Tekken 1. The Blood In You

**Hi, Heletherel here.**

**This fanfic will run kind of like a series of connected song-fics. The titles of each chapter will be snippets from a song that I thought would suit the chapter. A piece of the lyrics of each song will also appear at a point in the chapter. This story was inspired mainly by different pieces of music, so I thought it made sense to honor them in this way. I tried to really make them blend into the story well, and enhance it in a way, but I wanted you guys to be able to recognize where I inserted the lyrics, so I put them in italics with quotation marks. **

**This first chapter's song is "Blood on my Hands" by The Used (I just love this piece of music :3 ). Sorry if you don't like alt. rock!**

Hands up, palms out, tilt away, bend back, kick!

No, that was not it! My foot was not aligned, my back was not bent enough, my hair was catching on my hand- god-damn it!

I flopped onto my knees on the bright red floor mat that supported me, absorbed in my thoughts. How was I supposed to dent in Asuka's jaw with form like that?

I stormed out of the hall with light, rapid steps that echoed off the white walls of my giant gymnasium, throwing open first the padded changing room door, then a bright red locker, to stare at my frowning reflection from a mirror on the locker's inner wall. My thin, blond sheet of hair hung tangled like a drunken spiders' web about my sweating form, so I snatched a brush from the locker and began to reorganize it with careful strokes, still frowning. As a stripe of pain ripped through my scalp from a misguided stroke, I winced, and my thoughts shifted, once again, to Asuka.

I had felt similar pain as she'd grappled with me on the streets some two years ago. She was such a brute. There was no panache or fluidity to the vigilante's movements, only force. Weren't the Kazamas supposed to fight with style? Maybe Asuka was adopted.

At the thought, I couldn't help but crack a grin at myself in the mirror. That was a good one. I'd have to insult her with that sometime soon…after I beat her into the ground, of course.

_The Kazama's must have adopted you. There's just no other way your technique could suck this bad._

Yes…definitely a good one.

Another ripping noise sounded in my ear as I tore through the knots in my hair. The pain focused me and I concentrated fully on the task at hand, and a few minutes later, I had managed to brush the last of the tangles into straightness.

Much better.

I glanced at the clock that hung above my locker. Eight o'clock already? Father had said someone would be meeting him today at this time. I was planning on eavesdropping. Since I was going off on a "vacation" tomorrow, this would be my last chance to do some proper spying for a few weeks.

With a passable measure of grace, I crouched low to the ground, then spang up to catch the edge of an open ceiling panel in the changing room and climbed up into the empty room above. This upper chamber had once served as the sercurity hub for our mansion, but all of our surveillance systems and the men that operated them had been moved into a basement extension three years ago. Father still hadn't gotten around to finding a use for the old space, so I had. Not long after the room had been emptied, I'd kicked out a meter-by-meter hole in one of the walls, giving myself access to the crawlspaces that ran between the first and second floors of the mansion. From here, I could listen into almost any room I pleased, including my father's office, formerly off-limits to me.

Crawling swiftly and easily along a latticework of pipes, wires and boards, I crouched low towards the ground to avoid scraping against any nails or heating pipes above me. After a few minutes of slinking around in the dark, I made my way to a thin line of light beaming up from a half-opened ceiling panel and crouched beside it. Past the panel, I spied into my father's private office; as my eyes adjusted to the brighter light, I could already hear father's voice.

"-just outside the oil fields? So it _is_ possible that…"

His sentence trailed off, but at the mention of oil fields, my senses keened and I dropped my ear to the edge of the floor panel, listening for any possible word of reply. There was nothing but the rustling of papers to be heard. Confused, I peered down into the office a second time. Almost directly below me, about twenty feet down, stood my father, clad in a simple, forest green suit. There was a large, suspicious-looking file in his hand, and he was pawing through it with great interest. I couldn't see his face from my current angle, but, given the tone that I'd heard in his voice, I could picture his bewildered expression. Across from him was another man that I didn't recognize. He stood stiff as a doll; wordless. From what I could see, there were no other strangers in the room, and no guards. Excluding myself, the two were alone.

"And…regarding Mr. Jin Kazama-"

My father stopped speaking as the other man stepped forward and opened the file to a different page with a swift hand, covered by an intimidating black glove.

"Oh…I see." Father turned away and I could finally see his face clearly. His bushy eyebrows were narrowed with concentration.

"Damn."

I barely heard the swear pass his lips as he read further through the file. My father wasn't known to swear, even in the worst situations. Maybe it had been excitement which had provoked him to speak in such a way.

The other man stepped up behind my father and I subconsciously tensed; in fact, my whole body coiled back like a spring. It was my protective genes kicking in. I didn't trust that man. He was tall; young, with a fair bit of muscle on him, and his eyes…a cold blue like my own, but thin and narrowed, almost serpentine.

_"There's blood on my hands, like the blood in you..."_

Those eyes had seen conflict and destruction that I hadn't yet the pleasure to witness for myself; they had _experienced _things that were much more real than any practice session, street brawl or tournament I could possibly dream of. Even my struggles against the men that had held me for ransom some five years ago were nothing in those eyes. I peered closer, drawn in.

_Fear-anger-struggle-poison-death-_

"Hh-!"

I looked away, gasping in an invigorated breath as if I had almost suffocated on my own thoughts. Risking a glance back into the office, I realized that my father was gone. He had left with the file and I hadn't even noticed. Only the stranger remained. Crouched on my knees, I realized that I could feel my heartbeat racing against my thigh. Slowly, I willed myself to calm down.

_Whoever he is, he had important information for my father. There is no need to see him as an enemy._

But I wanted to. Fighting someone like him might be the greatest experience of my life. I craved challenges.I _lived_ to battle.

Leaning forward, I put a bit too much weight on the loose ceiling panel above the office, and suddenly, it shifted and gave out from underneath me.

"_Eeee-!"_

My exclamation of alarm was cut off upon contact with the Persian rug in the center of my father's office, which was more than forceful enough to blast the air from my lungs. Bits of ceiling and a trail of dust and cobwebs followed me down and settled in the folds of my clothing and my hair.

Pulling myself up to my feet after a moment to gather my startled mind and gasp back my breath, I looked to my right and met eyes with the stranger, who stared back with open surprise. He had tripped against and fallen back into a leather-upholstered chair that had just happened to be behind him before my ungraceful plummet into the room, and had he not, I would have probably fallen on top of him. In his hand was a formerly-concealed pistol, drawn out of panic but currently pointed skyward so as not to shoot or intimidate me. It shined in the light that poured from a row of courtyard windows, as black as the glove that grasped it, almost like an extension of his arm.

Death was tied to him.

"Miss Rochefort!"

I turned to find two of our guards walking towards me, one of them being Clement, a member of our security force with which I was well affiliated. They had been stationed just outside the doors to the office, but upon hearing my scream, they had run to my defense. How sweet of them.

