Rhodium Golems: Condition Zero

A Virtua Fighter/Icon of the Defender crossover fanfiction (IOTD is my own original novel - OCs from said novel will feature in this story).

Disclaimer: I only own IOTD.

Chapter 1

19 October 2015 – San Francisco, California, USA

Sarah Bryant lay on her bed in her bedroom at the Bryant family mansion, mulling over the events which had led up to this point in her short but eventful life. It had been some time – maybe a year, maybe 5 years, depending on how you looked at it, but the sequence of events was the same. She could still remember most of her time with Judgement 6… what they did to her… what she did for them. The thought of being their meat puppet was enough to reduce her to tears, but the knowledge that she had been conditioned to commit fratricide was unforgivable. She closed her eyes painfully, trying to hold back the tears she was involuntarily crying. Sarah knew she had to speak to her brother, but her own insecurities stopped her than and there. After who knows how many years' worth of memories, both genuine and falsified, came to the surface, she let out a primal scream of pain and sobbed audibly, not caring if anyone heard her or not. Right then and there, more than anything, she wanted someone to talk to, someone to hold, whether it was Jacky or Akira.

Her brother, Jacky, was in a similar situation. He knew that this whole situation had largely been his own doing. The elder Bryant sibling was in a VIP nightclub in the heart of San Francisco, doing what he had been doing for the better part of all the time since his younger sister had gotten abducted and conditioned: getting royally pissed off his face on expensive wine and whiskey. I don't give a damn if it's going to kill me. A, I'm going to die eventually, and B, it helps soothe the pain… and C, I can afford it, so there. His mind admonished, as he half-listened to the music blaring from the club's speakers, largely 80s tunes. Genesis… Sarah loved them, although I personally couldn't get them after they moved from prog to pop. He mused as he finished his 10th bottle, his last one for the night before stumbling out of the club and heading home. He got home in record time, his inebriated mind still able to remember the way back as he entered the manor, knocking brusquely on Sarah's door. 'Sarah? It's me, Jacky.' He announced redundantly. There was a pause. 'Sarah, are you OK?' He asked. Hmm… she's probably gone to sleep. Might want to do the same, J. He thought… and go to his room to sleep it off he did, knowing full well he would be in a world of pain the morning after.

20 October 2015 – San Francisco, California, USA

The Sun rose and shone on a temperate autumn day as Sarah was busy practicing in the mansion's gym, where she and her brother had sparred for many years – exercising and using her JKD skills against a punching bag, she could feel her anger rise. Despite training and sparring for what felt like an eternity, she could not get those memories out of her head so easily, even with help from Vanessa. After an afternoon of practice, she showered and decided to treat herself to a night on the town… alone. Don't be stupid, Sarah. You know Judgement 6 will do anything to get you back. Her mind warned, but she was fed up – fed up of listening to reason, fed up of being compared to her brother, and fed up of living in fear as she reached for a rotary dial telephone, calling a very specific number.

'Hello?' A voice with a noticeable Asian accent – a Hong Kong dialect, actually – was heard on the other end of the line. This was HK movie star Pai Chan, and Akira's sort-of girlfriend. Sarah took a deep breath as she composed herself.

'Hey, Pai… it's me, Sarah.' She began slightly shakily.

'Sarah! Hi.' Pai replied. 'What's up? You sound like you've seen a ghost.' She added in an attempt to lighten up the situation – she knew Sarah's situation all too well, and knew better than to make light of her sordid history with Judgement 6.

'You're not far off.' Sarah replied semi-humorously. 'Look, Pai… I was wondering… why don't we have a girls' night out? It'd do us some good… do me some good.' She added after a slight pause.

'Yes, of course.' Pai replied enthusiastically. 'I don't have any filming to do, so why not? It'd be great to catch up.' She replied cheerily.

'Great… see you at the Temple Nightclub tonight at Sunset.' Sarah replied as she hung up, smiling for the first time in a long time. Her levity did not last long, however, as it was interrupted by a familiar groan of pain… she knew that voice all too well. A door opened in the hallway, and the voice's owner stepped out of a bedroom, clutching his forehead groggily. Sarah, instinctively, perhaps out of subconscious guilt, ran to help her brother. 'Jacky! Are you OK?' She asked with audible alarm in her voice.

'Sarah… is that you?' The elder Bryant sibling asked as his vision refocused. 'God, I feel like a pig crapped in my head.' Sarah said nothing as she helped her older brother back into his bedroom, despite his protests. 'What are you doing!? Let me go! Put me down!' Jacky wailed, still inebriated. 'Sarah, for fuck's sake, put me down!' He continued as Sarah lowered him into his bed like a child.

