Greetings, everyone! Long time no see again! I'm finally back with a new chapter! Thanks for your patience and continued interest in this story, and I'm still writing despite the slow updates (I'm trying lol). Here's chapter 25, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters. They are all property of Namco.
In the wake of the devastating war sweeping over the globe, more destruction, death, and despair followed. The war had taken its toll on all countries directly impacted by the air raids and bombings, but the smaller, poorer countries were the easiest to topple and had suffered the most casualties. Children were orphaned, crime and violence was on the rise, suicide rates had spiked, and if there were any survivors, they were slowly dying from mental and emotional anguish, starvation, and despair.
In a shocking turn of events, the plight and desperate call of the sufferers were heard by none other than G Corporation, mankind's new heroic savior. No one saw it coming. Out of the blue, G Corp selflessly donated a good portion of their funds to several war relief charities around the world, providing food, shelter, clothing, and many other essential provisions to ensure the safety and recovery of those in poor, war torn countries.
A new degree of militancy was on the incline as well in efforts to stop the war. Feeling empowered by G Corp clashing with the Mishima Zaibatsu on the battlefield, many resistance groups were born as a result, and they attempted to fight back and defend the people. Fueled by anger and misguided by their courage, these resistance groups vowed to end Jin Kazama's tyranny by aiding G Corporation. These groups posed no immediate threat to the Mishima Zaibatsu, but they were pesky little thorns in their side that needed to be plucked out, for good.
However, the resistance faced some backlash from the media; they disapproved of their methods, despite their good intentions, and pled for these young men and women not to get caught in the clash between the two corporate giants. Despite their foolhardy bravery and persistence, many of these groups were being quickly dismantled by the Tekken Force with relative ease, proving that hot headed, brazen civilians were no match for highly trained soldiers. So now, it was imperative that they put an end to any more of these ragtag groups forming, which would undoubtedly only lead to more arrests and detainment of its members or even result in more senseless deaths.
The blonde woman sat alone in a black car, parked inconspicuously on the side of a dark road. Her arm was getting tired from holding the night vision binoculars up to her eyes, but she continued to survey the military base not too far off in the distance. Over the past week, G Corp had been making many covert moves, moving in large shipments of artillery to this particular base in the dead of night. From her observations, her suspicions had been confirmed. It was indeed G Corp themselves who had been supplying the rising resistance groups with dangerous weapons that no untrained civilian should be wielding. The public, however, still remained blind and ignorant to the foul play of G Corp behind the scenes, who always succeeded in misleading them with smoke and mirrors. Though they were pesky, preventing these shipments would spare some of those militant idiots from foolishly running into battles they could not win, and sadly, their suppliers couldn't care less about their lives since they were only being used as a distraction.
Nina sent out a silent confirmation to her squad, giving them the green light to infiltrate the base and to move on to the next phase of the plan. She would have to notify Jin as well, perhaps by sending him a quick but detailed email. She sighed to herself as her mind wandered over to her employer. The current state of their relationship was shrouded in ambiguity. Over the last week or so, their communication had been strictly via email or through subordinate soldiers who played telephone for them. She supposed that, for once, she could initiate verbal contact with him instead of pointedly avoiding contact with him. She retrieved her phone from her coat pocket and hesitantly stared at the device in her hand before finally deciding to press the button to proceed with the call. The phone rang a few times before being answered.
"What is it?" a deep voice answered.
She was surprised that he answered considering that he didn't seem too pleased with her after their last conversation. "Per my last report, it appears that G Corp is funding the resistance groups," she reported in her usual serious tone. "We've moved the plan to the next phase to intercept any future shipments."
He was silent on the line for a short moment before responding. "Good," was all he said in a flat tone. "Is that all?"
The blonde rolled her eyes slightly in annoyance and mentally chided herself for not just sending a perfunctory email detailing her report. She had grown weary of the lackadaisical conversation and was anxious for it end. "Yes, I'll be returning to base," she informed hastily. "Goodbye." Just as she was ready to end the call, he spoke again.
