Pain was starting to overtake him now and exhaustion began taking its toll on the weary, battered man. There were already noticeable bruises on his head and arms. Multiple separate, but powerful strikes and set his entire torso, particularly his chest, on fire. Along with that there was a constant, powerful sting in his left leg that could not be ignored, making it difficult to put pressure on it.
But all the same he did, getting back into his fighting stance. He switched to lying most of the pressure on his right foot, while the left was barely on the ground, and pulled his left arm closely to his face while the other was stuck outwards. The thick grass of the hilly, long fields shifted and crumpled under the feet with a slight crunch from the dryness.
His eyes were also not in the best shape, with it becoming increasingly difficult to see from the right. It would not have really mattered though; the darkness of the cloudy night removed any real lighting from the world around him. Only with the occasional lightning bolt would his vision fully return for a fraction of a second; and, if he was lucky, a glimpse of his opponent, who seemed to have no real trouble with the atmosphere.
He pushed his dark, long bangs out of his eyes and resumed a defensive stance. The calm, usually private ninja knew that if he lost this fight he would surely die. He pulled his farther hand into a fist near his face with the thumb sticking out and the first two fingers rigidly up. All noise was out and he focused on finding his target; if not through sight, then through sound.
Several times he thought he noticed something, and turned to face it. Usually, it was nothing, but once or twice he thought he saw the towering figure of his enemy. He waited and waited until a bolt went out through the heavens for a prolonged period, giving great light to the area. Then he saw the great build of red that made up his target.
Immediately he broke into a rapid run, ignoring all pain and focusing on the villain. Although there was a distance of around twenty feet, the ninja covered it in no time. In seconds he reached his goal, and with barely a couple feet between them launched from his run slightly into the air. Putting a quick turn on it, he brought his other foot around, hoping to deliver a powerful blow against the head.
As the sneaker-wearing foot came around, it met with nothing but air on its pass before reconnecting with the ground. Nothing was there, and the ninja immediately knew it, as well as what that meant, in turn. Before he could recover and resume a defensive stance, there was a single, powerful blow against his back, as if a hard push was given with the power of an all-out punch. The hit sent him back and though the air a bit, falling back to the Earth and skidding across the grassy lands a few more feet before coming to a rest on his back.
He could not get up, or barely move for that matter. He had lost the energy or power to do any real kind of movement with his body, only feel the great pain he was in. The ninja felt consciousness slowly sipping away and tried to fight it, and his vision began to become blurrier.
Through the blur he could make out his victorious combatant standing triumphantly, mockingly, over him in a sense of great satisfaction. The extreme muscular build was covered by the red militia like uniform and a dark cape draped over his back. The only other breaks in the red were the shoulder pads, wrist bands, and shin guards, shining against the lightening in a dark silvery-grey. The visor cap was also bathed in bloody color, save for the golden skull symbol on the front.
“As fun as it was practicing against you, Guy, I’m afraid it will have to stop here,” he said in his deep voice with a cruel, sinister smile. “I have business to attend to, and it pains me greatly to procrastinate any further.”
“Bison….” The ninja coughed through the pain. “You… will not…”
“But I will,” Bison taunted. “That is why you are still breathing; I want my foes to witness the full extent of their defeat.”
“Rose… will not…”
“Enough of your foolish delusions watch my work come to its glorious completion.”
With that, M. Bison turned and moved back into the darkness, getting farther and farther with each flash of light. It had taken Bison so long to prepare things, so much time and work, and it was finally going to pay off. Shadow Law, his personal terrorist army, would soon become more powerful than it had ever been before. And its resurrection would also see the rebirth of his plans for total world domination.
To him, it felt like it was closer to his grasp than ever before. He had come close many years ago, holding a worldwide tournament that was to assemble the greatest warriors on Earth and conscript them into the organization. Unfortunately, it backfired, with most of the Shadow Law being destroyed, and Bison himself nearly dying from battling the greatest of them.
Things had never really been the same after that, with one scheme after another being thwarted, and attempts at rebuilding the organization conventionally being plagued with traitors and opportunists. But that had finally come to pass; anyone whom he could not control was gone, despite that being a fair amount of the weapons branch. But it mattered little now; he would soon have plenty of minions to do his bidding.
Continuing the walk for a short ways he reached his destination, a small steel ring that was barley large enough for him to fit through. The wires connected to it twisted and turned like long, black snakes. Most of them ran down to a small control bow on the ground. The largest was connected to a pad wrapped around a women, one that looked like its job was to take one’s blood pressure, though it was far more advanced than that.
The women, Rose, at first seemed like nothing more than a lady with ostentatious clothes and an eccentric hair style, making her look like some kind of gypsy or magician. In fact, that was exactly what she was, a magician. But there was so much more behind the Italian woman.
