Chapter Twenty-Six: Knights of the Turning Tables

"We've got you cornered like a fox," the Officer informed him.

"I am pretty damn hot," Hwoarang said. Julia raised an eyebrow. "I couldn't resist," he said with a smirk. With a laugh in spite of herself, Julia shook her head and smiled. It was odd. Hwoarang wasn't used to having one of those powerful independent female types around him, and he especially wasn't used to said type of female interacting with any chemistry. So what if he could seriously die in the next twenty minutes- he was damn sure going out with a bang.

"Seems to me like you're more or less cornered by a Fox," a voice said with a laugh. Julia and Hwoarang looked at each other. Since when did the Tekken Force speak with a British accent?

Several members of the Tekken Force poured into the hallway from all directions- but they were running with their backs towards Hwoarang and Julia, the few with guns mincing backward. Baek leapt back from the flow, finding asylum beside Julia and Hwoarang.

Once Hwoarang saw Nina's bright blonde hair, however, he got a pretty good idea of what was happening. "Nina!" he called, waving.

Clearly, Nina didn't return the gesture. Armed with two pistols she was holding at ready, she had a stone hard poker face. Nothing in the world existed outside of her and her target- especially the distant redhead waving at her from around the corner. Suddenly, a door from a broom closet burst open, the door smacking a Tekken Force member and sending him to his butt on the floor. A janitor armed with a broom swooped the handle under the soldiers' knees, tripping them up as they just began to register his presence.

"Steve?" Julia whispered.

Oh yeah, it was Steve Fox, Hwoarang found on closer inspection. Hwoarang was the reason Steve had lost the competition. He had a feeling that, if Steve didn't bring it up, that wouldn't make the best topic of conversation for after-party banter.

"What the Hell is happening-" Hwoarang started.

Julia didn't reply- she grabbed his hand, and jumped into the middle of the hallway, and put her dukes up. "We've got you surrounded!" she shouted to the Tekken Force, as brave and stoic as a soldier.

The officer, ever nonplussed, ever cavalier, crowed "Not quite! We still have the staircase, which we will lead you up in cuffs before this battle is done!"

There was a guttural roar, reminiscent of the Jurassic Park dinosaurs, coming from said stairwell. Julia, Hwoarang and Baek paled a little at the sound; Julia remembered hearing it in the lab. Was the beast following her?

Panda thrust through the door with her shoulder, and it swung on its hinge nervously.

"Oh," the officer said when words failed him.

"Yeah," Nina snorted. "Oh."

She stepped forward. Steve tossed aside his cap, swinging the broom and putting it against the wall to put up his fists in its place. Panda eased up onto her back paws, tossing her head as she looked down on the Tekken Force. Hwoarang, Baek and Julia were lined up at the back end of the hall.

"Thirty Tekken Force; six Tekken fighters?" Julia asked across the pack of Tekken Force.

"We've got you outnumbered, five to one!" the officer challenged.

"Pssht, five each? We've got this," Nina said coyly. But the way the officer smiled, well, that admittedly made her a little bit nervous.

At once, the Tekken Force sprang forward towards the Tekken fighters. Hwoarang was a little surprised- he hadn't expected to face all five of his opponents at once. With a quick kick, he hit one square in the jaw; another one, however, ducked under his leg and pushed upward on his hamstring, sending him tumbling backward onto his back. With a snort, he pushed up to his feet, uppercutting the smart aleck on the base of his jaw, sending him back into one of the soldiers coming for Julia.

Julia had hopped into overdrive the instant she saw the small mob come for her. With a spin kick, she had taken care of three for the moment. Jumping over them and kicking another square in the chest, she landed awkwardly on a soldier who was standing up, sending the both of them sprawling momentarily. Striking out blindly on her way down, she didn't manage to connect anything real, and hopping into the defensive she rolled back. "Come on and get me," she challenged.

The sharp sounds of gunshots began. Nina spotted the ones with guns instantly- they seemed to all be coming for her. With an aggravated sigh, she clicked both pistols into place. "As if I'm just a threat," she thought, opening fire. The gunslingers instantly noticed her, needless to say because of the bullets, and turned their guns her direction. Six guys. Twelve bullets. Oh well. Nina side rolled as quick as she could, popping out her bullets carefully.

Hwoarang looked over when he had a moment, a breathing second, and noticed Nina's predicament. Could she do it? The rapid sound of pistols being fired shattered the question before it could be answered. Baek, shocked and standing in the middle of the hallway, froze. Hwoarang couldn't see the Tekken Force, he couldn't see where Nina had ducked for cover- all he could see was Master Baek, standing stunned as a deer as a bullet ripped through his shirt.

Thoughts flashed through his head, of years alone and years spent without a family. They seemed as real as they had been a decade ago as Baek fell right into the middle of the hallway. Hwoarang could see the confusion on Nina's face.