'Rest up, dear brother.' She said with a slight smile before heading to her bedroom – she needed to get ready for her girls' night out.

Sure enough, evening could not come any faster as the Sun began its descent in the pinkish-orange Sky. Pai Chan stood outside the Temple Nightclub dressed to the nines, wearing a nice red dress, her hair down and out. She could hear the faint sound of a limousine pulling up – sure enough, it was indeed a limousine. Out stepped a fair-follicle woman in a blue dress, her form dazzling to all the men in the immediate vicinity. Pai smiled as Sarah approached her, and the two women exchanged an embrace. 'It's good to see you again, Sarah.' Pai replied with total sincerity as she admired her friend's attire. 'You look great.' She added.

'Oh, come on, you're just being polite.' Sarah responded, but she knew Pai was right. 'Anyway, let's go and have fun.' The two women entered the VIP nightclub, reserved only for the richest of the rich and the drunkest of the drunk, frequently both hand-in-hand. The club was blaring with loud music, as was typical of the night scene in good old Frisco, complete with a crowd of dancing pissheads jumping up and down as if trying to line dance while trying to imitate a drunken peacock on a cocaine-induced high. Getting a table with a good vantage point (in other words, a direct line of sight to the stage), Pai and Sarah sat back with their drinks – the former had opted for a Tango while the latter clutched a glass full of tequila. The girls could barely hear themselves speak, so they instead decided to listen to the music – or rather, Pai decided to listen to the music, as Sarah began eyeing up some men in the nightclub – none of them took her fancy, as they all resembled people she had beaten up and nearly killed during her time as an assassin for Judgement 6. As the current composition from the band on the stage concluded, a LOUD whooping and cheering combination erupted from the inebriated audience. The applause seemed to go on for what felt like a lifetime until the next song began, an instrumental track characterised by a synthesiser-driven verse, a repeated chorus and an explosive guitar finale with a crashing keyboard chord progression and octave combination. Something clicked in Sarah's mind, as she got up and walked towards the dance floor.

'Sarah? Are you OK?' Pai asked worriedly as her fair-haired friend ignored her question, the beautiful blonde transfixed like a hypnosis victim. She began to dance with a combination of aggression and grace, performing martial arts moves on thin air much to the bemusement of the men dancing in the club, who were all too quickly taken in by the former femme fatale's feline movements. The repetitive chorus of the instrumental composition allured Sarah completely as she danced in her own little world to the music, the climactic guitar solo only serving to emphasise her more aggressive movements. From her vantage point, Pai could see the band fairly clearly – a man in blue, barely visible, performed drumming duty using a standard right-handed kit, while an Asian male dressed in red and white, familiar – too familiar – clutched an electric guitar, a gold-plated Gibson Les Paul.

Akira…!? Pai thought to herself. I didn't know he was into rock and roll. I guess his time with Jacky has enfeebled his mind. I'll have to have a word with him. Akira held a silver guitar pick in his right hand while he strummed the notes in his left – he, too, was enchanted by the composition he was playing with his bandmates. Last but not least, a man with short dark hair, almost bald, and sporting a tan face with spectacles that somehow seemed to turn into sunglasses thanks to the ultraviolet radiation from the stage lights, manned a pair of keyboards. Two synthesisers in a double-decker configuration – a black Yamaha PSR-195 was on the lower level, while the upper one was taken by a silver Korg PA50 SD, complete with a pair of sustain pedals for each synth. Pai looked at him. Well, he's certainly easy on the eyes. She thought to herself. Unknown to either her or Sarah, the man on the keyboards would end up being the solution to the latter's problem regarding her dark and troubled past – correction, one of three solutions. As the final keyboard and guitar crash-chord combination concluded the song, the crowd cheered – not so much for them, but for Sarah, who snapped out of her trance as the music ended. Sarah looked embarrassed as the men surrounding her applauded her efforts, quickly retreating to the safety of her table with Pai.

Backstage, after the gig had concluded with a soothing final encore, the band began to relax – or rather, two of them, as the third man had mysteriously vanished. The man with the guitar was indeed Akira Yuki himself, having taken a brief sabbatical from martial arts to focus on his unspoken second love: rock and roll music. The bespectacled keyboardist, somewhat taller than him (and with much less hair), sat opposite him. This was multinational (and multiracial) Euro-Mediterranean pilot and part-time musician, Vincenzo Corbucci. The peerless pair, brought together by their mutual love of justice, duty and honour (and music), were winding down, unaware of their impending guests. 'What a gig, eh, Vincenzo?' Akira was the first to speak as he took a drink of what appeared to be apple-flavoured Tango. A plate was before him, filled with potstickers and Chow Mein, and he appeared to be eating the dumplings with the enthusiasm of a hungry cat, sometimes by hand, sometimes with chopsticks.

