Notes
*sigh*
I did not want my next story to be another Athena fic. ...but, as those of you who know me know, I recently had an epiphany.
You see, in most of her media appearances, Athena is stupidly powerful. She can read minds; she can control them. She can merge with peoples' psyches, beam words and images into them from miles away. And she can put on a light show - a destructive light show - the likes of which you've never seen.
Now here's the catch: that media does not include the games.
Seriously. Go look it up; I know I did. The fact is, a lot of Athena's "staple" psychic powers are crap. They're given to her by unofficial sources, from fanfiction to officially-endorsed but non-canon manga. In the mainline games themselves - including backstories, cutscenes, endings and winquotes - Athena has what's been shown in battle and that's it. (Well, she can also sense evil and read peoples' auras. Umm...great?)
I am a terminal Athena fanboy, so this discovery rocked my world. I literally almost stopped writing KOF. Then I thought of a better way to cope: write a new story about Athena. The real Athena, with her actual, pitiful skillset.
This is that story. And it ain't gonna be pretty.
Chapter 1 - Arrival
It started like a perfectly normal day...for Athena Asamiya, that is.
She woke up at the crack of dawn, eager as ever to get a jump on the day. She did her morning katas; she had her morning tea. She drove up to her label's headquarters, talked with them about schedules and deadlines. She drove down to her agent's office, talked with him about appearances and endorsements. She had a light lunch at her favorite cafe, wearing her tenth new disguise there in a row (of course the staff could see right through them by now). Then she moved on to the studio, chatting and laughing with her bandmates before recording some hooks for the new album.
It was when Athena left the studio that things started to go downhill.
From there she started driving to her team's practice space, looking to squeeze in an hour or two of training before dinner. She saw the first sign of trouble about halfway there, when she noticed a black car that seemed to be following her. She tried to get a good look at it, but couldn't; she tried to sense its riders' intent, but if they were evil she couldn't feel it. The car turned onto a side road a couple of streets before she did, relieving her considerably - but not completely.
She arrived at the space and went to the very back, opening the door to a large, mostly empty gym. She received a warm welcome from Sie Kensou, much more than her partner these days; she gave him a quick kiss before they began. Usually, they worked with Master Chin during training - but sometimes he had engagements of his own, leaving his students to their own devices. Practice was naturally more laid back on those days...but this time, at least, they managed to work up a sweat over the first half-hour. (Not in the way Kensou would have liked, of course.)
She found the second sign of trouble when they headed to the sidelines for a break - and she felt the evil she'd been looking for.
What in the world...? Athena looked all around herself quickly. She saw nothing but the massive, windowless gym, the sparse workout equipment scattered along the outside edges. Frowning, she crossed to the door leading out into the hall, ignoring Kensou's curious grunt as she opened it up. No, nothing seemed to be happening out there, either...
"Whassamatta, 'un?" Sie asked through a mouthful of meat bun.
"...it's nothing," Athena answered, shaking her head. Her 'radar' for evil must've been playing tricks on her again; it never had been as reliable as she would've liked. She felt another twinge as she went back to the sidelines - and ignored it, sitting on the bench and taking a long, cool drink of water.
She really should've made the connection.
The third sign of trouble came pretty quick after that - and it was a big one. Moments after they resumed training, Athena suddenly felt sluggish; Kensou noticed it right before he started feeling it too. "Athena? Wha...wha's happening...?" he said cleverly.
"I...don't know," Athena groaned, holding her head as she shook it. She looked around again, as much as she could - and her eyes widened as she saw it. Her bottle of water was laying on its side, back on the bench...and dripping rapidly from a pinhole leak near the top.
"...the water...!" she gasped, as Sie followed her gaze. Somebody drugged it...!
It was just about the last coherent thought she had. Within seconds, she dropped to one knee, the world in front of her filling with fog. She managed to see Kensou shambling towards her, trying to support her - and then he stumbled and fell, and that was enough to put him out.
Athena outlasted him for just a few seconds longer, cursing her foolishness - and her weakness. This was an attack on her mind, damnit! Shouldn't she have some sort of defense against this⁇ What kind of psychic was she...?
Then she too fell to the floor, her vision clearing for a split second. In that time, she finally saw somebody else in the room, the first of several dark-suited men entering from the hallway. At first the man seemed like any other mysterious villain...but then she got a good look at his face.
...oh god, no.
Many years ago, a fourteen-year-old Athena discreetly exited a nightclub, using the secret door to the parking lot reserved for performers and staff. It was a seedy bar in a seedy area with seedy clientele...but Athena wasn't thinking about any of that. She was thinking about tonight's show, and how every person in the room had seemed to light up for her last song - even the seediest ones. I'm getting pretty good at this! she mused, giggling to herself.
