Chapter 6: Hell Hath No Fury notes
June 6, 1998

Shortest "Phoenix Reborn" chapter yet, at a mere 24 pages... in
fact, it's right around the length of an "Ashes" chapter. I could have
put more into it, but the story of Jin/Heihachi/Xiaoyu really fit
together as a narrative unit; it would have felt extraneous to switch
over to Nina/Anna waking up. Anyway, the short length of this
chapter helped me finish it quickly, but I'd like to pick up the pace
even more over the summer... I want to get at least another 6
chapters done before school starts, if I can.

I retroactively decided that Part I: Absorption ended with Ch. 5,
and this is the beginning of Part II: Convocation. It works because
Part I did its job in establishing all the main chars (including at
least one piece each from the perspective of the 9 major chars who
get to tell their stories in first person). Part I has also pretty much
maxed out its length of 150-160 pages, which is as long as the
longest of the five sections of "Ashes." "Convocation" begins the
section that describes how all the characters who don't already
know each other come together & meet for the Tournament...

It took me a while to think of a title for Ch. 6; I threw out useless
ideas like "Rising Tide" and "Thorns of Memory" (ffft). "Hell Hath
No Fury" [Like a ___'s Scorn] worked because I'm letting the
reader fill in the blank after the famous quote... there is a *whole*
lot of scorn going on here. Not to mention a young woman who
kicks ass like you wouldn't believe. :)

The epigraph is a quote from a Tempest Magic card. Crovax is a
good guy who's an Uborg nobleman and happened to be black and
had an enslaved angel protecting his family only he set her free and
she flew away and monsters murdered his family and he joined a
crew of heroes for revenge and Selenia (the angel) got trapped by a
Helm of Possession to work for the bad guys and when Crovax had
to kill her he became cursed and turned into a bloodsucking
vampire. No, really. He's even a Magic card, "Crovax the Cursed,"
who counts as a Vampire.

Whereas the Segmented Wurm is just this big fat creature, 5/5 for a
mere five mana, who becomes smaller (put a -1/-1 counter on him)
if he's targeted by any spell or effect.

List of things taken directly from Namco's storyline/rendered
movies:
  -Xiaoyu taking Panda to school with her (a la the Kuma/Panda
TK3 ending)
  -Lei's TK3 ending (training at the Temple of Light)
  -name of Xiaoyu's school
  -Heihachi's title of King of the Iron Fist
  -Heihachi's reason for renewing the Iron Fist Tournament (to lure
the Toshin)
  -Heihachi personally inviting Lei into the Tournament (& Lei
saying that it's fate)
  -Heihachi's hobby of meditation
  -Xiaoyu's TK3 intro scene (going berserk on Heihachi's boat)
  -that Heihachi's boat has the name of his syndicate on it
  -that Jin's blood type is AB
  -Jin's TK3 intro scene (branded by his Devil side)

List of creative liberties that directly contradict Namco's storyline
(like I CARE!):
  -that Heihachi doesn't deserve to be called King of the Iron Fist
  -that Lei's "believer in fate" schtick is a lie
  -that Xiaoyu wasn't "vacationing with her family" when she snuck
on Heihachi's boat
  -that Heihachi actually sees Xiaoyu kick ass
  -that Heihachi is not "roaring with laughter" about Xiaoyu's
request (my Heihachi is more ill-tempered than that; he wouldn't
roar with laughter unless he scored a *major* victory of some
kind)
  -that Jin received his shoulder-scar from the Toshin, not the Devil

I haven't seen you alllll weekend!
   -it's actually Tuesday morning, but the interviewer spend most of
Monday resting & preparing for his big date with Anna. ^_^ BTW,
Xiaoyu's school classes usually last from around 8:00 a.m. to 5:00
p.m. (a la the Kuma/Panda ending).

Panda won't bite you, I know she won't, she never bites people
unless they're mean to her, I promise.
  -just don't get in a fight with the big freakin' bear... this based on,
but not quite the Kuma/Panda ending per se, which is a bit too silly
and anthropomorphic for me to write in (besides, it takes place
when Xiaoyu is walking home from school).

Yeah, I'm on my medicine. I have to take it during the day so I can
sit still at school. You didn't know? I thought I told you last time- 
  -Xiaoyu's description of what it's like to be on Ritalin vs. off it is
very loosely based on some stuff I read about AD(H)D. I originally
didn't think I'd have any more interviews from Xiaoyu's POV, but
she surprised me - turns out the interviewer figured he'd be safe as
long as he talked to her during the day. ^_^ It's kind of a nice
middle ground to write her on medication - I still have the freedom
of run-on sentences and don't need to bother looking up nice long
adjectives or whatever, but her dialogue & narratives aren't quite so
out-of-control. And it works nice to contrast the calmer Xiaoyu
here with the hyperactive hellion on Heihachi's boat...

Ever think it's weird that the syndicate has so many zombies in it?
   -this is something that jumped out at *me* whenever I looked at
my outline and counted up how many characters were either dead
or had come that close to it by the time of the interviews...

Except when Lei Wulong Super Police came to visit for over half a
year, like late spring through the beginning of winter
  -I think the biggest personal reason why Xiaoyu's perspective
went back in was 'cause it gave me a chance to write in Lei's TK3
ending, whee! I think Lei's ending is the most visually gorgeous of
all the TK3 endings. Like his TK2 ending, it has almost nothing to
do with his storyline (so Lei's training - so what? What happened to
Bruce? Did Lei find out that Bruce really is dead in a ditch, or
what?), but unlike his TK2 ending, Lei really gets to look cool and
show off.

BTW, the seasons in Lei's TK3 ending are out of order (spring -
winter - fall) unless you assume it takes place over the course of
more than one year. I'm leaving the seasons out of Xiaoyu's ending,
though, 'cause he probably did all those various training exercises
all the way through late spring, summer, fall, and early winter of
his six-month stay.

he'd lean back like he was dancing and his big long ponytail would
fan out all feathery and pretty.
  -this is me talking, Lei's hair is just absolutely gorgeous in his
TK3 ending. In the TK3 game it looks like he dipped it in whatever
gel Kazuya used to have. Also, TK3 for the PSX is missing one
thing from the arcade version - King's stage doesn't have wind. In
the arcade, you could see it blow Lei's ponytail (also Nina's
ponytail, and maybe King's tail) but on the PSX the air is dead. Too
bad.

Grandmaster Seung Mina - Grandmistress Seung Mina? - I'm not
sure how to translate her title, she was just in charge
  -I'm not sure exactly what Seung Mina's title would be either...
she holds roughly the same position that Master Wu once had
when he ran the Temple and Liu Kang/Kung Lao were his students.
So would that be Master Seung Mina? Mistress Seung Mina?

"Save your self-righteous prattle," Heihachi snorted. "I have given
my word."
  -specifically, Heihachi promised the kid's parents that their boy
would be returned safe & sound. The kid's family were dirt poor
and only too happy to do the world-famous Heihachi a favor for
lots o' money...

"You no King of Iron Fist. You no beat old champion! Your son
Kazuya was old champion; where you when we all fight him in
Great Invasion? You hide when rest of us fight and die! You hide
when Lei Wulong challenge Kazuya to single combat!"
  -this is, of course, 100% my storyline, when Namco's official
storyline :-P sez that Heihachi came back in TK2 to kick Kazuya's
ass. But my Heihachi was more cautious, and yes, SCARED of his
only son; who knows whether he would ever have come down off
the mountainside if our heroes hadn't driven back the Great
Invasion. I figure there's a minor obligation to gloss over how
Heihachi can be King of the Iron Fist even though he didn't defeat
Kazuya. Because Heihachi is a bastard pretender, that's why. 

"You no deserve title; you just pretend it yours after war over!"
  -Heihachi is not exactly lying, though; he is the King of the Iron
Fist on a technicality. The official TK2 Tournament ended
prematurely with the Great Invasion, and so Kazuya _technically_
died outside of the Tournament. With no one _officially_ defeating
Kazuya within the Iron Fist, the title automatically reverted to its
previous holder, Heihachi. Heihachi isn't going to argue
technicalities with Seung Mina though (it would make him look
bad) and she's more or less on the money with her accusation.

What did he ever do to her? He didn't even sound like he knew her.
  -Heihachi and Seung Mina have never personally met before.
Heihachi wouldn't particularly care who Seung Mina is, but Seung
Mina knows all about Heihachi through her friendship with Lei
Wulong. Hence her extreme contempt of Heihachi.

"but your Death shall come by your own hand, even as it came to
your sons by theirs! You shall strike yourself down in wretched
ignominy, fulfilling the curse of the House Mishima!"
  -the curse of the House Mishima is not exactly a direct spell that
can be disenchanted or whatever (at least, not so far as any sorcerer
can ascertain). It's a disturbing legend. Some say Jinpachi Mishima
committed a horrible crime when he was in the Japanese army in
WW II, bringing the curse on his house; some say the curse has
been around for long before that.
  The curse of the House Mishima is self-destruction. That those
who become part of the house will kill themselves, or act in a way
that they know will kill them. Jinpachi took his own life when he
could no longer bear what his son & grandson had become.
Heihachi's wife died when she did something she knew would
incur Heihachi's murderous wrath (details to be explained near the
end of the story). Lee betrayed his brother knowing he'd die for it.
Kazuya killed himself. Jun sacrificed herself to banish the Toshin.
And the story ain't over yet... (if you think of Wang as part of the
House Mishima, then he does also give up his life here, but he was
already dying.)

Re: the death of Wang Jinrey... Namco is sort of ambiguous about
whether Wang Jinrey is dead. Namco's storyline does mention that
Xiaoyu is Wang's distant relative and they knew each other, so
Wang definitely survived TK2 (and let through Jun to meet Kazuya
for a hot date. :) Did the Toshin murder Wang? It does have a
couple of Wang's moves; on the other hand, the Toshin also has
Anna's/Armor King's moves when we know they're alive. 
   I'm writing this the way it is (started setting it up in Ch. 3, when
Wang told Lei about his weakened heart) because I think it's
believable - I like the old man, but he is 104 by now. And I want to
add a little emotion & humanity to Xiaoyu's character; everyone
else is going to suffer before the story's over, she shouldn't be left
out. It feels right that Wang would sacrifice the last of his life force
in an attempt to warn Heihachi, even as he once tried to warn
Kazuya and Lee. Sadly, it's as futile an effort here as it was on
Kazuya (but Wang's prophecies did eventually get through to Lee,
when combined with the effects of Kazuya's mayhem and Jun's
strength of will...)

I know there are ways to make a person breathe, make his heart
beat even if his body gives up on its own, I even know how to do
it, why weren't they doing it?
  -because Wang made them promise they would not (the "special
measures" or "extreme measures" he wanted them to avoid). Which
is why the dramatic tension of the moment isn't taken in an
extraneous direction by attempts at CPR.

I ran after the footprints. I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and I never,
ever went back.
  -I just liked this closing line as a parallel to Hwoarang's departure
from the Temple.

'Mishima Industry Senior Specialty School,' isn't that a funny
name?
  -I looked up the kanji for the school name in the Kuma/Panda
ending. Took me like half an hour, too. 

The linguists have served me well. It is regrettable that they must
be killed.
  -this entire deal about Heihachi axing 20 nameless linguists
worked itself in close to spontaneously. It was completely in
character, and it served as a nice example just in case anyone had
doubts that yes, Heihachi IS an evil bastard (who has still done
some good things; who sez evil people are allowed to do only evil
things? Not me! :). This will not the last to be heard about the poor
linguists - although Heihachi did a good job of making it look like
an 'accident,' Lei Wulong has been watching the Mishima
syndicate closely, and he knows better...
  Jin has heard about the 'accident,' but he's too naive to think that
anything other than unfortunate chance caused it. Jin can't see any
blood on Heihachi's hands because Heihachi doesn't feel any guilt
for the murders (or any of the countless other murders he has
committed/arranged); to Heihachi's POV, the murders were
"necessary" and therefore guilt is irrelevant. Although Heihachi is
not a complete sociopath, he is close enough to fool Jin as long as
he's careful - and he's _always_ careful.
  BTW, I took an intro linguistics course at my last college, too.
That was several years ago, though...

The next whole sequence of events is tweaked around to fit in my
timeline. Namco's storyline sez Xiaoyu was on vacation in Hong
Kong with her family when Heihachi was inviting Lei Wulong to
TK3, ans Xiaoyu sneaked on Heihachi's boat, and Heihachi
returned to find all his people smacked into the deck. My Xiaoyu is
severely estranged from her family though; the one member she
was close to was Wang Jinrey, whom she just lost...

Well, it's already been established in previous chapters that
Heihachi invited Lei by December 1st, but didn't get home until
after December 4th, and if Xiaoyu sneaks on Heihachi's boat while
Heihachi's with Lei, then Heihachi must have (unwittingly) picked
up Xiaoyu in the Temple of Light before he talked to Lei. And my
Heihachi can go anywhere he wants real quick by hoverjet anyway,
why bother with a boat? Okay, okay, let's make sense of this...

Heihachi goes to the Temple of Light first because he wants Liu
Kang to participate. Check. They refer Heihachi to Lei Wulong,
whom Heihachi hasn't already invited because Heihachi HATES
Lei Wulong. Check. So, what's Heihachi doing on a boat? Why's it
take him several more days to pick up Xiaoyu (and Namco's
storyline sez Xiaoyu was discovered almost as soon as she stepped
on board?) Answer: 'cause Heihachi needs time to figure out what
he's gonna do about his grandson, and he wants to think it all
through nice & far away from where Jin might telepathically listen
in. Jin is actually capable of tuning into Heihachi's thoughts from
this distance, but not accidentally so - and Heihachi has forbidden
Jin to ever contact him through long-distance telepathy, barring the
most extreme emergencies.

that his malignancy had spread to his lymph and lungs
  -we learned about the lymphatic system in Anatomy class. Its
capillaries are highly permeable, and so it is vulnerable to
spreading antigens of any kind, including cancer cells. Which is
why it has lots of lymph nodes and helper organs (i.e. the spleen)
designed especially to kill antigens and keep the lymph healthy
until it's returned to the blood, all clean and ready to go. So Lei's
lymph system is how his cancer spread to his lungs, and the cancer
in his lungs is what's making him hack & wheeze so much.

He says that it must be fate. I know that he is lying.
  -I hate hate hate Namco's schtick about Lei signing up for TK3
because he's a "believer in fate," just like I hate Namco's Jun
serving herself to the Toshin on a silver platter because she thinks
it's her "day of judgement." Out, _out_, OUT throw it ALL out it's
too irritating for words. My Lei has a much better reason - he
knows about the Toshin, and he has a son to protect (Namco's Lei
is just sort of following a hunch and an idea about chasing after
missing street fighters, including Bruce Irvin, whom he believes is
still alive...)
  So, when my Lei says that it must be fate, it's a cover story. He
knows why he's really entering, and Heihachi knows why he's
really entering, but Lei has *never* been one to reveal all the cards
in his hand if he can help it...

I should dock at the next port and return to the syndicate
headquarters by hoverjet
  -Re: Heihachi's hoverjets. The hoverjets are something I made up,
when Namco's rendered movies actually show the syndicate using
lots of helicopters... I figure they have both. The hoverjets are more
state-of-the-art, and a lot faster than helicopters, but they're also
MUCH more expensive, not quite as maneuverable and still more
difficult to land/take off. But when Heihachi wants to fly from
Hong Kong to Japan in a day, he just hops on a private hoverjet.
^_^

Fight scene! Xiaoyu's BIG fight scene! In fact, this may well be her
only chance to really show off her repertoire (before the Toshin
returns, anyway) so here I go into detail about (almost) all her best
moves! TK3 for my PSX is a *big* help...

Start with the Xiaoyu scene from the TK3 intro movie - which
really does have her vs. a black guy & a white guy, go figure. I say
that because of Jin's influence, Heihachi does suffer to hire non-
Japanese, but only as lower-ranking drones. BTW, Heihachi is
actually writing his journal in Japanese, but the interviewer has
done enough research on him to know that he used the archaic term
"Negro" (also the technical term "Caucasoid") when speaking
about races in English, hence the translation. Heihachi would use
the word "Negro" 'cause he's like my grandmother in that it was the
polite/accepted word when he was growing up... (my grandmother
really is like this. "It's the polite word," she sez. She's not
bigoted/racist like Heihachi, though; she's just sort of stuck in her
way of talking.)

Anyway, Xiaoyu starts off with her moves from the TK3 intro
movie: after getting a boost from the chair and table, she does her
Front Layout (f, f+3+4) and since she's jumping over a guy (not on
top of him) she doesn't twist around while in midair. Instead, she
lands and does her Mistrust kick (4 with back turned). I don't think
you can juggle 'em after the Mistrust with her Storming Flower
(d/b+1) in the game 'cause her kick recovery time is too long, but
that's what it shows in the movie. She automatically does a False
Salute taunt (1+3+4) after a counterhit with the Storming Flower in
the game, and she can do it anytime she wants anyway, so I wrote it
in.