'You said it, Akira.' Vincenzo replied, his voice lower in tone and pitch than Akira's and sporting a mixed Latin accent with a hint of Mediterranean and Scottish. 'You know, I noticed something funny.' He added, pausing in between bites to speak – his plate was filled with pasta mixed together with Parmesan cheese and a good helping of tuna chunks. Unlike his Oriental counterpart, Vincenzo was using a fork and spoon to eat, pushing the former against the latter, which he twirled with unerring accuracy before ingesting with pixel-perfect precision.

'What's that?' Akira asked as he continued dining. 'You noticed Kage didn't stick around for the encore and instead did a runner after we did the main part of the show? He's a great drummer, but shit, he could at least try to hang out for a bit.' He mused.

'That, and I noticed a smoking hot babe dancing to our cover of "The Brazilian".' Vincenzo countered. 'I swear, she had long blonde hair and was wearing a gorgeous blue dress that looked like the Blue Fairy had made it specially for her. She was bloody gorgeous. She was with an Asian lass.' The last two words made Akira curious, if not nervous.

'What did she look like?' Akira asked anxiously – he would soon come to wish he had not asked Vincenzo that question.

'About your height, a little shorter – long dark hair, red dress and a face that looked like it needed reconstructive surgery after being beaten with an ugly stick one too many times.' Vincenzo described offhandedly – the last part of his description made Akira's blood boil slightly. Despite their friendship, he did not like, never mind wish to tolerate, his Occidental counterpart's flippant behaviour, especially when it came to women. 'Think I know her.'

'You do?' Akira asked with restrained anger. 'Pray tell.'

'I think it's Pai Chan – you know, the HK movie star, the woman who's going head-to-head with Donnie Yen.' Vincenzo replied. Akira's face fell – he could feel the colour drain from his face. 'Is something wrong?' The eccentric half-white, half-Latin keyboardist-cum-aviator added. A knock on the door was heard. 'Come in.' Vincenzo replied – he did not like to have too much security. The door opened… and both Pai and Sarah entered, the latter closing the door behind her. Akira turned to face his sort-of girlfriend nervously.

'Hi.' He said with a shy smile. 'I don't suppose you fancy a dumpling?' He offered his plate meekly, which Pai rejected.

'Akira Yuki, you disappoint me.' Pai spoke up calmly. 'You spent your whole life looking for the 8 Stars and now you live like a degenerate.' She continued reprimanding him. Akira could feel his physical form shrink in a humorous manner, reminiscent of a cartoon character getting smaller in size until he was tiny enough to be stamped on like an annoying insect. While Pai continued to chide him, mostly in Mandarin Chinese, Sarah approached Vincenzo and smiled at him seductively, a smile which he could not resist due to his predilection for damsels in distress.

'Hi, there. What's your name?' Sarah asked, flashing him a dazzling smile which made his heartbeat accelerate exponentially.

'Vincenzo… Vincenzo Corbucci.' He replied with slight timidity but he quickly recovered, regaining his confidence in a split second. 'What's yours?' He asked.

'My name is Sarah. Sarah Bryant.' The younger Bryant sibling replied as she ruffled her blonde hair.' 'Nice to meet you, Vincenzo.' She added, working her charms on him. All right, looks like you've still got it, Sarah. She thought. No man could resist your alluring beauty – your fatal beauty. Her mind half-complimented, half-criticised.

'Nice to meet you, Signorina Bryant.' Vincenzo replied, half in English, half in Italian.

'Please… call me Sarah.' Sarah responded as she smiled. 'I thought you played good music on stage, but you're even better looking up close and personal.' She paused as Vincenzo offered him half of his food, which she ate gratefully. 'You got anything planned for tonight?'

'Well… no. I'm going to go back to the city airport and go home in my helicopter.' Vincenzo said timidly. Sarah's face illuminated slightly.

'Helicopter!? You have a helicopter?!' Sarah smiled brightly.

'I fly and own one, yes. This isn't my day job, you see – I'm a pilot, a chauffeur for some… particular individuals.' Vincenzo euphemised. Nikolai's going to give me a colossal bollocking if he ever knew what I got up to in my spare time. Then again, I'd rather hear it from him than Jacques, who's a bloody bullshitter. He thought apprehensively.

