CHAPTER 3: CAPTIVES
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Steve, I told you, it's impossible to just rush in the Zaibatsu and demand for answers! You at least have to be powerful enough financially to gain entrance!" said a Chinese detective with long black hair. The young man in question, Steve Fox, seemed to be oblivious to the detective's words.
"I will not stand here and let them do whatever they want! My mother is in that building and I refuse to let her involve herself to such misdeeds!" Steve said as he prepared to get out of the detective's car. The detective sighed, looking at the young man's determined eyes. He met Nina Williams, or at least he knew of her existence, on the second Rave War. She was tasked then to eliminate Kazuya Mishima. He knew this because he worked with Jun Kazama back then and intercepted her on the final round, where a sniper was pointed at Kazuya's back.
'Somehow I pity this boy. God help him in anyway. That woman has a heart of stone with no maternal blood in her veins!' He thought. And just as he was about to try to convince Steve to withdraw from his original intent, a loud crash was heard in the vicinity – a battalion of soldiers gathered at a certain point only to be beaten and thrown about, as if someone was expertly getting rid of them.
"What in bloody hell is that?" Steve asked as he got out of the car to inspect the commotion, Lei following closely behind. They saw a man, in Mohawk leading an army of around 50 men towards the Zaibatsu, destroying war tanks and barricades on their path. Exchanges of gunfire can be heard and seen everywhere. It was a messy scene, but the leader of the opposing Army stood his ground. He was in the center of all the chaos, all the while walking towards the Zaibatsu entrance.
"This is our chance Wulong! We have to get in" Steve said as he pointed his thumb at the path the army had built towards the Zaibatsu. Lei was close to rolling his eyes. 'Seriously, is this boy really inexperienced or is he just plain dumb?' He said, rubbing his forehead and closing his eyes, only noticing upon opening them that the young man had already treaded the path inside.
"Hey Steve wait! You can't go alone!" He said as he followed the young man, hoisting his gun in the process. Steve gestured for him to hurry up.
"If we follow, this war on both sides will eventually weaken the Zaibatsu. If that's the case, we can present ourselves and hope that my mother will listen to reason." Steve said as he walked past the rubble created by the opposing army.
'Reason? Where's the 'reason' in rushing in an ARMED military establishment with nothing but a .45mm automatic?' Lei scowled as sweat dripped from his temples. He can feel they're near the clash – his heart pumping twice as fast now and his senses on red alert. They heard muffled screams ahead, and the two hurried until they reached a hall, an assembly hall to be exact.
White smoke filled the room, impairing their vision. However, both of them can hear grunts of men falling as if being hit on the gut. With vision impaired, Lei listened to the rhythmic footsteps, only to decipher that one man was doing the attacking, and the men from the army that subdued the Zaibatsu Fortress earlier were doing the 'grunting'. He prepared himself as he felt the man about to approach him, bringing his fists to his front and swaying his body left to right, figuring out what the man would do next. And just as fist was about to meet sword, an agonized scream reverberated throughout the hall, causing the clash of attacks to halt, and the attention directed to the scream. The 'attacker' immediately ran towards the source of the noise while Lei held out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Steve, on the other hand, having beaten three guys that attacked him, approached Lei and directed for them to go to the source of the scream. The Chinese man nodded in response.
___________________________________________
"I asked you. What are Kazuya Mishima's plans?" said a blonde woman, hair tied at the back in a neat pony. She held a whip, spiked at the sides, toying with it and taunting the man tied on a metal chair to spill whatever he knows. Bruce Irvin looked at her from under his lids and smirked.
"Damn bitch." He muttered. The woman, clad in a purple bodysuit, slapped the man hard, making him face his right. He spit blood, chuckling lowly. "You're even more violent than Anna."
The mention of her sister's name piqued her interest. She moved a little closer to the dark-skinned man and lifted his chin. She smirked evilly.
"Anna, you said? Is that bitch involved here too?" She said, her voice saturated with the intent to kill. Bruce smirked back equally, daring the woman to do something even more painful than she did before. Offended, the woman gave him twin spanks using the whip, causing him to cough up even more blood.
"If you know what's best for you, Irvin, you'd talk." She said, fingering the whip while circling him.
'Crazy bitch. This leather binds are too tight! Damn it! I won't be able to-'
"There really is no point trying to wriggle yourself out of that. It's just physically impossible." The woman, Nina Williams, said toying with her whip, and looking down at him, sporting the scariest smirk he had ever seen in a woman.
'I admit. Anna had her moments of being sadistically scary but she's nowhere near as sadistic as this woman. And they're even sisters.' He thought as he looked at the woman straight in the eye. "I wasn't."
The woman smirked in response, implying that she did not buy any of his words at all. "What is it that is stopping you from singing, Bruce Irvin? The Zaibatsu is in complete ruin – and it will take months to rebuild even half of what you destroyed." She said in a nonchalant manner.
True.
If there is something Bruce thinks he has done right, it was weakening the Zaibatsu defences significantly so as leading it vulnerable to succeeding attacks.
It was Anna's turn now.