More fighting after Heihachi catches up with her! I thought her
intro movie scenes, although nice, were a bit limited, so now I have
her up against four enemies. She hits Shiina with her So Shoe Me
throw (F+2, 1) which actually does almost NO damage (4 pts out
of a lifebar of around 120), but she does kick you in the back of the
head hard enough to make you stagger. Besides, these are
Heihachi's drones; like the Tekkenshu of Tekken Force, they have
shorter lifebars. ^_^ 

Then Xiaoyu flips back with her Front Layout again, but this time
she's doing it from the right distance with her back turned, which
means she scores the two-hit perch-and-smack on a guard. (BTW
this might've been my first choice for a potentially lethal move, but
when I look closer she's just smacking her enemy on the forehead,
not the larynx... head blows can still kill a person, but...) She hits
him hard enough to take him out of the picture, then uses her
Sunset Fan (d+1) to attack a guard and end in her Phoenix Stance.
Actually, the Sunset Fan momentarily leaves her in her Butterfly
stance (like the Phoenix Stance except that she's ducking even
lower, you can otherwise get it by tapping down during the
Phoenix Stance) before it returns to the normal Phoenix Stance,
hence Heihachi's description. Now for the shuan ze spinning kicks
("Flower Power," u+4, 4 when in Phoenix Stance); I even got a
request to write these in, although I was planning to do so from the
start.

There's the third guy to take care of. Well, Xiaoyu has her back
turned to him, so she takes advantage of her Hop 'n Throw (f,
f+1+2 or f, f+3+4 with back turned). This move has her scoot
around enough that it often ends up in a side throw, so it happens
to result in the more vicious-looking of her side-throws - the Arm
Flip (from the opponent's left side). You really hear a <crash> in
the game when she smacks you into the floor with that one.

And now, back to Shiina. When he tries to shoot her, she dodges
with her California Roll (f+3+4 with back turned) into a four-hit
combo - her Cyclone handspring kick (3+4 during the California
Roll) to a Dark and Stormy -> Mistrust chain juggle (2, 1, 4 with
back turned). This combo is actually pretty tricky to get in the
game; you might have to hop closer to your falling opponent in
order to get all three juggle hits in, but it can be done. Practice
mode is great for stuff like this. ^_^ Xiaoyu celebrates with her
third victory pose, which is like a cross between a martial arts form
and a dance; what can I say, it seemed like the most enthusiastic of
her win poses.

"I really did catch up with you I've been looking so hard followed
you right down the mountain snuck on one of your jets followed
your boat alllll around Hong Kong just got on board when it
docked borrowed some of your food hope you don't mind I was
really hungry"
  -Xiaoyu has been chasing after Heihachi & his boat for five days
now (Nov. 30 - Dec. 4). She was able to get off the mountain
quickly by sneaking on one of his hoverjets, but it wasn't the one
with Heihachi on it (he'd brought an entourage, only to realize that
he'd have to confront the Temple alone anyway). But when Xiaoyu
fixes her mind on something, she hyperfocuses, so she persevered.
She didn't have any money, so she's been pickpocketing food from
Heihachi's servants/picking up scraps thrown out of restaurants for
these past few days. 

Order them to commit suicide? No, to Jin's contaminated way of
thinking that would be no better than an honorless execution.
  -To Heihachi's way of thinking, ordering someone to kill
themselves really is a far kinder punishment than just executing
them, 'cause it lets them die with their honor atoned for. But Jin is
a nice guy whose mommy taught him that life is sacred, and to him
dead is dead no matter who does the killing (although he is
conceptually aware of Heihachi's point of view, just as Heihachi is
conceptually aware of Jin's.)

"It would seem that one of your blows broke his neck. Most likely
the handspring kick."
  -Xiaoyu's Cyclone kick struck me as the most potentially lethal of
her moves outside any other head blow. I thought about having her
Mistrust kick kill Shiina (you kick someone hard enough in the
head and there *is* chance they'll die from it, even if you don't
crack open their skull), but the Cyclone kick has more sheer power.
Also, her use of it is closer to accidental, and in immediate self-
defense. Besides, her Mistrust kick doesn't reach *that* high, I'm
not so sure it would've hit Shiina's head.

"I'll WRECK EVERYTHING I'LL WRECK EVERYTHING I
WANNA AMUSEMENT PARK-"
  -well, Namco's storyline does say that Xiaoyu threatened to go
berserk again if Heihachi didn't give her an amusement park... but I
want my Xiaoyu to have SOMETHING resembling a brain, which
is why she first tries to negotiate (whoever wins your Tournament
gets their greatest desires, right? So put me in your Tournament
and I'll win it!), it's only when the shock gets to her that she breaks
down and starts really screaming.

"I must remember to send a message to the Temple of Light."
  -The Temple of Light has been quite frantic about their missing
little girl, but with Liu Kang & Wang Jinrey gone there was no one
to cast a locating spell, and their first worry was that Xiaoyu was
lost somewhere in the winter cold. They were, for the most part,
still searching the mountainside when they got Heihachi's message
that she had entered the Tournament. It did NOT make them feel
better (Seung Mina especially is desperately worried about what
Heihachi might do to Wang's beloved niece, and has sent Lei
Wulong a message begging him to please, please look after her. Lei
will eventually confront our favorite pixie heroine again...)

"Very well, Miss Ling."
  -all right, all right, Ling is her last name... I can accept that... I still
have an impossibly hard time thinking of Lei, Lee, or Wang as last
names. Which why I just skirt the whole issue; it's never *said*
explicitly that these are the characters' first names because all right,
all right, technically they're not. They're just the names my chars
tend to go by a lot, because. Because they're emblazoned on their
video game lifebars okay? Emblazoned just like everyone else has
their first name emblazoned in their bars. So even if Lei is a last
name, it must be the name he usually uses with his friends if it's
stuck in the lifebar a la "Kazuya," "Bryan," or "Jun," right? Ah,
ffft...

My blood type is technically AB positive
 -Jin's AB blood type is from Namco's data on him. Namco also
had Jun & Kazuya both with AB blood, as a hint they'd get
together - the Japanese are sort of big on matching people by blood
type, it's like compatibility via astrology signs here. BTW,
Heihachi has type B blood, so Kazuya's mommy must've been type
A or AB. I figured that the Rh factor was positive just because.
Anyway, Jin's blood type is naturally the "universal recipient,"
which couldn't be safely transfused to a non-AB positive even if it
weren't for his Power. And because of his Power, there's something
in his blood that would causes clotting or worse when mixed with
anyone else's. Sub-Zero is currently trying to figure out exactly
what it is (it's probably tied into Jin's hyper immune system, which
would viciously attack anything nonself - it's doubtful that Jin
could ever successfully receive an organ transplant from anyone).

He's also a sorcerer with an innate Power over cold - gods, his lab
is like a frost dragon's lair - a veteran of the Great Invasion, and an
old friend of my father Wulong. Well, a sort of a friend. It's a
lengthy story.
  -Sub-Zero isn't going to show up personally - I probably won't
even refer to him by name - but I guess he had to become sort of a
background semi-legendary figure too, as a slight tribute to his
massive popularity in "Ashes." It's also natural that Lee & Julia
would turn to him for help, through Lei's old contacts (especially
Seung Mina). They can't go to Boskonovitch 'cause he's busy trying
to cure himself & his daughter, and they wouldn't trust Abel. And
of course, Sub-Zero would be just delighted to study Jin like he
studied Lei alive & Kazuya post-mortem...

Gods, she really did look like a Christmas present. Right down to
the shiny giftwrap and the ribbon.
  -this is *my* take on Xiaoyu's Wu Shu Tournament-style outfit...
gag me with a spoon. I'll describe it at length here because it exists,
but for the rest of the fanfic, she's pretty much going to be wearing
her school uniform.

I wanna play games like dart-balloons and ball-toss and goldfish-
catch,
  -I used to really like dart-balloons and ball-toss at the carnival that
comes to my town once a year. Goldfish-catch (with the paper nets)
seems to be a favorite Japanese carnival game; at least, I see it all
the time in anime (Ranma 1/2, Kimagure Orange Road). 

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to tell you who Shiina was."
  -sort of the antidote to Star Trek's nameless redshirt syndrome. I
hate redshirt syndrome. BTW, Shiina is the name of the doctor in
Takahashi's "Mermaid Forest" - in the manga he lives, but in the
anime he immolates himself on his loved one's funeral pyre.
*Fwoosh*. "Shiina" is pronounced close enough to the Japanese
verb for death that I figure it's a good enough name for a cannon
fodder character.

"You heard me. When you use her for your pleasure, take
precautions."
  -Heihachi wants Xiaoyu to, ah, "distract" Jin, but he also wants
the doomed dynasty to end with Jin's tainted blood... so if Jin were
to impregnate a girlfriend, Heihachi would have her killed. 

He slowly kneeled across from me, back straight, arms folded
sternly in front of his chest.
  -Heihachi's fourth victory pose, of course; he also kneels like this
in front of Xiaoyu earlier.

"It was your Power that induced this latest debacle, wasn't it? You
lost control of the forces inside you. Again."
  -this is the exact moment when Heihachi fully comes to grips
with the realization that Jin's Power, like Kazuya's, is so dangerous
that Jin must be destroyed...

although subject's sleep/wake circadian rhythms
  - "circadian" is a word from my Psychology textbook; it refers to
anything on a 24-hour cycle, like little insect chirping calls...

And last of all, I work in Jin's TK3 intro scene as a nightmare... in
my storyline, the Devil that possessed Kazuya is long since sucked
into the Black Abyss. The Devil apparition that confronts Jin is not
a separate, spiritual possessor, but rather a piece of his own
subconscious. There is a lot more, probably easy to figure out for
anyone who's seen Jin's TK3 ending, but I'm going to have fun
playing around with hints as the interviewer talks to first Julia, then
Lee about this. The full situation will be completely disclosed at
the very end of the story (this is the "changed ending" that I'm
reworking into the outline...)

<No more matches found.>
<Search again? [y/n]> 
  -this is the sort of stuff I see on the screen when I run the Search
function in my Compton's Encyclopedia, hehheh... it worked pretty
well for the obligatory off-format text piece. :)

Next chapter: Nina/Anna's bloody revival, Jin literally runs into
Julia, and Hwoarang's back, he's bad, he's ready for a rematch...

Chapter 7: Lambs to Slaughter notes
June 26, 1998

28 pages in 20 days... oh well, I think I am getting faster but not as
fast as I'd like to be. Hopefully Ch. 8 will be quicker.

The title was originally "Slaughterhouse" in the outline, but I liked
the metaphor better (even if it is a cliche); almost none of the
action really takes place in a "house," while a lot of innocent
people are led to slaughter (this will probably be the goriest chapter
of the story. Except maybe for when the Toshin returns in person...
maybe. :)

I liked "The Last Unicorn" movie better than the book, but both are
quite excellent. And in this case, there are at least two very
dangerous immortals... you probably are best off not so much
running from Nina or Hwoarang as moving slowly away, at least
until you're out of sight. Perhaps Immortals are so accustomed to
the relative stillness of time that they are immediately drawn to
anything that moves...

List of things taken directly out of Namco's storyline/rendered art:
  -Nina's revival/coldsleep chamber in the TK3 intro movie
  -that Nina awakens from coldsleep because she's possessed by the
Toshin  
  -that Anna also wakes up, but isn't possessed by the Toshin
  -that Nina seems not to remember her sister
  -that Toshin-Nina is driven to assassinate Jin Kazama
  -the Heihachi/Toshin scene from the TK3 intro movie 
  -all that stuff about the "secret treasure" medallion of Michelle's
tribe being tied into the Toshin
  -Michelle's TK2 ending (transferred to Julia)
  -Michelle's TK1 ending (transferred to Julia)
  -that Japan's government denies Heihachi's citizenship (or used to,
anyway)
  -Michelle's TK1 intro movie scene (transferred to Julia)
  -Jin's lightning-fist pose (borrowed from the pic for the cover of
TK3 for the PSX)

List of things contradicting Namco's storyline:
  -Julia's reason for entering the Iron Fist Tournament (no
kidnapping)
  -that Julia, not Michelle, fetched the amulet outta the
water/brought it to Japan

I really didn't feel like picking out four more cannon-fodder
Japanese names, so instead I borrowed a tip from the "Key" anime
(about a robot girl and the eeeevil robot-building psychotic CEO
who's after her) and gave the techs letters: A, B, C, & D. And
explained it away by saying they're not even allowed to use their
real names (Heihachi is that paranoid/jealous of his syndicate's
developed technology). In the "Key" anime, Tech A was butchered
so his body could be processed into gel, techs B & C are the wimps
(but also accessories to repeated murder) who are gonna die by the
end of the series, I'm sure, and Tech D is the big mean psychotic
who I'll bet will die in a *particularly* spectacular manner.
   I tried to give my own techs something resembling different
personalities here, even though there was only three pages to do it
in. Tech A is the narrator (tune the bickering idiots out, just focus
on the job) Tech B is the overt racist, Tech C is the glasses-wearing
senior member/leader of the squad who tries to promote/enforce
harmony, and Tech D, well, he's pretty self-explanatory. He's the
tech that Nina interrogates before she rips open his throat.

A: For approximately twenty-one years and four months, cryogenic
unit Alpha has held two women in suspended animation: Nina
Williams, biological age 22, and Anna Williams, biological age 20. 
   -Anime is big on introducing characters along with their ages. In
the "Irresponsible Captain Tylor" anime (which is *hysterically*
funny) the main semi-hero introduces himself as "Justy Ueki Tylor,
age 20!" Well, I better not break with tradition...

A: Kotoku Tekkenshu Corps?
   -Okay, I looked up a map of Tokyo on the web
(http://www.openworld.co.uk/cityguides/tokyo/index.html).
Kotoku is an area of inner Tokyo that's just east of Ginza (where
Jin went shopping), which is in turn east of Shinjuku (which is
where the Mishima syndicate headquarters is). The Mishima
syndicate has lots of research labs and Tekkenshu bases and
whatever all over Tokyo; heck, Heihachi practically owns the deed
to the whole city. I couldn't have Nina/Anna preserved right inside
Jin's home 'cause that wouldn't make for as convoluted a plot...
Nina's got to have her BLOODY RAMPAGE THROUGH
TOKYO (hey, it works for Godzilla!). Besides, Heihachi would not
feel comfortable sleeping in the same building as the Silent
Assassin, even if she were frozen like a popsicle.

B: -don't understand this. Unit Alpha's atomic clock has
accelerated itself seventy-eight years and eight months forward;
how-?
  -my encyclopedia sez that atomic clocks are the most reliable
kind. Normally, the scientists couldn't fast-forward it because of
the countermeasures Lee has programmed (he really was a more
brilliant programmer than he'd ever admit) but the Toshin has both
godly Power and all of Lee's absorbed knowledge. And I did
calculate up on my little timeline exactly how long Nina/Anna had
been sleeping...

D: Hey, look - the blond's opening her eyes. <static> -one hot babe.
Do you think she'd go for me?
  -I changed my mind about ending this with death-screams a la the
Toshin Expedition log. There's more than enough blood later.
Much more fun just to set up tension with some ironic black
humor. Of course, it's also a reference to when Nina snaps open her
eyes in the TK3 intro movie (she looks like she'd go for a man, all
right. She looks like she'd go for his throat...)

All the main characters in the movie were Japanese, or at least,
they all had Japanese names. But they looked white. I'm serious;
didn't you see how pale their skin was? If that's ethnically Japanese
then I'm Shaka the Zulu. And their eyes weren't just round, they
were  exaggeratedly round like beach balls. Only the villains and
the one hero with a remote personality had anything resembling
Asian eyes. 
  -this is something that I wonder about, along with my friends. The
interviewer dismisses it as "creative license." I'm told that it's
actually because the Japanese animation industry took its cues from
Disney when it first got started. Oh, and Shaka the Zulu is this,
well, Zulu war chief/military genius. Bladerunner suggested the
reference saying that Anna would have been taught about him in
history class... Shaka's got an unflattering description in my
Compton's encyclopedia.

You appeared so pleased with it just last Monday-
  -it's Wednesday now. The interviewer spent most of the morning
resting up for his big afternoon date with Anna.

