*Every time that I cry out
No one ever comes to me
Every time that I reach out
No one ever rescues me
I wish I could hide from everyone
Is there somewhere else to be?
Is there somewhere else to be?
Take me in
I want out
That's all I need
I wish I could run from everything
Is there somewhere else to be?
Is there somewhere else to be?
Take me in
I want out
That's all I need*
*Vast - Somewhere Else to Be*
Angel awoke with a start, and tossed an angry look at the clock. It was just 5:30, dammit, why wouldn't her body let her sleep? One of these days she was going to kill herself waking up like that. Until then, she'd just have to deal with these daily pre-dawn heart attacks.
She spared a look at the lump that was her brother, still sawing logs in a deep slumber. It was a wonder she got any sleep at all.
And yet, it was also an indicator of his big problem; he hadn't always snored. He was having increasing difficulty breathing. It wasn't always blood clots at fault anymore, either. Sometimes his internal mechanics started to fail, and she'd have to find a way to jump-start it, the most convenient and yet painful way being to have him stick a fork in a light socket. They'd only had to do it once. It had nearly killed him, and had hurt like hell all over for hours, but it was a few days until his next "attack" and that was well worth it. He only had to last just a little longer, then everything would be over and Dr. Abel would repair him.
He was becoming increasingly bitter about his condition. He hated the fact that he had always been perfectly self-sufficient, and now needed help from a previously non-existent sister to keep himself alive. That bitterness was slowly but surely turning into a violent rage. It didn't take nearly as long as it once had for her to make him angry. She could sympathize, but that was about it.
She, too, was becoming increasingly hostile. Partly at her slow-to-heal injuries, at her leaving her only friends, at the old scars from that life-changing battle, at her lack of information about herself. A nickname for her was circulating throughout the spectators of the Tournament, calling her the Celestial Fury. There was even a catchphrase, too: Looks like heaven, hurts like hell. She usually ignored it.
Today's fight was the start of the semi-finals. There were only five fighters left in the tournament. The winner out of those five would move on to the final round... and Heihachi Mishima.
The thought thrilled her... and at the same time, it scared the shit out of her. Her, Angel Fury Leah, versus one of the greatest martial arts masters of all time. It would without a doubt be the hardest fight of her life. Deep down in her mind, she knew her brother wouldn't make it to the final fight. He was weakening faster than he realized, and the only thing that either of them could do was make this Tournament pass as quickly as possible. It saddened her profoundly, but once her pragmatism surfaced she realized that it was all up to her to save his life. Cheesy, yes. Guaranteed to piss him off, yes. Avoidable... no.
She groaned, and finally climbed out of bed. Opening the door of their hotel room, the staff laid out the Japanese-print tournament newsletter listing the time, place, and participants in each of today's fights. Her eyes narrowed when saw her brother's scheduled opponent.
Kazuya Mishima.
Holy shit.
Her brother was about to face off against one of the most feared opponents in the entire tournament. She hadn't had a chance to see the supposedly-dead legend at work, but now she was about to get a front-row seat to the deadly master's destruction of her massively weakened brother. Dammit.
She was about to ball up the little newsletter when she saw the name of her opponent. Jin Kazama... where had she heard that name before? It was irritating the hell out of her, trying to figure that out. She'd been agonizing over it for hours. "Names without faces, and faces without names," she mused, closing the door and padding over to a recliner in front of the room's TV. She put it on mute, and turned on the closed-captioning, immersing herself in some anime shows. She knew she should be getting dressed, going for her morning's run, but something deep inside her said otherwise. She'd always trusted her instincts, and right now they were telling her to stay right where she was. An hour passed, when the finely-tuned senses in her brain gave her a familiar warning.
Abruptly, almost without thinking about it, she stood and walked over to the door, unlocking it and opening it. Standing in the hallway, hand poised to knock, a look of shock plastered on his face, was the short ponytailed Chinese man from the first night. Lei Wulong.
"He's sleeping now," she told the shocked-silent cop quietly in English. "Give me a moment to get dressed, and I'll join you."
The cop managed to stutter a reply, the signals finally reaching his brain that told his arm to drop and his mouth to close. He gave the now-closed door some funny looks, muttering to himself in his mother tongue.
The door opened again a few moments later, with Angel in jeans, a t-shirt, sneakers, her fingerless gloves, and the ever-present trenchcoat. "He had a tough time with Paul Phoenix yesterday," she said quietly as she closed the door behind her as noiselessly as possible. "He needs all the rest he can get."
