CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Investigation and Resurrection
Chun-Li rounded the corner, her stun gun at the ready should anyone or anything suddenly pop out. Sure, she could manage fairly well without it, but it wasn't worth getting jumped. The S.I.N. facility near Hiroshima that she and Samus had been directed to investigate was far from abandoned, proven when they had to sneak by a group of grunts to get inside. Samus had curled up into her Morph Ball and rolled into a ventilation shaft, splitting off from Chun-Li before she had even suggested it.
"I guess she really isn't one for teamwork."
It wasn't really individual work, either, for they still needed to radio each other and let them know what the situation was. Chun-Li didn't expect Samus to comply with this, but as soon as she came to a fork in the hall…
"Chun-Li, there's a room full of men tinkering with some strange device."
"Doesn't surprise me too much. What can you tell me about it?"
"It's some kind of PC, and there's a helmet attached to it…and there's six cords running out the back."
"A PC?"
"Why's that weird?"
"S.I.N.'s a weapons division of the organization Shadaloo, but Shadaloo went under a little while ago and S.I.N. should have followed after their leader Seth died, unless…"
Chun-Li gritted her teeth.
"Juri…"
"Who?"
"Never mind. Let's just stick with what we've got right now."
"Whoa, wait a second. They just started talking about a girl...they said they're gonna use that machine on her."
"What?! What's the girl's name?"
"Saya Kusanagi, by the sound of it."
Chun-Li snapped to attention at the sound of that name. The teenage girl she'd seen at the courthouse? What in the world did they need her for?
"Jeez…and they wanna hook her up to that thing? What did she do, threaten to blow the place up?"
"Aaaah, shit."
"What happened?"
"I'll get back to you. I've been spotted."
"Hang on, gimme your location! I'll come help you!"
"Don't bother. I've got this."
The line went dead. Chun-Li growled and lowered her face into her hand.
"There's being stubborn, and then there's being idiotic. Guess what that was?"
"Hey! Who the hell are you?!"
"You've gotta be kidding me!"
A S.I.N. grunt had chosen that moment to round the corner, only to foam at the mouth and fidget before collapsing once Chun-Li shot off a single blast from her gun. Too little, too late, though. About a dozen more came running around the corner, all of them charging at her at full force with their fists raised. She simply rolled her eyes.
"Great. Just what I needed. Might as well send in a big guy in a robotic suit. It'll take me just as long as these suckers."
She wasn't exaggerating. She lunged forward and slammed her foot into the closest one's head before balancing on one hand and shooting forward with her Spinning Bird Kick, knocking several of the grunts against the walls and one against the ceiling. The remaining two stood stunned at the Interpol officer's fantastic athletic skills and felt like soiling themselves when she gave them a cocky smirk.
"This is the part where you run away."
The grunts obeyed, running past Chun-Li and toward the facility's exit. Satisfied, she continued down the hall, steadily increasing her pace as she went. The sounds of Samus' arm cannon constantly firing off gave the implication that she had to be getting closer, but every time she rounded the corner, all she got was an empty hallway…until a grunt was suddenly blown through the wall and left a fair sized hole. Chun-Li poked her head through and nearly shrieked when she was suddenly staring down the barrel of Samus' arm cannon.
"Goddammit, kid, don't scare me like that!" the bounty hunter half-shouted. "I thought you were another grunt for a second!"
"Sorry. Anyway, let's see what we've got in here."
The room was filled with a large amount of tanks similar to what Samus had been in the previous day, but accompanying it was a monitor filled with all sorts of data and some sort of operating table covered in a strange black liquid. Samus relieved herself of her Power Suit and dipped her finger in the substance before raising it to her tongue.
"Um, ew?" Chun-Li gagged.
"Sorry."
"What is it?"
The second the liquid touched Samus' tongue, it spread a foul taste in her mouth and she spat it back out.
"I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it tastes a lot like blood."
"How would you know that?"
"I'm a bounty hunter. I get paid to kill things. I think I'd know blood when I tasted it…that sounded a lot more disgusting than it really is."
"Yeah, it did…
hey, look at this."
Chun-Li had approached one of the tanks and looked inside, utterly repulsed by what she saw inside. It was very humanoid in appearance, but all it appeared as was a lifeless pile of pale mush as though it lacked a skeleton. The body had grayed hair with some moderate flecks of red in it. To properly describe the entire thing would be to say that it was the humanoid equivalent of a blobfish.