I looked back to the stranger. He was standing now, and his pistol was gone, as if the light from the windows had vaporized it. The guards hadn't noticed it for an instant, and his blank expression only improved on his innocent appearance. The other guard asked him what happened, and, shrugging, he gestured to the hole I had made in the ceiling, answering the question perfectly well without saying a word.

"Miss Rochefort, what were you doing up there? You should be more careful," the guard advised me. He was new; I didn't know his name, and he didn't know of my regular partaking in such antics. Clement was just smiling, shaking his head. He'd been under my father's commission for a few years.

"Princess got stuck under the floorboards in the room upstairs," I explained in my best 'sweet and innocent' voice, referring to the family cat. "I managed to get her out, but…I guess I just slipped."

At this point, it seemed that we both had something to conceal from the guards, though my secret was less tangible than the stranger's. Neither Clement nor the new guard was suspicious of either one of us. But we had become very suspicious of one-another. Why would my father allow an armed man into our house? Did he even know that this foreigner was carrying weapons-

"Lili?!"

My father had returned, looking very concerned. I assured him that I was alright, but upon noticing the damaged ceiling, he sighed defeatedly; there was a tired look in his eyes that filled me with regret. By the time he had turned back to scold me, I had disappeared from the room. I was done with this whole scene.

Leaning against the outside wall of the office, I gave a silent sigh of my own. I would find a way to make it all up to my father later, I promised myself.

But for now, I had a tournament to get ready for. And people to beat up.


	2. Perfect on the Outside

**Hi,Heletherel here.**

**This is the first of a series of chapters depicting Dragunov's back story. I thought that it would be important to include these flashbacks as a part of the story so that the future chapters are better supported. Warning- the violence gets kind of intense in these chapters.**

**I'll be writing more Lili chapters soon :)**

**Oh, and this chapter's song is "Self Deception" by Winterstahl. I always thought that industrial techno suited Dragunov's character well.**

_Four years earlier…_

"Stand down! We're here to _protect_ you."

Twenty-two-year-old Sergei Dragunov stared with an expression of evident dismay at the pile of torn down bricks, broken concrete and twisted metal that lay before him, blocking the road that ran along the Lake Bogorodskoe.

"We aren't handing over the town!" A loud, female voice yelled from somewhere among the masses behind the barricade. "Jin Kazama promised us that he would restore it! He's going to clean this place up, and give us good, safe jobs!"

"You've been _lied_ to. Disperse or we will be forced to open fire!" Dragunov cocked his rifle and aimed towards the barricade. The rest of his unit did the same, tense with what Dragunov assumed to be apprehension.

"_You're_ the liars!" An even louder, angrier voice called out over the wall. "You promised us aid long ago, and it never came! You're only 'protecting' us now because the _copper plant_ is endangered!"

Dragunov began to cringe behind the sight of his gun. He could understand the frustrations of these civilians all too well. If only the Mishima Zaibatsu hadn't fucked up the world, he might not have to go through a standoff with the very people that he wanted to help. And this was about as close as they had ever come to a real firefight. The Ural Mountain region was proving to be more difficult than any other to pacify, especially Chelyabinsk Oblast. Resistance was to be expected, but Jin Kazama's reach had gone further and deeper than ever anticipated. It was said that the frustrated people in these towns had been issued weapons at the order of Mr. Kazama himself. Though, so far, Dragunov didn't see any.

_Maybe I could fire a warning shot, _Dragunov thought._ It might just be enough to make them scatter. They're not soldiers, after all._

"Just leave!" A deeper voice yelled from down the street. The slight desperation in his voice gave Dragunov confidence.

_…__I don't think they actually have any weapons. No weapons of any sort were found in any villages nearby. And if they did have any, they would show them off in an effort to drive us away…right?_

Dragunov's finger was just beginning to tense on the trigger of his rifle when something cold, wet and heavy struck him across his chest and face and oozed down the front of his uniform.

The commander lowered his gun to wipe the revolting substance from his face, then stared at it as it dripped off his gloved hand. It was mud from the shores of Lake Bogorodskoe, oily and black with a cocktail of noxious chemicals. Drops of purple-red industrial discharge still clung to it, along with bits of sickeningly discolored foam.

"Why do you look so upset? You're no less filthy than this mud we live on!"

With a blank but open-mouthed expression, Dragunov looked up to notice a young woman perched halfway on top of the barricade, another fistful of poison clasped in her bare, upraised hand, ready to throw. There was a strange softness to her appearance despite her fury; something about her that reminded Dragunov of his sister back at home in the city, something beautiful and almost pure…but on her face was a grimace of anger as horrifying as the mud that bulged between her curled fingers and seeped down her pale, emaciated arm.

"You're poison incarnate!" She yelled.

"That's it!"

The second shout had come from behind. A rogue member of Dragunov's unit came running past him, weapon raised and ready to fire the moment he reached the desired range. There was bloodlust in his eyes. He had wanted conflict all along. What it was that Dragunov had sensed from somewhere in his unit had not been apprehension, but a sadistic yearning.

_What the hell is he thinking?!_

As much as Dragunov didn't want to show weakness to the people behind the blockade, he couldn't let a massacre unfold right here in the streets. A cringe came over his face; despite his desire for efficiency during these missions, he had always hated unnecessary violence.

After one crucial moment of hesitation, he called out to the running soldier.

"Halt!"

The rogue was about to do as ordered when his boot fell onto something metallic, well hidden behind an upraised chunk of road. An almost silent click sounded against the concrete. Dragunov's deep blue eyes went large with dread.

_Oh, fuck!_

Kazama had armed the civilians with landmines.

Dragunov had just opened his mouth to issue a far-too-late warning when the mine blew, punching him into the ground in a deadly blast of high-speed sparks and shrapnel that nearly knocked him unconscious. A moment later, the Mishima Zaibatsu's hate-hungry mercenaries were spilling out from their hiding place behind the barricade, armed to the teeth. Dragunov watched in stunned silence, unable to move as a slaughter unfolded around him. His mind was spinning; everything was going white….

Just before the road was engulfed in complete chaos, one of the attackers glanced down at Dragunov, realized that he might be alive, and shot him in the stomach.

Explosions everywhere. The ground vibrated from gunfire and grenades. Bullets and shards of twisted metal cut the air at every conceivable angle. There was the sound of breaking glass and the roar of flames.

Dragunov lay against the street, trying to gasp the breath back into his body through two misshapen pieces of razor-sharp shrapnel that had lodged themselves in his jaws. Their metal edges were pushing deep into his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and part of it was still hooked around his lip. Blood seeped through his jacket and mingled with the filth that covered the road. He wondered if he'd been shot during his short period of unconsciousness after the first explosion; he had no memory of it.

Tense with pain and fatigue, Dragunov pulled himself up on his palms, attempting, stiffly, to get his legs under him so that he might be able to stand. A deep, terrible ache pulsed from his side and he stopped moving, but only for a moment.

