She gasped as she shot up from the bed, startled at the blanket over her face. She swiped it away to reveal her surroundings. White, white everywhere. Could it could be a hospital or was she back at Shadaloo? That would be a mild comfort. At least there, she didn't have to worry about the threat of being injured. She was too high of a ranking official to have to worry about that.
"No," she whispered to herself, squeezing her eyes shut. That place wasn't safe. Maybe for Vega, but not for her. She took a second to calm down. She was still in her running clothes. His clothes. What had caused her to pass out? It wasn't exhaustion-she knew his body could handle a much longer run than the one she went on. And after the bullfighting fiasco, she'd made sure she didn't skip out on any meals. The sensations preceding the black out were outright bizarre. Something like dissociation, but stronger. She was familiar with that feeling, as much as she hated to admit. The feeling that she quite simply didn't exist. It made her think of Bison and the rest of Shadaloo, the fact that she was manufactured. Could she even be considered human?
Alarm bells seemed to go off in Vega's head at the thought. He couldn't stand for her to think that way. She felt the corners of her lips tug up into a small smile. Even in the most primal parts of his mind, he simply didn't want to see her upset. It was almost flattering, knowing that someone cared about her that much. The more she thought into it, the more she saw that it wasn't even some sick, twisted perversion of his. He didn't want to objectify her, didn't want to use her, didn't want to even consider her as a sexual creature. The thought of anyone doing so made him so furious that she went right back to being sickened and frightened of him again. While she was happy to know he didn't want her for sex, she was horrified at the thought of finding any future boyfriends dead. Would he really do something like that?
She didn't want to ask his mind to answer that. Distracting herself, she glanced around, spotting several other beds in the room. Each one had white sheets thrown over them.
The realization hit her, and she screamed, terrified. Dead bodies, there were dead bodies on those beds. She scrambled to look for a way out. She all but fell from the bed, keeping a close eye on the corpses under their covers. If one of them moved, it would be the end of her. If one of them moved, she'd simply lose it.
She screamed at a sudden noise and jumped around to face the source of it. There were a pair of men coming in through a previously closed door and they looked quite startled themselves. They seemed to be dressed like doctors, and she realized they were coroners. "You get away from me!" she cried, holding out a hand. "I'm not dead yet!"
"Try to be calm," one advised.
"Calm? You try waking up in a room full of dead bodies! Calm! You be calm!" She inhaled deeply a few times, wide eyes wandering over the corpses again and she groaned. "How in the hell did I end up here?"
"You, uh, you were dead."
"Or, that's what the emergency response team concluded," the other said with a shrug.
"What are you shrugging about! You threw me in with a bunch of sodding corpses you idiot!" she cried shaking her head.
"Calm down," the man repeated, seeming a little exasperated by now.
"Lucky we didn't start an autopsy right away like they suggested, being with how famous you are and all," the other one muttered and she couldn't believe how flippant they were being about this!
She stared hard at the man and then cried, "You were going to slice me up! Without even double-checking!"
"We did double-check! And you were dead! So it's quite miraculous that you're alive right now!"
She'd died? Horrified, she covered her mouth with a hand, at a loss for words. How could she have died? Furthermore, how could she be alive again? She looked down at herself, just to make sure that she was still in Vega's body. His brain was right there with her, like some almost pathetic whimpering. Obviously she didn't want to die anytime soon. But his fear of it was so intense it almost paralyzed her. He never wanted to have to think about dying, which struck her as ironic given his line of work. He derived some sort of morbid satisfaction in outliving the people he killed. There were a lot of risks inherent in his jobs too, which made her wonder how he could be so afraid of dying yet put himself in such risky positions anyway.
She groaned a little bit, heart still racing over the fact that she was almost autopsied alive. "Then maybe you should check some of your equipment!" How could they say she was dead when clearly she hadn't died?
"It doesn't take any equipment to see if somebody's dead. You had no pulse. You were not breathing. Therefor, you were dead."
"How can I be dead if I'm plainly not!" she cried, throwing her arms out. The arguments went back and forth, until Cammy was finally fed up and conceded so as to get out of the creepy little building. She didn't want to have to be reminded about all of this anymore than she had to. After some paperwork-some very unsettling paperwork-she took back the things they'd found on her when she 'died', which really only amounted to the music player. Nothing had been reported by the coroners just yet, but she knew-or rather Vega's mind was telling her-that someone had likely blabbed about all of this and there were probably a variety of rumors going around about him already. And that was just a little frustrating.
