Yeah, I know I forgot to add a disclaimer earlier, so here it is. I might put one in every other chapter, seeing as how I don't want to clutter my pages with just legal talk. So here it is. I do not own any of the SNK- Playmore characters, the City of Southtown, or any of the elements that come from any of the games that I am reinterpreting in my story. Any fictional (that means my original) characters that bear any resemblance to anyone are purely coincidental. I do not wish to offend anyone, and if I do, either stop reading, or tell me in a review. However, I do request that you intelligently state what your complaint is, and I will do my best to answer why I have taken that particular route of creative intent.

Remember, this is only a figment of my imagination. What happens in my story is never meant to offend anyone, but is meant to be provocative and thoughtful. Some of your favorite characters might not turn out the way you would like them to, but that is in no sense out of spite, only an artistic impression. Once again, if you have an issue that you would like to discuss, feel free to send me a non-flame, intelligent critique in the reviews, or e-mail me at Salvy_Mic@arashcuzi.com. Without further ado, I welcome you into the Battle of Southtown...

Ch.1- New Assignment

Amongst the Ikari mercenaries, Grozny had become a byword for disaster. Never before had a detachment of top-quality mercenaries suffered such a high percentage of casualties on any assignment. Out of a company of exactly 100 contracted men and women, soldiers trained to the highest possible degree, 22 had been killed in action, with a further 9 being killed in captivity, and 5 more dying as a result of wounds. On top of that, a staggering 60 had been "only" wounded. That meant only four operatives came back without a scratch, and the fact that three of them were Ralf, Clark, and Leona didn't go over too well with the head of the agency. The other one that somehow didn't become a casualty was a rookie, and he was still twitching uncontrollably. In other words, despite the fact that the Russians eventually took the city, the deployment of the Ikaris was a complete failure in the eyes of the indomitable Ikari commander, Heidern.

The responsibility of facing the wrath of the commander fell squarely on the broad shoulders of Ralf Jones, as it always did. As it was, he was sitting outside of Heidern's office, regaled in full Ikari dress uniform. That consisted of olive drab dress pants matching an olive drab jacket. A white dress shirt was underneath the jacket, and tied around the collar was the standard issue black tie. Ralf's shoes were immaculately shined and polished to the point that he could have tidied his hair up simply by looking down. A black beret was perched snugly on his head, going towards the right. On his chest, Ralf wore numerous badges, medals, and ribbons from around the world, signifying the ungodly number of campaigns the weary warrior had participated in over his 18-year career with the Ikari mercenaries. The most prominent of those was the Medal of Valor awarded to him by the President of the United States himself, in secret, for nearly single-handedly protecting the lives of the President and his family overseas. Ralf may not have been officially a U.S. citizen, but he still considered himself an American, and having such an honor bestowed upon him by the President meant more than he could think to him.

Ralf was consumed in his own thoughts at the moment, knowing that all of his badges would mean nothing when he had to face his CO. Not that it mattered being torn into, what hurt Ralf the most at that moment was the fact that he had allowed so many of his comrades to die needlessly in what essentially was a conflict with no lasting impression on the world. As important as the war in Chechnya may have been to the Russians, and undoubtedly the Chechens, on the grand scale of things, it would have no effect whatsoever on world events. Yet here he was, once again, alive and well.

"Jones," came the firm voice through the oak door, "come in."

Ralf obliged and strode through the door at attention, stopping in the very middle of Heidern's office. Usually, Ralf would be in here on more casual terms, and he would have observed the giant bookcases on each wall brimming with books on combat, history, and science. He would have admired the dark wood floors, or the mahogany desk with models of tanks and airplanes atop it. He would have been looking at the cases behind the desk, one filled with rare guns, the other with antique knives. Not this time. Ralf stood rooted at attention, his eyes fixed straight ahead, not looking at anything. Not even looking at Heidern.

Heidern struck an imposing figure, standing with his back facing the middle of the room, both hands behind his back, staring out his window. His brown hair, dotted with gray, was combed neatly to one side. His own black beret was on his right shoulder. If Ralf looked impressive in his own uniform, he looked downright shabby compared to Heidern, who was wearing an identical uniform. Heidern was completely squared away, His pants perfectly creased, his cuffs ending precisely on his wrists, all his medals pinned impossibly straight, as Ralf noticed when Heidern turned around.

His face was lined with the wrinkles of wisdom and tenacity, its commanding aura amplified further by an eye patch over his right eye. The other eye glared through the statuesque Jones.

"At ease and take a seat," he said, every word dripping with authority. Ralf did as he was told. He knew Heidern was normally a cold, commanding man, but at this moment, that demeanor seemed amplified. On top of that, he was surlier than usual.