Mm. How did you know I like my espresso with extra cream?
  -c'mon. You just *know* Anna likes cream (and she works off
the calories with vigorous Aikido, among other activities. :)

+you would make an excellent ally.+
  -the Toshin isn't speaking in all caps here because it is much
weaker. Just the opposite now - it's speaking in all lowercase. 
  In my continuity, you need some form of consent/invitation
before you can possess a person. Nina isn't directly interviewed, so
she can't say in her own words how the Toshin lured her, but I
figure Anna's description pretty much gives the reader a good idea.
I need to explain why Anna doesn't wake up possessed, though -
she refuses the Toshin (but unit Alpha was programmed to awaken
both women simultaneously, so she gets up with Nina.)

I knew that to let it infiltrate me would bring blood and destruction.
  - "blood and destruction" is one of my favorite catchphrases from
the soul-gripping musical "Jesus Christ Superstar." "I see blood
and destruction/our elimination/because of one man"

The whole description of Anna's cryo capsule is of course taken
from the water-submerged thing holding Nina, in the TK3 intro
movie. Toshin-Nina just used her supernatural Power to blast her
way out; Anna was a little more on her own. BTW, unit Alpha was
something of a prototype; later, more refined cryo chambers were
much smaller so as to more economically store thousands of people
in "Ashes." And they were "dry," so that Lee put later people to
sleep fully clothed (which was how they could wake up dressed &
ready to kick ass. :)

Lee had put me to sleep in a paper-thin swimsuit with no bra
support.
  -I know, it's anime tradition to depict cryogenically frozen women
naked so the viewers can drool over their breasts, but my Lee left
his test subjects a little modesty, if only because it was distractingly
hard for him to concentrate on his work with naked women nearby.
:) Actually, I don't think I could cope with a naked Nina on the
rampage... that'd be just a little too much for me...

it covered more of her body than the black, two-piece swimsuit
plastered to her chest and hips.
  -Nina's bikini is actually the underpart of her red vest outfit. She'll
get the rest of it later.

Oh, I don't know why she didn't look like Tagami anymore; maybe
twenty years' watery immersion had washed away her disguise.
  -anything cryo didn't wash away was vaporized when the Toshin
possessed her.

I can't swim. I never learned. The only reasons I've ever gone to the
beach were to sunbathe and flirt with men.
  -well, I've never seen Anna swim - just sunbathing in her ending.
^_^

 Her blood-painted fingernails marked crimson stains on his white
lab coat.
  -Nina's fingernails are usually painted red in the game; here, it's
just a different red...

she _exhaled_ an evil purple mist, like a dragon breathing poison.
  -this is, of course, Nina's Evil Mist stun move (d, d/f, f, d/b+2+3).
Since she never had it before, I assume it's a new Power she gained
from the Toshin. Her other Powers as I've written 'em include the
ability to generate lethal blasts of energy, immunity to bullets,
supernatural strength...

There might be survivors; my mother saw at least one female
escape with her young. But if any of them still live today, then they
must have gone back to keeping a very low profile.
  -well, the phrase "kept a low profile" certainly described Reptile
in MK1. Anyway, even though Reptile's tribe was exterminated on
Earth, Alex's tribe still survives, in the Australian outback (Alex
managed to get a ride back there with Sub-Zero's help - he's lent
his aid in protecting her tribe's secret existence, in return for the
chance to study 'em). As for Gon, well, I suppose I could make him
one of Alex's kids, but in his manga he always seems to be sort of a
unique freak of nature. Anyway, Gon isn't slated to be in "Phoenix
Reborn" and I doubt any of my characters have met him. Jin
definitely hasn't...
   Alex was always so much more cooler than Gon anyway.

No clear memories, anyway... 
  -Kazuya's mommy bonded with her infant son via telepathic link.
He retained a very, very hazy impression of her from when he was
around 4 1/2 years old (which is when she died). 

Or else I would have contacted my grandfather; he abhorred being
so spoken to except in the most dire emergencies, but this surely
qualified.
  -this is probably a takeoff on Vlad Taltos' grandfather from the
books by Steven Brust - Vlad's "Noish-pa" also disapproved of
psionic communication except in an emergency.

Jin doesn't exactly do a running battering ram on Julia; in the
game, the characters are aware enough while running to duck their
heads and stick out their shoulders, while Jin does neither. Instead
he's as taken by surprise as she is. Which is why they both fall
down (and Julia isn't sent rolling from the impact...)

Framed in the baleful light of the full moon, I saw myself as an
attacking...
  -I found a spot on the web (http://saatel.it/users/lore/moon.html)
that'll show you what the moon looks like on any given day of
several centuries. And on December 5th, 2017, it really will be full
(well, 95% full, but close enough. :)

-hey, stand up and listen when I'm talking to you!
   -the interviewer's endurance was already strained when he ran the
five miles to Bryan's office; Bryan's threats were enough additional
stress to make him crumple to his knees & pass out. He didn't
actually stop breathing, though - he lost consciousness just before
Bryan crouched to check his heartbeat/respiration.

Mm-hm. You have a phobia.
  -the interviewer really doesn't like to ride about in limousines,
taxis, or such... which is why he turned down Xiaoyu's offer of taxi
money in Ch. 6.

I'm sure Lee and I could set you up with an experienced specialist
in desensitization-
  -desensitization is a behaviorist technique I learned about in
Psychology; it's very useful for treating phobias. Basically, you're
gradually acclimated to whatever you fear. If you're scared of
spiders, you go from looking at a picture of a spider to a rubber
spider to letting a tarantula walk on your hand. The opposite of
desensitization is flooding (chuck you in a pit full of live spiders),
which unfortunately hasn't worked on Ranma's fear of cats...

when a body is murdered, its bladder and sphincter muscles relax,
adding foulness to cruelty.
  -this nasty truth about death is reiterated in pretty much every
book Joel Rosenberg ever wrote. Julia is clinical enough that I
figure she can mention it here...

Julia's dream is, of course, the TK3 intro movie scene featuring
Heihachi and Toshin. The scene has already taken place in Mexico;
it's just being replayed into Julia's mind. At first I didn't know what
I'd write for Julia's dream - just something that would help hook
her into the Iron Fist Tournament. But after watching my Tekken
animation tape around ten zillion times, I'm beginning to really
have fun stealing & incorporating as many little movie scenes as I
can into my story.

When I looked up, I could see no sun, moon, or stars; an black
overcast blotted the entire sky.
  -the Toshin's presence tends to screw with weather patterns and
turn the sky black, sometimes even for a day or two if there isn't
enough wind to clear the overcast. Which is why Julia's dream is
dark (a la the TK3 intro movie) even though the log of Heihachi's
arrival is right around noon local time. Okay, okay, so I wrote the
prologue to Ch. 1 before I had the chance to see the TK3 intro
movie, all right!? :)

I didn't think of him as a man at all. In the drifting context of my
dream, he was closer to a dragon - and I don't mean a divine
creature of Asian legend; I mean the dragon Smaug.
  -this is me talking. *I* see Heihachi as a great grey,
anthropomorphic dragon, always have since TK2. BTW, Smaug
was the mightiest of all dragons in Tolkien's fantasy novel "The
Hobbit." Julia is quite familiar with Tolkien's work - she used to
love reading it as a little girl - and I think I'll have her quote a few
Smaug lines from "The Hobbit" when she meets Heihachi face to
face. The allegory is fitting for one more reason, which I won't
reach until close to the very end.
  I still have my collection of dragon-art cards from the "Middle
Earth" CCG; but it's missing a few cards from later sets 'cause I
think the game died out and I had too many other interests to
follow, especially when I returned to college. The whole set really
did feature some gorgeous art, though.

BTW, when Heihachi appears in his Armani suit in Xiaoyu's
ending, he has this little piece of jewelry or whatever pinned to his
black body shirt. But he isn't wearing it in the TK3 intro movie, so
I don't mention it here... dunno what it is anyway, a big black opal
or something... it can't be Julia's medallion; it looks nothing like
what Michelle threw away in her TK2 ending.

Only when it could no longer extract any more value from your toil
would it consume your flesh.
  -well, Heihachi won't actually *eat* you. He'll just divvy up your
cadaver for organs, medical school fodder, and/or raw material for
his Cyborg Army...

The medallion's description, and the whole scene of Julia throwing
it away to protect her tribe, are of course adapted from Michelle's
TK2 ending movie. Which always was rather pretty, I think. 

Kazuya Mishima kidnapped me to get it. My daughter was wearing
it when Lee Chaolan murdered her; I had to bury it in her place,
because those monsters of the House Mishima fed her remains to
an animal!
  -my Kazuya was originally after the mysterious treasure of
Michelle's tribe just like Heihachi was, but he didn't know just
*what* the treasure was or what it could do any more than
Heihachi did. In fact, Kazuya was unaware of the medallion's
Power; he just wanted to ransom this "treasure" for money to fuel
his plans for a world utopia. Then he made a deal with the Shao
Kahn, and suddenly money wasn't so important anymore.
Michelle's mother might have fared worse if Ganryu hadn't fallen
"in love" with her. Ganryu asked Lee to arrange the Proving of
Michelle's mommy vs. himself; our favorite sumotori beat her
soundly, but didn't kill her (or even hurt her very much) and she
was put in cryo with everyone else...
   Michelle was wearing her pendant under her clothing when
Kazuya murdered her (yeah, she should've been searched before
she was imprisoned, but Baek was always pretty sloppy about
anything that didn't involve killing, plus she had beaten him up
rather badly). It gave her an extra reason to resist Kazuya's mind-
probe (she did NOT want him to find out about it) and may have
even helped her reflect it. The medallion was taken off her body
after her death (before she was fed to Kuma), but none of the
syndicate underlings recognized it for anything more than a shiny
piece of jewelry to put with Jun's bracelet and whatever else. The
medallion was returned to Michelle's mother after our heroes won
the battle for the Mishima syndicate.

It was sunset when I returned home. Grandmother was waiting for
me, reading in her rocking chair on the front steps of our humble
porch. I ran to her
  -this is of course Michelle's TK1 ending, adapted to Julia. One
difference: Julia isn't carrying a duffel bag.

...although curiously enough, there existed no verifiable record of
Heihachi's Japanese citizenship. Japan's government actually
denied that he originated within their country - or used to deny it,
before the Great Invasion; I had to really dig in order to learn this.
  -Heihachi's bio in my TK3 strategy guide really does list "Country
of Origin: Assumably Japan (though the Japanese Government
denies it)." Hmm... curious... I doubt that it'll actually have any real
impact on my story, but I thought it would be fun to write in.

For a char who started as a name given to a throwaway guy in the
Tobias MK1 komic, and who isn't even slated to personally appear
*in* this story, Catsclaw has surprised me twice: first when he
pointed out that he is still with the Outworld Investigation Agency
(it's why he isn't around either during the Toshin murder spree of
four years ago, or during the Iron Fist Tournament - he goes away
every now and again, off on missions to other worlds). Second,
when he pointed out that he can't afford to put Julia through
college - he's married now and has his own kids' higher educations
to fund (I changed this for the final draft).
  Heck, if Catsclaw were to show up in "Phoenix Reborn," I'd
probably just have him tell Julia "Hatred is not the answer. Do you
remember why I taught you the power to fight? It was to protect
Mother Earth, not to destroy..." ^_^

Namco's storyline sez that Michelle took her tribe's amulet to
Heihachi's syndicate in order to get to the bottom of whatever the
hell he was doing, and didn't come back (Heihachi kidnapped her),
so Julia's off to the rescue. Namco's storyline doesn't say how
Michelle fished her amulet out of the lake she threw it in - did she
go scuba diving or what?
  My version necessarily has to be different, what with my Michelle
being dead and all. So I just gloss over how "something evil" drew
the medallion out of the water. My Julia's motives for taking it to
the syndicate are closer to Namco's Michelle's motives than to
Namco's Julia's motives. I think the Chang family has suffered
enough kidnapping, though, so Julia's experience at the syndicate is
going to be a little different... 

Aside from the medallion, I had little idea what to take with me -
how does one pack to vanquish dragons? In the end, I just took a
change of clothes...
  -Loosely borrowed from Steven Brust's "Taltos": "How does one
pack for a trip to the Paths of the Dead?" (He might've saved
himself a lot of effort if he'd brought his vial in advance... but it
was a smart idea to take the kelsch leaves to keep himself awake.)
The "change of clothes" that Julia takes is her blue jeans outfit;
she's wearing her leather skirt outfit right now.

The true Iron Fist was already underway. Did they allow
contestants to join late? 
  -well, given Namco's arcade TK3 time-delayed hidden char
feature, I suppose they must (and Julia *is* a time-delayed hidden
char, after all. :)

Maybe I could just sort of sneak into the Tournament...?
  -Julia's Namco storyline really does say that she "sneaks into" the
Tournament; my version will be slightly different, though...

Everyone was so polite; it's amazing, I'd be wandering around
uncertainly when complete strangers would come up to me, bow
very slightly, and kindly offer directions.
  -I'm told this really does happen in Japan...

I wandered the streets for hours, checking prices in hotel after
hotel, and eventually I considered trying to take in a late-night
movie, just so I could sleep through the screening.
  -this is from Maison Ikkoku, where at one point Godai has
nowhere to spend the night and not enough cash for a hotel, so he
really does figure on maybe taking in a late-night movie instead...

I know that coincidental meetings often form a hallmark of anime
plots, but too many of 'em tend to grate on me. Okay, I fall back on
coincidence *once* - Jin's first encounter with Hwoarang was due
to chance. But Jin's meeting with Julia isn't pure chance, because
she was following the medallion's guidance, and Jin's second
meeting with Hwoarang isn't chance either - Toshin-Nina
rampaged through The Dragon's Tail for a reason, which will be
explicitly mentioned in Ch. 8.

His English was flawless, almost completely free of accent.
  -Jin doesn't normally practice his English that much, but it is
taught in his school, and even before then, he learned it from his
mommy's & daddy's memories. Which is why he speaks it as
fluently as they do. He's shifted into an English frame of mind from
his brief contact with Julia (she shouted to him in English), and
enough of that frame of mind is left in him (reinforced on account
of her nearby presence) that he accuses Hwoarang in English.
Hwoarang responds in kind rather than switch languages.
  This is, of course, a convoluted rationalization to explain why I
don't have to waste any effort having Jin or Hwoarang speak in
languages that Julia can't understand...

Whee! I finally get to do an in-depth description of Jin (neither
Heihachi nor Lei were inclined to go into extreme detail, 'cause Jin
was family and not a complete and total stranger to 'em) and his
cute high school uniform! Damned if I can make out what that
patch over his heart is supposed to be, though. 

didn't that building over there match my travel guide's picture of
Ginza's Bridgestone Museum of Art?
  -I dunno, but it's a famous building that my encyclopedia
mentions...

Julia's vault over a squad car is adapted from Michelle's TK1 intro
movie animation. Julia isn't quite as graceful as her mommy
though (and this isn't just creative licence; compare Julia's victory-
pose flip to Michelle's victory-pose flip, I dare you). The trade off
is that Julia is smarter than her mommy, and probably almost
everyone else in this story. Not necessarily wiser, but smarter.
  And Julia is most likely a bit more graceful than Jin, who just gets
hit by a car and uses sorcery to heal himself before charging on...

"Onna," she whimpered. "Oni no onna!"
  -this of course translates to "A woman. A devil woman!" not that
Julia knows it yet. I contemplated writing "Akuma no onna!" but
that could translate to "Akuma's woman" i.e. that Akuma and Nina
are sleeping with each other. Aieee... 

All right, time for the big FIGHT SCENE everyone's been waiting
for! Hwoarang normally takes his jacket off before he fights (it's
not a part of his black leather fighting outfit), but Jin's arrival kind
of surprised him, so Hwoarang uses it as a red herring now. Then
he nabs Jin with his Door Mat throw (d, d/b, b+3) and Jin's too
distracted to escape it.
  Jin responds with an attack that he doesn't have in the game - he
doesn't normally use it for fear of killing people/blowing stuff up,
but as the Fatal Lightning he's mad enough to pull out all the stops.
ZZZAP and this is now Jin's chance to lay into Hwoarang with a
ten-hit string! Specifically his b+2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 1+4, 2, d+3+4
string, which contains an eclectic mix of Kazuya & Jun moves.
Curiously enough, if both of the middle two 4s (the jumping &
ground helicopter kicks) connect, then the CPU training dummy
will be knocked down and not get hit with all the other moves. But
if the second 4 (the jumping helicopter kick) is blocked, then Jin's
opponent isn't knocked down, and I think it's possible to eat the
first three string hits and block the fourth.
  I *know* it's possible to eat the moves leading up to the final
d+3+4 jump kick and *still* block it (low block) before it hits,
leaving Jin wide open for retaliation. Jin can end this string with a
1 instead for a dragon punch, and it has an even longer delay for
his opponent to block, go figure. In fact, Jin's hybrid strings are
overall probably inferior to his Kazuya strings because his Kazuya
strings are so much more unstoppable once they get going. But I
already showed enough of Kazuya's strings in Ch. 23-24 of
"Ashes," why write in the same old stuff when there's so much
more cool new stuff. Besides, the opening at the end of Jin's string
gives Hwoarang the opportunity he needs to retaliate.
  BTW Namco seems to have a screwy idea of a what a combo is. It
calls Jin's hybrid 10-hit a combo, when you can ALWAYS start
blocking it at certain points (especially before the last hit). It's a
STRING, NAMCO! NOT A TRUE COMBO! A STRING!!!!