"Ahh..." Wulong's hand finally found the back of his neck. "Who are you? I mean, uh, what are you doing with Fury? And-"
"And how the hell is he still alive?" Angel gave a throaty chuckle. She started down the hallway, hands in the pockets of her trenchcoat. Wulong stared open-mouthed for another moment before snapping out of it and jogging to catch up.
"Uh, yeah."
"You were under the impression that he's dead, correct?"
Wulong could only nod somewhat stiffly.
The lavendar-eyed gaze hardened somewhat. "He is."
The cop blinked. "Say what?"
"It's a long story. You want some breakfast?"
"No, I want answers!" Well, at least his brain was working again. "Who are you?" They stopped in front of the elevator, not far from the Fury quarters, and Wulong moved so that he was standing right in front of her.
She gave that soft smile, the one that told his highly trained eye that she knew more than she wished she did. "My name is Angel Leah. Your ex-partner, Bryan Fury, is my adopted brother. We're at this tournament in the hopes that we can save his life."
Wulong was running out of facial expressions to show his shock and confusion. "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Me," came a familiar voice from down the hall. The two figures turned, to see a shirtless, barefoot Bryan standing in the doorway to the hotel room, his hard gaze fixed on his ex-partner. Wulong visibly flinched at the sight of his once-friend's pale, scarred chest.
"Bryan..." he breathed.
Angel could feel the mental turmoil building in both minds. "Why don't we come inside and sit down? We all need to talk, I think."
Bryan gave a frosty nod, as silent as death, his steel-blue eyes seeming to burn holes in Wulong. The Chinese cop forced himself to meet that gaze, taking in the sad, tortured picture of a bitter man that had once been so full of life.
Angel perched on the edge of her bed while Bryan and Lei took chairs facing each other. No one spoke, the two former partners glowering at each other.
"Don't everyone start talking at once," Angel muttered. Bryan gave her a withering glance, which she returned. "So, Mr. Wulong. Why are you still here? I thought you were defeated in your last fight."
Wulong snorted. "I was. My opponent was Kazuya Mishima, of all people."
Angel started. "That's Bryan's opponent this afternoon!" Both turned to stare at her, both with a seeming sense of dread. Bryan wasn't looking forward to this fight at all. "I've wanted to see him fight, and it looks like I'll get my chance..." she trailed off.
"That's not good," Wulong said worriedly. "He fights with a determination unlike anything I've ever seen. He just stares at you, right before he tries to kill you. That, and he uses that martial-art form, the one that's rarely seen."
"The Mishima-ryu style karate... not good at all," Angel murmured. "It's an extremely deadly art, specializing in doing maximum damage in a minimum of time. One good punch is enough to start off a whole chain of hits, all of them with full strength. This is not going to be a good fight at all." It came out calmly, as if she were reciting a lesson instead of idle worried chatter.
"That's exactly right." Wulong's brows came together. "How would you know?"
"Know what?"
"How the Mishima-ryu style works? You described it perfectly, yet you just said you've never seen him fight." Wulong had a look on his face that Bryan remembered all too well, the look of a cop that sought information.
"Maybe she's seen videos of his past fights," the elder Fury drawled, glaring at his former partner.
"No, actually that's a very good question," Angel interrupted. "The answer is, I have no idea how I knew that. But I'm getting another one of those headaches," she said with a significant look at her brother. He looked baffled for a brief moment, before he suddenly understood and gave a slight nod.
Then it hit him. That fighting style she had used the night he he met her, on those thugs... he'd thought it had looked familar. Could it have been Mishima-ryu? That guy he'd talked to at the 'tank incident' had said that she had been a Tekkenshu, so it wasn't entirely unlikely.
He cleared his throat to get his sister's attention, and stared deep into her eyes. She read his thoughts, and her eyes widened. "No way... Mishima-ryu? You're sure?"
"Do you know the name of that style you used that night?"
"I know so many styles, I have trouble remembering them all. But no, I don't know the name of that one. Maybe you're right."
Suddenly their guest coughed, to let them know that he was still there. "Ah, excuse me, but what are you talking about?"
Bryan opened his mouth, but Angel beat him to it. "I'm an amnesiac. We don't know where I came from or anything about my past, but we believe that I may have been connected to Mishima Enterprises at one time. That's one of the reasons we're here."
Wulong furrowed his brow. "But I thought you said he was your brother."
