately never opening an article. She crossed her legs, trying to get more comfortable in the chair, and heard something fall of the floor. Next to her foot, there was Vega's wallet. It'd been in her lap. She picked it up again, not wanting to lose it. She bit her lip as she thought about the odd situation he'd dragged her into. What was that name he kept calling himself? Maybe she could figure out some way to unravel his act if she figured out who that was supposed to be. She returned her attention to her phone, this time running a search on it.

It seemed not to be a terribly common name, but neither was it exactly unique. There were a few social media accounts showing up, and none of them were Vega's. She continued on to the next page. Nothing too interesting, nothing to indicate why he'd suddenly decided to start calling himself by it. By the third page of results, she was ready to give up when something caught her eye. The word 'asesinado' was in one of the links, and that sounded an awful lot like 'assassin' to her. It made her curious. The page was all in Spanish, but the browser offered a translation, and she learned 'asesinado' was 'murdered'. Still relevant, she thought. It was an old article, an archive from a Spanish newspaper, detailing a double-homicide that happened in Barcelona. A fairly prominent businessman, Fernando Durante Santiago, shot and killed his wife, Mireia Sofia Navarro. It went on to say the man attempted to kill his step-son, Andres Quesada Navarro. So there was the name, but what did it have to do with Vega's game, if anything at all? The step-son killed his step-father instead of becoming the next victim. It was ruled as self-defense, and the teen wasn't jailed for it.

She tried another search, this time adding the term 'murder'. The article came up again. The second was someone's personal webpage. She'd seen sites like this before, people who had a morbid interest in murders and crime scenes. Chun-Li thought it was a bit of a strange hobby to have. There were a number of links listed down the side of the page to other cases, and she had to wonder how much time the creator of the site dedicated to it.

She waited for the browser to translate the page before scrolling down. There was a picture of a pretty blonde woman, the subtext telling her this was Mireia. The site told the same story as the article, although it did so in a more dramatic fashion and in much more detail. There were snippets of input from people who knew the family. Information sourced from whatever court records were available to the public. Whoever made the site apparently did their homework.

There was a brief introductory paragraph about the murder before the article went into a bit more depth about Mireia. She'd come from a family of lower status and married Sergi Quesada, a man who had some relation to Catalan nobility. Sergi's aristocratic family was, apparently, wary of the union between their son and Mireia, suspecting he'd married her as an act of defiance to them, or that she was looking for a quick and easy way to climb the social ladder. There was a photo of the man and Mireia, and Chun-Li was struck by how much he looked like Vega. They weren't twins by any means, with this man having the more traditional Spanish look of dark brown hair and eyes. There were some other differences as well, but overall he was a very attractive man. They both appeared happy, the man with his arm slung around Mireia's shoulder, her smiling brightly at the camera.

As happy as they looked, though, the story quickly went sour. For reasons unknown, Sergi suddenly abandoned his family when their son was about five years old. The writer speculated that he may have run off with another woman, citing his family's aforementioned worries over his rushing into marriage. He could've realized he wasn't as in love as he thought, and left at the first opportunity. There were a few more bits of input from friends of Mireia, saying that the abandonment devastated her. She became cold, resentful, almost vindictive. A lot of people distanced themselves from her as a result, and this served only to make her more stubborn in her resolve. She had her son, and that became all that mattered to her. A few of her friends commented that she seemed, at times, almost too smothering, too dependent on him. She ended up remarrying twelve years after her first husband abandoned her.

Her second husband was nothing like her first, according to Mireia's friends. Sergi had been friendly and easy-going. Fernando was paranoid, jealous, and petty. Chun-Li pressed her lips together at that description, thinking it sounded a bit like Vega. The transition hadn't been easy on any of them. Fernando made no reservations about his distaste for Andres, but Mireia was no doormat. She wouldn't stand for the man berating her son, and that only served to make Fernando hate him more. "If I were to guess," put in one of Mireia's friends, "I'd say Fernando saw Andres as competition for his new wife's attention."

There was another picture, this time of Fernando and Mireia, and Chun-Li couldn't help but wrinkle her nose a little. He looked like a jerk. She knew it wasn't fair to judge people for their looks, but she supposed there was a clear record of the man's actions to go by as well. There was an obvious change in Mireia when compared with the last photo. Gone was her glowing smile and bright eyes. Her eyes were so much like Vega's here-cold, emotionless, the eyes of somebody putting on a show. She kept scrolling. It gave the account of the murder in a bit more detail than the previous article. According to testimony given by the son, Fernando accused Mireia of being 'disrespectful' before shooting her. Fernando tried to kill Andres next. He tried to strangle his step-son, losing hold of his gun in the process, and Andres used it to kill Fernando.

