Chapter 7: Awakening

Disclaimer (It's that time you've ALL been waiting for!): I, Grey Rayne, do not own anything, whether it be items, characters, place names or anything within The King of Fighter's universe. I do own a few miscellaneous characters within this story, but they may be used freely by all.

King of Fighters is a trademark of SNK Playmore.

Iori's eyes slowly fluttered open. He stared up at the overcast sky, drops of rain splashing onto his face and getting into his eyes. He lay like that for some time but then he sat up quickly, wondering where he was. He wasn't in a city, he was out in the open countryside atop a hill. Then he remembered; he had been walking the night before, he often walked in the countryside to escape the bustle of city life. It had been hauntingly peaceful, but he was suspicious of most things these days. Then he had felt it, his cursed orochi blood had began to sizzle slightly. The last time he had felt that sensation was just before he went into a riot of blood. He held on, his own blood trying to stop him, and he ran as far from civilization as possible in a desperate attempt to stop himself from killing. Then he had got to this hill he was sitting on, a solitary old oak sitting atop it with no leaves on its branches provided no solace as the power in him jerked to the surface. Then he had blacked out. He looked at his hands, expecting them to be covered in blood, but thankfully they weren't. He hadn't moved from this spot since the night before. It had been grass before his arrival, but now there was a ring of charred earth under him. He stared at the blackened ground and then picked some up and turned it over in his fingers, testing it absently. Iroi wasn't burnt to ashes, so the flames which charred the earth were undoubtedly his own. 'This is something new' he thought moodily. He stood up and set off towards Osaka.

She shuddered, not because she was cold, but because she felt slightly ill. Her first waking thought was how giddy she felt, even before she acknowledged her name and surroundings. Feeling seemed to return to her limbs and she could feel the comfort of a mattress at her back and a duvet wrapped tightly over her up to her shoulders. There was slight numbness in her hands and feet still, but she ignored it for now. She opened her eyes slowly, but either it was very dark in the room or her vision hadn't returned yet, because she couldn't see anything. As she turned her head red dots appeared in her vision and slowly the world seemed to appear, as if out of a mist. She blinked a few times and looked about herself. The room was one of the old infirmary blocks, which hadn't been used in quite a long while. The curtains were drawn and the room had a grey light to it. Clark was sitting in a chair against the opposite wall, he was snoring loudly. The rest of the room was quite plain with standard grey walls and the usual bed curtain. She tried to speak but no words came out, just a horrid cackle which sounded slightly alarming to her. Clark stirred in his sleep and his eyes slowly opened. He stared at her for a few seconds, his face unreadable as usual. He stood up suddenly, which caused her to flinch.

"Leona, you're awake!" He said with a rare happy tone. She stared at him for a while and then nodded.

"Apparently so." She managed to say, although her voice sounded like she had sand in her throat. The last thing she could remember, they were about to storm a drug cache, then everything went blank. "What happened?" She croaked. Clark walked over to the door and opened it, two guards stationed either side of the door stood to attention.

"Inform Commander Heidern that Leona's awake." He ordered, and then shut the door. He turned to Leona, who was waiting patiently for an answer.

"We were just about to make the big bust, when you suddenly went all...floppy." He said uncertainly. "Then you screamed, we thought you were having another riot of blood, it was like an animals scream. Then you just flopped over and lay still." He finished. Leona knew that would be all he was going to say for a while, he didn't like words; which was fine by her, she didn't feel ready for a conversation at the moment. She nodded and lay back on the soft pillow. She felt weary, like she hadn't rested in days. She closed her eyes and drifted into a sort of day dreaming state. Footsteps echoed in the hall outside and brought her out of her reverie as the door burst open. She tilted her head to see Heidern march in with Ralf close behind. Heidern looked at her across the room intently. Leona expected Heidern to shout at her, but his face broke into that of relief as his eyes met hers.

"How do you feel?" He asked kindly. Leona shrugged as well as she could. "Can you sit up?" He asked. She nodded and tried to pull herself into a sitting position, but she noticed that her hands and feet were strapped to the bed. She looked up at Heidern quizzically and he seemed to realise the cause of her discomfort.