"That…is hands-down the most disgusting thing I've ever seen." Chun-Li breathed, raising her hand to her mouth when she was almost sure that she would throw up.
"Ganondorf."
"What?"
"These blueprints. They said that its name is 'Ganondorf'."
Samus began typing numerous commands into the keyboard, her fingers moving at blindingly fast speeds as she worked her way into any sort of data file she could find. Before long, a more in-depth file of the life form appeared on the screen.
"Not bad." Chun-Li said with an enthusiastic smile. "Where'd you learn to do that?"
"Galactic Federation. I was a military unit before I start flying solo, so hacking is really just a tool of the trade."
"Nice… and I know this is out of the blue, but…I gotta say we make a pretty good team."
To Chun-Li's surprise, Samus remained quiet for a moment before actually cracking a smile. It was a very warm smile to boot. A smile that showed the intergalactic hunter wasn't the ice queen Chun-Li initially thought she was.
"Yeah, we do, actually. Right, then. Let's see what we've got."
They booted up all of the necessary data with an image of what the life form was supposed to look like, proving that the one they had seen was nothing but a failed prototype. Then again, the image of the life form's expected appearance wasn't very comforting, either.
"Good God…just looking at that guy is making my skin crawl." Chun-Li muttered. "How were they planning to turn that abomination in the tank into THAT?"
"With this, by the looks of it."
Samus pointed to an image of a golden triangle with numerous labels around it.
"Hyrule…Triforce of Power…Din, Farore, and Nayru? What the hell is this?" Chun-li sputtered.
"None of your business, cop." hissed a voice from directly behind them.
Chun-Li and Samus vaulted off in opposite directions just as two club-like fists came smashing down, barely missing them though Chun-Li ended up reeling backward against a wall when a whip scratched across her face. Right away, she knew what she and Samus were dealing with, and turning around to face their attackers only confirmed it.
"I thought I smelled Mad Gear cronies lurking around here." the Interpol officer hissed.
"Nice to see you, too, Xiang." Poison growled before turning to Samus. "Who's the chick in the catsuit?"
Samus sneered before her Power Suit reappeared. Poison bit her lip the second this happened and (like anyone would) greatly wished she could retract what she had just said.
"Samus Aran. I'm a bounty hunter, so yeah. More law enforcement for you to deal with."
"Snotty, eh?"
Hugo cracked his knuckles and gritted his teeth.
"If Poison doesn't like you, den I don't like you!"
"Feeling's mutual, buddy." Samus shot back. "Now how about you two explain to us what exactly you're doing in this place?"
Poison rolled her eyes.
"Why do they always ask that? Are we obligated to tell you or something?"
"Yeah." said Chun-Li, stepped forward with her fists raised. "We arrest you and you tell us, or we beat you both to bloody pulps when you try to resist. Then arrest you and force you to tell us."
"Nice span of options, but guess what? SICK 'EM, HUGO!"
Hugo roared and leapt high into the air with the full intention of crushing Chun-Li under his intense weight, only succeeding in getting hit across the face with both of her booted feet when she jumped up with her Tensho Kick. Meanwhile, Poison lashed out at Samus, who shifted into the Morph Ball mode, rolled between her feet and dropped a bomb under her opponent's feet. The resulting explosion shot her up into the air and slamming against the ceiling when Samus performed a spinning jump that sent shockwaves shooting everywhere.
Hugo swung his fist at Chun-Li as hard as he could, pushing harder when she effortlessly blocked but ultimately failing to do so when she leaped onto his arm and palm-struck his face, then landing and launching a blast of her Kikoken to knock him off his feet. Poison dodged shots from Samus' arm cannon and waited for an opening before finally lashing her whip across Samus' chest…just to find that it didn't even leave a scratch.
"Umm…c-can we talk about this?"
She tried to back away and ended up just getting seized by the Grapple Beam and pulled into Samus' grasp.
"No." the bounty hunter said monotonously before slamming her head against Poison's.
The femdom grunt went staggering backwards onto her rear end, while Samus stood motionless before slowly clutching at her head in moderate pain.
"Simple lesson, Aran. Even with a helmet, nobody wins with a headbutt."
The two grunts prepared to keep fighting, but as they stepped forward, they felt the cool and metallic sensation of blades pressed against the backs of their necks.