She caught a cab back home. It was already ten o'clock. Had she really been out for that long? She changed quickly and picked up the phone. A conversation with Chun-Li would help her feel a little better after all of the mess she'd just gotten into. Looking down at the screen, she was a little surprised to see several missed calls on it. Quite a few were from Bison and she wondered why he would call other than to let her know that they were ready to be switched back. Her heart skipped a beat and she dialed quickly. "So, you aren't dead," Bison answered with a hint of humor in his voice.
She groaned. This was going to be frustrating with him taunting her like that. She didn't want to deal with all of this right now! "Obviously!"
"Then you'll be delighted to know that you will be able to return to your body within the week," Bison said.
The anxiety and irritation was replaced with joy. "Really! Thank God! I'm so tired of this! Being watched by everybody, having such a strict diet, these bollocks flopping around everywhere-"
"That's more than I needed to hear," Bison said with a sigh.
"You want to talk about hearing more than you should?" Cammy said. Who did he think he was, saying something like that? "Try having somebody else's brain for a couple of weeks!"
"At any rate," Bison said, "you must make whatever arrangements necessary to return to Shadaloo, and then we will get on with the procedure."
"I have to go back to Shadaloo?" she asked.
"Yes," Bison confirmed.
"I simply can't do that," Cammy said. "I'm not an idiot. I know what you're going to do."
"A remote switch of your souls has already been attempted. It was not successful. This leads me to believe that we must do the reversal within the base," he explained.
"That can't be true," Cammy protested. "How did we switch to begin with if you can't do it remotely?"
"It's being investigated. But we have no way to replicate what occurred without Vega's body and soul here. The two of you must come back."
"Maybe I refuse," she said. "Maybe I won't do it."
"If you do not come to Shadaloo, then I will take you there by force. I am not going to lose one of my commanders out of your own paranoia," Bison said.
"And I'm not going to lose my entire life because of this! You'll turn me right back into what I was before! Once I go in, I know there's no way to get back out!"
"I don't have time to argue this with you," Bison said. "Either by your own will, or against it, you're coming back to Shadaloo." And that was the end of the conversation. She stared for a second, trying to figure out a way to do this without being captured by Bison. Without being turned back into a number. But it seemed very hopeless. If she went in, even with the help of others, she didn't have any way out. Bison would make sure of it. Fighting against Shadaloo operations was never done at their base itself, because any attempts in history to ever try this were crushed quite quickly. The only operation that had ever succeeded was Charlie and Chun-Li's covert one, and part of the reason was that Cammy had provided a pretty hefty distraction by using the psycho drive and freeing the Dolls.
Then it struck her. There was only one person who could contend against the might of Bison, and she would have to find a way to enlist her help.
"Hold it right there! Freeze!"
He keeps running, doesn't he understand to stop? He's quick, but I can keep up. The others have already fallen behind, but I'm not afraid to press on alone. No weirdo in a mask is going to get the better of me, that's for sure! At any rate, that fence up ahead will stop him from getting out-
Maybe not! He jumps, plants his feet into the building to the right, jumps off of that, clings to the fence and vaults right over like its nothing. No hesitation for the coils of razor wire running along the top. So I have to be the same, and I don't hesitate either. He's still ahead of me, but I keep running. "Stop, now!" I scream to him, but he doesn't slow down at all, doesn't even look over his shoulder. We're running for what feels like forever, until finally, he miscalculates a turn, and ends up in a narrow alley with no way out the other side. He looks around, not even acknowledging me, seeking a way out of this trap, but he's too late and I slam right into him. "Are you going to stop now?" I hiss in his masked face. I can see his eyes through the slits, not at all frightened or nervous of me. I have my arm resting heavily against his chest, handful of his black shirt, the other holding the wrist mounted with a terrifying claw against the brick wall behind him. I'm a good few inches shorter, and probably don't intimidate him at all, but he doesn't know me very well. He doesn't fight back, which is strange to me.
"And here I thought Shadaloo was a little more careful than this," I say, keeping a strong hold on him. He could try to overpower me, but he isn't. This makes me nervous-does he have back up? I can't properly apprehend him until the others get here, so I can be sure I won't lose him.
"You don't have me yet, bumblebee," he says, and I stare at him. Bumblebee? Why would he call me that? Why does that name-
I pull him away from the wall only to shove him against it again, an act of intimidation. "You keep your mouth shut!"
"Have I touched a nerve?" His voice is familiar but since I can't see his face I don't know if I know him or not.
