"Don't pout. It isn't very becoming of you."

Vega pressed his lips together at Bison's mockery. He didn't care how he looked right now. For the first time in awhile, it wasn't about making sure he was impeccable, needing attention and compliments like a dying man needs air. He was much too upset by Bison to want to hear anything from him at all. With Cammy trapped in a cell, waiting for her mind to be rebooted into Doll programming, he had something else on his plate to worry about for once. He couldn't beg for her life. Even if Bison wanted to hear it, he knew it would get him nowhere. He didn't even look at the man as they walked through the corridor out of the building.

"I don't recall you being quite so upset over Decapre."

"Decapre is a soulless monster. Don't ever compare her to Cammy," he said. He didn't care for saving Decapre because she was quite simply an abomination that didn't even want to be saved.

"Well, then you two should get along swimmingly," Bison replied.

"I am not a monster," Vega said heatedly, glaring at his superior and wanting very much to carve up his face-

Those sorts of thoughts weren't ones normal people tended to have. And Cammy, she'd been outright repulsed by him for having them. Hearing Bison chuckle brought his attention back to his surroundings, and he knew what was going on. Bison could hear what he was thinking. Not exactly in words, but the vague sense of realization told him what he needed to know. "You stay out of my head," Vega demanded, clenching his fists at his side.

A hand shot out, grabbing him by the jaw, and Bison stared him down, much to the discomfort of Vega. "Is there a shred of humanity in there?" Bison asked, eyes turned to white peering into angry blue. "Is there something in there that makes you less of a monster?" A chaotic mix of heated emotions radiated from Vega but he said nothing. "The only place you matter in this world is here. The only place you're really, truly able to be who you are is here. When you're channeling your insanity into destroying lives on behalf of this organization, that is the only time you've ever done something worthwhile with your broken, pathetic excuse for a life." Bison let go and shook his head as he continued. "So stop it. Stop trying to tell yourself you're anything more than an animal. Stop pretending that somehow, you could have made her care about something as despicable as you, and go back to what you do best."

The words were sharp, piercing, honest. Or manipulative. Was he really so horrible? He couldn't be. No, he had to be perfect, so what Bison said couldn't be true. How could he respond? What did he say? Bison had treated him fairly well, though the occasional reprimand was not unheard of. But he'd never been spoken to quite like that before. "What is it that I do best, then?" he asked. Bison had compared him to a dog, and now he truly felt like it, averting his eyes to show his submission.

"Destroy. You're only at your best when you destroy."

The corners of his lips twitched up, and he raised his eyebrows. He almost had to laugh at the irony of it all. Bison wanted him to destroy things? He could do that, most certainly. Then, he did laugh, and Bison couldn't say he expected that reaction. Though given Vega's tenuous grip on sanity, it shouldn't have caught him off guard. "Affirmative, General Bison," Vega said around his laughter as he snapped into a rigid stance and gave a mock salute. Then, he walked away from the man, still laughing to himself as ideas began to pull themselves together.

His residence in Shadaloo was a room in one of the buildings in the living area. Some workers were allowed to leave on a regular basis but still had rooms here, away from the infantry, or other employees of lower status. Vega kept his pretty bare, being here as infrequently as possible. There were some spare clothes which he wouldn't mind too much if they were dirtied, old pairs of shoes or boots, when being in uniform was deemed necessary. Whatever of his belongings which Cammy had on her at the time they were switched back would be waiting in here for him now. When he entered the room, he found an envelope on the table containing his phone, and that was it. It was all he really needed.

Picking it up, he went through the recently dialed list, searching for a particular number that he didn't really want to dial, but knew he had to. It rang for barely half a second before a worried voice asked, "Cammy?"

"No, but close," he said.

"You bastard, what are you doing to her?" Chun-Li all but screamed at him.

"I don't have much time, and neither does she, so I'll keep this short. I'll be sending you some coordinates in a moment. If you want to see Cammy again, and not Killer Bee, you'd do well to be there as soon as humanly possible. The Doll systems have been offline and out of use for a while now. It could take them all day to set it right again, but don't assume you have much time."

There was a silence on the other end for a few seconds, making Vega more impatient than he already was. He could hear some announcement being made in Chinese on her end. Was she already on the move? "How do I know this isn't a set up? A trap?" Chun-Li asked.