"If you aren't too busy later, I was wondering if you'd like to join me for dinner, that is, if you haven't eaten already," he asked calmly.
Nina was caught off guard by his abrupt proposal; she wasn't expecting it at all. She wondered if he would've extended the offer to her had she not called first or if he was just patiently awaiting for her to be the first to break the ice. She let his question float around in her head for a moment before replying. "Hmm, that sounds nice," she responded. "But it'll be nearly impossible for us to appear in public without causing a stir." Things were getting pretty hectic in the public sphere, and they no longer had the luxury of safety and privacy.
He was silent again, possibly contemplating an alternative plan. "We can order in if you'd like, it makes no difference to me," he suggested.
She secretly smiled to herself. That idea seemed much more viable, plus she really wasn't in the mood to dress fancy just to grab a meal. "Well, you've convinced me," she agreed as she accepted his invitation. "I'll see you later on tonight then."
"Yes, I'll see you at 8," was all he said before ending the call.
She breathed a small sigh of relief once the call was over. She wondered how the evening would transpire once she returned. They both had their fair share of time to figure things out, but she was curious about what he would say, and how she would respond and vice versa. With a new incentive to return to HQ, she turned the key in the ignition and started the engine. Normally, she wouldn't have taken a car, but since she was just overseeing a covert operation, she figured that a motorcycle would be far too noisy for the mission. Besides that, it was quite cold tonight, and she didn't want to freeze her ass off riding up to 80 mph on a bike. She drove down the dark, desolate road and away from her stakeout position. At the current pace she was driving, it wouldn't take long for her to make it back. Now that food was on her mind, she was quite eager to enjoy a nice meal with her employer while smoothing things over and clearing the air.
She continued driving down the road in relative silence, glancing around occasionally to watch the scenery of the trees lining the side of the road as they quickly passed by her. After another mile or so, she began feeling the creeping suspicion that she was being followed. Just as she reached up to adjust her rearview mirror to take a quick glance, bright, beaming headlights flooded her vision from behind, and the mysterious vehicle behind her seemed to pick up speed. She was startled, but before she could react to that surprise, another threat suddenly appeared in front of her in the form of a dark armored car barreling dangerously towards her. In an instinctive, panicked move, she quickly spun her wheel to the left to avoid the oncoming vehicle, only narrowly missing the collision. Her attempts to quickly slam on her breaks afterwards were rendered useless when the vehicle behind her violently rammed into the back of her vehicle, sending her crashing through the rail guard, off the side of the road and downwards into the dense darkness of trees.
The two vehicles came to a screeching halt on the road, and shortly after their occupants disembarked. From the car responsible for sending their target careening off the road, outstepped a woman donned in a long, leopard print fur coat. A squad of about seven soldiers appeared behind the woman as she carefully walked over to the edge of the road and squinted her eyes to peer down into the darkness. She didn't think she'd be so lucky to actually pull that stunt off successfully.
"Ma'am?" one solider spoke. "What do you want us to do next?"
The brunette smiled mischievously as she continued to skim the darkness with her eyes. "Make no mistake, she's still alive," she informed. "Go down there and sweep the area!"
"And if she's still alive, should we terminate her on sight?" another solider questioned.
She turned to face him with a devious glare. "Leave her to me," she ordered darkly. "She's mine."
"Where do you think you're going?"
"You can't leave…you're nothing without me!"
"You have no where else to go!"
"Please don't go…you need me!"
A discordant, continuous noise blared loudly, echoing within that strange realm teetering between her consciousness and subconscious. The blonde slowly peeled her eyes open, not being able to make out much of her surroundings besides darkness. She slowly became more cognizant of her current plight and environment once the pain slowly began radiating throughout her body. She moaned and groaned in discomfort as the pain in her head began throbbing. Once she slowly lifted her head up from the steering wheel, the loud, incessant noise ceased to invade her ears. Nina sat up and glanced around in disorientation as the events that took place prior slowly returned to her.