He was just beginning to rise to his feet, glancing around at the destruction that surrounded him, when a particularly close and powerful blast sent him flying at least three meters to the side of the road in a sea of sparks and debris. Rolling to a stop halfway down a short hill beside the two-lane strip of chaos above, he braced himself as chunks of concrete, dirt and metal landed on top of his face-down form before continuing on their path through the shore of the lake beyond and into its poisonous waves. He instinctively gritted his teeth against the series of impacts and the shrapnel in his mouth sent jagged streaks of agony through his nervous system. It felt like he was chewing on serrated glass.

_I've got to pull out some of this metal._

Carefully, he rasied a shaking arm and tugged at the piece in his lip, pulling out a tiny, jagged metal barb that glistened with his blood. With worry, he realized that the area in which it had been lodged had gone numb. Slowly, he detached a few more ends from the top of his mouth and behind his teeth, each one an excruciating ordeal, and finally, the first piece of shrapnel fell out into his hand. But there was still the second piece to be dealt with, painfully jammed near the back of his mouth. It would be too dangerous to simply tear out with his hands. Worse yet, despite its size, it was partially blocking his airways. Not enough oxygen was getting to his head, and he was half-dead already.

Another nearby explosion sent a shockwave through the ground, shaking him with its force. He curled onto his side and braced himself with his arms over his head as more wreckage tumbled down the hill and into the lake, fighting to stay conscious through the terrible pain. Suddenly, a chunk of concrete, about the size of a small loaf of bread, pounded into his back, miraculously forcing the metal shard from his thoat. Relieved but in horrible pain, the commander spat out a mouthful of blood and breathed as deeply as he could, refilling his lungs. Blood strill trickled from his lips, and from the larger wound under his jacket, mingling with the ashen dirt beneath him.

"Commander Dragunov!"

A hand grabbed Dragunov's side and pushed him face-up. He reached out towards the figure that crouched beside him, unable to speak and hardly able to think. He was in so much pain.

_Help me!_

The words were in his mind but couldn't quite form. Feeling absolutely helpless, he grabbed onto the front of the soldier's uniform and held him tightly, as if he might fade away at any moment.

_Help!_

"Can you hear me?" The figure asked, unsure whether Dragunov had been deafened by the landmine. He was one of the soldiers under Dragunov's command, about twice his age and half his rank. "Can you hear what I'm saying?"

For a long moment, Dragunov remained silent, trying to make himself reply, if he could even remember how. Finally, a noise made it past his bleeding lips.

"A-h!"

The response was more of a loud breath than the intended "_Da_;" nevertheless, his companion understood it.

"Okay." The man took in a deep breath; there was evident fear in his eyes. He was no longer in the disguise of a soldier; he had become just as frightened and powerless as the citizens of this struggling town.

"There were mercenaries sent by the Mishima Zaibatsu hiding among the civilians, sir," he explained. "Before any of them see us, we've got to make it to that building up there. Can you walk-"

A gunshot cut off the older man's voice, and a spray of red mist popped from the side of his head like fine confetti. He'd been shot by a sniper stationed somewhere up in a building across the road. After jolting from the impact, he fell lifelessy onto a horrified Dragunov, pinning him to the ground but also providing a possible shield against the following series of shots. That sniper had zoned in on the two of them and was determined to kill them both.

As he hid underneath the soldier's body, Dragunov floated somewhere between awareness and terror-induced stupor. He began to wonder if he was just in the middle of a horrible dream.

A bullet tore straight through the corpse and punctured Dragunov's shoulder. He jarred and fainted almost instantly, an action which may have saved his life, for the sniper immediately moved on to other targets.


	3. Fallen

**Here is the continuation of the flashback. Enjoy.**

**No song for this chapter. I'll have one for the next, though!**

A harsh light trickled into Dragunov's consciousness. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

The light was white, beaming at him through a slit in the metal wall across from him. He felt an accelerative, rocking sensation; he was in a moving vehicle. A helicopter. Glancing down, he realized that his hands were bound in front of him. To his right sat two of the mercenaries that had attacked them back at the town, seemingly asleep, and at the opposite wall, next to the shaft of light, was a third, wide awake. All were clad in heavy battle gear and well armed, their weapons far out of reach. Dragunov had been captured, and, by the direction of the sun, they were headed east, to Japan.

_That god-damned Jin Kazama is behind it all! _Dragunov's rage kept him from losing consciousness again. It was just enough.

Currently propped up against the opposite wall, Dragunov shifted and immediately regretted the action. His side pulsed with pain and he winced, drawing the attention of the man across from him. Their eyes met; Dragunov's were filled with a certain, almost innocent fear, while the other's contained evident surprise. The mercenary had thought it impossible for any man to recover so quickly from such critical injuries.

Suddenly Dragunov was no longer staring at the man's eyes, but at the point of his gun.

"Nh-!"

He doubled up reflexively but froze upon hearing the man's voice.

"Don't move." The command was English, but Dragunov understood it.

Keeping his eyes on his captive, the mercenary called to his two companions and began speaking to them in quick, loud sentences, barely distinguishable over the noise generated by the helicopter. There was evident confusion in his tone of voice.

As he spoke, the helicopter tilted gently, beginning to turn. The light from the helicopter door began to shift and change. Then it turned bright red, flooding the vehicle's interior with color. That red light was sunlight, reflected off the blood-colored lake below.

Dragunov slid down onto his back on the floor and kicked his captor squarely in the stomach with both feet, rocketing him across the chamber and against the door, on the lower side of the helicopter. The door's latch jarred from the impact but held, and the man fired out of panic, but missed, punching a bullet hole in the wall just above Dragunov's head. The other two mercenaries leapt to their feet, but Dragunov kicked at the nearest one and easily, almost gracefully, knocked his legs out from under him. Pinned beneath Dragunov's heel, he was quickly disarmed by a pair of bound hands.

Now with an assault rifle in his posession, Dragunov aimed for the nearest enemy and fired, doing his best to control the powerful weapon's path by bracing it against his shoulder with his hands, still tied together. A streak of gunfire danced across the room, slaughtering the mercenary at his right and punching bright red holes of light in the far wall. The pain reached Dragunov's awareness just as he fired at the last remaining enemy. The gun had been kicking back against his injured shoulder, and now that he felt it, his aim faltered, and he missed the man completely. Instead, he hit the next best thing: the latch on the helicopter door. It swung open in the powerful wind and the other man was sucked off his feet and into the red light beyond. Before anyone else might be able to shoot him, Dragunov followed, leaping out of the aircraft with his arms out, though still bound together. Below him, he could see the lake. He was headed for its surface, though the water's depth was questionable. If he had jumped too late, he might have missed the lake altogether.

