Well, last time was a long chapter but I have a feeling this is going to be a shorter one. Hopefully, that's okay and it's still enjoyable even if it's a bit simple. Thanks as always for your support by reading and enjoying my story!

Song Suggestion: Overwhelmed - Ryan Mac & Christian Gates [Remix/Mashup] (this one is a pretty specific one but if you copy-paste it into youtube you should find it)

Disclaimer: CapCom owns what CapCom Owns, I'm just a dirty rotten FanFiction writer who likes borrowing characters rather than being created enough to work on my own books. Please don't sue me.

Two weeks passed after the Poker night. The girls visited last weekend so Emma was enjoying sleeping in a bit since the tiny terrors were not visiting this weekend. Another Saturday was about to begin, welcoming in the Fall season with the first week of October, as Emma slowly crawled out of bed with a yawn and looked out the window. rain. she gave a sigh. "Well, I'm going to be tired all day. Joy... eh. I'll probably still go out to the rec center." she says with a shrug before pulling out her phone to see an odd notification.

Ring: Camera Error - No signal

"Huh?" she thought as she felt a chill crawl up her back. Something was wrong with her camera? She quickly went to the door to her room and locked it before checking to make sure no one else was in there with her. Once she was sure the area was safe she checked the last available footage. 3:45 AM. The camera just went dark then offline a few seconds later... "Maybe the battery died," she said quietly to herself just to try and get herself to calm down. There didn't seem to be anyone on the footage so there was nothing to worry about. Right?

Emma took a deep breath as she walked back to the door to her room and unlocked it before heading out to her front door to unlock it as well. Sure she was still wearing her pajamas but she needed to put her mind at ease more than anything else. Besides, they weren't exactly scandalous. It was a tank top and plain loose cotton pants.

As she feared, the camera was smashed. Seeing that caused her to shake involuntarily. Why was this happening? She thought as she went back inside to get a screwdriver to start taking the broken camera out of the wall. Hearing a noise behind her caused her to jump slightly before quickly turning around. "Bastion. Oh thank heavens it's just you, you scared me," she says with a nervous laugh.

"Yeah, I was just going to head out to work for the da- what's wrong?" Bastion asks as he noticed Emma shaking.

"I'm just a bit cold is all," she says with a nervous smile. "Did you end up installing that camera for your door?" she asks as her voice cracks.

"No- Oh honey what happened this time," Bastion asks as he walks over and sees the broken camera. "Can I give you a hug?" He asks as he clearly felt sympathy for the girl. Emma silently nods in return and Bastion does just that. "You poor thing this is just not right," he says giving her a good squeeze. Emma took a deep breath as he did so, the gesture was comforting even if it was short-lived. "Stay here a second, I'll be right back okay?" Bastion says and once more Emma nods and returns to trying to get the camera out of the wall.

Bastion heads over to Chris's door and knocks on it before going over to the Russo's and knocks on their door as well. Both open one after the other.

"Bastion what is it love? isn't it a bit early" Mrs. Russo asks as Chris remains silent.

"Emma had another Incident." Bastion says bluntly "They smashed the camera this time," he adds while crossing his arms. This news caused Mrs. Russo to gasp and Chris's brow to furrow.

"It's fine really, I'll just replace it," Emma says, though she was clearly more so trying to convince herself. All the same, Chris walks over to take a look at the damage. His expression darkens a bit as he gave a sigh.

"They didn't just break the camera," he says before kneeling to get a closer look at the lock and rub a thumb over it. "There are a lot of scratch marks... Deep ones too. Looks like they were trying to pick the lock."

"Oh, my heavens." Mrs. Russo says before heading back inside. "Marco! Marco you need to go get Mr. Jacobs right now," she says with panic in her tone before the two started speaking in Italian.

"You are not helping" Bastion chides with a frown.

"What else am I suppose to do, ignore evidence? The lock needs to be changed." Chris points out as he gets back up. The nail tech gestures to Emma who was now shaking even worst than before. Someone really was trying to get into her apartment.

"It's going to be okay," Bastion says with a soft smile. "If you need to, you can stay with me for a night or two." he offers sympathetically.

