Wagner was awoken from his sleep abruptly when a pair of strong hands gripped his arm, just under the armpit, and yanked him to his feet. The sudden movement jerked him from his solitude as he felt another pair of hands held him by his other arm.

"What the hell," he said, still disoriented.

"It's time," a voice replied.

"Time for what?" The face of the Shadowlaw goon was coming into focus - and there was not much to see, his facial features hidden under the shadow of the brim of his hat. Wagner looked at the other for answers, to see if he would elaborate, but the other soldier said nothing. They might as well have been clones of each other. There were no distinct features between the two goons, and Wagner wouldn't have been surprised if he found out they were experimenting with cloning.

"The AIDS is ready for you."

"Aids!" Wagner shrieked. What were these fucks planning on doing to him? Wagner had a good share of fraternizing in his youth and was somehow lucky enough to not come out with anything. He didn't cheat death just to do it again. They weren't going to take him. And he wasn't going to go anywhere without a fight. It clicked that he had said the same thing to himself before he was attacked in his own office, but then, they'd sent a monster after him. In this case, Wagner figured he could take on two Shadowlaw goons without straining a muscle.

He jabbed his heel into the shin of the goon on his right and stomped down on his foot with surprising strength. The man screamed in pain, releasing his grip on Wagner's right arm. With his newly freed limb, Wagner sent his fist flying into the face of the goon on the left, battering his nose into a bloody pulp with one strike.

"So Shadowlaw's experimenting with sexually transmitted infections now? Good God, if you ever developed a weapon ..."

"AIDS ... acronym for Agent Initiative Development System," the first goon said as he wheezed in pain on the ground.

"Oh ..." Wagner was speechless as relief washed over him. He instantly felt shame, embarrassed at the way he freaked out.

"And if the Pentagon really knew what Shadowlaw was up to," the goon continued, "it figures they would've told you. But since you don't know about the Agent Initiative program ..."
That meant the US army really hadn't a clue what Shadowlaw was up to. It was stupid of them, stupid of Wagner to have figured that such an organization would never stay down for long. He shouldn't have just assumed they were gone for good, just because they were taken down in the Alpha 3 tournaments and Bison killed. Wagner had read about the Shadow technology and the Doll Program before and grown somewhat familiar with the kind of experiments they were conducting. Who knows if they'd found a way to revive the dead? They might as well have, with the kind of scientific success they've had thus far.

"Little boy wants to play, huh?" somebody asked from behind Wagner, who instinctively turned to face his new opponent. He had dark skin and short black hair, sitting on top of his round face. He was dressed in a white quarter sleeve T-shirt with a tight blue wife beater over it, accentuating a broad chest. Though Wagner could see the muscle striations in his bare arms, after having seen Sagat, this man didn't intimidate Wagner as he could have under normal circumstances. But Wagner made a note to watch out for the mean looking boxing gloves on each of the guy's fists. He wasn't dressed in the typical Shadowlaw uniform, indicating that he was above the grunts - but how far above, he wasn't sure.

"And I'd love to play with you," Wagner retorted, "but in this case, I don't think I could rearrange your face anymore than it already is."

"Ooh, you'll regret the day you said that to Balrog!" the Shadowlaw boxer said, puckering his face into a wince. And then, there was the punch.

Wagner deflected it without much problem but the sheer momentum Balrog's fist was moving at send vibrations up and down the radius of his arm. It hurt badly, but Wagner wasn't about to show it, retaliating by seizing Balrog's bicep with his left hand, jabbing his right elbow into the boxer's throat. As Balrog fell, he wrapped an arm around Wagner's thigh and pulled the airman off his feet and onto the ground.

Wagner's head hit the concrete with considerable force as he struggled not to let himself black out. Balrog's foot came down on his face, only to be stopped inches before making contact with Wagner's nose. He held up the boxers booted foot with both hands, straining to keep them from contacting his face - or he'd never be able to get another girl in his life. The realization dawning on him, Wagner found a new source of motivation, increasing the adrenaline that flowed through him two fold. He kicked his leg up with surprising flexibility and dug the toe of his sneakers into Balrog's abdomen.

The boxer had lost his balance, as Wagner refused to let go of his foot. Wagner twisted it, not hard enough to break it but definitely enough to sprain something, causing the boxer to come crashing to the ground.

XXXXX

Kenny awoke to the grunts of exertion, cries of pain and the crashing of flesh and bone with cement. He moved his head and tried to open his eyes, but the mere effort dizzied him, sent shooting pains into his eyes. God, it felt like a hangover! Not that he knew what a hangover felt like ... Determined to get to his feet and find out what was going on, he rolled onto his side and nearly screamed out in pain. It was as if his lower back had been glued to the bed, and rolling over had tore out a chunk of flesh from his body.

He ran a hand gently along where he felt the pain, relieved to find that he was still in once piece. But that didn't stop his back from hurting. What had they done to him? Implanted something? Then he remembered hearing a story when he was a kid about a man who woke up in a tub of ice after sleeping with a woman. The first thing he saw was a piece of paper taped to the side of the tub with the phone number to the local hospital on it with instructions to call the number or he'd die. Turned out the woman had stolen his kidneys to sell them on the black market.