"Baek?" a small voice in Hwoarang's heart asked. "Revenge," a strong voice in his mind demanded. Hwoarang plowed forward, kicking and catching three of the gunmen in the backs of their necks, sending them to the floor. When another Tekken Force grabbed onto his shoulders, he thrust them off, and Steve plowed his fist into their chests, sending them sprawling.

"Got your back," Steve murmured.

Well, that was an unexpected little twist. The corner of his eyes caught Baek, though, lying there on the floor, and he couldn't even feel flattered- he was furious. Nina's bullets caught the gun out of another one's hands- Panda swooped in with a powerful paw to swipe soldiers to the floor with brute force. She was a one bear knock out force. Steve, on the other hand, was taking out the trash, in spite of his janitor uniform. His fists swift and his ducks precise, years of boxing had obviously given him the skill to encounter and overcome groups before.

Julia, when given a brief moment, ducked among the unconscious bodies as they dropped to the floor, her finger set gently to Baek's neck as she settled onto the ground next to him.

Hwoarang was beating down with a vengeance. His foot, his ankle, and his fist made nearly twenty new friends as he tore through each soldier that approached him, catching the ones behind him with his elbows and launching them across the room with his heel whenever possible. Steve caught the ones he beat aside and with a swift fist made sure that they fell to the floor and stayed there as long as necessary.

Nina couldn't sight very well with all of the chaos- her guns were almost useless, she could just as easily hit Steve or Hwoarang as she could a soldier. Catching a creeping Tekken Force soldier in the side with a swift bullet, she tried singling out each one with her sight scope.

It was a long time before Nina's cartridge clicked empty, Steve threw his last punch, Panda roared her last victory cry and Hwoarang finished pummeling each sorry soldier as brutally as he could. When the last one crumbled to the floor, there was a confused moment.

"Now what?" Steve asked.

"We make sure no one's playing raccoon," Nina said, shoving a gun into Steve's hands and gesturing to the unconscious Tekken Force. "If one moves? Make sure he doesn't make that mistake again," she said coldly. Steve looked at her, eyes wide, but he nodded.

Hwoarang couldn't care less anyway. He ran straight for the middle of the hall, where the white training uniform of Baek was crumpled in a small ball on the floor. "Is he okay?" Hwoarang asked. He had one thing in mind, and that was making sure there wasn't a man down. Julia looked up at him quickly, before resuming her work. She had lifted Baek's cheek onto her thigh and was gently slapping the side of his face.

"Wait a second, wait a second, we're hoping for consciousness here…" Julia urged.

"Come on, Baek, come on, I'm too young for you to die-!" Hwoarang murmured.

Baek murmured and gargled. His eyes opened confusedly, and he looked around. "Whose glorious leg am I on…? Am I dreaming..?" he asked distantly.

Julia jumped nearly a foot in the air from surprise, but she laughed.

"Baek, are you… are you okay?" Hwoarang asked dumbly.

"…Yes…" he said slowly.

"In spite of the bullet, right?" Julia prompted, laughing as he sat up.

"Bullet…? Oh, I must have fainted…!" Baek replied.

There was a moment of pause. No blood on his shirt. No exit wound. Seriously, there was a bullet hole that went from one side of the shirt to the other, without passing any of Baek in between.

"You…! I thought you were dead, I was- Oh my God, I'm going to kill you!" Hwoarang shouted, his red hair tumbling furiously over his face.

"Since I'm not dead, you're going to kill me? Does that make sense to you?" Baek asked, groaning as he stood up.

"Makes sense to me, that's my line of work," Nina quipped.

"You TRICKED me-!" Hwoarang shouted. "Ugh, I've never felt so betrayed in my LIFE!"

"You really need to get out more," Steve said with a raised eyebrow.

"We wouldn't be alive, any of us, if you guys hadn't come," Julia observed. She stood up, brushing off her lab coat. Her glasses were understandably loose after knocking down a half dozen Tekken Force, so she straightened them. "Thank you," she said, smiling gratefully.

"Don't blame me, it was his idea," Nina said, jerking her thumb towards Steve Fox.

"What?" Julia asked, her expression changing as she gave Steve a strange look.

"Saw you guys in that 'andy little television," Steve said, taking out Julia's video transmitter from the broom closet, and handing it to her. "Looked like you could have used a 'and."

"That's… thoughtful," Julia said, extremely surprised. Thoughtful wasn't something that one found very often in the halls of the Tekken Zaibatsu; especially not for matters of life and death.

"I figured I'd never find anything in that computer without ya," Steve explained. "Don't worry, it wasn't from the goodness of my own 'eart or anything like that…"

"You scared me for a minute there-!" Julia said with a smile.