"Ah." He said. He pulled the warm blanket off her, to her secret annoyance. She looked down at herself, she saw that she was still fully dressed in her usual attire, but her wrists and ankles were held down by leather straps, much like the kind employed by mental hospitals... "We had to take the necessary precautions, you understand." Heidern explained as he untied her. She sat up and stared longingly at the blanket in Heiderns hands. He followed her gaze and then broke into laughter. Ralf appeared in her view like a colossus, an enormous grin on his face.

"So glad you're ok, Leona!" he said as he grabbed her in a tight hug. Leona's face went slightly purple as Ralf unconsciously hugged the life out of her, he was stronger than he realised.

"Ralf, give her Co2..." Clark commented dryly.

"Eh?" Ralf said, but then he heard Leona gasp and let go. "Oops, sorry." He said awkwardly. Leona could only nod. She felt slightly embarrassed as they all stared at her for some time, but she hid this feeling as well as she could. Heidern knew her well enough to realise it, however, and quickly averted his gaze.

"Ralf, Clark, we should let Leona rest." He said, although it sounded more like an order. They nodded and exchanged glances. Heidern handed the blanket back to Leona and then turned on his heel and marched out. Ralf patted Leona on the shoulder, which earned him a weak smile off her, before following Heidern. Clark silently nodded to her and then walked out nonchalantly, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Alone, Leona pondered everything. What had happened anyway? Heidern hadn't commented about it, but she knew that he was worried about her. He always covered it over with military procedure, but Leona could see through that. She felt more sorry for him than herself, he didn't need anymore worry...

She arranged the blanket over herself again and lay back on the pillow, slowly falling into a troubled sleep.

"Commander, don't worry about it." Ralf said as he and Heidern marched along a long corridor. Heidern hadn't even said anything, he was being unusually silent. Clark fell into step beside them.

"Leona's strong, I predict a speedy recovery." He said dryly. Heidern stopped in his tracks and the other two walked on a few steps before they noticed. They turned around and stared at Heidern, who stared back at Clark.

"Recover? Recover? We don't even know what happened!" He said, throwing his hands up into the air. "Did she have a riot of blood? Was it a common human illness or something? Either way I don't know!" He punched the wall, which cracked slightly. Ralf and Clark stared at him.

"The doctors couldn't find anything wrong, apart from high blood pressure, but that's normal for her..." Clark commented first.

"Sir, permission to volunteer!" Ralf suddenly barked, standing in a stiff salute. Heidern blinked at him.

"For what?" Heidern and Clark echoed.

"For the mission to find out what's wrong with Leona, sir! That you were just about to conceive, sir!" Ralf barked, military style, staring at a point several feet above Heidern's head. Heidern and Clark's mouths dropped open, but then Heiderns mouth shut and slowly turned up in a grin.

"Good thinking, Ralf. One problem, we have no leads." He said matter-of-factly. Ralf didn't flinch.

"Permission to ask my informants, sir!" He barked. Heiderns face darkened.

"You don't mean..." Clark muttered.

"Yes, sir!" Ralf said, dropping his salute. "If there's one person who knows something, it's him." Ralf looked at Clarks face, which was twisted into that of horror, and added. "Permission to go solo on this one, sir!" Clark instantly seemed to brighten up.

"Yeah, you go do that, Ralf." Clark said happily. Heidern nodded slightly.

"Granted." Heidern said. Ralf turned away and began jogging towards the armoury. "Ralf!" Heidern called after him. Ralf stopped and turned. "Be careful on this one." Heidern warned. Ralf nodded and set off at full speed.

"And that's all..." Vice finished recalling all that she could remember and all that had happened since their 'resurrection.' She had difficulty in re-telling the part where they were naked, but Rugal fitted in the missing parts while Vice blushed slightly. King and Kyo nodded after they had finished. K' didn't seem to have been listening from his leaning place, he didn't show any signs of acknowledgement.

"An interesting story, don't you think, K'?" Kyo said pointedly. K' seemed to come out of a daydream.

"Huh, what?" He said.

"I said an interesting story, don't you think." Kyo repeated with a sly grin. The other three people in the room could sense the hostility between the two, mostly it was K' who seemed to dislike Kyo, but K' disliked a lot of things...

"I wasn't listening, I was busy thinking..." He muttered. Kyo was about to open his mouth to scold him, but King interrupted him.

"K's sister was kidnapped last night." She said. K' nodded gloomily. Kyo looked from K' to Rugal and Vice a few times.

