Gasping for breath, Chun-Li watched helplessly as Bison
recharged. When she realized she had found Bison at a remote Shadaloo outpost
with only his henchman Balrog to aide him she thought luck was with her.
Knowing that she would never get a better opportunity, she had challenged
them. Amused with her bravado, Bison
accepted. Her luck seemed to continue
to hold when she easily managed to get around Balrog's slow, heavy punches and
beat the large boxer. After a vicious
fight she thought she had beaten Bison as well, but he had managed to tap into
his supply of psycho energy before she could incapacitate him.
"Your father couldn't defeat me girl, what made you think
you would succeed?" Bison goaded as he floated in the column of energy that was
pouring down onto him. Chun-Li had
learned from experience to not attack Bison when he was charging his psycho
power. Just over a year ago someone had
tried to physically pull Bison out of a generator he was in during an ICPO raid
on a Shadaloo base. Bison somehow
escaped the resulting discharge unscathed, but it was a miracle that Chun-Li
had even managed to survive the explosion, much less that she was back on the
trail of Bison a few months later.
"So where are your comrades, or are you foolhardy enough
to try and defeat me on your own?"
While Chun-Li had called for reinforcements before she had challenged
Bison she knew they were still several minutes away, plenty of time for Bison
to both finish her and make his escape.
Chun-Li sighed, adjusted the top that covered her unitard, and hoped
that she could at least prove herself as well in battle as her father had.
Before Bison could fully sponge up the power that was
raining down on him, something leapt into the energy stream. All Chun-Li could see was a look of surprise
on Bison's face as the disruption to the energy stream caused the psycho power
that had been his life's blood to feed back on him before an explosion knocked
the young woman off her feet.
The sound from the blast still ringing in her ears, Chun-Li
sat up. The shower of psycho energy had
stopped and Bison had been vaporized.
The only thing that remained was the thing that had interrupted Bison's
power charge, a large mechanical tiger.
It looked at Chun-Li -it's glowing yellow eyes seemingly staring
straight into her's- and then padded over to it's master.
The man was dressed in a dark blue outfit with a long
scarf pulled up over the lower half of his face. Strapped to his back were two items Chun-Li couldn't see clearly
but that she suspected were weapons.
Even though she was certain she had never seen this man before there was
something familiar about him. There was
something about the look of his eyes –half hidden beneath his wild shag of
hair- that Chun-Li recognized in a way she couldn't place. Not only could Chun-Li not identify the man,
she didn't even know how where he had come from. They were in an abandoned village in Laos where the few buildings
that were still standing housed Shadaloo equipment. Pulling herself to her feet, she watched him suspiciously to see
if he was an ally or a new enemy.
"Subject Bison, number 31452 7887-2, confirmed as
terminated," he said, seemingly into the air.
One of his hands absently brushed over the steel scalp of the tiger,
causing it to react in a surprisingly affectionate and alive way. "Of the remaining two individuals one is
unconscious and the other is..." he paused for a moment when he finally looked
at Chun-Li, a frown crossing his already serious expression. "You're Chun-Li. You aren't supposed to be here."
Not certain what to say, Chun-Li didn't respond.
"This recently terminated Bison was supposed to of died
over a year ago," he continued, "and you were supposed to of been killed in the
explosion along with him. It seems the
anomaly that allowed Bison to live spared you as well."
"Bison was supposed- what are you talking about?" Chun-Li
asked.
"Bison had to be eliminated because he was supposed to of
died in an explosion that occurred when someone tried to remove him from a
psycho drive generator he was in. The
same accident was supposed to of killed you as well."
While Chun-Li didn't fully understand what the man was
talking about, she understood the implication.
She also realized why his eyes seemed so familiar. He had the same focused look she had seen on
champion fighters she had seen in Street Fighter tournaments. But instead of being the look of a serious
fighter, she was looking into the gaze of a man who seemed to have no qualms about
killing. There was more emotion in his
tiger's eyes.
Deciding that if this man had killed Bison simply on the
grounds that he was supposed to of died already, she was the next logical
target. She knew that she may be
drawing an incorrect conclusion but she was certain she would rather be paranoid
than dead. Trying to shake off the
exhaustion that was overtaking her body, Chun-Li mentally readied herself for
an attack.