Bison’s great power came from his soul, which he turned entirely dark and evil many years ago by expelling everything good inside of it. Charity, mercy, care, and all the handicaps that prevented his power’s growth were forcibly removed and cast out. But somehow, those good pieces were powerful enough to manifest into their own form, which was what Rose became. In essence, she was his opposite, and her powerful magic posed an undeniably great threat to his position.
But now, he was using that same power to his advantage. What his foes had hoped would be the key to his defeat would instead be the key to their destruction. That same magic was what was needed to give the machine its power, its final touch. Finally, the time had come to begin his new mission.
Doing a quick runover with his eyes to check if everything was in place, he grabbed the control box and pressed hard on the large, black button in the middle. The ring began to light up, and a blue wave filled its open center akin to water filling an empty fountain. He stared proudly with his despicable smile at the portal, then turned to Rose with a look more of satisfaction or completion.
“I believe this will about call us even for your meddlesome acts,” he said to the unconscious fortune teller lying in a fetal position on the grass. “Still, there’s one last thing I think I should settle.”
He lifted one of his legs up in a stomping position and moved it over Rose’s head.
“You’ve outlived your usefulness,” he continued in a bloody tone. “I’m sure you won’t mind; I certainly don’t!”
He was about to bring the figurative hammer down when he heard something coming fast from behind him again. He did a quick 180 and threw his arm up in the air, blocking another attempted roundhouse from the badly panting Guy. Immediately counterattacking, he drove a massive fist into the ninja’s stomach, causing him to heel over and grab his midsection in pain. Winding up, he released a greater punch at the staggering fighter, knocking him to the Earth’s floor once more.
“Are you this insistent upon meeting your death so early, Guy!?” he yelled in an angry, rather annoyed tone. “I will be more than happy to grant your wish!”
To Guy, it well and truly felt like the end had come. He had faced it before, but it had never been quite as close as this. He took a bit of comfort in knowing that he had tried, that he had done what he could. Tough at the same time he wondered if anyone else could stop Bison. That thought expelled any real comfort he had left.
He watched Bison charge towards him. Before he was there, Bison launched himself in the air, and flew a ways over to his body. As he began to descend, Bison crossed his arms, straightened his body, and shoved his feet together as if it were a military stance. He was going to, literally, crush Guy under his boots.
He was falling like a rock, and though the red-clad ninja wished he could close his eyes, they remained fixed on the demon with fear. Just before Bison could make his lethal landing, a figure shot out from the corner of Guy’s vision and delivered a swift, hard kick to the terrorist that sent him on a new flight path to the ground several feet away. The figure then landed, rather gracefully, in front of Guy, filling his still-blurry vision with an image of white clothing, which he made out to be a tattered karate gi with the sleeves ripped away.
“Ryu?”
“Guy, are you alright?” he asked, still facing Bison.
“Yes, I’ll be fine,” Guy replied. “I can still-”
“You stay where you are,” Ryu ordered. “I’ll take care of this.”
Bison recovered quickly from the blow and was on his feet again, giving an evil chuckle when he saw his old enemy.
“Ah, Ryu; I suppose I should have expected this. It wouldn’t be a final step to total conquest without you, would it?” he asked mockingly. “Perhaps you came for a quick interview in joining our army? The offer is always open.”
“Shadaloo is gone Bison!” he replied. “You’ll never raise it on this world again!”
Ryu leapt forward to deliver a dive punch on his way down, but Bison shifted, or rather teleported, out of the way, leaving nothing but air for him to hit.
“That’s right,” Bison replied, reappearing a short distance behind Ryu, floating a bit off the ground. “It’s good to see you’re paying attention.”
“What do you mean?”
“Raising an army on this planet has become such back-breaking work; it’s so… brutal,” he explained, each word wrapped in a sense of wickedness. “But there are so many others out there that are far more fragile; more… obedient beings that will make for excellent soldiers.”
“And why are you telling me this?” Ryu asked, just now noticing where Bison was in the dark and turning to face him, keeping his back to the portal.
“Because I want your time in hell to be eased by the knowledge that the world will be justly ruled by its rightful king,” Bison responded. “And for you that time can start now!”
Bison shot forward in the air like an arrow out from a bow, shifting his body flat out as if he were flying and sticking his right arm outward. A purple aura seemed to encase him like a cocoon as he flew towards his target, and the body itself glowed blue. Putting a spin on it for the final touch, he shot forward like a torpedo, easily closing the short gap in less than a second.
Ryu himself tried to block, crossing both his arms and waiting for the impact. It did little real good as the attack hit him head on and knocked him from his footing. However, as they were flying back at a fast pace, they were put in the path of the portal’s door, which both had forgotten was there in the darkness.
Ryu himself remembered closing his eyes and feeling the heavy attack smash through him. He remembered opening his eyes to find himself shooting backward, Bison still grabbing onto him. He finally remembered falling into something that felt odd, and being surrounded by blue waves of energy. Then he felt nothing, and finally passed out from the impact.