"No, that's fine. I can't be this frightened of my own home. it's mine not there's. They won't take it from me," she says trying to regain her resolve as Chris takes out his phone and checks his own footage.

"Looks like my camera was too high up for them to reach, that or they just didn't care enough to take it out," he says as he looks over the records. "Yeah, there they are," he says still frowning. "I'll give Mr. Jacobs the footage so it can be added to the police case. Maybe they'll pick something up. This can't be the only place they're going to, so they'll end up sloppy at some point" Chris offers in an attempt to calm her nerves while clicking away at the screen.

Emma nods clearly still processing this as she scratches at her neck. What if they keep trying. What if they get in? What do they want? She didn't own anything particularly valuable. She didn't work with classified or sensitive information. She made web-ads for a living for a wannabe record label. Did someone blame her for being rejected? She wasn't even a part of that process.

Emma... Emma!

"Hmm?" she says before eventually processing that Chris had been trying to get her attention. he gave a quiet sigh.

"Do you want to work on another lesson," he offers which causes Bastion to raise an eyebrow but he minded his own business.

"Sure. Yeah, I think I'd like that," Emma agreed.

"Are you going to be okay if I head out then?" Bastion asks. "I can call in sick," he offers with a gentle smile but Emma shakes her head.

"No, no you don't need to do that. There's not much else that can be done anyways," she admits with a frown.

"Okay, you have my number if something comes up right?" he asks and Emma nods. "Good, Good. Okay. I'll check in on you during lunch. hang in there," he says giving Emma one more quick hug before heading down the stairs.

"Are you ready?" he asks as he gestures to the door "Mr. Russo seems to be handling the conversation with Mr. Jacobs, and I already Emailed him the footage," the man adds, and once more Emma nods.

"Yeah, let's go," she says and opens the door for them to head inside. Emma closes the door as Chris goes through the usual motions and moves the table out of the way so they have space to move.

"let's start with basics, no surprises this time," he says and holds up his hand as Emma gets into position and throws a jab at Chris's hand. She had been working on it, he knew she was. The addition of two 5lb weights next to her TV stand confirmed as much, but the improvement was minimal. He frowned at this. The threat was becoming much more apparent but she wasn't going to be ready to meet it at this rate. "Like you mean it," he says as Emma tries again with similar results even though she appeared to be putting in more effort. His frown remained. "Alright, Let's see your kick," he says and sure enough that was actually improving. Marginally but it was better. It didn't make any sense.

"Let's try something a bit different." he says as he steps back. "Give me a set of 10 Punches to the air," he says and Emma complies repeating the motion and Chris watched while walking around. "Alright. now 10 kicks," he instructs and once more she follows the instructions. Well hell! No wonder she wasn't progressing. She was stiff as a board when punching compared to her kick. It was practically night and day now that he noticed it.

"Kick," Chris says and as she does so he pushes her, to his surprise, even without a warning she stayed in place and just ended up leaning to the side a bit. Not a single skip or hop even though she was standing on one leg. what the.

"Punch," he says and as she does so he tries pushing her again, this time she stumbled to the side.

"What on earth are you doing," Emma asks clearly getting frustrated.

"Troubleshooting," he says with a perplexed expression, how was her balance better on one leg rather than two. "Do you have a prosthetic leg?" he asks as the only answer he could think of.

"What, no," she replies confused. "What are you on about?"

Chris shakes his head "Nothing. We need to fix your stance," he adds before walking to stand next to her. "Do another Kick but slower this time" he says and she complies confused. "stop there," he says and she holds the position. "When you're kicking you're putting your full body movement into it. You don't have a lot of mass to work with so that extra movement is doing your end force some extra favors," he explains. "Release," he says and Emma goes back to standing properly.

"Okay, that makes sense," she agrees and her frustration seems to lessen, while Chris moves to stand behind her and places a hand on her lower back which instantly causes her to tense up again.

"Relax, I'm not going to push you," Chris says and Emma hesitantly relaxes. The woman was no longer shaking which was good but as she punched he felt the muscles in her back tighten to keep it from moving. "You need to move into the punch," he says before standing next to her again. "The more distance your fist travels and more momentum you give the punch, which means more force and that makes it hit harder." the agent explains, "Like this," he says and shows her a few exaggerated jabs. It was a bit more than was really needed but she needed to get the idea of full movement.