Hwoarang's turn. He uses a 5-hit juggle combo (a true combo, this
time) that is listed with his 10-hit strings in combo training mode:
Grand Theft (f+4, 4 in left stance), Screw Kick (f, F+4, 3), and Fire
Cracker (d+4, 4). Except that juggling people like beach balls is a
little too silly for me to write in, so I just have the initial kick as
stunning the #$%@ out of Jin instead of launching him 20 feet off
the ground...
 ...and when Hwoarang rushes in to finish Jin off (he's gong for his
Body Blow d/f+1+2, which is actually targeting Jin's head because
Jin isn't all the way up yet) Jin performs an attack reversal - the
most brutal-looking of his four, the leg-break he can do off an
enemy's left punch. *SNAP* Throw in about a zillion volts of
electricity, and Hwoarang ain't in the shape to fight back anymore...
no draw this time; Jin wins the rematch.

Jin let go of his broken leg and snarled his raptor hair with one
hand, wrenching his head and shoulders from the ground.
Hwoarang's arms dangled limp. His rot-brown eyes flickered open,
and he bared his pointed teeth in a grimace.
  -this is taken from a piece of airbrushed EGM cover art, which
shows Jin grabbing Hwoarang's hair (it's not completely the same,
but close enough).

Now let's stop here for a cliffhanger! Whee... hey, this is why I
only have six characters interviewed directly; it lets my readers
*wonder* whether the rest of 'em will live or die! (Yeah, right... :)

Next chapter: Lee and Jun climb the mountain of Toshin's psyche;
Jin learns the terrible truth about Hwoarang's curse...

Chapter 8: Slaves of Circumstance notes
July 25, 1998


It took me exactly a month to finish this one. At this rate, I'll be
done by around April 1999... while I can live with that, dammit, it
would be nice if I could learn to write faster... or at least, I hope
chapters won't slip back to being 2 months to write when college
starts again.

The title might have been more relevant if there had been room for
Bryan's interview, since as of Toshin-Nina's rampage Bryan is also
a slave - under the automatic control of the Mishima syndicate. I
think the title works well enough to combine Lee's and Hwoarang's
past history as slaves, though. 

I changed the epigraph to a more relevant quote just before the
final draft. We had to study the autobiography of Malcolm X in
high school or something, I think, and it remains a compelling
piece of work. There are some parts of it that cause me to raise an
eyebrow, though. I mean, one page Malcolm X is denouncing Jews
for "stealing money out of the ghetto" (i.e having the unmitigated
gall to run businesses in neighborhoods where no one else dares),
on the other he talks about a black pimp dying with $35,000 in his
hand. For someone who denounces white hypocrisy & racism so
fiercely (and there is plenty of white hypocrisy & racism to
denounce, I'm not arguing that) it's a shame to see his own
hypocrisy and racism illustrated so finely in his own words.

Malcolm X changed over the course of his life, though. I watched
the movie based on his autobiography when it was in the theaters,
and one of the things that riled me about the adaptation was that it
ran 3 hours, but didn't bother to see something all the way through
to the end. At one point, Malcolm X is accosted by a white girl
asking what she can do about racism & bad stuff/whatever, and he
says "Nothing." So far, this is roughly the same as the scene in the
book. But _in the book_ (well, its afterword) Malcolm X mentions
how he saw Peace Corps volunteers & such making a difference
during his trip to Africa (his Mecca, actually). He says that he
wishes he could find that girl again and tell her that yes, there is
something you can do. The movie never bothers to communicate
that thought of his - that _wish_ of his. And I know the
moviemakers actually read the afterword, 'cause they do include
the scene about him palming a bullet...

One final thought - the movie of Malcolm X's life is the most
eloquent argument against an anti flag-burning constitutional
amendment that I have ever seen. The image of a burning flag is
put to powerful artistic effect. Taking that effect away (i.e. making
it illegal to burn the American flag) really IS curtailing freedom of
speech, the freedom this movie has to convey a strong emotional
impact. You shouldn't need a movie to actually PROVE this, but
every so often people get so up in arms about this @#$% that they
forget how the freedoms the American flag symbolizes are so
much more important than the symbol itself...

List of things taken directly from Namco's Tekken
animations/storyline:
   -Lee's former hobby of hang gliding (it sez he liked paragliding
too, whatever that is...)
     -That the Toshin defeated/absorbed both Jun & Lee (well, that's
how it got Lee's moves)
     -Jun's title of "Ecology Fighter" 
     -Julia's intro animation (where she rubs her hair and face)
     -that Baek was Hwoarang's teacher
     -Hwoarang's motorcycle & its markings

List of things directly contradicting Namco's Tekken storyline:
     -EVERYTHING about Hwoarang being an immortal
vampyre/perpetual slave...

I'm not pretending that what I did was noble. It's an ugly thing, to
seal off part of a person's awareness.
   -this whole section is based on a passage in Steven Brust's
"Athyra," where Vlad put a limited mind-control spell on a couple
kids' parents and they're absolutely furious when they find out
about it...

at least a block has the potential to be undone, while not even
Guardians have the Power to restore a life.
   -with Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn gone, the deus ex machina of
resurrecting people from the dead is right out. It has become a lost
art - which is for the best, since it required a price in lives and the
torture of souls that only the most evil of monsters could ever pay.
It was a cheap plot device in my MK2 fanfics, when I wanted to
write in gruesome fatalities from the game, and I didn't want 'em
ALL to be on nameless cannon fodder, and I knew that any actual
game chars I killed would probably be back for MK3. But with the
takeover of the Tekken characters, things have to get a little more
serious.
   There's one more reason why resurrection sorcery has been
completely phased out - the Angel despises it. It interferes
drastically with her domain, and with the Cosmic Balance. She
would harshly oppose anyone who ever tried to rediscover
resurrection necromancy, even as she opposed Shang Tsung and
the Shao Kahn...
   Which is why anyone who "dies" and reappears in "Phoenix
Reborn" is either a) still dead (Lee) or b) didn't really die (Bryan,
Hwoarang in past flashbacks, etc.)

It's just how I'm accustomed to thinking of her, probably because
I've known her since she was a seven-year-old girl.
    -Lee was twelve when Heihachi adopted him. Very shortly
afterward, Heihachi set up an arranged marriage between Lee and
Jun. Jun's family was on good terms with Wang Jinrey, who was
close friends with Heihachi's dad, Jinpachi Mishima. Jun's mother
was ecstatic that her mixed-blood daughter could marry into the
wealthy House Mishima. Heihachi didn't give a damn who Lee
married; he just thought that Lee having a pretty fiancee would
spur Kazuya to compete even more fiercely with his foster brother.
Jun was seven at the time (five years younger than Lee). The
original plan was for them to actually wed when Jun turned twenty
(the Japanese age of majority), although Heihachi probably
wouldn't have cared if they'd gone ahead a few years earlier (Lee
wanted to marry her when she was just sixteen).

The entire section about Limbo is a reference/tie in to "The
Coming of Winter," which is of course set in Limbo. MK1 Sub-
Zero dodges the Primal Rage dino-gods Sauron (embodies Hunger)
and Vertigo (embodies Insanity), and later must win past Morrigan,
the demon mistress of Leucrotta Castle... although none of the
names are actually mentioned 'cause they just didn't fit too
succinctly. Well, two decades (Earth time) after MK1 Sub-Zero's
journey, Lee made a journey of his own through Limbo. Lee
contacted Blizzard (embodies Good) and Armadon (embodies
Life) to make the Limbo-Grey Kingdom treaty. And yes, Morrigan
still has her "summer home" in Leucrotta Castle (her regular castle,
which has its own name from the DS games, exists in another
dimensional plane), with her faithful zombie servants. BTW,
Morrigan could come and go from Limbo as she pleased because
she is a living demoness - her soul had a living body to carry it.
   Speaking of Morrigan, the first of four Dark Stalkers OAVs has
been released. I watched it. Nice fight scenes, mostly faithful to the
game (Morrigan's bats aren't so prevalent though - her wings are
just wings instead of lots of bats joined together to make wings).
Demitiri looks suspiciously like M. Bison from the SF2 anime -
he's so overdrawn/overvicious/overmuscled that it detracts from his
suave good looks in the game (Morrigan is still a hot babe,
though). However, the story also has a *very* evil setting, because
the Dark Stalkers have permanently blotted out the sun, and they
enslave/feed off of humanity. All of them are in on it; some
actively rule/terrorize (Demitri) while others passively luxuriate in
the predatory thrill of being a monster in a monster's world
(Felicia, L. Raptor). It's sort a nation of monsters keeping the Earth
under murderous occupation, like the Nazis occupying Poland in
World War II. The only good guys in volume 1 are Donovan and
Anita (the little girl), and even they are tainted with evil (Donovan
is half vampire, you know). It's this kind of scenario that begins to
justify Donovan's single-minded quest to murder every Dark
Stalker there is (in the DS game storyline)...
    I daresay the world of the Dark Stalkers OAVs in an alternate
Earth. It would have to be, because DS chars show up here & there
in other Capcom games (including the background of some SF2
Alpha incarnations, if I'm not mistaken), but the world in games
like SF2 doesn't seem nearly so bleak.

Lee's description of the Grey Kingdom is loosely based on the
kingdom of the dead described in Raymond Feist's fantasy novels
(I can't remember them all anymore, and I'm sure he's written or
co-written another ten in the same universe by now, oh well). In
particular, he has the female goddess of the dead say, "No, there is
no joy in the land of the dead. But consider also: there is no
sorrow." I also drew some references from a YA fantasy novel
called "Seaward" by Susan Cooper, about a selkie & her friend on
the run for their lives...

Worthy souls may apply for an honorable duty, if someone of
noble character speaks for them. 
  -in Lee's case, it was Michelle who recommended him. Michelle
liked the idea of Lee potentially spending the rest of eternity
serving people like those he had hurt...

Most of Lee's conversations with Jun are pieces of dialogue that
have been floating in my head since last November. The part where
she rips on his purple shirt is a bit more recent - I wanted to show
his reaction to his ugly purple outfit being (justifiably!) criticized,
but I wasn't sure just where to put it until this chapter... this is why
you've seen the last of that hideous thing in Ch. 5. From now on,
it's pretty much either sable tuxedo, unicorn vest, or awesome true
form... :)

When it was released, a cave-in briefly forced it outside the fringes
of the living realm. 
   -this was, of course, the cave-in that was noisily recorded in the
log transcript of the prologue. Lee would have saved even the likes
of Guatemoc and Yamada if he could have; but he couldn't affect
the living. After Lee got eaten by the Toshin, it took him a while to
recover his senses, by which point the Toshin had already eaten a
whole lot of other souls including King, Jackie Chan, and
Kunimitsu. Lee led a pitched battle to free them all at about the
same time as the Toshin zeroed in on Jun...

"Lee... are you happy, as a Guardian?"
    -sometimes I think "Are you happy?" is the central thematic
question of this whole story... perhaps it has that in common with
Neon Genesis Evangelion.

"You're familiar with Buddhism, aren't you?" 
    -although I don't think it's as popular as Shinto (once the "state"
religion), Buddhism is still very commonly practiced in Japan.
Hence the expectantly informal tag question form of Lee's inquiry -
it would be more unusual if Jun didn't know anything about
Buddhism. No one in "Phoenix Reborn" is a Buddhist, although
most of the Japanese chars probably pay the same token gestures to
Buddism that lots of people do over there (owning decorative
statues, et. al.)

The pure white sigil of a rearing unicorn shimmered on my palm. It
glowed for a moment longer, then subsided.
    -originally a phoenix sign in the rough draft, but I changed my
mind - it's Lee's wish that Jun desires to grant, and the unicorn is
Lee's symbol. I think the unicorn is also symbolic of
healing/renewal in some ways (such as the curative properties of its
horn...)

The description of Byakhee are, of course, taken from H.P.
Lovecraft's Mythos. (The word "opisthosoma" is from my Mythos
field guide description of Byakhee.) In Lovecraft's stories, the
Byakhee warped through space; it was possible to drink a space-
mead brew and then summon one of these critters and go for an
interstellar ride on it. If it didn't eat you first, which it probably
would want to - Byakhee are voraciously hungry carnivores,
especially when they've just teleported across light-years. My
Byakhee aren't even animals, though; just pieces of the Toshin's
consciousness made manifest to squelch these uppity souls. The
Toshin didn't make any move before because it already knew that it
couldn't keep Jun, and that Lee was planning to stay...

"Why are you so worried? We're already dead; what's the worst
they could do to us?"
"Do you really want to find out?"
    -souls can't be destroyed - at most, they can be sent to the Black
Abyss from which there is no return. However, they can be
disincorporated, a form of torture that is sort of like being drawn
and quartered - or perhaps "drawn and thousanded" would be more
appropriate. That which is torn apart can be pieced back together;
even if no outside party attempts this, a disincoporated souls may
reintegrate itself over time if it has the will. It's NOT a particularly
pleasant experience, though. There probably will be a reference or
two to this much later in the story, but for now it just seemed to
work better not to explicitly detail what has probably happened to
poor Jun...

*I am a Guardian of the Grey Kingdom. This soul is under my
protection.*
    -if there is any single quote that can be considered angel Lee's
catchphrase, it's this one. It echoes over and over again in my mind,
and this is not the last time he'll say it...

She was spinning in a pirouette, keeping her right leg ramrod
straight, and at the instant I faced her, her heel struck my chest with
unstoppable momentum.
    -Jun boots Lee through his own Portal with her Lightning
Crescent kick (F+4), which is somewhat slow but sends you
spinning across the game screen if it connects. Jin has it too.

I promised Jun-chan I would watch over her son. She was willing
to make the ultimate sacrifice for me, and for him.
   -if you're still afraid for poor Jun's soul, pay close attention to
Lee's dialogue, bearing in mind that he's a pathological truth-teller.
He says she was "willing to make" the ultimate sacrifice, *not* that
she "made" the ultimate sacrifice - it's little details like that I have
to watch very closely whenever I write Lee's point of view.

Sometimes I almost worry more for Julia than for him - though she
loves him dearly, she has yet to fully accept the whole truth.
    -Julia is still clinging to the hope that Jin can be "cured" (c.f. the
end of Ch. 7), while Lee necessarily has a more realistic outlook.

It's designed not to cause harm, but if you force it to activate too
many times, Jin may suffer indirect side effects. By which I mean,
he will become disoriented because he knows that he has been
repeatedly disoriented.
    -another bit loosely inspired by Vlad's mind control in "Athyra." 
"Is it that easy to undo?"
"Yes. And there won't be any direct aftereffects."
"What do you mean by 'direct aftereffects'?"
"What I mean is that they'll probably figure out they've been under
a spell."

But if a life did potentially hang in the balance, then yes, I would
make an exception. I... I have done it before. Once. You're already
familiar with the details, aren't you?
     -the details of this incident will eventually be recounted, most
likely in one of Lee's interviews. I'm not yet sure exactly where it
will go; perhaps as soon as chapter 9 or 10, but it's beginning to
seem as though it may have to be pushed back to later...

It was Julia's doing, of course; although at the time, I didn't yet
know her name. I recognized her only as the girl I'd accidentally
crashed into earlier that night.
     -it's mildly aggravating, not referring to Julia by name for most
of this chapter, but at the time Jin is so caught up in events that he's
not going to stop for introductions. And as a narrator, Jin is the
type to relate circumstances expressly as he felt them at the time.
When he narrates Hwoarang's memories, he describes them as he
felt them (in Hwoarang's shoes). When he talks about Julia, he
refers to her as he saw her at the time ("the girl with brown-black
eyes.")

She had scooped up Hwoarang's discarded leather jacket, and now
she used it to insulate herself from my lightning as she blocked the
deathstroke.
      -remember, folks - if you see a leather jacket being thrown
around in Ch. 7, it'll be used to insulate someone from lightning in
Ch. 8... ^_^ Seriously, this is the whole reason why I wrote in
Hwoarang's leather jacket for the final draft of Ch. 7 - so that Julia
wouldn't be *totally* fried when she intervened on Hwoarang's
behalf...

She was only moderately less disoriented than I was, for she had to
smother a small flame in her hair and rub sensation back into her
face before she could confront me.
    -this is, in fact, a slightly modified (not to mention justified)
version of Julia's fight intro sequence where she's rubbing the sleep
out of her eyes, or something. I decided it wasn't appropriate to
give an in-depth description of her appearance (and outfit!!!) just
yet, since Jin is still too disoriented from recent events to get a
good look at her. The description will probably come through
either Bryan's or Heihachi's eyes in Ch. 9.