The page went on to say that they tried to get into contact with Andres, to ask what he'd gone on to do with his life and how these events had impacted him. But his whereabouts were unknown, and all attempts to track him down resulted in nothing. She drew in a breath, and looked away from her phone. She really didn't know anything about Vega's past. She knew he was a matador, that he was from Barcelona, and that was about it. Could this story really be about him? The names were different, but there was some clear resemblance between Vega and Mireia and Sergi. She recalled how he mentioned at the desk that his name sounded made up. So was his a false identity? If so, why would he create one?

It made her curious. This could be the key to exposing him as a fraud. Sure, changing your name wasn't a crime by any means, but if she could dig up more about his past, she might find something worth arresting him for. Maybe he'd committed some other big crime, and had gotten caught. It could be a good motivation to try to change your identity. She spent a few minutes writing up an e-mail to the appropriate department in Interpol. A request for a background check on Andres and whatever records were available on the murder. For good measure, she asked for one on his parents as well. She knew sometimes these requests could take a while to be processed and ultimately fulfilled, but hoped it would end up being worth her while.

She heard Vega call her name, and it was almost surreal. She couldn't remember him ever referring to her by her proper name. How long had she been sitting here, reading about this murder case? At least, she guessed, it'd passed the time. She stood up, ready to get him in handcuffs again before he weaseled his way out of here on his own. A doctor was with him, so she couldn't do it right away. "Hi, are you the one staying with him?" the doctor asked.

"Yes," she lied, just to hear what he had to say.

"Okay. Not really suspecting a concussion based on what I've seen here. A blow to the head resulting in unconsciousness doesn't always necessarily result in one. He's not really exhibiting any of the hallmark symptoms, but just to be safe, I'd like you to keep an eye out for things like nausea or vomiting, decrease in coordination, balance, or motor skills, severe headaches, pupil abnormalities, slurring speech, convulsions or seizures."

She nodded as he spoke, feeling a bit satisfied. So he was faking all of this. Good, then this hadn't been a complete waste of her time. Just to be certain, she asked, "So, what about the memory loss? He says he doesn't know how he got to New York. That he was in Chicago."

"The sort of memory loss caused by head injuries tends to involve an inability to remember new information after sustaining the injury. He mentions his issues starting before you, ah, kicked him." She flushed a little red, like she'd gotten into some kind of trouble. If the doctor knew Vega the way she did, he'd see it made sense to respond with immediate force. "I went ahead and ordered an MRI, some blood tests. Didn't see any brain abnormalities to indicate any damage." She almost snorted and wanted to ask if he'd looked hard enough, but just continued to nod instead. "Blood tests will rule out any sort of nutritional deficiencies, diseases, anything like that. We can call you with the results and, if necessary, arrange a follow-up."

"Okay, thank you," she said. When the doctor was gone, there was another tense silence between her and Vega. He probably knew he'd been caught in his lie. She should've relished in it, showing him up like this. But she was just annoyed at all the time she'd made him waste. "So, are you willing to admit it yet?" she asked him.

"Admit what?"

"That you're faking all of this."

He closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows, shaking his head a little bit. He looked back over at her, and it was just too unusual to see him without any kind of malice or hatred in his eyes. "I'm not faking anything. I'm happy you didn't split my brain open, but I'm still confused about what's going on," he said. "I don't know how to convince you I'm not this Vega guy, or when you decided you even thought I was to begin with." He started to walk off, and she was about to call after him when she saw him approach the counter. He was just paying for the appointment and tests, she realized, and there was a bit of a relief. For a moment, a scenario ran through her head of chasing him through a hospital or around Manhattan, and it seemed impossibly stressful. But he didn't even try to leave her, instead coming back over with a few paper receipts. He was studying the numbers, which she supposed were not exactly small. "Where do you think I got all this money, anyway?" he asked as they headed towards an exit. The conversational tone was another oddity, leaving her feeling like she wasn't even talking to Vega, but to a completely different person.

"You're a famous matador," she answered.

He laughed outright, but she didn't laugh with him. It made him hesitate. "You're being serious?"

She nodded.