Just as these thoughts ran through his head, he dove into the water arms first, plunging a decent ten feet through the red waves before his downward path finally slowed. His hands hit the silt on the bottom of the lake and he finally came to a stop. Running on reflex, he twisted against his binds and kicked them off with dexterity that would have impressed even Houdini, freeing his hands. He had survived. But the shock of his recent experiences was making it hard for him to think straight.

Dragunov was just beginning to swim upward despite the overwhelming pain when a strange sensation overtook him and he began to sink.

_What? What?!_

Beginning to panic, the Russian clawed for the surface, struggling against an almost paranormal current that seemed to be pulling him directly downward. He opened his eyes and looked through the burning, stinging red haze of poisoned water, watching the light from above grow dimmer as he sunk further and further towards the bottom of the lake.

_No!_

Dragunov had always prided himself on being a strong swimmer. Twice, he had saved another person from drowning, once a girl who had been skating on shallow ice, and later, his own father during a fishing accident. Yet never before had Dragunov felt more helpless than he did now, horribly injured and caught in the clutches of this angry red lake. He pounded against the water with almost superhuman force, straining to swim upward, but could feel his many wounds pulsing with pain, and an almost suction-like force dragged him in the opposite direction.

_Let me go!_

It was just as these words passed through his mind that Dragunov felt fingers on his legs. Unable to stifle a muffled, breathless exclamation of alarm, he kicked at form that held him, trying to force his way free. He felt only water beneath his boots, and the fingers held fast. They were large, like monster's hands, practically spanning the circumference of his legs.

Dragunov twisted and thrashed against the grip that bound him; he reached out for the dim light at the surface with open hands but never managed to gain on it.

_I won't let you win, monster!_

Fighting to stay strong, Dragunov held his breath rigidly and bashed at the form below with all the force his injured, oxygen-deprived body could summon. Though Dragunov didn't feel himself hit anything solid, the fingers loosened and he began to swim free. Desperate, he fought through the thick, polluted liquids that surrounded him, keeping his eyes trained on the light at the surface, even as toxins of all kinds stung in the open wounds on his shoulder and stomach and he began to exhale. It took much more energy to swim through these substances than it did normal water, and Dragunov was beginning to worry if he could keep himself from reflexively inhaling for long enough to reach the top. Slowly, the red light grew brighter, and his hopes greater. Just as his hands broke the surface of the stagnant pool and he lunged up, gasping for breath…

Huge, strong arms wound around his chest and yanked him down, crushing most of the air from his lungs.

Responding in total panic, Dragunov clutched at the force that bound him and opened his mouth to yell, breathing in a mouthful of deadly poisonous water that choked him into silence. His arms alternately pounded at his unknown enemy and clawed at the light above. He shut his eyes against the foul, burning water, still struggling but with less force. He kicked but the arms only hugged him tighter, making him flinch and grunt with pain. He could feel his ribs bending to the point of cracking under the pressure of each ever-tightening squeeze that crushed the life from his body. Moment by moment passed by and there seemed to be nothing he could do to save himself. Approaching the brink of death, Dragunov opened his mouth but resisted the instinct to gasp in a breath of liquid, forcing himself to swallow mouthfuls of the substance to keep his body from inhaling. Its taste was vile; a cross between burning chemicals and bitter, metallic sludge. A new level of desperation set in and the Russian struggled with renewed force, pushing at arms that he couldn't touch but which still held him tight. He reached out once again for the surface and deep scratch marks appeared on his sleeve, cutting into his arm. Out of ideas, he yelled into the water,

_Let go! Let go! I don't want to die!_

The dark grip on him softened; it was no longer painfully tight. Still, Dragunov couldn't quite break the surface of the lake. Each time he gained a meter or two, he was yanked back down. Eyes closed, mouth open, limbs flailing, his image was the physical definition of drowning. Unable to resist, he gasped in another small, airless breath and choked on it; he stiffened, then spasmed, overcome with a pain that would certainly kill him. In his death throes, his hands wrapped around his straining neck, as if the gesture might somehow return oxygen to his body. He tried to scream but could barely make a sound. Again, he spasmed, and this time, he felt teeth sink into his flesh and involuntarily cried out, loudly, with a harsh, tortured noise, expelling what little was left of the air in his lungs. The pain was unbearable. Still, he could feel those nightmarish teeth and fingers on his body, digging into his skin, anchoring him to certain death, never letting go. A new kind of feeling overtook him; a dazed, empty sort of fear, as he began to lose hope of survival. His very mind was going numb.

_No…no…_

With his last echoes of sanity, Dragunov wondered what he might have done to deserve such a painful, pointless death. He reached up with his last shreds of instinct for the surface that he might never reach alive, but another convulsion overtook him and he twisted violently, out of breath to scream with.

_Agh, no…!_

He doubled over in the water, wrapping his arms around his dying body, and, hopelessly, waited for death to take him. Somehow, even in the clutches of agony, deprived of oxygen for far too long, he would not go unconscious; thus, he could not escape the pain. His body simply wouldn't give up. In his mind, he begged for this agony to end. All measures of suffering he had endured in his entire life could not compare to what he felt at this moment. He was burning from the inside out, slowly, inescapably. All hope had left him, but some shreds of life still, somehow, remained.

Then, an image appeared in the darkness before his eyes. It was a woman's face, ringed by wild, black hair. Her skin was a strange, pale red, like a demon's, and she reached out and grabbed him by the throat. Terrified, Dragunov tried to push her away, but her form was as intangible as the strange force that had been drowning him.

She _was _that force. In his dying moments, Dragunov could finally see her.


	4. Angel

**Final flashback chapter here! :)**

**The song for this chapter is "My Skin" by Natalie Merchant. This piece of music is absolutely beautiful, just haunting, and I thought it was perfect for this chapter (very dark in nature). I highly recommend that you look up this song. The lyrics perfectly fit both the bitterness of a bad relationship, and, if you think about it, the horrors of pollution and the way in which we as humans mistreat the earth.**

**Okay, rant over. I'm a big environmentalist, as you might be able to tell. Anyway, on with the story.**

Anger shone in her gaunt, red face as she snatched at the Russian's clothes and hair and skin with sharp, red nails, as if trying to take something from him. He recoiled, but it did not stop her savage attacks. Again, she clutched his throat and, this time, began to throttle him. It did nothing; he was already drowning.

_What do you want? _He wanted to ask.

Her eyes were sunken with an indescribable pain….

_"I need the darkness, the sweetness, the sadness, the weakness..."_

As if attempting to appeal to the devil-like apparition, Dragunov held out an open hand, caressing her formless face with his black, gloved fingers in what was seemingly an attempt to comfort her. She reacted; her anger melted into a strange mix of disgust and confusion, almost sorrow. Her grip loosened, and, irrepressibly, Dragunov breathed in yet more of the sickly, red water, sending another incredibly painful spasm through his system. It was this action that seemed to truly affect the red woman; realizing the unbearable torture he was enduring, her features softened with sudden pity. Empathy.