Her eyes only flicked off the man for an instant when the
tiger growled. The noise from the tiger
didn't sound like a synthesized recording of a growl, instead it sounded like a
rumbling of gears deep inside it's throat.
It wasn't much of a distraction but it was all the man needed. Hearing a rustle of fabric, Chun-Li saw the
man sprint towards her at an impossibly fast speed, faster than she could
react, his scarf billowing out behind him. A few steps from her he pulled one
of the items from his back and -in a blur- swung it at Chun-Li. Taking the blow full in the side of her
head, Chun-Li felt a brief, sharp pain that turned to darkness as she spun to
the ground.
His hand still resting on one of the handles of his
cypher, Strider Hiryu looked down at the still form of Chun-Li. She wasn't moving and the skin around the
area where he had struck her was already starting to swell and discolor, but
she was breathing regularly. Even
though he had hit her with the flat of his blade instead of it's cutting edge
he was relieved to see he hadn't done any permanent damage.
"Return to base."
In a flash of light Strider and the saber-tooth Option that accompanied
him vanished. Teleporting across space
and dimensions, Hiryu reappeared on the bridge his ship, the Blue Dragon. While the Option loped off to the weapons
room it shared with the other items in Strider's arsenal, Hiryu headed to the
observation deck.
As Strider entered the room a flat computer voice began
speaking.
"Presence of Chun-Li in sector 31452 7887-2 causing
disturbance-"
"Noted," Strider said, cutting the voice off. "What is the level of disturbance?"
"0.06%"
"Acceptable."
While Strider trusted both the system that ran the Blue Dragon and the
collective artificial intelligence that operated his Options, he doubted he
would ever warm up to the tactical computer that monitored dimensional shifts
for him.
The observation deck was filled with images, be they
displayed on monitors or projected into the air. There were scenes of martial artists performing impossible
physical acts while other screens showed massive robots lumbering through a
city, entire buildings being knocked off their foundations as they trundled
about. There were images of everything
from schoolyards in Japan to werewolves and other creatures that should only
exist in stories. The only thing that
connected all these disparate images was the fighting. In every screen someone was fighting someone
else.
It's been said even a small decision can change a person's
life dramatically. From missing an
airline flight to something as simple as turning left instead of turning right,
a small choice can have large consequences.
Not only is this true but those choices can affect the world around the
person as well. These sort of choices
don't occur every day but when they do not only are the results dramatic but
both choices can sometimes occur. For
reasons not fully known another world -one step removed- can be created where
the other choice is played out. Even
though this occurrence is rare there are still billions of Earths barely
separated from one another.
While all these worlds usually exist in harmony with each
other some events cause so many rifts and splits that the choices begin to fold
in on themselves. If something is not
done the various versions of Earth would erode into one another until they all
implode into the multi-dimensional equivalent of a black hole. Fighting tournaments are especially prone to
this phenomenon. Each contestant
-depending on whether they win, lose, or even who they fight- has the potential
to create dozens of world changing choices.
The potential for change is so great that changes can overlap and create
disruptions that could destroy that Earth and all the others as well.
This is where Strider comes in. Given his charge by the Elder Council, Hiryu monitors and tries
to correct the disturbances caused by fighters. Most of the time he can correct an event through something subtle
and unseen. However a few occasions,
such as when a lunatic like Bison lives longer than he is supposed to, require
drastic, immediate action. If someone
sees Strider it usually means they have been targeted for liquidation.
Strider's hand flicked over a set of keys causing a series
of screens to jump to life with different versions of Chun-Li. There were shots of Chun-Li pursuing Bison,
Chun-Li fighting -and somehow defeating- a hell-spawned demon three times her
size, Chun-Li on her wedding day standing next to her proud father... all
different versions of the same person.
"Further subjects for today:" the monitoring computer
intoned, "Subject 31309 Charles Nash survived encounter with Bison. Disturbance level 21%. Suggested method of termin-"
"No, no more killing today," Strider said. "Find some other problem that doesn't
require direct intervention." As the
computer recalculated, Strider pulled the scarf from his face and sighed. He
knew that he should of killed Chun-Li 31452 7887-2 as well but he hesitated at
the last moment. Instead of seeing
Chun-Li, Strider had seen Sheena when she was killed by Matic's men. Instead of an anomaly that needed to be
corrected he had remembered when he had been forced to kill his own sister
after she had gone mad. In spite of the
weight of his assignment Hiryu was still human.