Smirking confidently, he couldn't stop himself from teasing the woman some more and said "Really? Then I must be good." The response he expected was shown to him in a matter of seconds, eyes darkening and muscles tensing.
Smack.
Kick.
Punch.
Slap.
"Oww." He said as he fell, his vision turning black.
___________________________________________
Trotting down the hallways leading to the interrogation room, Lars surveyed the damage the Zaibatsu main office had been dealt with. The scene from before had been clearly engraved in his mind. The attack on the Zaibatsu minutes before had been a strategically sound plan, with most of the soldiers beyond point-blank ground killed and the defense slightly weakened.
'Kazuya Mishima knows this game. If Kazama-sama doesn't act up soon, this zaibatsu will collapse and there will be nothing to rebuild it with.' Crossing over the path leading to the underground facility, which was, no surprise to him, unharmed in the explosion, he headed north, past the wounded soldiers being given immediate medical attention and opened the door leading to the interrogation room, only to find the Bruce Irvin, the man responsible for the collateral damage, tied securely and unconscious, with Nina Williams glaring down at him with contempt.
Lars stared at the woman, head on, asking in his stare what happened. The woman shrugged, and proceeded to walk past him, outside the room. "He wasn't very cooperative." She said, half-whispered as she closed the door behind him silently. Lars redirected his attention to the man, Bruce, and proceeded to analyze the man in front of him.
'This man lacks experience – only concerned with hand-to-hand combat and no knowledge at all with weaponry and stealth. And yet, despite the lack, he was able to bring down a considerable amount of manpower the Zaibatsu has. If he isn't experienced, then someone must be pointing him to the right direction and that comes as no surprise.' He thought, with one name engraved on his mind.
A noise interrupted him from his thoughts. Listening, he turned his head to the direction of the noise and made up two men walking briskly, the other one light on his toes while the other, haphazard in his steps.
'Hn. Two idiots who do not know what they're getting themselves into.' He thought as he went out of the room, commanding 4 guards to watch over the captive.
"Forty-three meters. They should be visible in a minute." He said to himself, crossing his arms at his chest and looking ahead. "This should be interesting."
"Lei, mate! If you don't hurry up, we might lose them! What kind of a cop are you?" Steve half-shouted impatiently, tapping his fists together in impatience. The other man's eyes widened and after scanning the vicinity, cautiously jogged towards the boxer, .45 mm gun in hand.
"Don't shout...! And would you wait? I'm trying to make a mental map of this place so escaping would be easier!" He said, in forced whisper. Steve looked at him inquisitively. "Ok, I'm sorry, mate..." He said whispering back to the cop. Lei nodded and gestured for them to move ahead with the tilt of his head.
"From this point on, we must take caution. The Zaibatsu's Tekken Force is not something to be taken lightly." Lei softly spoke, eyes scanning the perimeter, muscles tensed and awareness to the hilt.
Steve nodded in understanding, following the cop closely. "Yes, but why are we whispering?" Lei slapped a gloved hand on his forehead.
'For the love of God, why me?' He thought, looking hopeless. "So as to minimize the probability of the guards actually knowing we're here?" He said in the most patient voice he can muster. Steve's face gave a playful smirk that says 'Got you!'. Lei rolled his eyes at the incorrigible young man after which he relaxed a bit and readied his gun.
"There is no point. You are already found out."
Both men looked around frantically. The sound bounced back from the halls and pillars, making it thrice more difficult to determine where the original source of the voice is. Lei motioned Steve to hide behind the pillar opposite him.
"I can see where you are. Hiding is pointless." The voice reverberated around the halls again, but this time, a flash grenade is thrown in the middle of the pillars Lei and Steve were using as cover. The two men looked at each other and immediately dived away from the grenade.
Lei, having been used to strategies like this, had recovered faster, readying his gun and looking at the direction Steve had stumbled himself into. Not seeing him, he started to panic, not taking his surroundings as cautiously as before.
"Who are you, coward! Show yourself!" He said as he stood up and started to head towards Steve's direction, only to be stopped by the tip of the blade of a sword at his nape. Le's eyes widened, sweat dripping on his temple.
"Got you." Said the man behind him, silencing him with a backfist to his nape, successfully rendering him unconscious.
"One down, one more to go." Lars said as he proceeded to walk towards the direction the blonde boxer treaded, alerting the guards assigned nearest the area to bring the cop he subdued to the same room Bruce Irvin was held captive in.
________________________________________________
'Shite! What am I going to do now? Where's Lei?' Steve thought frantically as he ran down the wide hallway, eyes focused on the door twenty meters to his front. He knows he's open to any attack. The room was large enough to house a Boeing 737, lined by 4 large pillars on each side. Lighted by a large chandelier in the middle, there is almost no place to use as cover.
'If I don't get out of here, I'm not going to get any help from the police!' He thought as he ran even faster, reaching the door. He stopped for a while and cautiously reached for the golden handles.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." said a figure to his right, face shielded from the pillar's shadow. He could only make up a purple body suit and a gun pointed right at him. The figure stepped further into the light, and as the light shed into the figure's face did Steve's eyes widen in realization.
"Hello son."