Without warning, she grabbed his chest with both hands. Her nails dug into him and he could feel a strange ripping sensation, an alien pain lost to a background of agony like a beam of sunlight in a roaring bonfire. Paralyzed by death's grip, he could neither resist her nor respond. Suddenly, she was kissing him.

_"Angel, sweet love of my life..."_

Still very afraid and in horrible pain, the Russian remained motionless save for the occasional dying jolt, unsure whether he was hallucinating or already dead.

_"Better shut your mouth, and hold your breath, and kiss me now, and catch your death."_

Done with resisting, he finally gathered some miraculous shred of remaining strength and pulled his arms around the lady that held him, accepting her for the tormented spirit that she was….

It was then that Dragunov felt life return to him. The lady sucked the poisonous fluids from his lungs and breathed, pure, precious air back into his once dying body, saving him from a certain end.

_I cannot do this, _he heard her say. _I cannot kill, I can only love. In my fury, I have shared all my pain and suffering with you, and I have damaged you beyond repair, but I cannot…I cannot kill._

Dragunov felt her hands move across his wounds, numbing them with the power of her mercy. His death throes subsided, and a sudden, warm rush of relief enveloped his whole being as, finally, the spirit woman let go of his body and allowed him to float, damaged but alive, to the surface.

_Let us remain damaged but alive _together_…forever._

Dragunov broke the surface of the lake arms first, then flung his head into the open air and gasped back his life, spraying millions of crimson droplets into the white, afternoon sky, as if ejected from his silhouette. He reopened his eyes, now the palest shade of blue; so near to colorless; so near to completely lost. Alive, he pushed his way to the shore, dragged himself onto dry land, and heaved up all the poisonous water he had swallowed. For many moments afterward, he lay silent on the ground, hidden in a field of tall grass, shaking from trauma of every conceivable kind.

Faintly, he became aware of the sound of helicopter blades slicing through the gray, Russian air. They grew louder, closer.

Dragunov stood up, dripping with indistinguishable amounts of blood and red water. He watched the mercenaries' helicopter land on the field and its remaining occupants climb out, weapons in hand. They pointed at him, first with hands, then with guns. Dragunov ran at them. They fired, but could not seem to damage him no matter how carefully they aimed, and he could not hear the gunshots or feel the bullets pass by. Soon, he was upon them.

Only a single strike was needed to down each enemy. He broke the first man's neck with a palm to the chin, then the second by elbowing him in the temple hard enough to shatter his mere twenty-year-old bones. A kick to the third man's nose sent his a mass of cartilage shooting back into his brain, killing him instantly. The fourth mercenary, a woman, was jabbed in the eye so forcefully that Dragunov's fingers punctured her brain. Upon retracting his arm, he swung back and caught his last enemy by the hair, ending the conflict by simultaneously yanking the mercenary's head downward and driving a knee into his forehead with enough force to indent his skull, fatally crushing his head.

Like that, it was over. Dragunov had never experienced such ease with killing before. In fact, he had hated such savage violence all his life. But now it filled him with energy, even…joy. He looked around at the destruction that he had wrought and, fists clenched, a powerful, ecstatic feeling overtook him.

_Yes. Yes! That was…awesome!_

He felt possessed by a great, dark force. It was as if the devil itself had infected the very core of his being. Yet the emotions that filled his subconscious somehow failed to reach the surface. Both his exhilarated, almost giddy feelings that had resulted from the slaughter he had just carried out-and his lingering fear as to what had happened in these past moments-could not come through and manifest in any noticeable way. His thoughts remained trapped in a tiny place in his mind, the only place where he felt emotion. Only that inner peace of his soul remained.

The rest had been lost to his near death experience, to all his pain and fear and hopelessness…to the lady in that deep, red lake.

At this realization, Dragunov turned back to the crimson waters, walking to the shore's edge, realizing what he had lost. His eyes were filled with horror, but his blood-streaked face remained black and void of feeling. Desperate, he opened his mouth to scream, but…no sound would leave his lips. As hard as he tried, he could only emit a strangled hiss; the sound of an ocean wave; a gust of foggy wind; a handful of sand brushed across the soil. Along with part of his soul, the lady had taken his voice.

Resigned to silence, he stood at the water's edge, stiff as the soldier he had always been, reflecting on it…just as it reflected him.

Two days later, twenty-two-year-old Commander Sergei Dragunov returned to the Russian military base in Chelyabinsk. Alone and half dead, he was immediately taken to the infirmary. He had been shot not just two, but three times, and numerous pieces of shrapnel had to be extracted from his arms, torso, and legs. His hair had turned completely white in the time it had taken for him to walk back to the base, either from chemicals he had been exposed to in Lake Bogorodskoe, or from the stress of his experiences. It grew back as its natural color within a few weeks; nevertheless, this strange occurrence, coupled with his newly gained, ruthless killing abilities, earned him the longstanding title, "White Angel of Death." Regarding the moniker, one Russian general later admitted that he sometimes wondered whether the real Dragunov had been killed back at Karabash, only to have a white-haired, soulless monster take his place.

When questioned about what had become of the rest of his unit, Dragunov was unable to respond verbally, but wrote of his story, explaining it in vivid detail. He did not seem emotionally connected to the things he wrote; it was as if he were objectively copying each word of his horrifying story out of a textbook. He did not mention the woman he saw in the lake either, simply noting that he had difficulty getting out of the water because it was so thick with toxins. Never did his facial expression change, nor did he show any reaction when told that none of the soldiers under his command had returned after the ambush and that half of the town's population had been wiped out in the fighting. It was later learned that he was the sole survivor of his unit, and all the mercenaries involved in the skirmish at Karabash had perished.

Dark, vengeful forces had been at work on that terrible day.


	5. Hell On Earth

**Okay, now we are back in the present (actually a decent few days ahead of Chapter 1). Some interesting things have happened in the time between then and now.**

**The song for this chapter is the 2010 Dominator Anthem: "Driven by Fear" by Nitrogenics. I think this song is a perfect fit for Bryan Fury as a character, so if you're a fan of his, you should definitely look up this song.**

Damn it was cold. Even with a perpetual generator tirelessly whirring away in the core of his body, Bryan Fury could tell it was cold. It was not so much the temperature as the lack of direct sunlight and the relentless, whipping wind that gave this bleak Russian day its icy edge.

Step by stiff, mechanical step, Bryan weaved through a large, open field in the remote reaches of the Chelyabinsk-Oblast, near the city of Karabash. He was following a trail of bootprints in the black, muddy ground. They were shallow and widely spaced but recent. He might have chosen to take the drier pathway that ran through the field barely ten feet to his right, but Bryan's less human senses had dected several landmines buried under the fine, sandy dirt that composed it. There were other such mines placed throughout the area. Clearly, there had been conflict here.