"Adopted brother," Bryan managed to get in. "I was sent to help raise her after her half-baked asshole of a guardian committed suicide."
"But how?" Wulong blurted, finally losing control to ask the burning question. "How in the hell are you still alive? I thought you were dead!"
"You only wish," Bryan growled. "You left me to bleed to death in that alley, you mother-" Angel cleared her throat, and he calmed down about three hairs. "You have any idea what your own blood tastes like when it's mixed with gravel, and asphalt, and whatever else kinds of shit was left in that goddamn alley? You don't have a fuckin' clue what I've been through."
"But-"
"Enough," Angel growled. "Are you kids gonna play nice, or do I have to send you to your rooms?"
Bryan gave her a glare that would have made a stronger man shit himself. "You stay out of this!"
"I'm in this just as much as you are, Robocop." She put deliberate emphasis on the name, and his lip automatically curled back in a snarl.
"The hell you are, psycho-bitch," he growled right back, and Wulong could have sworn he saw Angel's eyes get a little redder.
"Can we please concentrate for a moment?" Wulong pleaded, inwardly praying to whatever god that might listen to spare his life if the two adopted siblings were to attack each other. They glared at each other for a few more minutes, then deliberately diverted their gazes in unison. Wulong gave a light sigh of relief. "You know, the more you tell me, the more I can help."
Angel accepted the logic of that, although Bryan wasn't as forgiving. They bickered between each other for a few more minutes, before Bryan abruptly stood. "Fine, tell him everything. I'm gonna go take a shower." That said, her disappeared into the tiny hotel bathroom, leaving Angel and Wulong alone again.
So Angel told him everything, using her telepathy to scan his thoughts as she spoke. He was genuinely shocked and concerned. A streak of bitterness rose when she tried to clarify why Bryan hated him. "I could have saved him," Wulong murmured, surprisingly close to tears. "If I hadn't been into my job so much, I could have took him back with us, and at least let him rest in peace."
"Should have," Angel replied bluntly, "but it's a little late for that. Now all that's left is for me and Bryan to defeat Heihachi Mishima. We'll worry about everything else after that."
Wulong sighed the heavy sigh of a burdened man. "I hope you're right," he murmured, glancing at the still-closed bathroom. "I hope you're right."
No one ever comes to me
Every time that I reach out
No one ever rescues me
I wish I could hide from everyone
Is there somewhere else to be?
Is there somewhere else to be?
Take me in
I want out
That's all I need
I wish I could run from everything
Is there somewhere else to be?
Is there somewhere else to be?
Take me in
I want out
That's all I need*
*Vast - Somewhere Else to Be*
Angel awoke with a start, and tossed an angry look at the clock. It was just 5:30, dammit, why wouldn't her body let her sleep? One of these days she was going to kill herself waking up like that. Until then, she'd just have to deal with these daily pre-dawn heart attacks.
She spared a look at the lump that was her brother, still sawing logs in a deep slumber. It was a wonder she got any sleep at all.
And yet, it was also an indicator of his big problem; he hadn't always snored. He was having increasing difficulty breathing. It wasn't always blood clots at fault anymore, either. Sometimes his internal mechanics started to fail, and she'd have to find a way to jump-start it, the most convenient and yet painful way being to have him stick a fork in a light socket. They'd only had to do it once. It had nearly killed him, and had hurt like hell all over for hours, but it was a few days until his next "attack" and that was well worth it. He only had to last just a little longer, then everything would be over and Dr. Abel would repair him.
He was becoming increasingly bitter about his condition. He hated the fact that he had always been perfectly self-sufficient, and now needed help from a previously non-existent sister to keep himself alive. That bitterness was slowly but surely turning into a violent rage. It didn't take nearly as long as it once had for her to make him angry. She could sympathize, but that was about it.
She, too, was becoming increasingly hostile. Partly at her slow-to-heal injuries, at her leaving her only friends, at the old scars from that life-changing battle, at her lack of information about herself. A nickname for her was circulating throughout the spectators of the Tournament, calling her the Celestial Fury. There was even a catchphrase, too: Looks like heaven, hurts like hell. She usually ignored it.
Today's fight was the start of the semi-finals. There were only five fighters left in the tournament. The winner out of those five would move on to the final round... and Heihachi Mishima.