"Alright, alright, cut the love fest guys. We've got Satan spawn who needs a "'and" a lot more than we do, and we've got to get from here to there," Hwoarang commanded.

"Yes sir-!" Nina mocked him. "What in the world do you want to help Kazama for?"

"I can't get my revenge if he's dead," Hwoarang said with a shrug.

"You had me going there for a minute, I thought you might have grown a heart," Baek chided.

"No fears on that one!" Julia said, punching him in the shoulder.

"Ouch, my soul hurts…" Hwoarang muttered."Alright, so we have to get us to wherever Jin is, and we have to do it quick-" Julia began.

"Woah woah woah, I'm not involved in any o' this," Steve said quickly. "I want to get into that computer and get out of here before someone like, sprouts wings or something."

Julia half-smiled at the irony of his little statement. "Fine, fair enough. I'll take you to the lab, and then I'll rendezvous with the rest of you later, while Steve can cut out before things really get ugly."

"Maybe you outta come too, seeing as your sister is trapped in there somewhere," Steve suggested.

"No." She said it shortly, sharply, and finally, and Nina clearly meant it. "We don't know where Jin is, how we will know where to rendezvous?" she pointed out, resting her hands on her hips and cocking her hip to one side as she changed the subject. "They'll be trying to get him either before or right after his match, they won't be giving him too many chances to get farther in the tournament. By the time Jin has his match, it could easily be too late."

Hwoarang half-laughed, crossing his arms across his chest and flipping his hair. "I know a way to solve this…" Everyone turned, giving him their full attention. "Xiaoyu's match is in the Nature preserve. If he's not near Xiaoyu… Xiaoyu will be able to find him. Or he'll find her."

"Alright. Her match is on now. By the time I finish with the computer database, it will be time for Jin's match with Kazuya. We'll rendezvous at the stadium, then?"

"I'm game," Nina said.

"Me too," Julia chimed in.

"I'm getting too old for this…" Baek murmured. Everyone turned to look at him. "Oh, no, don't worry, I'm still going. I'm just leaving most of the grunt work to you whipper snappers."

"…You just said whipper snappers. God, you're old," Hwoarang muttered.

"I did it for affect, thank you very much!" Baek shot back.

"Time to split. Good luck you two; we'll be heading onward," Nina said finally. The group nodded. Even though not a single one of them could consider all of the others friends, there was a bond there, something that seemed a little stronger. It was crisis time; there was no need to define friends and enemies here.

Nina was suspicious for a moment that she had come into the Swiss Family Robinson. The "amphitheatre," as it was called, was certainly not what she expected. Instead of benches surrounding a stage in a Coliseum like structure, it was a garden overrun by flora. Hwoarang pushed forward, walking through the slight courtyard the garden offered and going deeper. The stone slabs they were walking on disappeared and gave way to a complete forest, with a barbed wire fence impeding motion.

"Great," Nina muttered. "All we have is that stupid little television up there to tell us what's going on in there."

Hwoarang looked where Nina had gestured, and saw the screen. There were two dots: one was white with a touch of green, nearly disappearing into the background; the second was bright orange, and hunched down on her seat. Xiaoyu..

"She looks like she's in pain," Hwoarang observed, trying to sound casual.

"She's facing Bryan. She might as well be wearing read and shouting 'TORO!' I fought him once." Hwoarang looked at her curiously. "I don't want to talk about it," she muttered, looking away quickly.

"Yeah, well, she had damn well better win. It looks like two rounds down, one each," he said.

Nina looked at the scoreboard. So the little muse had managed to take down Bryan once. It must have been luck. He didn't fall easily. Of course, Nina couldn't hide how impressed she was. For a little, skinny, weakling, this girl was made of some strong stuff. If she ever stopped skipping down the straight and narrow, she might make a good assassin.

"Why is it so important that she wins, hmm? So you can go to the after party?" Nina muttered. "I'm sure she'd give you something of the Mishima Zaibatsu… you could even be towel boy."

"Hah. Towel boy. That's only fun if you're outside of the ladies locker room. Xiao might not give me anything," he replied, raising an eyebrow.

Nina watched him, examining his expression. He had looked away from the screen, doing all that he could to hide what he was thinking. He could tell, though, that Nina wasn't having any of it.

"You don't really think we can help Kazama, do you," Nina remarked.

Hwoarang scuffed his feet on the ground, flipping his hair out of his face before his brown eyes met her blue ones. "I don't think Jin has a snowball's chance in hell if she doesn't win." Nina watched him, not sure how to respond to that. Hwoarang sighed, and continued: "If we're so lucky that the Tekken Force hasn't already chased him down- which is possible, don't get me wrong, I've seen Jin do some crazy stuff- then there is no way we'll be able to find him. If they have, which… Well, We can't very well find him and chase him down before his match. They won't want him fighting Kazuya."