"Are we interrupting something?" asked Trish. "Or did we just do you girls a big favour?"
"The latter." Chun-Li replied. "Thanks. We can get acquainted with you and…excuse me, but if I'm not mistaken, there's an anthropomorphic blue fox standing next to you."
Krystal smirked and rolled her eyes.
"That's the first thing you notice? Not that I'm trying to help you, but that I'm a talking dog?"
Chun-Li shook the shock off and stepped toward their captives, Samus having her arm cannon at the ready if either of them tried anything funny.
"Alright. I've got a couple questions for you, and I want you to answer them immediately. What is 'Ganondorf'?"
The look on Poison and Hugo's faces immediately ruined any hopes Chun-Li had to figure out what was going on.
"How the hell should we know?" Poison spat. "We're grunts, remember? You want someone that'll actually be able to tell you anything? Go find Juri."
"Juri? She's behind all this?"
"Not her…"
"Then who?"
Poison said nothing, prompting Samus to start charging up a shot.
"Answer her!" the bounty hunter shouted.
"Okay, okay!" Poison cried. "If you guys wanna get the guys behind this, you're in the wrong base!"
"Then where's the one we're looking for?"
"I can't tell you! Juri'll have us killed! Please! Don't make us say anymore!"
Chun-Li sighed. Poison didn't seem to be considering protective custody as an option, but she could see why. That still meant she'd be serving jail time, and Juri was a lot craftier than a lot of people gave her credit for. Not to mention she didn't forget and she didn't forgive.
Chun-Li motioned her hand to Samus, who lowered her cannon. Trish and Krystal promptly lowered their weapons but made sure that the two wouldn't run anywhere.
"One more question. What's this machine for?"
"If I knew what that thing did, I'd probably have chickened out and reported it to you guys! All I know is that they've got another one in the other base and they're gonna use it on some girl named Saya Kusanagi."
Trish and Chun-Li both gritted their teeth at Saya's name and the thought that S.I.N. was putting her in danger for more nefarious purposes than they could ever have thought of. At last, Chun-Li decided that the two may not have been innocent, but they certainly weren't masterminds.
"Alright, that'll do. Get lost. But let me make something very clear: if I catch you two defenseless again, your carcasses are getting hauled straight to prison. Got it?"
Poison and Hugo nodded before running away as fast as they could, leaving the four to introduce themselves and think about what had just happened.
"Hey." Samus spoke up, taking a good look at Krystal. "Aren't you from the Lylat System?"
"Yeah, I am. How could you tell?"
"Can you think of any other systems populated by talking animals?"
"Well, I certainly know that Trish here is a bit of an animal."
"Hm. Do you know Fox McCloud?"
"Know him? He and I are engaged!"
"Wow…not trying to sound like I've got some weird fetish, but…lucky you. He's pretty good-looking."
"I know, right?!"
Trish paid no attention to her furry comrade's joke and rolled her eyes at the gossip going on between the two as she approached Chun-Li.
"So you're going to that base, then?"
"I'll certainly try to find it. S.I.N. needs to be stopped at all costs."
"Okay. Good. I'm going with you."
"That won't be necessary."
"It is. I made a promise to find Saya and protect her. Like it or not, I'm helping you."
Chun-Li sighed and smiled.
"I didn't really need this many people on this investigation, but then again, it really does look like we don't know what we're dealing with. Alright. All four of us are gonna start looking for this base, but I've gotta make a quick phone call."
"What for?" asked Krystal.
"Assistance. Interpol's not the only one looking to bring down S.I.N. The BSAA's on their case, too, and if I know anything about guys like Chris Redfield and Leon Scott Kennedy, they wanna hit these corrupt organizations where it hurts."
As soon as the tank's inhabitant became aware of himself and his surroundings, he began striking the glass violently until it shattered, spilling water all over the lab's floor as he fell to his knees. The tan-skinned and red-haired man ripped the breathing apparatus off of his mouth and took in several deep breathes. Before him stood Jedah and his accomplices, all meaning nothing to him save for Ghirahim, who knelt down to level his face with his.
"Welcome back, my master." he said softly.
"Ghirahim…" the man panted. "What have you done…who are these people?"
Jedah stepped forward and extended his hand to the man, who did nothing more than stare at it.