Voicing a loud yell, I spread my feet in a bowlegged horse stance,
tucked my chin, and called upon my Power to enhance my strength
in a threatening display. My hands glowed white-hot, trailing
sparkles of Ki waiting to be unleashed.
    -this is Jin's Ki power-up (1+2+3+4), written into the final draft
on advisement. :) Jin and Heihachi both power up their Ki in the
same manner, BTW.

They were dark brown - so dark as to be brown-black, but they
were not windows to a black soul. 
     -this is a deliberate parallel to Julia's first evaluation of Jin in
Ch. 7. ^_^

"Hwang Sungkyung will send you to HELL!"
    -well, I wanted write Hwang in, but it turned out to be the
original, not his descendant. Generally speaking, I see little point in
writing in a video game char by name unless I'm sure they'll get
some kind of fight scene where they can show off at least a couple
moves, and here was the perfect opportunity. BTW, Hwang's
appearance sets Hwoarang's age to be around 400+ years, since
Hwoarang wasn't a slave to the vampyres that cursed him for more
than a few months (i.e. not long enough to lose all his naivete
about his own curse). BTW, Taki was actually the express
monster-hunter of the original Soul Edge crew (you see it in her
movie intro scene), but she lives in Japan; it's Hwang who grew up
in Korea, and who tracked a rash of child murders to the den of
vampyres... fortunately for Hwang, you don't need fancy sorcery to
destroy vampyres; you just have to be *very* good at single
combat...

Now for the admittedly rather abbreviated fight scene of the
chapter (unless you count Lee & Jun's encounter with the
Byakhee). Hwang uses his Steel Explosion Critical Edge finisher
(A+B+K, then b, d/b, d, d/f, f+B+K) on the female vampire that
enslaved Hwoarang, and finishes off his last enemy with the
Moonchild (d+B) - I wanted to use sword moves that he doesn't
share with Mitsurugi for the sake of variety, since Mitsurugi's
descendant just might get a little more fighting of his own in Ch. 9.
Hwang's wearing his standard green tunic outfit, BTW. There's a
design on it - looks like a panda, maybe - but I can't tell for sure,
and I figure Hwoarang can't either.
    Perhaps it was just laziness, but it didn't feel right to go into an
extensively detailed slash-by-slash narration of Hwang's fight with
each one of the vampyres. Partly because neither Hwang nor the
vampyres are major players in this story, and partly because
Hwoarang's older memories tend to have holes in their details.
Hwoarang can't even remember his real name; it was a name for
mortals, and he's not a mortal anymore. So he abandoned it for the
code name he uses now.

Wind carries drifting billows of grey ash, carelessly left in so many
piles mocking human shapes...
    -when vampyres die for real, they revert to ash. Otherwise they
regenerate.

When uniformed men dismantled the mass grave's cairn to retrieve
the bodies of their comrades, they yelled in terror of my rising.
    -I'm told that it's common practice for the US military to
temporarily bury their dead somewhere, then come back to dig the
bodies up & take them home for a formal funeral when the
immediate heat of war has died down. So I figure that this is how
Hwoarang escaped the mass grave he got sealed in, after the battle
for the Mishima syndicate...

When I was inventing the nature of Hwoarang's cursed
Immortality, I wanted something that would be so horrible, even
Duncan MacLeod would beg to be free of it. He's vampiric for a
few other reasons, but I didn't want to deal with the traditional
vampire strengths/weaknesses, so instead I made him a vampyre.
What a vampyre is basically depends on which RPG you read, or
which web site you visit. AD&D lists them as being like vampires,
but without either the special powers or the special liabilities. In
any case, Hwoarang had better be able to walk around in sunlight,
since his own stage is in broad day under a clear blue sky. Heck, he
usually wears his sunglasses over his eyes instead of on 'em...

"I command you never to be a slave again."
"NOT within your POWER!" Hwoarang shrieked, in a sudden
burst of indignation. "You can't break my curse with words; you
can't change what I am!"
    -Well, this trick for getting around obedience spells has also
been used in stuff like the "Gargoyles" cartoon. Jin & Julia would
be remiss if they didn't try it. Rather than have my readers rail
"why don't they try this?" (similar questions tend to bug the heck
out of me when I'm watching Voyager/DS9/Babylon 5) I feel
obligated to address the matter directly. Answer: Jin can (and does)
renounce his own control over Hwoarang, but breaking the curse
just isn't that simple - as soon as Hwoarang gets a new master, the
new master's commands take priority over the "freedom" effect of
Jin's command. Hwoarang knows because one of his former
masters actually tried to set him "free" in this manner, just before
dying.

"There IS no cure for DEATH!" 
    -this is my one plagiarism for the chapter, a line stolen outright
from Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (and at the time, the title
character was also asking for a cure to his vampirism).

"This is about you not wanting to sully your precious clean hands!"
    -I had in mind Princess Kushana's disdain of Nausicaa when I
wrote this... I loved the Nausica: Valley of the Wind manga.
Unfortunately, the Carl Macek dub of the anime ("Warriors of the
Wind") is hideously cut/censored for no go reason. Stuff like this is
why Macek is sort of the anti-Christ of the anime newsgroups...

"As a matter of fact... if this thing is tracking your blood, then
aren't you more likely to find it if you go directly to wherever
you've, um, bled the most?"
     Her logic crystallized my worst fear.
     "The training hall,"
    -healing Power or no healing Power, Jin's gone through some
pretty rough training learning how to fight. However, Heihachi has
never fought with him, beaten him, or otherwise spilled his blood;
Jin trains against the Mokujins (and others, but he doesn't like
training against humans as much because he doesn't dare cut loose
- he really doesn't like to hurt people). Heihachi has never directly
fought Jin as a precaution; he doesn't want the turmoil of a conflict
to risk bringing to surface certain thoughts/emotions that could
jeopardize his hold on his telepathic grandson...

The only things I remember about it now are that the tank below its
handlebars had a multi-lined skull-and-crossbones design painted
over its sides, and a violet helmet one size too small for me resting
on top.
    -the design (and the fact that Hwoarang owns a motorcycle) are
from the TK3 intro movie. The helmet used to be Yukie's.
Hwoarang doesn't wear a helmet himself (just like in the intro
movie) because unlike most teenagers, he doesn't just think he's
immortal, he really IS immortal. :)

"It can't be that different from riding a bicyiiiiIIIIIAAAAHHH!"
    -Jin never rode a bicycle in Yakushima (the dirt path between
his home and the village was too steep for it, and where else would
he bike to?) But Heihachi insisted that he learn as part of his
training, if only to gain lessons in keeping one's balance. (Heihachi
did NOT run along with Jin holding the bike or anything though -
Jin basically had to figure it out on his own, and he got more than a
few scrapes before he succeeded).

It's just that these recent episodes of mine feel like they're getting
more frequent, especially when I talk to you - do you honestly
believe I shouldn't worry about them?
     Well, then, I guess you're right.
    -this brings the subplot about the interviewer tracking down
what he can learn about Jin's memory loss to a temporary close.
The interviewer has decided to at least postpone any more
confrontations about the block until the recordkeeping project is
finished, and in the meantime, he figures Jin probably is better off
if he believes that nothing is wrong.
     Jin has been frequently interviewed so far - once a chapter,
except for chapters 3 and 5 - but the rate will probably decline a bit
for the rest of the story. This almost certainly won't be his last
interview, but the interviewer is going to deliberately go easier on
having Jin talk from here on... 

I originally wasn't sure what I wanted to do for the usual off-format
text piece, but then realized that I really needed to settle what Lei's
doing right about now. He was sensitive to the Toshin's presence in
Ch. 3 because of the residue in his blood from his days as a demon,
so it goes to reason that he *would* sense Toshin-Nina's rampage.
But he's not really in the shape to do anything about it right now.
He can't even think clearly (or else he might have tried to more
rationally explain his quandary to Tracy and ask her help).
    As for Tracy, well, she started as a throwaway name in Ch. 2
(that I decided to make the same as Tracy from Toh Shin Den 2
just because) but she just keeps coming back for more scenes. I
swear. I did want to include somewhere how irritated she is about
the rumors concerning her and Lei, and this turned out to be the
perfect place.

Syndicate President Heihachi Mishima is taking full responsibility
for the expense of his care.
    -Heihachi REALLY wants 'em to keep Lei alive long enough to
help lure the Toshin, and to cower before Heihachi's own imagined
Immortal glory... after all, Heihachi can't make Lei suffer if Lei's
already dead. Besides, the "invitation" Heihachi extended included,
just for Lei, full medical coverage gratis - presumably to help patch
Lei up after a tournament fight, but here it worked just as well.

Our records on him come straight from the Mishima syndicate
comprehensive database, and they confirm that Mr. Lei Wulong
has no living relatives.
   -of course, Heihachi would NEVER have Lei listed as Jin's father
in any capacity...

Next chapter: Okay, now here's the *real* showdown with Toshin-
Nina! NOTHING CAN STOP HER! NOTHING! NOTHING!!!
HAHAHAHAHA or can it...?


Chapter 9: Aggravated Assault notes
September 1, 1998


Another month to write one chapter. I'm going to try to keep to that
pace even as my college classes start (2 computer classes and a
Native American history course... I figure there's a chance I might
learn something directly relevant to Julia's character in it. :)

I was kind of at a loss for a good chapter title. Finally settled on
"Aggravated Assault" just because there's a whole lot of it going on
through the chapter (it's always nice to pick a title that has common
ties to all the interviews present. :)

And the epigraph is in keeping with the title, also the general
themes of battery and murder. Joel Rosenberg's Metzada dark,
violent military books ("Not for Glory" and "Hero") are also a
loose inspiration for references to the Yad Vashem Self-Defense
Force mentioned in Ch. 1. Not that the Force has a pivotal role in
the story; it's more or less just a background fixture to help explain
how Heihachi first hooked up with Dr. Abel.

Would you believe, I got an e-mail from Joel Rosenberg himself in
response to my using his stuff for the epigraph? He said, 

>*blush*

>I always liked that bit, m'self.  

which makes for a very short e-mail, but the mere fact that he
would be even looking at my fanfic is amazing... I've got to answer
his letter, but I don't know what I'll say. Maybe put something in
there about he's one of the authors I admire most and I've read all
his books most more than once and I have a shelf and he had a
profound influence every fanfic I've written...

List of things taken directly from Namco's Tekken/Soul Blade
animations/storyline:
  -Taki's intro movie scenes where she dissolves into petals, takes
off her mask, and destroys a demon
  -That it was really Taki's ancestor who saved Sophitia's life

List of things contradicting Namco's Tekken storyline:
  -Nina doesn't "robotically" seek to kill Jin Kazama (not as vivid
to write; I wanted her to have a vested personal desire to crush his
bones!)
  -Abel's strong desire to protect his Cyborg Army prototype - in
the official storyline, Abel sends Bryan into the TK3 Tournament
(where he could easily get beaten into permanent malfunction),
implying that he's much more willing to gamble his prototype if it
could get him what he wants (in the official case, brain data from
Dr. Boskonovitch).

The first scene is actually the last thing I wrote for this chapter. On
the advice of my dad, I moved a certain control room audio
transcript from the end of Ch. 9 to the beginning of Ch. 10, so that
Ch. 9 could end with the line "God has a sick sense of humor." I
wanted some other quickie piece of off-format text to complement
Ch. 9, so I decided to flesh out the "escape attempt" Mitsurugi
refers to his interview. I ended up writing it like a bit of comedy
lead-in, before things start turning really dark & ugly...

     I want real food.
     Not these goddamn "ration sticks."
     REAL FOOD! Like ramen or okonomiyaki or even a bowl
of plain rice, something I can chew without breaking all my teeth!

  -Mitsurugi's appetite is, admittedly, something of an anime/manga
cliche. Haohmaru of the Samurai Shodown anime & manga, Ryu
of the Tokuma SF2 manga, Ranma anytime, etc. What can I say,
the strong, healthy male hero with a real weakness for good food
and lots of it is a recurring figure. I don't want to play this aspect of
Mitsu's character into too much of an exaggeration, though. (And
physically speaking, he's not *that* strong... yet! :) Of course, I
know about okonomiyaki ("Japanese pizza") through Ukyo's
okonomiyaki stand of Ranma 1/2 anime... 

I think I got carried away with the Ishida/Kimura scene. Originally
I wanted them to be messengers, and a catalyst for Taki to reveal
how much she hates the Mishima syndicate. I got all that and
more... plus the two of them asserted their individual personalities
more vividly than ever. You know, I *really* don't want to kill off
these guys like I killed off their fathers.

     Taki sniffed, "If you wanted to attack my student, you
should have come earlier. What did I work all night for?"

  -I'm given to understand that normally, hitting a student is a
severe offense and direct challenge to the teacher - the teacher-
student relationship is supposed to be much more protective in the
East than here. Hence Kimura's humble apology for his cousin's
offense. Taki, however, takes a different view of things... she's
trying to get Mitsurugi good enough that he can see an attack
coming and stop it anytime, from anyone. Mitsu still has a long
ways to go on this...

  When Ishida rushes Taki, she throws him with her basic A+G
throw, the back crusher. Out of all her throws, it looked like the
one most likely to render her opponent unconscious without killing
him. You could say that she did an aborted version of her B+G
throw on Mitsurugi in Ch. 4, when she stopped just short of
actually slitting his jugular.

>A woman's voice delivered their announcement. She sounded
kind and almost musical, except that there was something
unnatural about the stop-and-start rhythm of her words. She
reminded me of those touch-tone telephone voices, you know, a
+Press. One. Followed by the pound key,+ sort of thing.

  -this is in fact Jun's voice - Lee programmed her vocal
wavelengths into the syndicate's computer over twenty years ago
(as shown in "Ashes" Ch. 24), and no one since has been able to
change it. Theoretically, they could just throw out the whole
computer system, but that would be *extremely* costly... Heihachi
is not one to fix that which isn't broken. The pound key message is
something I heard verbatim, pauses and all, when I touch-tone
registered for my college courses.

>Kimura didn't follow us. Well, he did say that his security job had
been suspended; maybe he felt obligated to stay with his cousin, I
don't know.

  -Kimura is strictly obeying Heihachi's command (to stay inside
the building) to the exact letter. Ishida might have been inclined to
get outside and fight, but he's unconscious. Which is why both of
them survive Toshin-Nina's attack to (hopefully) appear in Ch.
10...

     She moved so fast.
     I wanted to react, but I might as well have tried to outrace
the wind.

  -Taki was easily the fastest character in SE1. Fast enough that she
could hit most characters out of many of their moves on reaction.
She could be using almost any of her slashes on Mitsu's armor
here; they're just *whoosh*.

It said 'evil spirit be repelled,' or something like that; I think I used
to see those sorts of papers at holy shrines. Or else maybe on TV. 

  -the paper reads "aku ryo tai san", literally the characters for
"evil", "spirit", "flee", and "disarray". Spirit wards like this are
common in anime, from Sailor Moon's Raye to the 3X3 eyes
manga to the spirit ward that dangles over DS2 Hsien-ko's forehead
(which is actually her twin sister). This particular spirit ward is
something I'm taking from the Sailor Moon pocket manga. I like
Sailor Moon... maybe it's just something about female
empowerment. :)

     A woman.
     A beautiful foreign woman.
     A beautiful, half-naked foreign woman.
     A beautiful, half-naked foreign woman drenched with
human blood.

  -I was thinking about writing "gaijin" in place of "foreign" (and
Heishiro has almost certainly written "gaijin" in his journal - he's
informal enough that he'd be more likely to use it than the more
proper "gaikokujin".) But "gaijin" is ultimately a Japanese word,
one that just might appear unfamiliar to many of my readers. So
unless it's deliberately being used as an insult or other special
context, I figured it would be better to go with the translation of its
meaning, "foreign."

     "C-can I have your phone number?" I squeaked.

  -probably stealing a few concepts from Ataru of Rumiko
Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura here... although Mitsurugi really isn't
quite so lecherous (few human beings are. :) Mitsu isn't as unlucky
as Ataru, either; if anything, he's probably the opposite... not many
other people are lucky enough to face Toshin-Nina and live to tell
about it.