He laughed. "Mi coneja querida, I would never let you be trapped by Bison. If you are going to die, I want it to be more spectacular than that."

"You're disgusting."

He hung up. He composed a message as he had promised, sending the coordinates to Chun-Li. He didn't receive a response, and had to assume that she would be there. He slid his phone into his pocket, and grabbed his Shadaloo identification card from the desk. He had some changes to make to the infantry registry.

It was a long time before he finally heard a definitive schedule concerning Cammy's upcoming procedure. Day had turned to night, which benefited him. Rumours flitted around Shadaloo just as they did anywhere, and he'd kept an ear out for them. At first, he'd heard it was already done, but knew that had to be nonsense. Last he'd seen of the area which housed the doll system, there were still a couple of technicians working on it. He remembered vividly the first time he went in there, how furious he'd been. Decapre was an affront to creation itself, and he wanted nothing to do with her. Then Cammy came along and he decided he wasn't sure which was worse. Decapre, at least, was too deformed to remind him much of his mother. But Cammy...

He laid out his clothing on the bed. He'd tried eating but didn't have much of an appetite. It was difficult trying to pass the time when he knew something so important was coming up. He set the helmet beside the black and red clothing issued to guards. Prisoners saw more of the guards than any other member of Shadaloo, and Bison felt the job required a degree of anonymity as a result. This would work in Vega's favor, but he wasn't stupid enough to believe Bison wouldn't notice things had gone awry fairly quickly.

He wasn't sure what the man would do to him once he caught him. Vega had crossed Bison once before. Pushing Cammy towards an idea of free will had been a step too far. Bison had been furious at the loss of his host body, who'd been crafted specifically for the resilience both of their genes held against the destructive force of psycho power. Bison had collected a variety of blood samples from sources within Shadaloo and a few from without. Only a handful held together adequately against exposure to psycho power. Vega's happened to be one of them, though he didn't remember being told his DNA was being screwed around with. One day Bison just showed up with a new soldier and she may as well have punched him in the face when she walked in the room, given what she looked like.

For whatever reason, Bison had eventually forgiven him for his failure with Cammy. Things went back to business as usual, and that was that. But here they were again, due to sheer coincidence. Or was it? Was this a strange way for Bison to get Cammy back to Shadaloo? Once she'd gotten free, Vega had anxiously kept an ear out for any plans calling for her recapture. But Bison didn't bother about it. His body had been destroyed around the same time that Cammy had been freed, so he supposed the man had bigger problems to worry about than getting the Doll back. But even once he was restored, he never made an attempt to take Cammy from her new life.

Vega hadn't interfered with her. He remembered thinking about it several times, but wasn't sure what to say to her. It was one of the few times in his life he'd been left without words. And when he finally did see her again, she'd forgotten everything he'd done for her. He felt empty, truly empty, like he had when the reality of his mom's death finally sank in. He saw her killed right in front of him, but the initial reaction was shock and anger. Those emotions took over, and they were at least something to hold onto. It further enraged him that this was nothing but a piece of gossip for the average citizen. So he left it behind. Disappeared to wherever he wanted, away from people who knew his name and his face, and was effectively forgotten. When finally there was nowhere left to run, he came home, only to realize he didn't have one anymore. That was when it hit him. He was alone, and she was never coming back.

Now he was very close to having someone again, and he was determined to not let her get away too. He'd been loyal to Bison from day one, never even thought of selling the man out. He'd only done his best, nothing less, and now he was finding that Bison was only willing to give so much back in return. Rank was not enough here, and Vega cared little for money. He was asking for this pardon, to let Cammy go, but Bison wouldn't have it, so Vega was forced to make a choice. She came before Bison, as dangerous as that was. He would lose his position, if not his life, but it was a matter of principles now. Bison had backed his attack dog into a corner, and cornered dogs were very liable to bite.

Dressed in the concealing uniform of a prison guard, he looked himself over to make sure there was nothing that would indicate his identity. He studied the identification card that he'd fabricated for this operation. It was necessary to check out a prisoner, and he knew his own wouldn't work. He didn't know how much time he'd have before Bison realized that the man Vega was pretending to be didn't exist, but he knew it couldn't be very long. He pulled the strap of his assault rifle over his shoulder, and slid down the tinted visor of the helmet. This was his only chance and he couldn't ruin it now.