It was a good thing, too. It had been nine months, now, since her psychic powers had manifested...and eight months since her parents had abandoned her for it, leaving her only a credit card. She had sponged off of them for two months before leaving them in turn, finding a new apartment and a job of her own to pay for it. Hiroshi's paid its singers well, but not enough for her to build up any savings; the more she wowed the crowd, the better chance she had of keeping the gig - and keeping a roof over her head next month.
It didn't bother Athena, though. She liked singing. She liked making it on her own. And she liked that her psychic powers had become a blessing instead of a curse. It didn't matter if she lived in one of the city's worst areas; with her power, she knew she could take care of herself.
But arrogance breeds complacency.
She'd just headed into a back alley, still grinning, when her entire life changed. The second she passed him, a man she'd missed lurking in the shadows sprang up from behind her, grabbing her. In an instant, he'd looped one hand around her waist - and pressed a knife to her throat with the other.
"Quiet," he growled, before she got out more than a squeaky gasp. "You wanna live, you shut up and come with me."
Horrified, Athena did as she was told, letting the man drag her with him and trying not to scream, to speak, to breathe. Her heartrate soaring, her thoughts raced almost as fast, shifting from what to why...to how. How had she not noticed this man!? She'd passed him without sensing him at all - even with an extra sense‼ So she could take care of herself, could she⁇ Well she was doing a bang-up job so far...!
But then, as she saw the man was dragging her back to his car, fear turned to anger. He may have caught her like any other teenage girl - but she wasn't one. She was a psychic, damnit...and it was time to prove it.
Without warning, the knife removed itself from Athena's throat. It was yanked from it, in fact - and then it just stopped, floating about a foot from her throat and two feet from the man's face. Dumbstruck, the man stopped moving and just looked at it, his face going pale.
So he got a really good view of it when it turned around in midair - and stabbed into his eye.
"Aaauuuggghhh‼!" The man crumpled to the pavement, reflexively clutching at his eye but smart enough to not remove the blade. Blood flowed out of the wound quickly, oozing through his fingers and forming a puddle on the ground below. "What the fuck!? You bitch‼ You're fucking dead...!"
Athena looked down at him trembling, switching back to fear in an instant. She had not meant to do that; she had aimed the weapon at his cheek. Of course, this was a much better deterrent, and she felt no remorse at all about using it on her would-be kidnapper. But it was still her biggest taste yet of just how deadly her power could be...and it frightened her.
And then the fear turned into stark terror, as she got a better look at the man's face.
...yakuza...!
The word burned through her brain like a hot-iron brand, melting the world around her. The yakuza, Japan's Mafia, had extraordinary influence at the time - especially in her part of town. Members tended to show up often at any remotely private nightclubs, including Hiroshi's. And Athena had just stabbed one of them, one of her regulars, in the eye.
...oh god. OhgodohgodohgodohgodohGOD. Panting for breath, she took a quick look at his pinky, confirming what she already knew. Then she looked back at his face, which was now looking up at hers. His one good eye glared a dagger at her; his mouth had twisted into a hateful, evil snarl.
She knew she should kill him. She was probably screwed already; letting him live would be like signing her own death warrant. ...but she couldn't do it. She was no cold-blooded murderer, not even in the name of self-defense. She wasn't even a warrior, yet. Right now Athena was just a scared little girl, in way over her head with no idea how to get out.
And so she ran. She ran from the man, all the way back to her apartment. She ran from the apartment, leaving all but her most precious things behind. She ran to Master Chin's side, the moment he said she had potential (thank god she'd found him so fast). And when he asked her to be his pupil, she ran all the way to China, never once stopping to look back.
She still remembered it years later, when she came back to Japan for King of Fighters. But the yakuza seemed to have forgotten, leaving her alone even before she became high-profile. Over the years, Athena forgot it as well, shelving the incident in her mind with the rest of that horrible year. Even as her fame grew, so too did her skill and power; she never once considered bodyguards - and in time, she stopped keeping her own guard up.
But one man hadn't forgotten.
Now, as she looked up from the ground with that split-second of clear vision, she saw him. She saw the same build, covered in the same tacky teal suit. She saw the same hair, slicked up in the same stupid spiked hairdo. She saw the same face, the same snarl still etched upon it. The only thing different was the eyepatch...a deep, crimson circle that seemed to stare into her soul.
I'm fucking dead, she thought, as her world faded to black.
End Notes
Yeah. M-rated for a reason.
It ain't getting any better, either. This story is not for the faint of heart. Some awful things are gonna happen here - but it'll come out okay in the end. (C'mon, it's still me here.) I've never liked trigger warnings, because they spoil the plot...but if you ever need trigger warnings, you're gonna want them for this. So here's my compromise: if you're nervous, go to a Base64 decoding website - base64decode. org works - and translate these codes: QXR0ZW1wdGVkIFJhcGU= and VG9ydHVyZQ== .
My preferred pattern is weekly installments of stories that are already written - but not this time. This one gets updated whenever new chapters are ready...and they're gonna be ready fast. I've already planned out the entire plot; I will be shocked if this fic isn't done in a week.
See you soon...