Okay, first fight scene! Toshin-Nina starts off with her Power
Charge unblockable (d/b+1+2), and let's throw in a little levitation
to explain how she closes in so quickly and why she doesn't leave
herself wide open for a big smack while she's charging up. Toshin-
Nina can in point of fact fly; it's just that the effort to do so is a
tremendous drain, what with her not having wings and all, plus she
is just a little tired from her all-night rampage. But only a little.
  Mitsurugi is able to get out of the way though (all of Taki's
training ought to be good for something); it is an unblockable with
a long setup time, after all. He counterattacks with his No Escape
A, A, A horizontal slashes, a favorite of any beginning Mitsurugi
player. Then he tries his Wood Chopper (b+K, B), but Toshin-Nina
blocks the kick and reverses the sword slash. Instead of doing her
standard pull-'em-over sword reversal (which Anna did to Nina in
Ch. 5), here's something different. Toshin-Nina has enough raw
power that she doesn't bother playing tumble games; she blows up
Mitsu's sword & spirit ward just like that.

     +YOUR SOUL LACKS PURPOSE,+ she sneered,
maliciously.

  -the Toshin is in the habit of pronouncing its
judgement/evaluation on any souls that particularly claim its
attention. This is really the one piece of characterization about it
that has taken shape in my fanfic, even though I originally had very
few ideas for the Toshin's "character"...

  Taki vs. Toshin-Nina is, of course, directly from her demon-
banishment scene in the Soul Blade intro movie. Especially her
lilac-white fire and the glowing characters. I looked at that scene in
freeze frame, and to my surprise, it's not just the same character
over & over - it's a whole lot of different characters. I couldn't look
'em all up in my kanji dictionary, and I figured it's not like
Mitsurugi could see them all so well anyway (their light really does
blur them in the movie).

     My voice faded into a horrified creak.
     An hourglass shape emerged from the pyre.

  -loosely borrowed from a scene in Yotoden, where a possessed
female ninja is hit with a firestorm and walks out of the blaze
intact, but with all her clothes burned off. :)

  Mitsurugi's dream is, of course, Taki's other scenes from the SE
intro movie - except that Taki's face is kept shadowed. 

Could they have recruited Taki for the same reason?

  -in a word, yes. If anything, it was half recruitment, half
intimidation - Taki has no illusions about what can happen to
people who say "no" to the Mishima syndicate. Taki might be able
to hide from them on her own, but her mother is another story...

"Your rendition of the legend is inaccurate. It was my ancestor who
saved the life of the gods' Chosen One, not yours."

  -Just recently heard about the SE2 storyline. Sophitia fought Soul
Edge, wrecked one of his swords, and took potentially lethal
wounds. Taki finished Soul Edge off, saved Sophitia's life, and
reforged the shattered sword into her own Spirit Blade. Siegfried
got Soul Edge's other sword, which corrupted him into the
monstrous Nightmare. Cervantes & Li-Long are both dead.
Mitsurugi was on the outskirts of all this; Tanegashima shot him
up, but he's feeling better by SE2.
   So, how does this square with the stories modern-day Mitsu
mentioned, where it was his ancestor who teamed up with Sophitia
to kick Soul Edge's butt? Wellll... maybe ancient Mitsurugi's part
in the legend got just a *little* bit exaggerated by his own family
line, especially over the course of 400 years. Taki sets the record
straight, giving her ancestor the credit she deserves.
  Of course, the legend isn't over yet in the arcades... I'm rooting for
Mitsurugi & Sophitia to team up and kick Nightmare's ass in SE2.
^_^ I'm especially rooting for Sophitia, because I believe she has
more compassion than any of the other chars (look to her SE1
ending, and see how sad she is over the people who had to die...)

Like putting almost all the pieces together into a complete picture,
when suddenly you come up with a strange piece and you have no
idea where it goes. You think that maybe one of the other pieces
has been mashed into the wrong place somehow, so you carefully
pore over every speck of the nearly-finished puzzle, searching for
the piece that looks like it fits, but really doesn't.

  -this is actually something I used to do. Haven't put together any
jigsaw puzzles in a long time, though.

     She showed me her palms. Ugly black streaks chafed them,
but the marks looked more like she'd been scorched days or weeks
ago, instead of just hours. They had to be recent, though; I don't
remember seeing any burns on her before.

  -Taki heals much faster than a normal human being. Probably
about as fast as Lei before he got sick with cancer (i.e. anything
less than a mortal wound knits itself within a day), but not as
quickly as Jin. 

     "You... you couldn't have been in danger. Y-you said the
spell couldn't hurt human beings..."

  -I was looking for an opportunity to foreshadow that Taki isn't a
100% normal human being in the strictest literal sense (something
that applies to a whole lot of my chars, starting with Jin, Bryan, &
Hwoarang. :) This happened to work out as the perfect place,
although I didn't know how I'd do it when I first started writing - all
I knew is that Mitsurugi & Taki would take Toshin-Nina on, and
fail big time.

     He knows that he's been having the equivalent of epileptic
petit mal attacks. 

  -In epilepsy, petit mal attacks are of course blackouts where the
sufferer loses complete awareness of the outside world for seconds
or minutes, then resumes whatever he was doing as if he was
uninterrupted. Exactly the symptoms of Jin's mental block.
Epileptic grand mal attacks are the more severe convulsions &
stuff...

I initially had an interlude with Julia to explain why the interviewer
talks to Bryan next & not her (also, it sets up another chance for
Bryan to limit his interview & show his irascible temper.) It would
have been nice to set this on February 8, not February 9, but that's
still a weekday, and Jin's school doesn't let out until 5:00 p.m.,
which doesn't leave him & Julia enough time to see their movie if
the interviewer is going to directly visit Bryan at 6:01 that evening.
(If the interviewer doesn't catch Bryan ASAP after 6:00 p.m.,
Bryan leaves the Mishima syndicate, and the last time the
interviewer went to Bryan's office was a disaster...)

     Imagine you're watching TV.

  -I think a lot of this comes from how I pretty much spent my
whole summer watching TV. I was going to completely finish
"Phoenix Reborn." I was going to read all those novels I've been
piling away (starting with the "Primal Rage" novel). I was going to
finish Suikoden and play lots of role-playing games. I ended up
watching TV & reading comics. ^_^

Anyway, he did Abel the courtesy of talking in English, unlike
most of the other walk-ons, who tended to stick to Japanese. Abel
always addressed the pretty boy as "young master." 

  -Abel has been on Heihachi's payroll for over four years, ever
since Heihachi formed an alliance with the Yad Vashem Self-
Defense Force, but Heihachi only recently brought him to the
Mishima syndicate, once there was evidence promising that the
Cyborg Army project just might be a success. As a result, Abel has
been in Japan only long enough to acquire a only a very limited
command of the language - but he's well-conversed in English
because that's a language many scientists use to cross the
international barrier. Heihachi knows better than to force Abel into
an intense language course when he wants Abel to finish the
Cyborg Army project ASAP, so he almost always just talks to Abel
in English. Jin uses English with Abel for less calculated reasons -
as an empath, he can simply feel that Abel is more uncomfortable
with Japanese.
  This is, of course, a convoluted way to explain how Bryan could
understand/repeat Abel's & Heihachi's conversations when Bryan
himself did not know Japanese at the time. 

     Of course I'd seen pictures of Kazuya before. Any high
school history textbook has them.

  -Kazuya's impact on the 21st century is roughly comparable to
Hitler's impact on the 20th century - even though the Great
Invasion ended in 1997, 1 billion dead and worldwide ecological
devastation is the sort of thing that leaves a lasting imprint on the
future. As a result, Kazuya's physical appearance has become about
as well-known as Hitler's.

Kept on repeating the same phrases over and over, like a scuffed
CD.

  -The cliche "like a broken record" has gone the way of "groovy"
by the 21st century. Hell, records are as good as extinct *now* - it's
amazing, if I think far enough back can remember when I liked to
buy 'em more than tapes, 'cause you could just lift the needle & put
it down anywhere you liked in the song.

There was a <click> from deep within, like the noise of a light
switch being flipped, only with a Surround Sound type echo. 

  -I'm not even sure what Surround Sound is (really big speakers &
lots of 'em?) It's just a catchphrase I've heard...

Hell, I could see the discoloration of dependent lividity in the
mockup corpses' skin, something that movie folks like to overlook. 

  -Bryan's not a medical doctor, but he did enough work in
homicide that he knows his basic facts about a stiff.

God, that babe's chest was _built_!

  -my dad has made comments like this, about certain TV
actresses...

Evil gold lightning surrounded her body, evaporating the crimson
remnants of her victims' life-fluids, and forming a leotard of
sizzling energy about her nubile skin.

  -well, I didn't want keep her naked for the whole chapter...
besides, Nina will be back, and I don't want her to be naked there
either, so may as well set a precedent for her to be clothing herself.

It's the fucking 21st century, and they _still_ can't bring themselves
to cast real Indians?

  -Bryan also gets annoyed when Japanese actors are hired to play
Chinese characters, and vice-versa.
   OK, this is the obligatory description of Julia's costume (the skirt
one). You might notice a few differences from her arcade version
or rendered pictures, though. She only has the red feather because
she won't get the white feather until later. Same with her armband,
and the only necklace she's wearing is the medallion - she'll
probably get a bead necklace like the one in her rendered art
picture later.

     The Indian girl mumbled, "_Now_ you're trying to use
reason?"

  -you might notice that Jin's reaction to Toshin-Nina is *vastly*
different then how he confronted Hwoarang (believing Hwoarang
to be possessed). Ch. 10 will go into why...

     Heihachi's voice exclaimed, [Are wa-!]

  -literally "That is-!", but anime has translated variations of this
expression as "What the Hell?" or "What is that?" So I figure it
works to show Heihachi's surprise here.

OK, fight scene!!!! Although it's mostly one-way this time, since
Jin is too soft-hearted to *really* fight back. It starts with Toshin-
Nina's Bad Habit groin kick (f, f+3). It stuns on a counter-hit, but
usually the victim topples forward so fast she can barely get in a
double palm press before they hit the ground. In this case, though,
Toshin-Nina's holding Jin up by her grip on his hand, so she can
get in a bloody swipe before she thwacks him with her Blonde
Bomb F+1+2.
  After pausing to zap Julia, Toshin-Nina uses her Evil Mist (d, d/f,
f, d/b+2+3) on Jin. She hits him with a generic kick, then her
normal standing 4. Jin catches her leg with an attack reversal
(b+1+2). Normally, Jin's right kick reversal animation takes after
his mommy's, by smacking his enemy on the knees then elbowing
them in the head - but again, Jin is too compassionate, so he only
does the takedown part. Which leaves him open for Toshin-
Nina's...
  MULTI-THROW!!! I have been waiting all this time to finally
show off Nina/Anna's infamous and cherished four-hit double neck
break multi: Backhand Slap (d, d/f, f+1+2) to knee thrust/neck
break (2, 3, 4, 2, 2) to falling neck crusher (1, 3+4, 1, 2, 1+2).
Takes off a mess of energy, looks excruciatingly painful not to
mention lethal as all hell. And that's how Jin gets his neck broken -
if he were a normal human being he'd definitely be dead. The
logistics of how he actually survives this punishment will be
mentioned in an upcoming chapter - maybe even as soon as Ch. 11.
  I had to wait to show this off for a few reasons. One, this way of
torturing/killing people is so time-consuming that Nina, possessed
or not, is unlikely to use it except on someone she *really* hates.
Another is that it's freakin' lethal, dammit. So if Nina completes the
whole multi (and I did want her to show it off), either her victim is
dead or there are some outstanding mitigating factors at work (i.e.
Jin's healing Power). So I decided early on that Toshin-Nina would
use this multi-throw on Jin in this scene.
  That brings the fight scene to an end. Note that Toshin-Nina
realizes that Jin is not dead yet, and tries to tear off his head as a
finisher - the Toshin is sensitive enough to other people's minds
and auras that it knows when a soul is still clinging to life.

     "You - you - TERMAGANT!" 

  -Julia really isn't coarse enough to casually throw around words
like "bitch" (unless referring to an actual female canine). So she
tends to settle on more long-winded insults...

  -Regarding Julia's banishment of Toshin-Nina: Julia is not a
sorceress; it is only because of the pendant that she can channel the
natural Power of the Earth. Even so, the main reason why her spell
works while Taki's fails is that Julia's soul is essentially more pure
- not tainted with as much bitterness or hatred. BTW, Toshin-
Nina's disappearing act is loosely taken from the banishment of
your typical Sailor Moon monster of the day. :)

     She broke off. Her brown-black eyes became wide as
saucers, dipping down from the camera lens and then back up to it,
as though she'd just become aware of something horrific right in
front of her.

  -such as, say, numerous bullet holes riddling Bryan's body...

  Now for one last fight scene. This one is pretty quick, though;
Julia's a bit drained from her sorcery. When Bryan attacks with a
typical standing kick, she manages to do her spinning Michelle-
style axis shift (3+4) to get a sneak Frankensteiner side throw (1+3
or 2+4 from right side). It takes her a while to get up from that
throw, so when Bryan comes in with a punch she just has time for
her elbow dash -> skyscraper kick (f, f+1~4). Bryan blocks both
attacks though, and that's his chance to get a stranglehold.

Next chapter: Julia meets Heihachi, and sees him as the dragon
Smaug...

Chapter 10: Dragon's Diplomacy notes
November 14, 1998


College courses have been hell on me this semester. This chapter is
the shortest length yet (a mere 20 pages) but took the longest time
for me to write (2 1/2 months). I hate Engineering 352...

I decided to keep the chapter short because the next piece would
return to Lee's point of view, and I think that and related matters
will probably take up a chapter in itself. In any case, I doubted it
would fit into just 13 more pages, and I did want to get Ch. 10 out
sometime this year. A side effect of keeping the chapter short,
though, is that for once there's no new fight scenes. But I figure
some earlier chapters (most noticeably Ch. 4) have had more than
one fight scene, and that ought to make up for it. :)

The chapter title was originally "Dragon's Lair," but that's the name
of a different video game, so I switched it to the more formal, and I
think more accurate "Dragon's Diplomacy" - since most of the
narration is about Heihachi's negotiations, not his home per se.

I thought about using an epigraph from "The Hobbit," but no
quotes from the chapter about Smaug seemed to fit. Then I went
searching through the Earthsea trilogy for a quote I once read about
dragons. I didn't exactly find what I'd been thinking of - perhaps
my memory altered the original quote, since I reread pretty much
every section on the Earthsea dragons. BTW, the fourth book in the
series implies that dragons and humans are two variants of the
same species, and need to come together if both are to survive.

List of things directly taken from Namco's art/storyline:

  -Heihachi's outfit - sort of. It's a variant of a rendered art picture,
instead of the rather plain-looking hakama that's his punch-button
outfit.
  -that Heihachi (as good as) stole the Toshin-amulet from the
Chang family
  -that Julia hates Heihachi for all the evil he has visited on her
family (in fact, Julia's character profile lists her as specifically
disliking Heihachi & the Mishima syndicate)

List of things contradicting Namco's storyline:

  -The entire arrangement to have Julia ally herself with the House
Mishima. It is necessarily different from Namco's storyline, where
Julia is out to rescue her kidnapped mother Michelle, due to the
fact that Michelle died twenty years ago in my continuity. Also due
to the fact that Julia is a major heroine in the story, and the
romance between her and Jin.

I think the nicest thing about these off-format bits of text is that
they're quick and easy to write - just type the dialogue, no thoughts
or descriptions. So this was a nonexhaustive way to convey the
resolution to the cliffhanger of Ch. 9 - sort of. Ch. 11 will return to
Prototype Alpha with more explanation. BTW, since Bryan has
already repeated much of the Control Room dialogue, only two
short excerpts are shown here - and even those necessarily have a
few sentences copied from last chapter. 

T2: Looks like a Frankensteiner.
  -the listed name for Julia's leg-lock side-throw is "Twisted Sister,"
but if it looks like a Frankensteiner and acts like a Frankensteiner,
it's a Frankensteiner. And it does look a little more plausible than
SSF2 Cammy's leg throw, where Cammy just automatically whips
men five times her size over her head; Julia at least gets a little
angular momentum to help herself out.

A: <sigh> This is too slow. I simply must program the prototype
with a killing technique swifter than manual strangulation.
  -this is, of course, a way to explain why Prototype Alpha doesn't
just crack Julia's neck. Abel's got a lot of the basic fighting moves
programmed into it, but there's a limit to the amount of software
he's cooked up so far... in my CS courses, I know what it's like to
draw up a program outline and only have time to fill in so many
features.

  -P:  I... I'm alive. I'm alive! I can touch, I can smell, I can - air! I'm
breathing real air! 
  -loosely borrowed from the old "Dreadstar" comics, when Willow
is able to inhabit a human body after years of being an electronic
life form.

You must have turned the syndicate upside down to find where he
hid this recording.
     Oh. Really? 
     That must have been fun. I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it.
  -actually, the interviewer just had Abel turned upside down. Not
on his own, really; he had help. :) It's not mentioned here partly as
a consequence of the format, and partly because I'm reluctant to tip
off my readers that Abel has indeed survived.