The thought thrilled her... and at the same time, it scared the shit out of her. Her, Angel Fury Leah, versus one of the greatest martial arts masters of all time. It would without a doubt be the hardest fight of her life. Deep down in her mind, she knew her brother wouldn't make it to the final fight. He was weakening faster than he realized, and the only thing that either of them could do was make this Tournament pass as quickly as possible. It saddened her profoundly, but once her pragmatism surfaced she realized that it was all up to her to save his life. Cheesy, yes. Guaranteed to piss him off, yes. Avoidable... no.
She groaned, and finally climbed out of bed. Opening the door of their hotel room, the staff laid out the Japanese-print tournament newsletter listing the time, place, and participants in each of today's fights. Her eyes narrowed when saw her brother's scheduled opponent.
Kazuya Mishima.
Holy shit.
Her brother was about to face off against one of the most feared opponents in the entire tournament. She hadn't had a chance to see the supposedly-dead legend at work, but now she was about to get a front-row seat to the deadly master's destruction of her massively weakened brother. Dammit.
She was about to ball up the little newsletter when she saw the name of her opponent. Jin Kazama... where had she heard that name before? It was irritating the hell out of her, trying to figure that out. She'd been agonizing over it for hours. "Names without faces, and faces without names," she mused, closing the door and padding over to a recliner in front of the room's TV. She put it on mute, and turned on the closed-captioning, immersing herself in some anime shows. She knew she should be getting dressed, going for her morning's run, but something deep inside her said otherwise. She'd always trusted her instincts, and right now they were telling her to stay right where she was. An hour passed, when the finely-tuned senses in her brain gave her a familiar warning.
Abruptly, almost without thinking about it, she stood and walked over to the door, unlocking it and opening it. Standing in the hallway, hand poised to knock, a look of shock plastered on his face, was the short ponytailed Chinese man from the first night. Lei Wulong.
"He's sleeping now," she told the shocked-silent cop quietly in English. "Give me a moment to get dressed, and I'll join you."
The cop managed to stutter a reply, the signals finally reaching his brain that told his arm to drop and his mouth to close. He gave the now-closed door some funny looks, muttering to himself in his mother tongue.
The door opened again a few moments later, with Angel in jeans, a t-shirt, sneakers, her fingerless gloves, and the ever-present trenchcoat. "He had a tough time with Paul Phoenix yesterday," she said quietly as she closed the door behind her as noiselessly as possible. "He needs all the rest he can get."
"Ahh..." Wulong's hand finally found the back of his neck. "Who are you? I mean, uh, what are you doing with Fury? And-"
"And how the hell is he still alive?" Angel gave a throaty chuckle. She started down the hallway, hands in the pockets of her trenchcoat. Wulong stared open-mouthed for another moment before snapping out of it and jogging to catch up.
"Uh, yeah."
"You were under the impression that he's dead, correct?"
Wulong could only nod somewhat stiffly.
The lavendar-eyed gaze hardened somewhat. "He is."
The cop blinked. "Say what?"
"It's a long story. You want some breakfast?"
"No, I want answers!" Well, at least his brain was working again. "Who are you?" They stopped in front of the elevator, not far from the Fury quarters, and Wulong moved so that he was standing right in front of her.
She gave that soft smile, the one that told his highly trained eye that she knew more than she wished she did. "My name is Angel Leah. Your ex-partner, Bryan Fury, is my adopted brother. We're at this tournament in the hopes that we can save his life."
Wulong was running out of facial expressions to show his shock and confusion. "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Me," came a familiar voice from down the hall. The two figures turned, to see a shirtless, barefoot Bryan standing in the doorway to the hotel room, his hard gaze fixed on his ex-partner. Wulong visibly flinched at the sight of his once-friend's pale, scarred chest.
"Bryan..." he breathed.
Angel could feel the mental turmoil building in both minds. "Why don't we come inside and sit down? We all need to talk, I think."
Bryan gave a frosty nod, as silent as death, his steel-blue eyes seeming to burn holes in Wulong. The Chinese cop forced himself to meet that gaze, taking in the sad, tortured picture of a bitter man that had once been so full of life.
Angel perched on the edge of her bed while Bryan and Lei took chairs facing each other. No one spoke, the two former partners glowering at each other.
"Don't everyone start talking at once," Angel muttered. Bryan gave her a withering glance, which she returned. "So, Mr. Wulong. Why are you still here? I thought you were defeated in your last fight."
Wulong snorted. "I was. My opponent was Kazuya Mishima, of all people."