'Can I see it? Please?' Sarah asked, cupping her hands together like a child. Vincenzo looked pensive for a moment, but eventually acquiesced with a single nod. He never could resist an attractive woman asking him for a favour.

The Moon shone in the inky black autumn Sky, the Horizon starless and cloudy as Vincenzo headed for the heliport with Sarah, the two of them entering the city's airport with ease. Reaching a private terminal, Vincenzo escorted Sarah to the helipad. 'Ta-da.' He sang monotonously as he presented his pride and joy, his personal vehicle. It was indeed a helicopter, mid-sized, with landing skids and with a very unusual paint job consisting of a pink body, white doors, a red tail and blue landing skids with green and yellow night lights. 'My very own Thunder Blade.' He half-joked. 'Kazan Ansat, made in Russia – twin turbine engines, 4 rotor blades, can carry up to 10 people – a pair in the front, the rest in the centre and rear. Maximum take-off weight of 3.6 tonnes and a fuel tank of 700 litres with a maximum range of 505 kilometres per hour and a maximum speed of about 275 kilometres per hour – that's just over 3 hours of constant flight time. Cheap and cheerful. Pretty sizeable cargo bay, as well.' He smiled proudly. Sarah looked transfixed as she eyed it up.

'Wow… is this real?' She finally asked.

'It's as real as my sense of attention whenever I see a gorgeous woman like you.' Vincenzo half-joked. 'If you want, then I can give you a tour of the city for free.'

'No need.' Sarah smiled. 'I'm San Franciscan, born and raised.' She paused. 'You could… take me home, couldn't you?' She asked shyly like a child.

'Yes, of course.' Vincenzo smiled as he got into the cockpit, engaging a series of switches as the chopper's dual rotor blades whirred into life, the twin engines barking and whining into existence with a deafening shriek. 'Might take a while, I just had it refitted and refuelled.' He added. After several seconds, he realised that Sarah was not responding. 'Sarah, are you OK?' He asked. Still nothing. What the fuck is going on? He thought rather irritably. In the distance, he could vaguely see a blue form being confronted by three Men in Black. That's Sarah! He thought, the younger Bryant sibling being restrained by two of the MIBs. If Vincenzo had any semblance of sense, then he would have taken off and left her to her fate… but alas, when confronted with beautiful women, his sense of logic and reason went out of the window so fast it entered the adjacent building and shattered the neighbour's fancy new 4K HDTV. He opened the glove compartment – inside lay a sleek, futuristic-looking handgun – his personal sidearm, an ex-Yugoslavian (now Serbian) update-cum-clone-of-a-Russian-classic – a Zastava M57A single-action handgun in 7.62*25mm Tokarev. Gripping it, he loaded an extended 10-round magazine into the grip and racked the slide with deliberate force, exiting the chopper.

Sarah struggled desperately, but not enough to help herself – despite her martial arts training, the MIBs were far more physically powerful than she was. She knew what they wanted, and she was in no way going to give it to them. 'Join you again? Never.' She spat coldly a the MIB before her.

'Come on, Sarah, you were the best.' The man responded. 'You were perfect – think about it. We could make an army of perfect soldiers with you in charge.' He continued.

'That thing was based on me… I'd rather die than go through that hell again.' Sarah persisted. The MIB looked at her sadly. Before he could respond, he heard a gun cocking behind him. Turning around quickly, he came face to face with Vincenzo aiming his Serbo-Tokarev handgun at. His. HEAD.

'Let her go. She's with me.' He declared. Shit, shit, shit! Vincenzo, you complete bastard! His mind screamed as he instantaneously regretted his choice of words, but it was too late to turn back now. He had made his choice and he had to go through with it.

'Sir, put the gun down. This woman is a very important person to us.' The MIB showed Vincenzo his identity card. 'Special forces recruitment, Division 6.'

'I won't ask again: let her go.' He repeated firmly, glancing at Sarah's struggling form. 'Let her go!' He raised his voice. The MIB snapped his finger and his subordinates released Sarah, who ran beside him. Vincenzo backed away cautiously, still keeping his gun pointed at the trio until he and Sarah reached the helicopter, the beautiful blonde boarding it quickly as the pilot engaged the manual safety on his sidearm, holstering it on his left thigh. The whirlybird ascended into the air and flew into the night Sky, heading towards the Moon as it disappeared into the distance as Sarah smiled at him shyly.

'Thanks.' She said softly. Vincenzo glanced at the younger Bryant sibling, then smiled back.

'You're welcome.' He paused. 'So… destination home?' He asked.

'For now.' Sarah replied.

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