I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to hurt him because of how he's making me feel. Confused and uncertain. Like I'm missing something. Roughing him up would be a bad idea. But if he hits me first-
I think quickly. What would piss him off most? And it's literally right in front of my face-the mask. "Why do you have to hide your face? Are you a coward, or just that ugly?" I bring one hand up, fingers sliding under it at the chin, and he finally starts to struggle, tries to get a hold of my hand but I yank it off quick so as to not give him a chance.
And he's not ugly at all. He's...much too pretty for this sort of thing. I know I've seen him before but I don't know where. I'm taken off guard, and he shoves me away, taking the mask back in the process. He pulls it back on, and says, "Don't come after Shadaloo, bumblebee. You won't get a second chance."
Second chance? Is he trying to threaten me? Before I can react, he's found his escape, jumping from a garbage can to a fire escape ladder, and he disappears over the wall. That man knows something about me. I have to find out what. I follow the path he took, but when I reach the top of the wall, he's already gone. I clench my fists tightly, furious that I let him get away, and I wonder if I'll ever see him again.
When he finally moved again, Chun-Li noticed quickly, just in case that movement meant some sort of attack. She couldn't trust him, especially in Cammy's body. He could very easily try to deceive her, make her think it was her friend she was talking to. She saw him roll onto his side, eyes fluttering open and adjusting to their surroundings. "Are you okay?" she asked tentatively. She was more worried about Cammy's body than him, really.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Bison says he tried to switch you and Cammy back, but it didn't work out," she answered. Then she paused, not wanting to admit to the next part. "You two have to go back to Shadaloo."
The words echoed through his mind, and he could feel Cammy's brain panicking at the thought. Shadaloo was prison. Shadaloo was the death of self. Shadaloo meant being a faceless number. A killer. He squeezed his eyes shut to clear the panic, instead going over their options. "That would not be viable for her," he said.
Chun-Li was a little startled. Was he expressing that he cared for someone other than himself? That couldn't be it. Either Cammy's mind was getting the better of him, or he was concerned that Cammy wouldn't return his body to Shadaloo. "Then how else can we fix you two?"
"Bison will take her there by force, most likely," Vega said. It was depressing to think about, but he knew from experience that no matter how hard you tried to hide from Bison, if he wanted you badly enough, he found you. He'd never hidden from Bison himself, but had been the hound who dragged his master's prey back plenty of times. Some had hired teams of protectors. Others thought that if they kept beneath the radar, they'd be safe among large populations. Others still thought that if they disappeared into small towns or other rural or undeveloped places, they'd never be found. But no one, in Vega's experience on the job, had ever gotten away. Cammy wouldn't be any exception. "There isn't a way to stop that from happening."
"There is always a way," Chun-Li said, shaking her head. "We just have to think hard about this."
Vega rolled his eyes, annoyed with her naive optimism. "You aren't understanding this," he said. "There is no way to stop it. You can hide her, he'll find her. You can send her away to the middle of nowhere, change her name, give her an entire new identity, and he will find her. You can send a dozen soldiers in there with her to protect her, and still, he will kill them and keep her there."
"I'm not letting him get away with this. We'll find a way to hide her."
Before their argument could continue, Cammy's phone began to ring. Both of their eyes settled on it, and after a moment's hesitation, Vega picked it up. It was his own number, and he answered it. "Are you alright?" he asked quickly.
"Well, other than waking up in a coroner's office, yes," she answered with a sigh.
"What?" he cried.
"They thought I was dead," Cammy said. "It was pretty scary but um..." She hesitated, unsure if he would be happy with what she was about to suggest. "You know about...having to go back to Shadaloo?"
He sighed, suppressing a comment about how he would never sound so insecure, but let her continue.
"I just thought, maybe we should talk to Rose before we settle on going back there," she explained. "I don't know if...I don't want..."
"Spit it out," he said, irritated with how pathetic she was making him sound.
"I don't want to go back to being a Doll," she said finally, with such despair in her voice that he almost felt guilty about being short with her.
"If you really want to see her, then we'll do that," he conceded with a shrug. "But-" He stopped himself, realizing that it wouldn't help matters any to tell her how hopeless it was. Rose wouldn't be able to fix them. And she wouldn't be able to save Cammy, either. "We can go there tomorrow." The conversation wrapped up with final arrangements, and he glanced over at Chun-Li. "There's very little we can do."
"I'm not letting this happen to her," she said.
Vega smirked, feeling a little more hopeless about the situation. "For once, coneja, I wish you could succeed."