"Fucking hell…" she grumbled to herself as she weakly brought a hand up to her aching head. She carefully observed her fingers when a sticky fluid coated her fingertips; she was bleeding, but in her book it was still a minor wound. If she had more time to sit and recall what happened to her, she would've taken all the time she needed, but the distant sounds of people treading through the forested area with flashlights increased her urgency to escape. She ignored her pain and forced herself to enter survival mode. Once she stumbled out of the vehicle, she was surprised to see how mangled her car was; the front of the car was smashed completely against a tree with smoke billowing upwards from the crushed hood.
"The sound was coming from up ahead…go search over there!" a voice yelled.
"Don't let her get away," a female's voice ordered further in the distance. "Bring her to me!"
Nina instantly recognized the voice. 'Anna…of course,' she seethed angrily. 'That annoying bitch always finds a way to go out of her way to ruin my plans!' Though she was still woozy and injured from the crash, she had to escape and possibly defend herself if needed. She reached back into her vehicle to locate her night binos to help her navigate through the dark forest, and after she located them her eyes fell upon the glove compartment; she smirked deviously and decided to leave her uninvited pursuants a little surprise. Afterwards, she reached behind her blazer jacket and unholstered her pistol as she quietly, but quickly, limped away from the approaching voices. She needed to put some distance between them and hopefully find a clearing so that she could enter her coordinates to be picked up by her team before they left.
Their flashlights swept across the area occasionally, and she was forced to take temporary cover behind a tree when she felt that she was at a high risk of being exposed. She took a brief moment to catch her breath as she squatted down against the tree and carefully peered behind her through the night vision binoculars. The G Corp soldiers were closing in on her crashed vehicle as they carefully and cautiously observed the wreck, undoubtedly searching for her corpse.
Three men circled the vehicle, before reporting back to their leader through their earpieces. "She's not here," one soldier announced to his comrades. "Let's move on to find-"
Before he could finish his sentence, he and the men surrounding the vehicle were completely engulfed in an explosion. She knew she could always rely on a trusty remote bomb to exterminate vermin; it was definitely one of her top five weapons. The fiery blaze lit up the area, which posed as both a good and bad thing. The blast eliminated a few men, but the blaze would only draw more in her direction, so she quickly moved onwards away from the scene. She continued trudging through the forest despite the pain from her injured knee and throbbing head injury.
After hobbling through the forest for what seemed like a mile or so, she finally came upon an open clearing. Wasting no time, she immediately contacted her team so that they could pinpoint her location and retrieve her. Afterwards, she hunched over in exhaustion and watched as her breath burst out in small puffs of smoke from each ragged exhale. She was cold, in pain, and highly annoyed, but at this point she just wanted to make it back in time to have dinner with Jin. It was strange that through all the havoc she was currently experiencing that her primary concern revolved around her dinner plans for the evening.
She brushed her trivial thoughts aside and focused on survival as she made her way out into the open field. The moon was now brightly visible and offered a little more illumination to the area; it felt like a beacon of hope that sparked a bit of optimism in her. Once she reached the middle of the clearing, she was stopped dead in her tracks by the sound of a loud shot piercing through the quiet calmness of the forest. She could feel the air whiff beside her cheek as a bullet whizzed past her face. Instinctively, she whipped around with her gun drawn and faced her assailant.
A woman stepped out from the shroud of darkness and concealment of the dense trees holding a rifle with a scope. She approached closer and stopped about fifteen feet away from her prey. "Found you," she said with a smirk.
Nina scowled silently in annoyance once she came face to face with her sibling. She definitely wasn't in the mood to play around with her tonight, in fact, she had grown completely weary of dealing with her bratty younger sister altogether. She clicked her tongue with a deep sigh as she, too, pointed her gun at her sister. "I don't have time for your bullshit tonight, Anna!"
"Oh? Is that so?" she said mockingly. "Did I catch you at a bad time, hun?"
"Always," Nina quickly retorted.
"Well, it looks like you're just going to have to clear your schedule because I'm in the mood to play with you, sis," Anna smiled mischievously. "Besides, it's not like you have anything else going on in your sad life without me."