"I couldn't be a matador, my dad would've killed me before any bull had a chance."

"I'm really not going to argue with you over it," she responded, taking him by the wrist as they approached the exit.

He made an agitated noise. "Are you really putting those back on me?" he asked.

"I don't trust you." She led them outside, and pulled him over towards the corner of the building, away from the doors. People tended to keep to themselves, but she didn't want someone to notice what she was doing. She faced him, slapped on the cuffs, and they were back to the way they were before they got here.

"That's kind of hurtful," he said.

"I don't care."

"What did I do?" He was practically begging, and it was completely uncharacteristic of him. Was there really nothing wrong with him? She briefly wondered about asking for a second opinion, but it was getting late and she'd given him enough of her time already.

"We're going back to your hotel room," she said, ignoring the question. He knew what he'd done, he just wanted to pretend otherwise. To toy with her, to get her worked up and pissed off. And it was working, which just made her even more irritated with him.

"Why do I have a separate room from you?" he asked.

"Stop it, okay!" she shouted finally. She was tired of all the questions, annoyed that he wouldn't just drop it and reveal his true, awful self. "I'm not falling for it, so shut up!" She didn't like yelling at people, but he was an obvious exception. Maybe she was giving him what he wanted with such a reaction. She couldn't bring herself to care, having an urgent need to vent her frustrations somehow.

He immediately stopped talking, and his eyes fell to the sidewalk. It was pathetic, almost, but she didn't care because at least he'd gotten quiet. She was able to ignore him for the most part after that. Once more, she looked into his wallet for the hotel room key, and searched on her phone for the location. It reminded her of the articles she'd been reading while he was being examined. About Andres and Vega, who was who, if they were really the same people or if his resemblance to Mireia and Sergi was just a coincidence. After all, how could she know how well-researched a random website was? Maybe the page had been full of errors. She couldn't know. Her own research could possibly sort things out, but then, she also had a first-hand source right here. Whether or not he'd tell the truth was impossible to know. She looked over at him. He was still quiet, glancing around at their surroundings every so often but mostly facing forward. "You said your name is Andres, right?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"What was your mom's name?"

His brows drew together and she saw his jaw clench slightly before he looked off to the left. "You should know," he mumbled to himself. He took a deep breath before saying, "Mireia."

"And what happened between her and Fernando?" she asked.

At that, a confused expression passed over his face. "Who is that?"

"Your step-father?"

"What are you talking about? I never had a step-father."

She pressed her lips together. Was the page wrong about the identity of Mireia's killer? About her remarrying? No, she realized quickly, because the newspaper article had mentioned the same name as the website. How likely was it that they were both misinformed? Things were beyond messy to her. Maybe the Andres from the article wasn't Vega after all, but could it be just a huge coincidence he claimed to have the same parents? And that he looked so much like them? Maybe he knew of this particular murder case and was just making things up based on that to confuse her. She couldn't know how he thought-he was a disturbed individual, and completely unpredictable. "How did you say your mom died?" she asked.

"Cancer."

So there was another difference. Not murder, but illness. What was the point of this part of the game? To gain her sympathy, maybe? "And what happened to your dad?"

"Car wreck." She saw his eyes roll up to look at the grey and darkening sky before flicking back down to the sidewalk. "It was a bad few years. You should know."

"Why should I know?" she asked.

"Because you were probably the only reason I got through them."

She stayed quiet, maintaining a passive outward appearance. Obviously it wasn't true. Regardless of how his parents died-through some messy murder, or more mundane reasons-she had not been there for him. The notion that this was some way to get her to sympathize with him and thus, disarm her, seemed more and more likely. She couldn't allow that to happen. No matter how desperate or upset he sounded, no matter how different and unlike himself he seemed, he was still Vega, a murderer, hired killer, terrorist, and completely unrepentant about all of it. There were few types of people more disgusting than him, and all of this manipulation reminded her of that. Prison was the best place for someone like him to be, and she was intending to get him there, no matter the cost.

Maybe stating the obvious here, but I'm not a doctor and the medical stuff in this chapter was the result of a few minutes of research online. I could've very easily misinterpreted some of the information, so feel free to let me know so I can change it. Same with the stuff about names. I think 'de' is the Spanish nobility particle, not 'la' by itself, and i couldn't find any names that use just 'la'...not that I'm expecting a ton of integrity from the street fighter anime that made that part of the name up anyway :P Thank you to everyone reading and/or reviewing. :)