"Busy night in Southtown last night, with people coming back from the dead and peoples sisters being kidnapped and all..." He said wretchedly. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And let me guess, you all want me to sort it all out, right?"

"No." K' snapped. "You can do what you like, but I'm getting my sister back." He pulled himself upright from his leaning position and dusted himself off. "I've lingered here too long, the trail will be cold by now..." He stormed towards the door.

"Wait, K'! King shouted after him. "I'll help you." K' stopped and looked at her over his shoulder.

"You sure you're up for it?" He commented. King turned to Kyo.

"Kyo, let's help him out." She said, it sounded like an order though. Kyo blinked at her.

"I thought we were investigating why Rugal and Vice are back?" He moaned. King deflated slightly.

"Well, we have no leads, do we?" She muttered. Rugal pulled himself up from the chair to his full, impressive height.

"We'll help, too." He said adamantly.

"We will?" Vice said flustered. Rugal gave her a blank stare. Vice leapt to her feet nimbly. "Sure, ok..." She added with a sly grin.

K' walked down the stairs, his hands in his pockets and staring at the ground in his usual fashion, with a troop of people who he barely knew and/or disliked following behind him. K' wondered if Whip was still alive. He looked forward to telling her how damn stupid an idea it was to come sight-seeing in Southtown. But no, she had to have her way... "The last time I was there it was a pile of smoking rubble, I want to see how much it's changed since then..." she would say. K' was a man of little emotion, but he would give his sunglasses to hear her voice again... she was one of the few people he actually liked. The others, of course, were Maxima, Kula and Diana. He had last seen Maxima fixing some weird looking thing onto his motorcycle. It reminded K' of Maxima's Chain gun, but when K' had asked him what it was, Maxima pressed a button and a concrete wall about 20 feet away exploded, the stunned faces of office workers within stared out of the gap at them. "Sorry!" Maxima had shouted.

Diana and Kula he had, perhaps foolishly, left in charge of his house. Diana would hopefully keep Kula from trashing the place completely...

They stepped outside into the sunlight. A breeze blew at there hair as they looked around.

"This way..." K' said as he started walking down an alleyway. They followed him down the alley and across a busy street, a few cars beeped at them as they walked across the road, but stopped short when Rugal glared at them evilly. K' led them down another, longer back alley and they turned around the corner of a building. The walls were covered with anatomically incorrect graffiti and gang insignia. Rugal and Vice recognised the area, it was the same streets they had wandered into the previous night. King had heard about these streets, they had a reputation even in the hard city of Southtown.

"Gangbang alley." She said, as if she was leading a group of tourists. "Muggers paradise. Any unaware traveller who wanders down these streets at night-time is risking being mugged, beaten, rapped, murdered, harassed and generally treated unpleasantly. " She said.

"My apartment's this way..." K' said over his shoulder. King gasped.

"You have an apartment in Gangbang alley?" She whisper-screamed. Although the streets were eerily quiet and empty during the day, except for the bustle that could be heard in the distance from the rest of the city, King kept looking about herself cautiously, as if expecting a sudden attack. Rugal turned and looked at Vice, who met his eye. They both felt an uneasiness coming over them.

"H-hey, is this close to..." Vice asked from the back of the line.

"Yes." K' said automatically. He held out his hand and motioned for them to stop. Then he walked into a wider, adjoining alley and they saw him stare at something on the ground further along the alley. Kyo fancied that he saw K's frown deepen, if such a thing were possible. K's eyes turned and he stared at Vice for a second through his sunglasses before saying.

"I think you should stay there. The bin men haven't been around yet." He grinned mirthlessly. Vice's face contorted into a look of horror.

"What are you all talking abou- oh..." Kyo walked into the alley beside K' and turned to look at what K' had been staring at before hand. Amongst the bin bags were two bodies, which hadn't been moved since last night. Although K' had remembered one of the two corpses having more jewellery when he last saw them, people in Gangbang alley weren't squeamish about dead bodies, if you looked hard enough they could be found in many places around Gangbang alley. Indeed, anywhere that looked like the ground had been recently dug up probably wasn't pipe repairs...

The others, except Vice who stood around the corner out of sight of the two bodies, crowded round and looked at the eerie scene. Rugal had seen it before, of course, but it was no less grizzly.

