**I do not own these Capcom Characters: Mikhail Victor and Ada Wong
Preface: The war in Afghanistan is called to a halt but soldiers are stuck in limbo. Ada Wong is a fresh young enlisted soldier among them.
Ada Wong was dejectedly watching her oatmeal slide off of the spoon. She was in a full kit of military gear. Her M16 assault rifle was on the floor underneath her on the bench. Her foot wrapped around the M16 fabric strap. Her slick black hair was in a lazy bun. She had rubbed her eyes red, and her right lid twitched uncontrollably at times.
The dining facility was packed with enlisted soldiers. Many were on the floor back to back, and still others were squished on the benches.
"We're leaving!" Someone said, and the doors opened. Enlisted started flooding out.
"No we're not." Private Wong said. Beside her was her freight mate, Specialist Panzcyke. Panzyke was a toned blonde, pale skinned, young woman. She silently agreed with Wong. They sat resolutely still and watched the crowd start pushing itself back inside a few seconds later.
Panzcyke rested her head onto Wong's shoulder. Wong clicked her tongue in a quiet rage. "You don't get to sleep Panzcyke. Because you kept me up with that female underneath me on the bunk…rocking like a fucking boat in a perfect storm-how do two females do that; how do you sex?" Wong nudged Panzcyke back into a sitting position.
Panzyke turned bright red, abashed by Wong's brashness in front of everyone. She rebutted, as the soldiers leaned in to listen to them curiously, "Your bunk doesn't squeak like my bunk Wong." Wong didn't understand how Panzyke managed to woo women in middle of a war zone; it was a mysterious and powerful magic. Where did they come from? Where did they go? But Wong remembered the answer to that, a few seconds later; it was the dance nights that Panzcyke went to when Panzcyke wasn't working out at the gym, pulling her 15 hour shift, doing homework, or eating. Panzcyke was just built for this. Wong, however, was a slight young woman. At barely 5 feet tall, she was high strung and suspicious.
Wong growled like a cat, mumbling incoherently. They had all been up since 2am. The early knock on the freight car-their "flat"- was unnecessarily loud and rough and never-ending. Wong has specifically shouted she was awake on the second knock. Her voice was still so soft, that Panczyke had to say it for them to stop. When they opened the thin plastic door, their platoon sergeant and the commander was there.
"Pack up all of your gear, we've been recalled back to the states."
That's what their sergeant had said as he rushed over to the next freight. The female named Garcia rushed to get her socks on and leaped out the door to try and get back to her room-before the whole base went on red alert.
"I'll kidnap you again later Garcia!" Panzycke said to the running figure on the gravel rocks.
"I really thought you were straight." Wong said to Panzycke. They rolled up their sleeping bags tightly and sat on top of them to deflate them inside the liner.
"Me too….but…"
"Then fucking go to her fucking place! You can't just use my bottom bunk, it's not fair. I need my beauty sleep otherwise my skin gets so saggy."
The base was massive, the size of a large city. Even though it was the main hub of operations in the country, there was only one main road. The quicker way to leave was off-limits to everyone.
At 4am, they'd gotten into some trucks as a platoon and gotten driven into traffic on Disney Street. The sky was filled with smoke from the improperly burned sewage. The whistles of indirect fire hit the outside mall ahead of them.
"My bootleg store is gone!" Wong sighed as she peered out of the truck. Her chest was reverberating from the blast, and her ears were ringing. "They usually miss the base entirely, I can't believe they finally got a good shot at us."
They'd gotten outside the truck and marched back to their section of the base, only to sit for the whole day in the dining facility. Late at night, someone in the crowd said, "Wong, outside NOW."
Wong woke up and maneuvered her gear and her body through the sitting bodies, out the door.
The whole subsection of the base was either freight cars or long tents, all on light grey gravel.
There was a small crowd of Afghan police that all turned towards her as she walked by them.
"aloooo." They all shouted like seagulls at her.
Her captain and platoon sergeant were talking with a special forces commander and an middle eastern interpreter in khaki pants.
Wong stood at ease, putting her gear at her side. She looked up at them placidly.
Her platoon sergeant, a bulldog of a woman, asked her, "You remember? You asked at the beginning of the tour?"
Wong thought for a long moment. "Yes ser'nt."
The Captain said to Wong, "You've proven yourself private Wong. You've turned into our best. I'm transferring you over to the BSA tonight."
Her platoon sergeant read her face easily; the despair of not ever returning home, the fierce joy of a wish granted.
"This is Captain Victor. He's taking you outside the wire."
Victor smiled down at her. He was blonde haired with a blonde beard. He wore a red beret and his forearms were thick with wiry muscles. "You look like you should still be at school. You can call me Mikhail." He said in a thick Russian accent. "We go with Afghan special forces to their village; Pushtunvali is waiting for us. We just have to go through the gumdrop buttons and the candy cane forest; very quick I promise."
"Gum drop buttons! I love gum drop buttons sir! Mmmmmm, delicious." She smiled widely, holding onto her rifle.
"I like you already. You're a tough female. You're gonna fit right in."
She saddled up her gear and said goodbye and thank you to her leaders. Then she went into the dining facility and blew kisses to everyone. "Peace, you buttnuggets! Stay safe, I'll join you soon." They weren't content with that simple phrase and hustled out of the building. The men all shook hands solemnly. She tried breaking each hand and staring hard up at them to show dominance. "You guys…I love you. Thank you so much." They stood outside cheering at her, watching her leave through the crowd of Afghans-who parted ways like the red sea and joined in the celebration.
She put her headlamp on over messy hair and turned the bright light on. Mikhail and the interpreter caught up with her even as the Afghan special forces were already by her side. The Afghans were slightly taller than her and their skin was like thick leather.
She hustled down the muddy dirt road with Mikhail, the interpreter and the three Afghans. She put on her earplugs at Mikhails direction, when they had walked past another cement blockade.
They walked through the old Russian minefield and dropped down when one went off. It made Wong's head hurt. The earplugs did little to stop sound.
"Those goddamn Russians!" She screamed in fury.
"I'm right here."
"Nobody ever cleans up after a war. It's always. ALWAYS, left to us." Wong complained. The Afghans were nudging the interpreter because they wanted to know what Wong was saying so badly.
"You are all Pashtuns right?" Wong asked them. "Pashtuns?" They shook their head no. She hustled, sweating lightly, along the road with Mikhail and the Afhgans until they reached the checkpoint. There was an MRAP waiting for them. Mikhail grabbed her camo backpack from her, easily, and hoisted it into the back.
"I can't believe how small you are! Why you join such a difficult job as this, you're so beautiful you could make money at Vogue."
"Vogue isn't paying for my early retirement Mikhail." She used her whole body to open the door and hopped inside to the middle seat.
The Afghans got in beside her and stared at her for the whole, goddamned, ride.
After an hour drive they parked and hopped out into the night. Two military guards greeted them. They unloaded all the gear into a complex adobe home with a bunch of carpeted rooms. There were special forces men asleep in them already. Wong didn't bother trying to go to the back to find an empty room for herself. She just let Mikhail take her stuff and help her with digging out the sleeping bag. Then she lay down on the only empty spot next to the men and passed out. There was some commotion from them as they realized that a woman and not a small Afghan child had settled in, and they breathed huge sighs of relief.