She ignored her sister's insults with a small roll of her eyes. "Just get on with it, Anna," she urged impatiently. "I'm pretty sure Kazuya sent you here to do more than just flap your annoying mouth."
Anna scowled slightly. "Do you honestly think I'm just his little lapdog for hire?" she asked rhetorically. "Unlike you, I have morals, and I'm here to stop you of my own volition."
She ignored her sister's delusional lies. She smirked with a small shake of her head. "You must've had your head banged against the headboard one too many times if you actually believe you're some kind of hero," she remarked snidely.
She continued to scowl as she made that crude jab. "Compared to you, I am," she replied as she narrowed her eyes judgmentally. "Who would've thought that miss high and mighty would sink so low and help some sad, pathetic little boy destroy the world because of his daddy issues? I'm sure father would be proud."
Once again, Anna was adamant about slowly grating her nerves and pushing her buttons. She could feel her heart rate increase slightly in anger, but she was far more in control of her temper than her sister. She must've hunt her down with the sole intention of pissing her off, but she wouldn't fall for it. Hopefully, her team would arrive before things escalated because she really didn't have time to play her games. Their aim on each other never wavered as they still had their tete à tete. "Your move, Anna," she challenged.
The brunette laughed a little at her sister's impatience. "What's the matter? You don't like hearing a little criticism to remind you that your shit stinks like everyone else?" she continued to mock her. "The 'ice cold assassin', so desperate to live up to daddy's standards, even if it means losing her soul in the process."
"Shut your damn mouth!" she shot back, feeling slightly irritable now.
"You dedicated your entire existence to making him proud of you," Anna continued ripping open old wounds. "He's dead and you still live only for him…pathetic!" Sure she loved their father as well, but once she realized that she couldn't compete with Nina, she became indifferent about winning his affection and favor. She refused to live her life trying to please their father, especially post-death.
Despite Anna insistently expending her energy to piss her off, she managed to somewhat keep her composure. "Still hung up on the past, I see," Nina commented apathetically.
"It's better than running away from it," she said accusingly as she still kept her lined up in her shot. She sighed and shook her head. "Make things easy on yourself and turn yourself in." She could see that Nina was injured, so being the merciful person that she was, she would go easy on her.
Nina laughed sardonically. "Turn myself in…to your boss?" she said abhorrently. "Ha, if I recall correctly, the last time that happened, things didn't turn out so well...for neither of us." The only way she'd be forced to do such a thing was if she dragged her corpse to him. That was one of her final memories before being captured by the Mishima Zaibstsu and forced to be a frozen lab rat. Their feud, from her perspective, always seemed petty and harmless, but she didn't think her own sister would sit back complicitly and allow something so terrible to happen to her.
Anna's eyes wavered for a bit before she hardened her gaze again. That was one of the many bad memories that her sister held onto and wouldn't forget no matter what she did to rectify her wrongdoings. "I tried to help you, Nina," she explained solemnly. "I did my best, so you can't keep blaming me for that!"
"Help me how? By keeping me drugged up and out of my mind so that everyone believed that I was mental?" she said accusingly.
"That's not fair, Nina! I didn't know what to do, so don't play the victim!"
"That made you feel good, didn't it? Keeping me weak and confused so that you could control me and keep me on a leash."
"I was protecting you…it was the only way I could make you stay with me!"
"I thought I could trust you and you lied to me!"
"It's what father would have wanted…for us to make amends and be together," she claimed with a bit of sorrow and remorse reflecting in her tone. "I did it for hi-"
"Don't you dare…don't you dare mention him!" Nina warned threateningly. She was losing her cool now, and her temper was flaring. Her bitter remarks about their father and the remembrance of their volatile relationship post cyrosleep gradually decreased her timer until an explosion detonated within her. Normally, she could survive an encounter with Anna without allowing that to happen, but she really wasn't in the spirit to deal with her now on top of everything else she was coping with recently.
"You're going to hold on to that grudge forever?" Anna sneered. "How much longer are we going to go through this? Get over it!"