At this, Bryan paused in his thoughts, inwardly thanking Mr. Jin Kazama for starting this glorious war.

On the horizon, he saw dark color. A sharp, metallic smell caught his attention, and his mechanical side analyzed it, picking out scores of toxins in the air. Listed were all the heavy metals and byproducts associated with the mining and smelting of copper ore. It read just the same as the soil in this sickly field.

Bryan was beginning to really like this place. The four horsemen had been riding up and down this land for a long time. He breathed deeply, savoring the poisons that he had, long ago, become immune to. Looking back down at the bootprints below him, he began to smile.

_This guy certainly knows the perfect place for a nice, sunny vacation, _he thought sarcastically.

…_Too bad I'm on the job right now._

Subconsciously, he flexed his wrist, preparing for another murder. Before him, the horizon's hues grew broader. He was nearing the lake. Behind the shriveled brush that spotted the field, he could see it, half surrounded by leafless, black trees. It was shimmering in the gray, afternoon light, deep red, like blood.

_What next, fountains of fire? Is this heaven? _Bryan wondered; his twisted mind mistook all the destruction and posion that surrounded him for beauty.

_"Chaos, destruction, hell on earth..."_

Then he noticed the man that crouched at the pool's edge. His back was turned; he appeared to be looking across the lake, as still as a character in a painting.

Bryan reflexively grabbed at the hand gun under his jacket but remembered Dr. Abel's instructions. Leave the body intact. This one would, ideally, have to be strangled, and slowly, so as not to break any bones.

_Which will require some serious self-control, _Bryan inwardly grumbled.

The figure of the man became more distinct now. A black coat; black hair; shining gloves. He was just beginning to turn himself towards Bryan. Only a sliver of his pale, young face was visible. At the sound of Bryan's voice, he became motionless again.

"You fucked with the wrong dictator, Sergei," the cyborg yelled, grinning arrogantly at a foe he had already deemed as well beneath his own level of ability.

There was no reply, verbal or physical. Dragunov sat there, simply a part of the landscape, as stagnant and poisonous as the lake before him. The color of the waves below was reflected in his eyes. Words, he did not care about. He just wanted his peace. Right now, he was determining the most efficient means of obtaining it.

"Well? Frozen by _fear_ already?"

Dragunov came to his conclusion.

Silently, he reached a long, steady arm over the stagnant lake, dipping a single fingertip under the surface. And then, in a smooth, soft voice with a charming yet indimating accent, he began to speak, in Bryan's language, as if a spell, thrust upon him years ago, had been suddenly, magically broken.

"You should never have dared to follow me here, Mr. Fury."

Turning his head to look back at Bryan, Dragunov's face was suddenly flooded with emotion. He glared deep into the cyborg's eyes with a wild expression, crossed between a scowl of ice-cold hatred and an amused, almost playful smile. And as he stood, he lost contact with the lake, and suddenly, all evidence of the frightening expression was lost, as if wiped away with an invisible hand. He was blank again; an empty shell. He turned to face his foe and stood there stiffly…silent as his lifeless surroundings.

But his once crystalline blue eyes retained the water's poison hue.

Undaunted, Bryan charged at him. Suddenly, it was a battle between the mechanical and the supernatural, the scientific and the spiritual. Playing out here on the shores of Lake Bogorodskoe was a piece of a perfect rivalry built to last forever.

Dragunov manipulated the space around him with his black, gloved hands, engaging his cyborg enemy the moment he breached that space and charged too close. Bryan deflected most of the resulting blows with the metal plates under his arms, then responded with a mechanically-powered strike of his own. Dragunov dodged it with ridiculous ease, twisting away with balanced, graceful steps. Thick, red liquid was pressed from the muddy earth beneath his feet.

Bryan struck again, increasing the speed of his movements to match his foe. Dragunov still managed to duck under Bryan's hook; his legs collapsed under him and restraightened in one fluid, natural motion.

Sensing his chance to strike a damaging blow, Dragunov's teeth flashed in the silver-red light for a split-second and he sent an angled kick straight to the side of Bryan's jaw. The steel sole of his boot bounced off the cyborg's face, slashing his human skin but barely denting the titanium structure beneath. A second kick, faster but lighter than the first, gashed his temple on the same side. Bryan's mechanical side registered a measure of cerebral damage, the equivalent of a decent concussion. But what caught Bryan's interest was the relatively scarce presence of oxygen that his computerized brain had detected in the air. Karabash was directly upwind, sending clouds of carbon monoxide and various toxins down across the lake. At this percentage, a normal human would go unconscious, but only if they were in a state of intense exercise, where more oxygen than normal was needed.

_If I just hold out for long enough, _Bryan realized, _he'll overtax himself and suffocate._

Just as the thought crossed his mind, his enemy took a step back and, almost silently, began to cough. Bryan grinned.

_Way to put yourself at a disadvantage, Dragunov._

A sudden punch to the nose caught Bryan off guard. The black glove, curled into a tight, vicious fist and popped him squarely in the face, cracking what little was left of his human bones. The cyborg staggered back, maintaining his form but not quite standing his ground. Dragunov punched at him again. This time, Bryan caught the incoming arm in his hands. Furious, Dragunov struck for his foe with his free arm, but it was blocked by a quick swipe from Bryan. Then an engine-driven kick to Dragunov's stomach blasted him across the shore.

Rolling to a stop, limp as a ragdoll, on the black, dead ground, Dragunov took a deep, gray breath, dug his fingers into the slimy dirt beneath, and pulled himself back to his feet, charging towards his attacker with renewed willpower.

An abnormally forceful strike to the forehead sent Bryan crashing to the ground and more damage was registered faster than the human part of Bryan's brain could think. He tried to sit up, but a steel-soled, filth-smeared boot collided with his chest and kept him in his place. Above him, Dragunov glared into his eyes; he was heaving for breath. Bryan picked up on his enemy's heartbeat, noting that it was unusually fast for a man so fit. Dragunov was feeling the effects of oxygen deprivation; however, it seemed to have no bearing on his level awareness or his coordination.

Bryan kicked at Dragunov's legs, trying to knock the Russian off balance, but his move was dodged easily. Ripping away from the mud below and rising to his feet, Bryan stepped back, trying to measure the time it would take for his human enemy to faint. Dragunov also began to distance himself, his arms trailing out in front of him like a part of the poisonous wind as he walked back along the shore, almost goading Bryan to attack him again. Still, the White Angel of Death was breathing unusually fast. In an attempt to catch him off guard, Bryan charged at him, but Dragunov whirled out of his reach. At a stalemate, the two began to circle each other….

"Here's the deal," Bryan growled, his voice hoarse from the bad air. "You can give up now…and I'll take you back to Dr. Abel alive. In shackles, of course. Or you can keep fighting until you wear yourself out. Then I'll just dunk your head in the lake and hold it there 'till you drown."