Ah. Now we reach the chance to describe Heihachi's alternate
costume. In TK2 and TK3 both he has a "just stepped out of the
bathtub" outfit that's basically just a hakama and clogs. The TK3
hakama is a little fancier than the one he wears in TK2, but still
rather plain (just blue with grey stripes). I figure that's a
fighting/training outfit, and it isn't as elaborate because clothing
does tend to get ripped/dirty/sweaty etc. when you're slugging it
out. And ever notice how all the Mishima men like to fight more or
less bare-chested?
  For this meeting with Julia, though, Heihachi's not necessarily
planning a fight. So he's dressed in the finer hakama depicted in a
piece of TK3 rendered art (on the cover of some strategy guides
and such). He's wearing a kimono with it for the same reason.
Heihachi was carrying his swords before, in the Control Room, but
he deliberately had them put away before confronting Julia. He
expected that she might inflame his temper, and he wanted to
remove any temptation to cut off her head. Heihachi wants to
manipulate her, not kill her (well, not yet).
  BTW, I learned the word "hakama" from my Compton's
Encyclopedia on CD-Rom. Also "geta" - they're usually worn with
special socks, but I notice that Heihachi wears them barefoot in
TK3. Oh, and I accidentally misspelled "hakama" as "hakima" in
the rough draft. Let's hear it for proofreading...

Why do you insist on all this double-thinking, anyway?
     Objectivity?
  -I've been waiting for a chance to establish why the interviewer
wants his subjects to pretend they don't know him. It's a
rationalization for why his identity can be kept a secret - although
there have been several clues to it so far, with more brazen
evidence to come. :)

All revulsion aside, though, I did notice the remains of a dark-
pigmented mark on Heihachi's sternum.
  -this scar is depicted in that rendered art picture. While not as
glaringly obvious as Kazuya's scar, it is noticeable on him in TK2
& TK3 if you look closely at Heihachi's bare-chested outfits.

Heihachi brushed his scaly claws against my hair and cheek. It felt
disturbingly like how one of my people might touch a young ewe,
in order to evaluate the quality of her wool. 
  -this line was added for the final draft. One of the things I learned
in my American Indian History course was how the Navajo have
been herding sheep & livestock since their introduction on the
American continent around 400 years ago. Julia and her
grandmother don't personally own any sheep, though; they're too
poor.

"'Heaven's Dagger'?" My medallion wasn't a weapon - was it?
  -actually, it is. After all, the Toshin does have several of
Kunimitsu's dagger-unblockables, but he's not carrying her dagger
(just a shield). So where's the dagger, eh? Also, I wanted a name
that was more descriptive than "Toshin medallion" or something.

"Heaven's Dagger is _mine_, both legally and by divine right. Do
not lay claim to what is mine!"
     He was breathing hard when he finished, barely containing
his outrage. It took a few seconds for him to regain his self-control,
and reassert his human disguise. 
  -although Heihachi gets irritated when defied in the Control
Room, reminded of his sons, accused of murder, etc. note that what
almost makes him lose it is when Julia demands her medallion
back. The _one thing_ that Heihachi absolutely CANNOT stand is
when someone wants or tries to "steal" from him.

I'd been so enthralled that I'd forgotten how terrified my
grandmother had been, that night when I first unearthed Heaven's
Dagger. I'd forgotten my promise to throw it away forever. 
  -family is very important to the Navajo. In fact, one of the worst
things you can say of a Navajo is "he acts as if he has no family,"
and one of the kindest is "he treats everyone as if they were
family." It is no small thing that Julia simply abandoned her
grandmother, and I felt it important that she face the consequences
of that. In truth, the medallion did play a key role in subtly
hypnotizing her; yet it would not have succeeded if she weren't
already yearning to learn more about the Toshin.

"I know all too well how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have
thankless children." 
  -Heihachi is casually familiar with Shakespearean tragedies, and
he sees his sons as having personally betrayed him. Which is part
of why he never cried over their deaths. But then, it has been over
twenty years since the last time he cried (over the loss of his pet
Kuma), so he may have forgotten how.

The one on my left had a bandage around the back of his head
  -Kimura has treated the concussion that Taki inflicted on Ishida
last chapter.

Heihachi stopped in front of a large, circular glass portal.
  -this is loosely based on the circular window into the Medlab of
Babyon 5. Jin's description is partly from ER, and partly from
NYPD Blue, where the actor who plays Bobby Simone is leaving
the series so they had his character get sick with a cardiac
infection. The character needs a heart transplant, so I'm betting
they're going to have him killed off. They've had people die in need
of a heart transplant in ER...

Was my memory playing tricks on me? Had Toshin-Nina actually
stopped short of breaking Jin's neck? 
  -actually, no, she didn't. The details of how Jin's Power managed
to save him will be explained in a future chapter.

"Yet healing sorcery is drawn from life, and at this moment, his
own life essence is tenuously frail."
  -loosely adapted from Vicky Wyman's Xanadu, where a dead
sorcerer says: "Magic is drawn from life, and I have no 'life.' At the
moment I am quite... harmless."

"Do not pretend that you share my grandson's telepathy." He said it
'telepashee,' repressed anger insinuating itself into the hiss of his
forked tongue.
  -Watching subtitled anime, I've often heard "telepathy"
pronounced "telepashee," and the impression stayed. I added this
line for the final draft.

Among the Navajo, 'witches' are dreaded almost as much as Death
itself. My mother was feared and even somewhat ostracized for
being a sorceress. 
  -something more that I learned from my history class. When I
studied a scholarly book about the Navajo for a book report (beats
writing a midterm) I learned just how severely the Navajos dread
"witchcraft." Sheds some light into why my Michelle, a sorceress,
would want to wander around so much...

     (sorry. broadcast... easier... to one person...)
  -this idea is from one of Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame
novels, where the telepathic dragon Ellegon makes the same
comment.

A black sea lapped the shore of my perch.
  -Kazuya's psyche has been described more than once as a black
sea of hatred, so it's only natural that Jin's psyche be a black sea as
well... just not a malevolent one. I think some of my memories of
vacationing by the shore of Lake Superior went into this
description as well.
  As Julia reviews Jin's memories, there are deliberate parallels to
previous chapters where Jin has directly narrated them (such as
reference to the Toshin as "Sickness. Corruption.") because she's
seeing everything from his point of view.

Something indefinable about her reminded me of Jin. 
  -adapted from a similar line in Steven Brust's "Athyra," when the
protagonist sees another assassin and "in an indefinable way" is
reminded of Vlad.

Her thoughts answer me. (I love you, Jin. Remember that.)
  -I figured it would be nice to slip in a translation of "oboete-
nasai" somewhere.

(It's all right. You'll see. Everything will be all right...)
  -Given my writing habits, this is probably the greatest single
warning that allying with Heihachi is a *damn* dangerous thing to
do... :)

He was holding something back. He had to be. 
  -to start, Heihachi is deliberately holding back that he wants to
wrest Immortality from the Toshin. And that's not all...

The dragon was reputed to take tremendous pride in keeping its
word to the letter. But first, its promise had to be given.
  -Loosely borrowed from a short story called "Eagle-Worm," about
an Indian woman's vision quest to meet a feathered dragon. Before
she departs with it, she needs its promise to return her home.
  Heihachi makes several promises to Julia in return for her
cooperation. He promises to furnish her living expenses, to
eventually return Heaven's Dagger, to explain his plan for
conquering the Toshin, that she will be free to refuse participation,
to leave her grandmother alone, and that she won't be harmed
inside his home. Heihachi intends to keep all his promises to the
letter. He even intends to keep a couple of them in spirit (the
promise to furnish Julia's living expenses, and the promise to leave
her grandmother alone - he doesn't care what happens to the old
woman, as long as he gets his immortality.) If you think that this
means Julia can let her guard down, then I haven't written
Heihachi's character well enough... 
  In particular, his promise to tell Julia about his plans is a setup for
a later chapter. Normally, it's a trite cliche that the villain ties up
the hero in some deathtrap, then explains his great master scheme
to rule the world just before the story's climax. This is a little
ridiculous, since any villain who spills his plan before it's a fait
accompli is just setting himself up for defeat. So that Heihachi
would not tell his plans to Julia - unless he had given his word.
Heihachi's obligation to keep his promise turns a cheap cliche into
a legitimate plot device. :)
  And what does Heihachi get out of all this? For starters, there is
his stated motive: to have Julia's strong soul around to help attract
the Toshin. A motive that he does not say here, but which has been
mentioned in previous chapters is the same one that led him to take
Xiaoyu in. Heihachi wants another pretty girl around to distract Jin
while he sets up his scheme for world domination. Hence
Heihachi's desire to have Julia live in the syndicate. There is more,
though...

"Y-you - you can understand-?"
"She has been inside the young master's mind," the other one said,
pedantically.
  -Julia has now has the ability to understand Japanese, a gift from
Jin. She's too exhausted to realize it at this point in the story, but it
will be brought to her attention in Ch. 12...

I wanted a place somewhere to explain Ishida's & Kimura's
punishment. Heihachi was necessarily "merciful" and retained their
service partly because Toshin-Nina has just devastated his security
personnel. It'll be a while before all the people she killed can be
replaced...

Next chapter, I'd like to lead off with the surveillance tape of Julia
talking to her grandmother. So I set up the translation here. But
Julia would feel obligated to get her grandmother's permission
first. As a consequence, I essentially have to let it slip that her
grandmother is still alive. A minor spoiler, but nothing serious,
since Julia's grandmother doesn't have a direct role in the story or
anything (it's not as if she goes to Japan). I do want to mention her
fears, though, because she sees things that foreshadow future
events... and because I can probably work a variant of Julia's TK3
ending into the dialogue. :)

And you never know whom you might crush underneath you, in the
crater of your impact.
  -partly borrowed from a Magic card, "Shimmering Wings": "the
brighter the wings, the deeper the impact crater." ^_^

Next chapter: Fallen Angel...Chapter 11: Family Reunion notes
January 4, 1999

Roughly one and a half months to finish this one. And since it's a
full 33 pages, its completion is a nice improvement over my
hideously slow page rate for Ch. 10. I really want to finish
"Phoenix Reborn" before the year 2000, and I think I can just
barely do it *if* I can increase the pace just a little more. Next
semester is real light in terms of college courses, so that should
help. It just seems that every time I start a new chapter, another
section runs long and more has to be pushed forward into the next
chapter. In *theory* I'm past the halfway point, but in practice I
just don't know anymore...

Although it helps to be inspired by a) my Tekken 3 "Seven
Remixes" CD - Xiaoyu's remix is by far my favorite, it's got this
racing techno beat, much livelier and more "Xiaoyu" than her
make-out music remix in the "Battle Trax" CD and b) my Tekken 3
action figures. My Jin action figure is on my desk as I write this. I'll
have the Xiaoyu, Nina, & Paul action figures down here when I get
to more chapters with 'em.

I wasn't sure about the title. I did want to call it "Fallen Angel," but
changed my mind. "Fallen Angel" is such a cool title that I want to
save it, possibly for a chapter in a sequel to "Phoenix Reborn."
Besides, even though this chapter is all about Lee, the angelic side
to his nature is somewhat in the background. I thought about
calling the chapter "Homecoming," but that sounds too much like a
football game, and "Home" is a bit too generic. "Family Reunion"
basically describes what's going on, for Julia as well as for Lee.
Good enough, I think.

The epigraph is from one of my all-time favorite sci-fi/fantasy
blend novels, about people who travel a Road of alternate
universes in their journey to become dragons. And of course I like
the sci-fi/fantasy blend (i.e. robots & dragons) 'cause that's what I
write here. Roger Zelazny is a big-name author, but he tends to be
pretty hit-or-miss IMO. When he's good, he's really, really good,
but when he's poor he's disappointingly average. One of the things I
really like about "Roadmarks," though, is it has a unique structure
shifting back and forth between father and son, and sometimes
going over to tangents in between. It may seem confusing at first,
but it really livens up the intricacy of the story. It's kind of fun to
see things in one line and connect them with ten chapters up or ten
chapters back (all the chapters are really short). I like to play with
that sort of thing. I can't do it to the extent that "Roadmarks" does,
though, because my readers have to wait up to two and a half
months between installments...
    The "your time has not yet come" in the epigraph refers for when
it is time for the "Roadmarks" protagonist to violently end his
mortal life, and rise anew as a Dragon of Bel'kwinith. Which has
eerie parallels to poor Jin. With respect to Jin, you could say that
the friend is Julia, the enemy is Abel, the stranger is Bryan, and the
relative is Lee. Heihachi is all four: a friend who genuinely does
want to help Jin gain revenge on the Toshin, an enemy who wants
to dispose of Jin afterward, a stranger in that Jin doesn't truly
realize who the old man is or how he thinks, and of course a blood
relative.

List of things directly taken from Namco's TK3 storyline/endings:

  -parts of Julia's dialogue with her grandmother (Julia's TK3
ending)
  -Julia's grandmother's outfit (it's Michelle's outfit in Julia's TK3
ending)
  -that Julia's medallion is the key to control the Toshin (Julia's
TK3 ending)
  -Bryan's height & weight relative to Lee's. Also, a little gameplay
is all it takes to determine that Bryan is slower yet physically
stronger than Lee.
  -Lee's description of Doctor Abel (he really does have the
mustache in Gun Jack's TK3 ending)

List of things different Namco's TK3 storyline:

-I've basically dropped the whole bit where Abel deliberately sics
Bryan on Yoshimitsu, because Yoshi has ties to Boskonovitch, and
Abel needs brain data from Boskonovitch. It's tossed mostly
because the story is running long as it is; there's no room for Yoshi
to appear in more than a cameo.

-The whole idea that Lee has possessed Bryan's body. Strictly
speaking, there's nothing to directly contradict this in Namco's
storyline, but there's nothing to particularly suggest it either.

-For that matter, it's a stretch of creative license to have Abel
working for Heihachi in the first place. TK3 doesn't suggest this; if
anything, it hints that Abel and Bryan Fury are rogue elements
(especially when Bryan tears up a bunch of Tekkenshu in his
ending). In fact, Nina's ending has Boskonovitch & Anna trying to
help her in a Mishima syndicate lab, hinting that *Boskonovitch*
is the one working for the syndicate...

Now for the off format piece of text. This is where I write in a
variation of Julia's TK3 ending, except that Julia's grandmother
necessarily replaces Michelle. Most of that ending dialogue is
reproduced verbatim in here.

I: Hey, what're they saying? I thought they were American. They're
not talking American.

  -no, they're talking in Navajo. Julia is not thrilled about
Heihachi's men overhearing either her private feelings or her
discussion about the Toshin. Hence the interviewer's request last
chapter, that Julia translate the tape's contents for the record. This
is one of the rare instances where I use translation brackets - when
chars are talking in a language that other chars overhear, but do not
understand. My translation brackets signal confusion on the part of
other listeners - because if the reader is the only one who wouldn't
know, then what difference does it make? The brackets would just
get in the way.

MRS. C: <I saw Kazuya strangle you with his Power. I saw you
bound and gagged. I saw him hold the knife; I saw fresh blood spill
upon the unholy altar! You must not stay, you _must not_, Kazuya
will _murder_ you like he murdered my daughter!>

  -Namco doesn't give an official name for Michelle's mom or dad.
Issue #1 of the ill-fated Tekken Saga comic named Michelle's mom
"Julia" and Michelle's dad "Bernard," but eh. Dad's name doesn't
really sound right, and mom's name would only invite confusion.
So I sidestep mentioning mom's name at all. Doesn't seem to be
particularly necessary. BTW, I read on a web site that Kazuya's
mom's first name is Kazumi; I'm not sure how reliable that is, but I
just might need to use it several chapters into the future.
  -as for the dialogue here, well, Julia mentioned in Ch. 10 that it
was all prophecy. Foreshadowing, hehheh, it's so much fun... :)

MRS. C: <No, Julia. Wait. Hatred is not the answer. Do you
remember why you were taught the power to fight? It was to
protect Mother Earth, not to destroy.>

-one of the lines taken almost verbatim out of Julia's ending. One
little change, though - since it's not Michelle speaking, it's "why
you were taught" instead of "why I taught you." My Julia learned
most of what she knows about Chinese kempo from Catsclaw.

C: <That's why I have to stay, Grandmother. To protect Mother
Earth from Heihachi and the Toshin.>

  -this is actually a variant of *my* response to Michelle's slightly
over-preachy speech in Julia's TK3 ending...