Angel started. "That's Bryan's opponent this afternoon!" Both turned to stare at her, both with a seeming sense of dread. Bryan wasn't looking forward to this fight at all. "I've wanted to see him fight, and it looks like I'll get my chance..." she trailed off.
"That's not good," Wulong said worriedly. "He fights with a determination unlike anything I've ever seen. He just stares at you, right before he tries to kill you. That, and he uses that martial-art form, the one that's rarely seen."
"The Mishima-ryu style karate... not good at all," Angel murmured. "It's an extremely deadly art, specializing in doing maximum damage in a minimum of time. One good punch is enough to start off a whole chain of hits, all of them with full strength. This is not going to be a good fight at all." It came out calmly, as if she were reciting a lesson instead of idle worried chatter.
"That's exactly right." Wulong's brows came together. "How would you know?"
"Know what?"
"How the Mishima-ryu style works? You described it perfectly, yet you just said you've never seen him fight." Wulong had a look on his face that Bryan remembered all too well, the look of a cop that sought information.
"Maybe she's seen videos of his past fights," the elder Fury drawled, glaring at his former partner.
"No, actually that's a very good question," Angel interrupted. "The answer is, I have no idea how I knew that. But I'm getting another one of those headaches," she said with a significant look at her brother. He looked baffled for a brief moment, before he suddenly understood and gave a slight nod.
Then it hit him. That fighting style she had used the night he he met her, on those thugs... he'd thought it had looked familar. Could it have been Mishima-ryu? That guy he'd talked to at the 'tank incident' had said that she had been a Tekkenshu, so it wasn't entirely unlikely.
He cleared his throat to get his sister's attention, and stared deep into her eyes. She read his thoughts, and her eyes widened. "No way... Mishima-ryu? You're sure?"
"Do you know the name of that style you used that night?"
"I know so many styles, I have trouble remembering them all. But no, I don't know the name of that one. Maybe you're right."
Suddenly their guest coughed, to let them know that he was still there. "Ah, excuse me, but what are you talking about?"
Bryan opened his mouth, but Angel beat him to it. "I'm an amnesiac. We don't know where I came from or anything about my past, but we believe that I may have been connected to Mishima Enterprises at one time. That's one of the reasons we're here."
Wulong furrowed his brow. "But I thought you said he was your brother."
"Adopted brother," Bryan managed to get in. "I was sent to help raise her after her half-baked asshole of a guardian committed suicide."
"But how?" Wulong blurted, finally losing control to ask the burning question. "How in the hell are you still alive? I thought you were dead!"
"You only wish," Bryan growled. "You left me to bleed to death in that alley, you mother-" Angel cleared her throat, and he calmed down about three hairs. "You have any idea what your own blood tastes like when it's mixed with gravel, and asphalt, and whatever else kinds of shit was left in that goddamn alley? You don't have a fuckin' clue what I've been through."
"But-"
"Enough," Angel growled. "Are you kids gonna play nice, or do I have to send you to your rooms?"
Bryan gave her a glare that would have made a stronger man shit himself. "You stay out of this!"
"I'm in this just as much as you are, Robocop." She put deliberate emphasis on the name, and his lip automatically curled back in a snarl.
"The hell you are, psycho-bitch," he growled right back, and Wulong could have sworn he saw Angel's eyes get a little redder.
"Can we please concentrate for a moment?" Wulong pleaded, inwardly praying to whatever god that might listen to spare his life if the two adopted siblings were to attack each other. They glared at each other for a few more minutes, then deliberately diverted their gazes in unison. Wulong gave a light sigh of relief. "You know, the more you tell me, the more I can help."
Angel accepted the logic of that, although Bryan wasn't as forgiving. They bickered between each other for a few more minutes, before Bryan abruptly stood. "Fine, tell him everything. I'm gonna go take a shower." That said, her disappeared into the tiny hotel bathroom, leaving Angel and Wulong alone again.
So Angel told him everything, using her telepathy to scan his thoughts as she spoke. He was genuinely shocked and concerned. A streak of bitterness rose when she tried to clarify why Bryan hated him. "I could have saved him," Wulong murmured, surprisingly close to tears. "If I hadn't been into my job so much, I could have took him back with us, and at least let him rest in peace."
"Should have," Angel replied bluntly, "but it's a little late for that. Now all that's left is for me and Bryan to defeat Heihachi Mishima. We'll worry about everything else after that."
Wulong sighed the heavy sigh of a burdened man. "I hope you're right," he murmured, glancing at the still-closed bathroom. "I hope you're right."