At this, Dragunov narrowed his eyes. His head tilted down; his shoulders tensed; his hands curled into claws; _focused_; he was suddenly very alive and very, _very _threatening, an image as powerful as a loaded gun or a sizzling oil slick.

_You piss me off…_

Bryan inwardly praised himself for getting a genuine reaction out of his foe. Now he only wanted more. Like an annoying schoolboy harassing his crush, he could only dare to taunt and tease his angry opponent further.

"So what'll it be?" The cyborg asked, inclining his head. "Are we gonna do things the easy way…or the _really_ easy way?"

At first, only a muffled cough replied to Bryan's taunting question.

Then Dragunov answered by pulling a pistol from his coat and discarching a round into Bryan's face.


	6. You Can't Win This

**Thanks for reading this far! Please review; tell me what you think.**

**Some interesting secrets will be revealed in this chapter (heheheh)**

**And the music for this chapter is "Burn" by Three Days Grace. Good ol' alternative rock!**

The cyborg's head snapped to the side in a flash of sparks, and he staggered to keep himself from toppling over. But after a moment of motionlessness, Bryan returned to his fighting stance, grinning as if completely unharmed. In reality, the machines in his body were almost out of control, blaring warnings of all kinds at him due to the recent damage. The impact had been massive.

Instead of listening to these warnings, Bryan pulled a pistol of his own and shot Dragunov's weapon right out of his hands with automated precision. Instantly, Dragunov's hands flew up in surrender. The sudden change surprised even Bryan, who froze in place, trying to judge whether this surrender was genuine. Dragunov simply stared back; his expression seemed void of fear or surprise, but his jaw hung halfway slack, as if deep in thought, and his heartrate was faster than ever.

Lowering his gun partway, Bryan began walking towards his target with stiff, mechanized steps, grinning smugly in his apparent triumph. A mixture of dark oil and deep red blood trickled in a thin line from the bullet hole in his face, just an inch left of his nose.

"Didn't you realize that I wasn't human?" Bryan asked, stopping a few feet from his foe. He received not even a ghost of reaction.

"You should have known you were going to lose." Growing frustrated, the cyborg pressed the end of his gun against Dragunov's forehead, his finger on the trigger. It was as if he was threatening a mannequin. For a moment, Bryan wondered if Dragunov had somehow passed out on his feet, but Bryan's mechanical side told him that the Russian was, in fact, conscious; perfectly aware.

He was aware that Bryan's patience was running thin, and that the cyborg would make his move soon….

_"I'll tell you now you can't win this...'cause you're way too slow..."_

Bryan sighed out of once-human habit. "To put it shortly, you've made a big fuckin mistake, Drag."

Very subtly, Dragunov shook his head, sealing his lips together with a tiny flick of his tongue. The hint of response was just enough to bring back Bryan's grin.

"You don't think so?" The cyborg asked, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise. Absently, he began to walk in a slow circle around his enemy, keeping the gun trained on his head. Dragunov waited, still and placid as the venomous, silent lake beside him. For several seconds, nothing made a sound.

"It was your call," Bryan said after a moment of computerized thought. "You could have avoided contact with Mr. Rochefort and never attempted to steal back Jin's oil fields. You had other options…but you did this anyway. You started to feel bad for the Rocheforts, didn't you? Especially Lili. There's just something about her that is so very much like _you _now, isn't there? Such _loyalty…_hiddenbloodlust_…_" There was a moment of charged silence as the cyborg finished his full circle and ceased to move. Bryan knew that, different as they may appear, Lili was, in fact, very similar to this man, especially in the way she thought. Even after being killed and reanimated, Bryan hadn't lost his talents in detective-work.

"And, ironically, because you got involved," He continued, "Rochefort's daughter, well…_disappeared_." He paused after this, expecting his words to have some sort of impact. Only a barely audible cough could be heard in reply. Bryan smoldered. He had been certain that bringing up Lili would bother Dragunov more than this. He would have to go further.

"Abel might have used her up on some nasty experiment of his already. I'm not really sure. Maybe he's going to wait until I bring you to the lab, so Lili can watch as he dissolves your corpse into pond-slime or whatever-the-fuck he does. Maybe he'll reanimate you, like what he did for me…just so Jin Kazama can crush the life from you himself. And knowing Jin-and his hatred of you-I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to _really_ drag it out."

At this, a minute twitch of a smirk crossed Dragunov's scarred lips; there was defiance in his eyes. Something about the expression really irked Bryan. He didn't understand why Dragunov could feel so confident in a situation like this. He should be shaking with fear. Impatient, the cyborg decided that it was time to stop talking and start beating. Maybe pain would drive some emotion into his stoic captive.

"You know," Bryan hissed, "Abel told me not to damage you but…what's the harm in a few broken bones?"

Faster than a normal man would be able to move, Bryan coiled back and struck at Dragunov's face in an attempted pistol-whip, but was suddenly caught by the arm in already upraised hands. The momentum of Bryan's attack continued to pull him, but now he was moving down; his arm was twisting, and then, suddenly he was on the ground, with Dragunov's knee against his back. With another violent, almost effortless twist of Bryan's arm, Dragunov forced him to let go of his weapon. He'd been prepared to disarm his enemy all along.

Dragunov's fist was about to connect with the back of Bryan's head when the cyborg tossed him off with a sudden, forceful movement. Dragunov whipped through the air and landed on his back, wincing audibly from the impact, and, ripping himself out of the mud, Bryan followed him, lunging for his throat. Dragunov repelled Bryan's attack, but was caught by the wrists and pinned down as the cyborg straddled his stomach. The Russian's lip curled back with discomfort; he shut his eyes and his whole body tensed as it adjusted to the weight of his enemy. Out of breath, he made one last move, trying to rip himself free by force. He pulled his wrist from Bryan's metal fingers but was caught by the hand and held down even tighter than before.

"You're not as tough as you might think, Drag."

There was no response; Dragunov was busy gasping for breath from beneath Bryan's half-human, half-robot weight. His eyes were still shut; it appeared that he was finally going to faint.

Grinning, Bryan released his captive's wrist, only to slug him across the face. The unanticipated strike forced open Dragunov's eyes; suddenly, he struck back, clawing at Bryan's face and neck with a vicious swipe of his freed hand, tearing away old skin to reveal shining metal beneath. Before Dragunov could manage to throw Bryan off of him, however, his hand was caught in a set of thick, mechanical fingers and squeezed with bone-shattering force. The resulting yell of pain was music to Bryan's audio receptors.

Dragunov struggled momentarily after the initial burst of agony, but quickly ran out of energy. His body went stiff with pain and exhaustion; the gloved fingers of his crushed hand squeezed back against Bryan's with the force of a small child.