The original purpose for the brief Lee/Jin conversation was to offer
one, last bit of foreshadowing before finally revealing one of the
story's secrets - that Lee and Bryan actually share the same body.
This is why, barring emergencies, you can only talk to Lee from 6
a.m. to 6 p.m. and to Bryan from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. They literally
"live" in different shifts (Bryan takes the night shift because he
hates sunlight), and one psyche usually sleeps while the other is
awake. This is also why the interviewer sprinted across town to
Bryan's office when he wanted to talk to Lee, etc.
  And this is why Lee's "resurrection" can't be applied to Jun, or
almost any of my other characters who died. Lee is technically still
dead; he "lives" through the body of another. And as an honorable
being, he can only justify doing so because he keeps Bryan alive.
So Lee/Bryan's situation is an extremely special case; Jun could
never justify taking over someone else's life in the same way.
(Brain-dead living bodies don't work, either; in order to possess a
body, you need an invitation from that body's living soul.)
  So why didn't my Jun possess Bryan's body, instead of Lee? Well,
it's not just because Lee better fits the story. My Jun had her own
reasons for deciding to send Lee back in her place. One of these
reasons is Jun's recognition that, as a Guardian, Lee possesses more
potential Power than Jun to be able to help Lei and Jin against the
Toshin. 

     Say - you weren't listening at the door, were you?

-heh. I think this is my favorite line in the chapter. :)

Yet there are a great many human ailments that can only be treated,
not cured. Diabetes mellitus, for example.
  -and I should know; my grandmother, mother, and cat are all
diabetic. My kitty is on insulin maintenance for the rest of his life;
7 injected units, twice a day.

Kung Lao, hero of the Great Invasion, was one such. So was my
brother Kazuya, but he specialized in necromancy.
   -Other teleporters of course include Mileena and Yoshimitsu. In
Kazuya's case, though, it usually took him a long time to teleport
people, unless he was willing to risk something going wrong with
the sorcery. This is why Kazuya couldn't teleport as a feasible
fighting move - it would've taken him at least a full minute of
concentration, which is plenty of time for his enemy to kick his ass.
Same goes for Kazuya using his healing Power in the middle of a
fight; it would just take too long.

     (_SOMEONE STOP THIS_!)
     Then let that 'someone' be I.

  -in my fanfic, you really can't possess someone unless they first
invite you. The invitation can be in very general terms, however;
Bryan's panicked cries just happened to be sufficient.

Not my own body, of course, but something remarkably similar to
it: male, late 20's, muscular, and sharing the silver color of my hair.
  -first time I ever saw Bryan, I saw traces of Lee in him -
especially on account of his silver hair. Perhaps that impression
stayed so strongly with me that it formed the core of my take on
Lee/Bryan in "Phoenix Reborn."

Certain records that I kept of the syndicate's atrocities apparently
expedited the whole endeavor, because my paperwork included
detailed lists of which victims owned what.
  -paperwork such as the file folder and photograph of Jun Kazama
that Lee was staring at in "Ashes," after he effectively gave the
order to execute Jun.

Perhaps we had been wrong. Perhaps the secret she died to protect
had nothing to do with our enemies' defenses, but rather with the
treasure she carried in plain sight.
  -at long last, I get a chance to retroactively explain why Michelle
had to fight and die in "Ashes." If Kazuya had learned about the
true Power of Michelle's amulet, the Earth may well have known a
far darker fate... because I'm not sure even the heroes of Tekken &
Mortal Kombat combined could have fought off both Shao Kahn
and the Toshin.

He never abused me, but then, neither did he love me. Even so, he
was the closest thing I had to a father.
  -since Heihachi's physical abuse of Kazuya is recounted in this
chapter, it seemed important to recount for balance that Heihachi
never actually abused Lee. He just neglected Lee.

"None of the other bodies have progressed past stage two of
implantation, nor will they - your bumbling _idiot_ Tekkenshu
cannot get them into cryo fast enough!"
  -which is why you haven't seen, say, Shiina as a Cyborg Army
soldier... yet.

     "Its eyes are the wrong color," he observed, darkly.
     "What?"
     "They used to be grey. Now they are auburn."
     "That is it? _That_ is your reason?"
     "Why are its eyes the wrong color!?" Heihachi demanded,
wrathfully.

  -Bryan's eyes were steel grey when the syndicate had control of
him (video transcievers in the irises). But when Lee is in control,
Bryan's eyes are auburn, just as Lee's eyes once were. When Bryan
has control over himself, his eyes are their natural green.
   Yes, I am sort of covering for how I had Mitsurugi describe
Bryan's eyes as "steel grey" in Ch. 4, then later picked up blown-up
pic of Bryan for a TK3 ad and saw his eyes are really green... argh.
It's almost as annoying as making Kazuya's, Heihachi's, & Jin's
eyes jet black when Heihachi's & Jin's eyes are really brown. But I
can't change it, dammit... the chapters are  already out. So let
Heihachi's/Jin's eye color be symbolic of all the various changes
I've wrought in Namco's Tekken storyline. Crazy thing is, even
though it's much, much less of a creative license than Hwoarang
being a vampyre/Lei marrying Jun/Jin being a telepath/Michelle
being dead, Heihachi's/Jin's eye color really does bug me the most.
I probably would change it, if I had to do it all over again...

I'm dead now, but I'm doing all right
  -this is a line straight out of one of my all-time favorite shows,
NYPD Blue. It's the show where the detective Andy sees his
murdered son in a dream. "How are you?" "Well, I'm dead now,
but I'm doing all right." Just my one bit of plagery for the chapter.
^_^

To me, it's just my voice; it is notably smoother than when I speak
like I did as a living mortal, but that's all.
  -well, just about everyone hears their own voice differently from
how others hear it. I can never believe that's me speaking when I
hear a tape of myself. I figure it's only natural that Lee would hear
even his true voice differently from other people.

(Fuck the 'try.' You will GET ME OUT OF HERE, or I will wring
your angel neck!)
  -hehheh. Another vernacular remake on the classic Star Wars line
"Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'" Personally, I believe there IS a
'try,' but Bryan's irritation is of course understandable.

Another advantage was my lack of guards. Doctor Abel was the
only person in the lab with me, and it would not be difficult to
overpower him. 
  -Heihachi does not station guards in the lab with Abel because he
does not want *any* of his men to know more about the Cyborg
Army project unless they absolutely have to.

Abel scanned this body with a magnetic resonance imaging device,
x-rays, ultrasound, and a host of other non-invasive tests.
  -of course, it would have been perfectly sensible for Abel to
vivisect Prototype Alpha, since Heihachi was planning to
incinerate it anyway. But Abel is not 100% objective about his
work; he couldn't bring himself to harm his own prototype like
that.

I noticed the current date and time displayed along the bottom row
of his word processing program: December 6, 2017, 5:05 a.m.
  -well, the current date and time are always displayed at the bottom
of my good ol' Word Perfect 6.1...

So he would have been born in 1998, a little over a year after my
own death. Something bothered me about these dates. I wondered
if I had calculated them incorrectly, even though my Power of
Comprehension ought to preserve me from that.
  -what slightly bothers Lee is that he died on the same day as
Kazuya, but Jin was born over a year after that, and the natural
human gestation period is nine months... the answer to this
quandary has of course been presented in "Ashes," but it will be
recounted in a future chapter of "Phoenix."

"Just how long has it been since you had a chance to rest?" I asked,
casually resuming my approach.
     "Thirty-eight hours. Thirty-eight!"
  -on ER, a recent favorite among my TV shows, medical interns
have to work thirty-six hour shifts. Aaargh... by the end of that
time, even a first-class intern can end up giving someone a lethal
dose of sedative. Hence the number for Abel - you work thirty-
eight hours, and you probably *will* be slow to react when your
prototype starts walking around on its own.

(Are you squeamish only because you can see his face right now,
and you can't see the face of his next victim?)
  -this is something *I* want to ask people who oppose the death
penalty...

(Stop dancing on the head of a pin!)
  -hehheh. I added this line for the final draft. It's one of those little
touches I really like. BTW, Lee's debate with Bryan about killing
Abel is basically just an extended version of "if you start killing
now, then where do you stop?" argument.

It would have to be expunged, and I don't mean just deleted;
deletion merely marks a file's memory space for reuse, and is easily
undone if caught in time. No, each file in here would have to be
deliberately re-saved as pages of nonsense syllables.
  -well, just a little bit of basic file wisdom learned from computer
classes and word processing experience. ^_^

     "You must be Jin Mishima," I murmured.
     "Jin Kazama," he corrected, neutrally.
  -my friend Sarah wrote a fanfic about the Jin Mishima of an
alternate Tekken universe, where Kazuya didn't die in TK2. It's on
the Ultimate Tekken fanfic archive (there's a link to that on my
web page).

(Hey, what is this pretty boy? A Japanese Trekkie?)
  -yes, Star Trek is still a cult classic 20 years in the future. And
Bryan used to watch Voyager & Deep Space Nine as a little kid.
BTW, "Trekkie" is technically a sort of derogatory term for the
pathologically obsessed Star Trek fan, sort of like how "Otaku" is a
somewhat derogatory term for the obsessed anime fan. "Trekker" is
the more politically correct term. ^_^ 
  I have no idea how popular Star Trek really is in Japan, BTW...
but I doubt they think Voyager is much good, if anyone over there
actually watches it.

And yes, I did design the syndicate's software specifically to
compensate for the Year 2000 problem, which may partially
explain its continued use into the new millennium.
  -the common abbreviation for the Year 2000 problem is Y2K, but
I figure not all my readers would recognize what that meant. I'm
told it probably isn't as hideously awful a bug as once thought. I'll
probably make backup disk copies of all my fanfic in December
1999, just in case. ^_^

Regarding Lee's story about the dove. This actually ties back into
two previous references: "Ashes" Ch. 5, where Jun mentions that
Kazuya once helped her heal a dove, and "Phoenix" Ch. 2, where
Lee says he last saw Kazuya cry at age 13.

Of course she couldn't go to Heihachi, or any of the people who
worked for him; the only 'pet' he permitted within the syndicate
was his grizzly bear.
 -Kuma's listed age in TK2 is 24, two years older than Jun. So it's
sensible enough to imagine that he was around when Jun was
living in the syndicate.

He doesn't talk much about my father, but when he does, I can feel
his regret - so strong he can't keep it hidden, like he does with most
of his emotions. He knows that he failed. The shame haunts him. 
  -although the real source of Heihachi's shame is that a) Kazuya
was not strong enough to destroy his enemies - he failed against
Lei Wulong, and that failure reflects on Heihachi as a father and b)
Heihachi never had the courage to face Kazuya in single combat
after TK1.

Sometimes, I think the greatest single difference between my
nephew and my brother is that Jin absolutely cannot keep whatever
he is thinking from leaping off his face.
  -loosely borrowed from Steven Brust's "Brokedown Palace,"
where the visiting countess is amazed by a royal court where
practically no one can keep their thoughts off their features.

     (Lei Wulong? Since when does that son of a bitch have any
kids?)
     "That man is _not_ my father," Jin snarled, every word a
venomous serpent's fang. 
     (See? I told you.)

  -my pre-readers :) all seemed to agree that Bryan's background
comments were great. So I added more of 'em for the final draft,
especially ones about Lei Wulong and Nina Willaims.

It would seem that even the most petty of my selfish deeds had
cruel consequences, enduring far beyond what I was once able to
see.
  - "Ashes" Ch. 24 showed that the computer system spoke with
Jun's voice. Something that I thought I'd bring back for "Phoenix
Reborn." Unfortunately, I didn't have as much chance to set it up as
I hoped. Everything else was running long; there just wasn't space
for Jin to have to talk to the computer for some reason and cringe.

     +Please state passcode.+
     "'He loved Big Brother.'"
-Lee's passcode for the cryo units was a quote from "Brave New
World," so it fits the pattern that his passcode here would be
another dystopia quote. One thoroughly appropriate to Lee. This is,
of course, the last line of the novel "1984." It's actually quite
possible that a skilled computer expert might guess this passcode,
if he had worked on the problem and studied Lee's character well
enough, but Heihachi certainly never made changing the
computer's vocal files any kind of priority.

"You're the first stable artificial intelligence the syndicate has had
since it abandoned the malfunctioning Jack-2 production line-"
  -well, this is as good a spot as any to slip in why the syndicate is
no longer using a Jack-2 android armada like it did in "Ashes."
"Ashes" actually did mention that the Jack-2s were prone to
systems crashing, and that only Boskonovitch could keep them
operational. Boskonovitch was set free after the Great Invasion,
and went into hiding, so that even when Heihachi reclaimed the
Mishima syndicate he couldn't keep the remaining Jack-2 androids
functional, let alone make more. The whole project had to be
scrapped. And by the time Heihachi's spies finally did track
Boskonovitch down, Heihachi had his telepathic grandson to worry
about. With Jin around, Heihachi couldn't just kidnap and enslave
Boskonovitch... of course, once Jin is out of the picture, Heihachi
intends to make Boskonovitch an offer he _cannot_ refuse.
  BTW, Gun Jack is the one, rogue Jack-2 that Wang refers to in
"Ashes." He was even one of the Angel's Chosen; she referred to
him as the android "with a human soul." Jane (that's her name from
Namco's storyline) really has been trying to make him whole again,
for all these years after Abel's satellite blasted him. And as for
Boskonovitch's daughter (who is a different person from Jane),
well, she'll be referred to a bit more in upcoming chapters.

"There is already a 'lucrative demand' for people's bodies. Organ
transplants. Cadavers to train medical students. None of these have
created a 'global black market.'"
  -don't ask me why, but horror stories about people being killed for
their body organs really are pretty much relegated to urban myth
and modern fiction. Maybe because blood matches and surgery are
almost impossible to get without going through the proper
channels, and organs really do become useless for transplantation
very soon after a person's death.

"Don't believe because someone else does. Believe because _you_
know you're right, or don't believe at all!"
  -I don't know - if any of my stories have a moral, then this is
probably it. ^_^ I've been looking forward to explaining how
Heihachi convinced Jin to support the Cyborg Army project...

(What the hell? Every time I convince myself this isn't a bad TV
show, someone starts doing this crazy Psi Factor shit all over
again...)
  Bryan also used to watch "Psi Factor" as a nine-year-old child. It's
this that is *astoundingly* bad, but sometimes I had to sit through
parts of it so I could tape Mortal Kombat: Conquest. "Psi Factor" is
on very late at night, BTW. If you're wondering why Bryan's
mother let him stay up so late, well, there will be a little more
about her in an upcoming chapter.

"It is a science that will facilitate the banality of evil."
  - 'banality of evil' is a phrase particularly characteristic of the Nazi
era. I forget who coined it, but it seemed appropriate here.

     "He must not create any more Cyborg Army soldiers," my
nephew decided, opening his eyes. "There is only one way to make
sure of that, short of killing him, imprisoning him, or destroying
his mind."
  -Jin has decided to block out Abel's memories of the Cyborg
Army project. This is the only time Jin has deliberately chosen to
alter anyone's mind, and it's what Jin refers to during his pre-
interview dialogue in "Phoenix" Ch. 8. 

     "Because I would be deliberately misrepresenting myself. It
would be the same as lying about who I am."
     "So?"
     "I can't lie. Pathological truth-teller." 
  -if Lee could shape-shift into any form at all, it would make
things far too easy for him... :)

     "Yes, it is, but it's also monitored by hidden cameras and
infrared motion sensors. All of the syndicate's 'secret' passages are.
So are its regular hallways."
  -Heihachi has learned from Kazuya's mistakes. He has become
too smart a villain to leave the 'secret' passages in his home
unmonitored. At the same time though, he doesn't want them
blocked up; they prove useful for when he needs to spy on his own
employees.

     "If there's anything you can do to help her..."
     "I'll look into it."
  -the dialogue about Anna was a last-minute addition, but it nicely
helps to set up how Anna is going to be introduced into the
syndicate...

     (I've also seen picture books that were harder to read than
his face.) 
  -hehheh. This is another of my favorite lines about my Jin.
Namco's char profile says that he dislikes deceiving others; I sort of
take it to the next level, where he probably couldn't deceive others
even if he tried. ^_^

No, no, though our words were sometimes tense, we certainly
never came to blows. For goodness' sake, I had been sent to protect
him, not to fight him.
  -it's strange. Two chapters in a row - over fifty pages - without a
new fight scene. I don't know what's happening with my writing
anymore. ^_^ But there probably will be a fight scene next chapter.
Maybe even Jin vs. Lei, depending on how the outline works...
problem is, I'm just reaching the quagmire in the story's middle. I
have a lot of individual scenes in my head, and less of an idea
exactly how to string them into a plot. And then the plot will get
back into the chapters where all the events are nice and evenly laid
out...

Well, this chapter also happens to conclude "Phoenix Reborn" Part
II: Convocation. Next is the beginning of Part III: Deception. Bryan
charging a syndicate tank? Lei Wulong fighting Jin in his green
dragon silks? Ling Xiaoyu in her first day at school? Anna
Williams goes back to syndicate work in her zebra stripes? Um, I'm
still working on it...