"And why not?" Nina asked, crossing her arms.

"… There's something weird going on, I don't know if YOU noticed, but it's the same weird thing that got good ol' Kazuya to crawl from the belly of Hell through a volcano with just a scratch, I mean, as tough as I am I don't think I could do that. Same things up with Mr. Blast-through-dead-bolts," he said, smiling slightly to himself. He flipped his hair again, even if it wasn't in his face, before continuing. "I have a feeling… the two of them together..? That's a lot of whatever you call it, gumption maybe, in one place. Heihachi wouldn't want that, he'll be doing all he can to keep Jin from meeting Kazuya. I'm not sure exactly how Xiao factors in-"

"Woah woah woah, this is my area here, okay?" Nina said suddenly. "I just saved that girl from an assassination attempt."

"You?" Hwoarang asked skeptically.

"Yeah, me. Heihachi decided to send a hit man after Princess Pigtails. Jin sent me to keep her safe," Nina explained. She suddenly seemed a little self-conscious, rapping her fingers on her forearm and fidgeting with her feet. "Jin said that Heihachi didn't want her around for the 'finale.' Whatever that means. I still don't see why it's so important that she win."

"If she wins," Hwoarang said emphatically, "we have a woman on the inside. If you haven't noticed, we don't have a lot of friends in the finals! Jin? Psssht, I wouldn't call him a friend, even if I'm trying to save him. Kazuya? Heihachi? If Bryan's in there with Jin, it'll just be one more grim punch in the face."

"And Jin gets his muse," Nina replied.

Hwoarang's expression darkened, and Nina could tell she overstepped her bounds. Why should he care, though? What was this girl other than trouble, wrapping him up deeper with Jin and that whole mess? There was a lull in the conversation Each of them was reviewing the dire possibilities, lists, thoughts, and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets whipping by like the printers for newspapers. Slowly, a thought occurred to Hwoarang of something he thought he may have missed, something that struck him as odd.

"Say, why didn't you want to go with pretty boy British guy anyway? You seemed just a little emphatic," Hwoarang asked.

Julia was seated in the chair, Steve resting his elbows on the headrest and watching over her shoulder. Anna, still tied up on the floor with the extension cord, was still unconscious, bathed in the light of the enormous screen. The only sound was the gentle, crisp click of a keyboard as Julia's fingers flew across the letters, cracking security codes, maneuvering firewalls… Steve was understandably impressed.

"Remind me to check my bank account when I got home; you've obviously done this before," he remarked.

"Hobby of mine. Fortunately, I only use it for legal means…" she explained.

"Hah, like hacking the Mishima Zaibatsu's personal files?" he asked.

"The Mishima Zaibatsu redefines 'legal,'" Julia observed with a smile. "Here we are, we're in the genetics data bank. There's got to be some sort of file on all of the fighters here; they do a pretty thorough job on their illicit background checks. I wouldn't be surprised if they knew more about us than we do. Here we are: Steve Fox."

"I guess…" Nina started, preparing to answer one of the most difficult questions she had been given in her life. "I just don't want to be there when that boy discovers who his parents really are. There will be some shock involved, and I don't want to be a part of it."

Steve felt a moment where pressure seemed to be building up inside of him. This was it. The nervousness mounted up into his chest. It was nervousness, wasn't it? What did he have to be afraid of? Probably two names he'd never heard of, somewhere in the backstreets of England, beggars, paupers or graves overlooked by anyone who passed them.

Julia guided the mouse down the page, watching the information fly past. There, under his page, she finally found it: Family History. "You ready for this?" she asked.

"I was born ready…" Steve replied, watching the screen intensely as the cursor found the link and the crisp click of the mouse guided him to finally found out, to finally know who he was and where he came from. This was it, he thought as the computer loaded.

When the page came up, and he saw the picture of his family. His throat closed. Julia covered her mouth, knitting her eyebrows together to make sure, ensure she didn't misclick and that this wasn't all one big joke. But there it all was, in the blue and white scheme of the computer monitor.

"What's wrong with his parents?" Hwoarang snorted. "What could be more shocking? They're not like, the president of Uganda and a Swedish milk maid or something, right?" He paused, examining Nina's guarded expression. Her face was stone set, and a thought came to him. "Wait, how do you know who his parents are anyway?"

There was something bright in her eyes; he couldn't identify it until it rolled down her cheek, leaving a trail like a snail. She looked like a statue in the rain. Stiff, stoic, and certainly not crying. Tears just happened to be sneaking out of the corner of her eyes. "I don't want to be there when he finds out I'm his mother," she said. Her voice was thick, but she stood proud.

Hwoarang couldn't say anything. He didn't know what he could say, really. It was fortunate the announcer took that privilege from him, and said "BRYAN FURY, LING XIAOYU. ROUND 3! FIGHT!"