Kenny felt the color drain from his face. He felt his back again. He'd been stitched up - he could feel the stitching but there seemed to only be one. The would had been bandaged up with a thin cloth that had absorbed some of his blood. People had two kidneys. So that means if they took anything, he still had one and could live. Or maybe they took something else! Kenny had another panic attack, his hands gripping the side of the bed. The fear gave him the strength to sit upright and ignore the pain that coursed through his body.

"Ooh, you'll regret the day you said that to Balrog!" someone said from outside, reminding him that it sounded like a fight was going on out there. That most likely meant that at least one person in the fight was on his side. There had to be. And hopefully that same person would have some answers to what happened to him.

The cell door was open - and it had only just occurred to him. He got up slowly from the bed, at a pace he could bear and shuffled over to the door, the light in the hallway guiding his direction. Right before he stepped into the hallway and out of his cell towards freedom, a dark form fell right in front of him to the ground with a resounding splat, right on his face. It looked as if he'd tripped or something.
Kenny looked over and caught a glimpse of a young, blond haired man releasing the foot of the first. He looked back down at the first man, who remained motionless on the ground with a confused expression on his face.

XXXXX

"You're finally awake," Wagner commented, still lying on his back on the ground. His cell mate just continued looking at him with a "what-the-fuck" expression etched on his face. Turns out the kid was Asian after all, now that Wagner could see more clearly, definitely not a teenager yet - but almost. He had short black hair, slit almond shaped eyes ... and looked somewhat familiar to him. He could imagine seeing this kid in black and white ... and then it struck him. "Are you ... little Kenny?"
The "what-the-fuck" expression on the youth's face turned into shock, horror and disgust. "Who the hell are you, and how would you know!"

"Colonel Guile raised me. He kept a picture of you from the missing person's list in his wallet and he's mentioned you a few times."

"That's kinda creepy," Kenny commented. "Who's Guile?"

"He's kind of a mentor of mine but … you don't remember him?"

"No …"

"Sorry, I've probably got the wrong person then."

"The one I'm talking about is supposed to be dead." Now it became more apparent to him that Shadowlaw just might have been experimenting with technology that could raise the dead.

"Yeah, I'm not sure how that rumor got started, cause my Uncle Ken supposedly told me I'd died and …" Kenny said scratching his head, "but can this wait for later? Looks like we got jailbreak to make."

"I'm for it, man," Wagner said, kicking himself up from the ground.

"Where'd you learn to do that?"

"In the army," he replied. "They don't teach you nothing, you know." Kenny shrugged.

The two of them began started running down the winding corridors of the jail complex. Wagner had no idea where he was going but Kenny followed close behind, like he had no idea where to go himself. So far, they hadn't heard any alarms going off so at least it gave them that much of a head start. But how were they to find their way out of here? This place was a maze, as far as Wagner was concerned, every corridor looking like the one before it – just a dark, cement building with bare light bulbs for lighting. The cell doors that passed them by quickly weren't even numbered, so it was impossible to tell if they were going in circles.

The thought of freeing some of his fellow prisoners crossed Wagner's mind. But he didn't have the keys or the time to free them all. And there was no way of telling how occupied the complex was. Wagner could no longer sense Kenny running close behind. He shot a glance over his shoulder as he ran, seeing the youth hunch over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath while his face was twisted into a mask of pain.

"Are you alright?" Wagner asked, backtracking to where Kenny squatted.

"I'll be alright," he replied. "It's just that whatever they did to me … tore open my back or something, it's killing me. I just need a few seconds for a breather before we …"

"We've got no time for that," Wagner said, scooping up Kenny in one arm effortlessly, and continued running down the hall.

There was still no alarm sounding, unless it was silent. Wagner cursed at himself for not thinking it sooner. Maybe the Shadowlaw goons were already waiting for them outside, their guns pointed at the door they would eventually burst through. The idea slowed him down and Kenny noticed.

"Put me the hell down," he insisted, his face green with sickness.

"Are you feeling better enough to run on your own now?"

"Worse," he admitted. "But do you even know where you're going?"

"No … I thought maybe you might've been able to tell me where to go. You weren't arguing on which way we were headed."

"Well how the hell am I supposed to know!" Kenny asked. "I thought you knew the way out. God, we're screwed. And now they're gonna kill us for leaving out cells."

"Oh, your fate is much, much worse than death, my friends." Standing in front of the pair of them was a large caped form draped in a dark shadow, the brim of the hat hiding all of the figures facial features, save for his chin. Wagner could see armored boots pointing out from the bottom of the cape, wrapped around the figure's broad shoulders. He didn't have to look twice to know who it was. He'd met M. Bison, the dictator that ran the Shadowlaw criminal organization in the past and needed no reintroduction. "Well, at least that goes for Wagner. As for you, brat …" he tipped his chin in Kenny's direction, "I'm glad to report that the Shadow Technology data has been successfully extracted from the chip embedded in your back. And that means we no longer need you."

Kenny didn't even have time to understand what Bison was saying, no time to even blink. A large, purple ball of energy that seemed to have been launched from the dictator's own palm shot out from his body like a bullet, spreading his cape open with its sheer force and collided with Kenny's chest, flooring the youth in a second.

"What the hell!" Wagner shrieked, facing Bison. Something was seriously wrong. Bison wasn't this strong the last time he, Guile and Cammy faced him in battle. Wagner was so sure he'd been destroyed, but here he was standing before Wagner more powerful than he'd ever seen the man.