Nina glared mercilessly at the woman before her. "Your words are meaningless to me, Anna!" she snapped coldly as she tightened her finger on the trigger. "All I asked of you was to leave me alone, to stop following me, and to never contact me, but you couldn't even do that!"
"Nina!" she shouted in a pleading tone. She took a step forward but was quickly halted when a shot was fired into the dirt near her foot.
After putting the pieces together, she realized that the reemergence of her sister in her life triggered those strange memories that resurfaced in the form of those cryptic dreams. She didn't want to be confronted by the muddled issues of their sordid past, but coming into close proximity with her estranged younger sibling only amplified them ten fold. She was done with this conversation; she preferred for them to either fight or go their separate ways. After a few more moments of their silent stand off with their respective weapon of choice fixated on each other, a lot of commotion was heard from the forest.
Several more G Corp soldiers emerged from the trees behind Anna with their weapons drawn and aimed at the blonde. She had nearly forgotten that she had her reinforcements scheduled to arrive should her attempt to capture their target failed. She predicted that they would engage in a quick little battle; if she was the victor, she'd take her into custody, but if she lost, she'd still have her boys to help finish her. She shook off the heavy feelings of her complicated emotions for her sister and focused on her goal.
Anna glared at her sister as her back up stood armed and ready for her orders. "Well, it seems you have no choice but to turn yourself over to us," she declared. Usually their confrontations resulted in Nina having the upper hand, and she'd toy with her cockily like a cat playing with a half dead mouse until she became bored, but this time it was she who had her trapped and cornered. She smiled smugly. "Your move, Nina."
This was quite a sticky situation, and while she was normally confident in her abilities, she didn't think she'd be able to fight or outrun her enemies, especially in her current condition. Feeling that it had little to no effect on the situation now, she lowered her gun. She could see that sickening smug look on her sister's face and it caused her blood to boil a little. Before she could strategize how she could possibly escape this unfortunate predicament, her solution and ray of hope appeared in the form of two helicopters flying over the tree tops.
Immediately after reaching the clearing, the men in the helicopters began to open fire on the G Corp soldiers, forcing them to scatter and take cover. During the commotion, one helicopter quickly threw down a rope ladder near Nina, which she wasted no time grabbing to make her escape. The men from the helicopters continued to rain down fire on their enemies, effectively keeping them on their defenses long enough to flee.
Anna and her squad were forced to take cover behind nearby trees at the unexpected assault they were receiving. She gritted her teeth in annoyance as she peered from around the tree she hid behind and watched as her wretched sister was well on her way to a swift escape. Once the helicopters were far enough, they ceased firing down upon them, which prompted her men to quickly emerge from their cover and attempt to fire back with their assault rifles in futility.
A lone soldier with a better plan in sight aimed a sniper rifle at the helicopter, and with better focus, he had the blonde woman lined up perfectly in his sights as she slowly ascended the ladder towards the opening. Without hesitation he planted his finger on the trigger and attempted to take the shot until his weapon was suddenly kicked forcefully out of his hands by his superior.
"You moron!" she berated him harshly with a disdainful glare. "I told you…she's mine to kill!"
"But ma'am…she's getting away!" he said in his defense. From what he understood, Nina Williams was one of G Corporations top targets to be eliminated as ordered by none other than Kazuya Mishima himself; he was only doing his duty.
Anna ignored him and folded her arms across her chest as she watched as the two Mishima Zaibstsu helicopters flew off into the distance. Their meeting on the battleground took an unexpected turn. She didn't expect for her sister to boil over and spill out some of her feelings to her, it was a rarity. She wondered what was going on with her to make her so…vulnerable. 'Nina…you lucky little star…' she thought with a grave expression. 'This isn't over…' She may have failed in capturing her, but she finally somewhat succeeded in her personal plans for her older sibling.
End of chapter 25! Next chapter coming soon!
The Williams sisters had a little long overdue sisterly bonding to do, even if it didn't go too well. Sorry if some parts of this chapter were somewhat grim, but these characters have such interesting stories! The next chapter will be a little lighter, a little lol.