For a few seconds, Bryan considered whether he should let his enemy go. He always enjoyed watching his wounded prey attempt to run from him, only to allow him the thrill of stalking, catching and pummeling them once again. But he knew that Abel would already be upset about the damage Bryan had done to Dragunov's hand.

_…__And it looks like he's going to pass out in a few moments, anyway, _Bryan realized._ I'll just choke him and bring the body back to Abel._

Yet, in contradiction to Bryan's expectations, Dragunov slowly began to reopen his gleaming red eyes, focusing on his tormentor's leering face with icy resolve. At this point, Bryan realized, Dragunov should have already fainted, considering the pitiful oxygen levels in his blood and the intense pain that his nerves were registering. But, just as before, Dragunov's body wouldn't give up. He fought through the pain and kept his bearings, staying focused.

_Let go, let go!_

"What the hell-"

It was then that Bryan felt each plate, wire and artificial structure in his body begin to vibrate, as if from a powerful electric current. But this was something different; a kind of…resonance. Some of his sensors detected lethal radiation; others picked up on some sort of powerful wavelength.

Either way…a smile was creeping over Dragunov's ghostly pale face.

_Damaged but alive, damaged but ALIVE!_

"What the _hell_ are you doing?!"

Dragunov parried the cyborg's attempts to attack him and landed a solid punch to the cyborg's temple, precisely where he had hit before. This second blow was enough to stun Bryan, and Dragunov spied his chance, first pounding his knee into Bryan's stomach, then rearing back and kicking him straight in the face. The cyborg recoiled and fell back on his side from the impact, clutching at the slimy ground for his pistol as his half-brain, half-computer fought to regain its senses. It was the precision of Dragunov's strikes that damaged him the most; Bryan had felt more forceful blows in the past but never flinched from them because his sub-dermal armor plates could resist it, but somehow, Dragunov seemed to know where each of these plates began and ended, striking all the spaces in between. And now, even the armored parts of his body were failing. The metal had overheated, almost to the point of softening or even melting, and still trembled as if there was a miniature earthquake pulsing from the core of his body. Was his perpetual generator malfunctioning? Not at a time like this!

Bryan lunged blindly for his enemy and his metal claws latched onto cloth and hair. Immediately, Dragunov slipped out of his attacker's clumsy grasp, sending another stunningly forceful strike to his head. Then a steel-enforced kick to the teeth pounded Bryan into the mud.

"You'll pay for that, Dragunov!" He choked out in a voice not entirely human or mechanical as he struggled to sit up, catching sight of the Russian but not quite focusing on him, or anything for that matter. He had sustained too much damage to his head; he was practically blind. Only flashes of light and dark and vague shapes could be seen through the receptors that had been put in place of Bryan's eyes.

"I'll enjoy watching Abel butcher your corpse!"

Bryan's fingers found the handle of his gun. He grabbed it clumsily; his mechanically-controlled coordination had also been impaired by Dragunov's blows. Looking frantically for any sign of his enemy, Bryan could see strands of black hair somewhere in the air; a flash of a black glove; a fading hand silhouetted in red; eyes reflecting the water, both of which burned in that primal yet unnatural color.

Bryan fired at the images, determined to have his kill despite both his injuries and Abel's instructions. This had become personal.

"Die, goddamnit!"

There was a brief flash of twisting, swinging arms and a trailing, splayed out hand, like the wing of a blackbird. Dragunov could be seen stepping back towards the red that had outlined him and now faded slowly in. Bryan realized that he must have missed. His mechanical side couldn't even keep track of where the bullet had gone. It was as if the projectile had been wiped from reality. Dragunov stepped back again; his leg was plunged into a red nothingness.

"What the fuck!"

Bryan fired again. Again, the black wing waved and the bullet was lost to his sensors. Sparks exploded across Bryan's vision. It seemed to the human side of Bryan's brain as if, once again, the lead projectile had been somehow repelled…lost into an entirely different universe.

There was a flash of white teeth on a grinning face, an expression far to wild to be Dragunov's. An arm, clad in a tan sleeve and a black glove, cast itself into the red and was lost. The smile grew broader.

Several times more, Bryan pulled the trigger of his gun, solely focused on the goal of restraining his target by any means, no matter how damaging. His desperate efforts had no effect; it was as if he hadn't picked up the gun to begin with.

"I swear to god, Dragunov, you won't leave here alive!" He yelled at the fading, flickering image of red and black and white that taunted him with each swirling movement that it made; each graceful, effortless step into the haze.

Then there was a flicker of a gray, scarred tongue and a glitchy, alien voice was filtered through Bryan's half-crushed audio receptors.

"How could god mean so much to you that you would swear on it with such passion? Do you give even a single thought to your words, machine-man? Offspring of science?"

"Shut the fuck up, you fuckin' monster!" Bryan fired at Dragunov one last time, accomplishing nothing. But the edges of the cyborg's vision were just beginning to mend, returning to clarity. The perpetual generator in his body was undoing the damage, bit by bit. Still, he could hardly see the strange figure in front of him and the lake beyond.

"Monster?" The air cried out, cutting between Dragunov's accented speech and a second voice, strangely…female.

"In _this_ place, you are the monster," the voices said. "What good has technology done here?"

A second arm whipped through the air with the black wing trailing behind and faded into nothing. What remained of the figure that Bryan could hardly see was flickering into blank red. Bryan pulled the trigger but realized that he was out of ammunition.

"Don't even try to run away, you mother-fucking-!"

Bryan stopped speaking as, suddenly, his vision returned. Now he could see everything around him just as clearly as before the fight began. As the cyborg stood up, he realized that his perpetual generator had completely repaired him. He felt good as new, but…

"Where the _hell_ did you go?!"

Scanning above, below and across for any sign of his enemy, all he could find was a line of faint, fresh footprints trailing backwards into the red lake beyond. There was nothing else left. No trace.

Desperate, Bryan ran to a tree at the edge of the field and began to climb it. Its dead, black limbs could barely support his mechanical weight, but it was tall enough to give him a vantage point over the area. His artificial eyes zoomed in on the opposite shore of the lake, and there, crouching at its edge, was the same man he had been shooting at moments ago, as if perfectly reflecting his original position.

Then the man stood up and ran off into the forested tangle of wilderness beyond, lost, even to Bryan's heat and motion sensors.

"Dammit!"

Bryan ran for the truck he had parked across the field, determined to catch up. He couldn't let his target slip away like this. No one, not even Yoshimitsu, had ever humiliated him in a fight quite like this. He hauled himself up into his vehicle, jammed his keys into the ignition, and blazed towards the nearest street.

And across the lake, a long, black boot slid into place at the side of a long, black motorcycle, and a ghostly silent engine sped off down a desolate, lakeside road, heading for the Chelyabinsk military base.

Bryan would have a difficult time catching his prey.

**Again, please review! I would love to hear what you have to say. (And if I get enough reviews, I may write a follow-up car/motorcycle chase scene...)**


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