This was an easy mistake to fix and he felt some guilt that he hadn't really been taking her lessons seriously enough to even check that until this point. After this latest incident though, he couldn't deny that she would potentially run into trouble. He watched her try a few of the exaggerated jabs before moving to stand in front of her again and holds up his hand. "Try again."

Emma hit the target as request and a small smile crossed his face. There was the progress he was looking for. "Much better," he says with a short chuckle. it wasn't really a ton of progress but it was better than the zero progress she was making before. A weak smile crosses Emma's face upon hearing the praise only to yelp as she was pulled into a hold. "Don't go and get cocky from a little bit of progress." He says making sure he had a good grip on her. She chuckles at his scolding before attempting to get out. "Use what you learned, put your body into it," he coached and on the second try, she was out.

"Better, but you need to be able to do this on the first try without hesitation," He says and offers a hand so she could try again.

"Right," Emma replies and accepts the offered hand "Thanks Chris."

The two practiced for another hour as usual before heading over to the kitchen where Emma poured each of them a cup of morning coffee. "I'm going to go grocery shopping later. You're not usually around so I don't really get to ask. Is there anything you want in particular for lunch?" she asks causing Chris to pause and think.

"I'm trying to eat more protein lately" Chris replies. "I need to get back into shape," he admits with a quiet sigh.

"You're not already?" she asks notably confused.

"I let myself slip a bit," he further admits "Certainly not in my old boulder punching shape," he says with an amused smirk before sipping at his coffee. this was always a fun story to bring up.

"I'm sorry you punch a what," she asks clearly baffled which caused Chris to laugh.

"Yeah, it's honestly not that impressive it was mostly Pumice so it was deceptively lightweight" The agent admits "Just don't tell the others that, I have a reputation to uphold."

"A bolder size chuck of Pumice... wouldn't that only be possible in an active volcano?" Emma asks still trying to process that new unexpected fact.

"Yeah," he confirms with a chuckle clearly enjoying the confusion "I see you paid attention in science class."

"Why in the hell were you- Oh my gosh, Okay, never mind I don't want to know," she says with a laugh. "Let's just stick with 'it was work'."

Chris nods in agreement with that "That's probably for the best."

"Anyways, protein-packed lunches. I can do that," she says before looking to Duke who was not so patiently sitting by the door with his leash. "Shoot. Hey, I need to walk Duke... are you okay with locking up when you're done with your coffee?" the man nods "thanks," she says and hurries back to her room closing the door behind her before walking out in the same tank top and shorts with flip flops. She'd worry about showering and changing properly once she got back. The poor pooch was probably at his last straw. She hooked up Duke's leash and opened the door "see you around," Emma says in parting and heads out.

She took the fluffy tank out for a longer walk the normal to try and make up for the wait before bringing him back into the apartment, sure enough, it was locked up as she had asked. Once she got back inside she gave Duke his breakfast before checking her phone.

9:41AM

1 New message

[unstored number] Hey Emma, it's Chris. I got your number from Bastion. Text me if you get spooked while you're shopping.

Emma chuckled a bit at that. "Well then, someone clearly threw away the plate of new neighbor cookies. I already gave you my number," she said shaking her head. "Oh well. I'll give you a pass since you're watching what you eat" a few clicks later and Chris's number was saved into her phone.

[Emma] Hey Chris, thanks for the offer. I'll keep it in mind.

This was a fun one, hopefully, it wasn't too stressful. I know it got me a bit anxious and I wrote it, so if it would help for me to put a warning on chapters like this please let me know.

Review responses:

- reading your review made me smile thanks for taking the time to tell me that you like the story! Hopefully, this chapter wasn't too jarring compared to the others. This masked figure is going to come to a head in the next few chapters but I'm trying to space it out a bit to keep it from being the main focus. I kinda want to go with the feeling of constant nagging, something that won't quite go away, and just when you're about to forget it pops up again to add to the anxiety factor that it's causing Emma.