"We have returned you to the world of the living, my lord. Let me assure you that it was no easy task. We failed at it numerous times before we finally acquired that one important piece." he said. "I am Jedah Dohma. These are Hades and Juri Han."
The man brushed Jedah's hand aside and stood, unnerving Juri slightly when she saw just how tall he was. He had to be over seven feet, just under Hades' height but with muscles so large it almost didn't matter. The worst part was the unnerving air about him. Just being near him made her skin crawl.
The man paid no attention and looked down at his hand. There glowed the emblem of the important missing piece: the Triforce of Power. To think that the gods had taken it away from him for even a moment…it was a revolting and frankly insulting thought.
"For what purpose have you resurrected me, Jedah Dohma?" he asked.
"I offer you a gift, my lord." Jedah continued. "The throne of the demon world of Makai."
"I see…of course, Ghirahim must surely have told you that I am after a much bigger prize."
"Yes, of course. The complete Triforce. Thankfully, his 'Link and Zelda' have entered this world we stand in seeking to destroy you once again."
The man grunted.
"I do owe that wretched little boy another visit."
"Alas, even with the Triforce of Power in your possession, I fear that you may be felled yet again. We have the solution. A girl named Saya Kusanagi. She harbors a great and terrible power that would greatly assist you if we are able to extract it from her."
"I see. Where is she?"
"She will be in your hands before long, my lord. Extracting her power is not as simple as we initially thought. I have a plan. We must proceed to a location near this country's great mountain and lure her and her friends there when the time is right."
The man smirked evilly at Jedah's next words.
"When that time comes, none will be able to stand against you. Link and his princess friend will be as good as dead…and the Triforce and every great relic and kingdom with its power shall be yours at last."
"Perfect. Take me to this mountain. Now."
"We live only to serve you, Lord Ganondorf."
Jedah and Ghirahim bowed, Hades and Juri reluctant to do so at first but obliging before Ganondorf laid his eyes on them. At that moment, Poison and Hugo had entered the room, but as soon as they saw Ganondorf standing there in all his menacing glory, they turned to leave before they got noticed.
"Ah, Poison and Hugo!" Jedah called. "Perfect timing."
The two flinched and turned back toward Jedah, who was now looking over his shoulder and smirking at them in a way that said "Nice try." Poison cleared her throat before speaking.
"An Interpol officer broke into the base near Hiroshima." she said, not daring to tell them what had actually happened.
"Chun-Li?" asked Juri suddenly. "Damn. Wish I could've been there ."
"I think…I think they might be onto us."
Jedah laughed nonchalantly.
"That, my dear Poison, is the whole idea."
"She's a grunt, Jedah." Hades chuckled. "Can't expect her to pay attention to any of this."
Poison flushed bright red, though knew that any misstep would have any of these five maniacs on her in less than a second…but what in the world was Jedah talking about? Why would he want Chun-Li and perhaps even the BSAA finding them?
"In any case," Jedah continued. "Awaken Mewtwo and send him after Saya. Perhaps this time we will actually be successful in retrieving her before we initiate the second phase."
Poison and Hugo obeyed and walked down the hallway, but neither could shake off what had just happened. What Hades said was true. They were both grunts and were kept away from any sort of classified information, but they were certainly free to think about it.
"Dammit." Poison sighed. "I didn't sign up for this shit…"
"Poison…" Hugo started. "I god a bad feeling about dis…"
"Yeah…me too. Maybe joining up with S.I.N. wasn't such a good idea…but it's too late now. I don't fancy that man killing me by just looking at him. Me or you."
"Can't we just run away?"
"I wish it was that simple, but look at Saya. Those maniacs can find her wherever she goes, so who's to say they can't find us that easily?"
She sighed and lowered her forehead into her palm.
"God help us all…"
God would certainly need to do something, for no world was safe from tyranny and chaos of S.I.N. now that they had accomplished their primary goal, now closer than ever to complete domination.
Ganondorf, the Great King of Evil, had returned.
So start running. He means business.
On a somewhat related note, I've been thinking of ripping off Twilit Smash Nova again by doing another Nintendo X Capcom story, but with lesser known characters or ones that aren't going to be included in this one. It would have a completely separate story and would probably be a lot shorter, but everyone and their mother probably still wants me doing Star Fox, so we'll say it's in the pre-pre-productive stages of development. We'll see what happens, I guess.