"These are the people who attacked you?" King managed to say, without taking her eyes off the bodies. K' didn't reply, but walked towards the closest body as if it was an everyday thing and took it by the pale and stiff arm. K' pulled down the sleeve and showed the arm to them, the black K tattoo with the black circle around it fascinated Kyo mostly. He moved forward, ignoring the smell of rotting flesh, and knelt down beside the corpse, staring at the tattoo.

"Clones?" He said, so that only K' could hear. K' shook his head, staring at the pale face.

"K could mean anything, it doesn't have to mean they have a link to you, Kyo." He commented. Kyo snorted.

"Vice went crazy when she saw these?" Kyo asked quietly.

"Yes..." K' mumbled.

"hmmm, it's blood and violence that sets them off, I know..." Kyo muttered, more to himself. "Vice never had a riot of blood before this, could she control it?" K' listened to his mumblings intently.

"She used to work for some kind of Orochi god, right?" He commented dryly. Kyo gave this some thought.

"You're right, maybe he controlled Vice and Matures blood so they wouldn't enter a riot of blood." Kyo stood up and walked back to the main group. "At least now we have something to go on. King, does that tattoo have any significance that you're aware of?" He asked professionally. King stared at it silently for a while. Rugal had turned away and was patting the ground with his foot impatiently.

"I've never heard of a K gang or anything. Usually the gangs leave graffiti stating there turf, but I've never seen this marking." She said thoughtfully. K' turned to them.

"They might be something new, or something very secretive. Either way, now we have something to start with." He said quietly.

"Well, I for one would like to get the hell out of here." Vice commented from around the corner. "It's fun listening to you guys play detective and all that, but I'm bored." King walked over to her and, despite the fact that they didn't know each other that well, patted her on the shoulder reassuringly.

"Yes, I don't see the sense in staying here any longer." Rugal commented. Kyo nodded, although he was still suspicious of Rugal; he was being the quietest out of them all, even more than K'.

"Where should we go from here?" Vice asked as they all rounded the corner and began to walk away from the grisly scene, the stench of death gladly put behind them. K' seemed to consider it for a while.

They rounded another corner and Vice almost walked straight into a rather tall man. They wouldn't have thought much about him and would have just continued on, but he was just standing there in the middle of the street and glared at Vice with the coldest look she had ever seen. Pale blonde hair hung down the sides of his pale face, his pale blue eyes seemed frozen over. He was wearing black jeans, boots, a white shirt tucked in and a black jacket over it. They all stared at him, he stared back for a while and then turned and stared at K' for a longer time. The mans pale hand found its way into a jacket pocket and the hand came out holding a card. K' saw something that drew his attention on the mans arm as one of the sleeves opened slightly; a black tattoo with a black circle around it. K' was about to leap forward to grab the man and force him to tell K' where Whip was, when the man threw the piece of card at the ground in front of their feet. There eyes turned to it for a second and when they turned back, the alley was empty. The man had vanished.

"That was weird!" King said dismissively. "You get some real nut jobs in this city." They all began to walk away, except K', who knelt down and picked up the card. He read it.

"Wait!" He shouted after them without getting up. They came back to him and he showed them the card, his face grave. The card showed the now familiar K insignia with the black circle around it, it also had handwriting in a small, scratchy hand that they couldn't read.

"I recognise the insignia but not the writing, what language is it?" Vice asked curiously. K' gave her a strange look, both scornful and slightly amused.

"English, but very badly written; my sisters handwriting." He said, staring at the card. "It reads; K', please come to the car park opposite Marks and Spencer at midnight tonight."

"Not very informative, is it?" Vice said doubtfully.

"She probably wasn't allowed to write more." K' muttered. At least he knew she was alive, for now. Or at least she was kept alive long enough to write the message and then... K's mind didn't want to go through all the possible things that could be happening to his sister. It didn't help that it was barely 11:00 a.m, and that there was 13 hours to go until the meeting.

"What are we going to do until midnight?" Kyo asked, as if reading his thoughts.

"We should recuperate." Rugal suggested. "The letter doesn't say you have to go alone, but you should expect a trap of some sort. They might be trying to lure you in." He said to K', who nodded weakly.

King yawned widely and stretched her arms above her head.

"I definitely need to recuperate." She said as soon as she could.