"You had exactly 99 other soldiers under your command," he began, not bothering to conceal his anger. "96 are either dead or wounded, with the exception of yourself, Steel, Leona, and the rookie Jarvis. That is unacceptable!!"

Heidern didn't shout, but the quiet, seething way in which he had said 'unacceptable' unnerved Ralf slightly. In all his years, he had never seen the commander that angry that soon.

"Excuses?" asked the commander.

"No sir," replied Ralf simply. Which was true; he had no excuse for why such a debacle had occurred.

"If that's the case, then explain to me how 96 Ikari mercenaries became statistics in a 2-week period. Tell me how you and the other two were led into an ambush. In short, tell me what the hell happened over there that lost me an entire company and has me writing letters home to families explaining that their loved ones fell ingloriously due to contractual obligations."

Ralf told Heidern everything to his knowledge that occurred in Chechnya. A blow-by-blow account of every patrol, sortie, and firefight that occurred. The ill-fated rescue mission that brought nothing to the table and how they had failed to secure the hostages, seeing as how the hostages had been dead for at least 4 days.

Then, Ralf launched into the mysterious giant man that they had encountered during the rescue mission. He described in full detail everything that happened, and most importantly in his mind, the effect that it had had on Leona. At that, Heidern's anger quickly subsided and was replaced by deep thought.

"So the Chechens seemed to know everything in your playbook?"

"Yes sir. I can't begin to tell you how many times I myself had been involved in ambushes and encirclement. I mean, I knew from the beginning of the assignment that it would be tough, seeing as how it would take place in an urban environment against a native force with fanatical tendencies. But they were more organized than I gave them credit for. Opposition was a lot stiffer than what myself and the Russians had predicted. After the rescue mission, I realized there could only have been one other possibility. We had a spy on our hands leaking information to the enemy somehow. If that's the case, there are exactly 100 suspects, including Clark, Leona, and myself. If you'll allow me the liberty to make exclusions, there are now 61 possible suspects."

"Are you trying to tell me that you request an investigation?"

"In so many words, sir, yes, I do request an investigation."

Heidern started pacing behind his desk. "Request accepted. It doesn't seem as if this is entirely your fault. In the meanwhile, after this funeral, I want you, Clark, and Leona back in here. I have another assignment for you three in specific and upon hearing your account, I think it might be of personal interest for you. Dismissed."

Ralf stood, saluted, and marched back out of the office, leaving Heidern to brood alone once again in his office. He had feigned his natural stern demeanor for once, hiding the apprehension that he felt in his gut upon hearing Ralf's report. If his feeling proved correct, he knew that everything he had worked so hard to achieve would come crashing down around his ears. Yet the downfall of his organization was not even the worst that could have happened, and Heidern knew it. He had a bad feeling about this next assignment he was sending his three best on, and when Heidern had a bad feeling, it was usually multiplied exponentially in real life.

A funeral had been held on base for the Ikari mercenaries who had fallen on the field of battle in Chechnya. It was a low-key affair. There were no weeping widows, no crying children, and no real pastors to say the last rites. It had been as best a military funeral as one could hope to put together, made more unusual by the fact that the Ikari mercenary agency was a paramilitary organization to begin with, made up of several different nationalities.

Of the 36 men who had died, 25 of them were Eastern European, mostly from Russia or any of the former Yugoslav republics. 3 were from Latin America, 5 were from Africa, 2 were from the Middle East, and 1 was a former British soldier. They had all gone to Chechnya voluntarily when the Russians had requested 100 mercenaries. The first 97 had signed up at the top of the list. And of the 36 dead, at least 15 of them were under the age of 21.

The funeral had taken about 2 hours, with only any of the Ikari operatives on base in full dress present. Right after, Ralf, Clark, and Leona made their way to Heidern's office, still in full dress uniform.

Heidern left the door of his office open, an alert telling his top three to come in whenever they needed to. They saluted and stood at attention before Heidern said, "At ease."

He pushed three manila folders across his desk. "In light of your failings in Chechnya," he began tersely, "I feel this assignment might appeal to the detective inside each and every one of you."

Ralf opened his folder, and the first thing he saw was a large portrait photograph of Kasumi Todo. There were two more pictures behind it, both of Kasumi, but one showed her raking gravel, the other showed her training in a dojo.

"What can you tell me about Miss Todo that I might not know already?"

Leona cleared her throat. "She is Japanese, the daughter of one Ryuhaku Todo. She is one of the foremost practitioners of aikido in the world and a three-time participant in the King of Fighters tournament, once in 1996 and again in 1999 and 2000, each time with the Female Team. She has a personal rivalry with anyone affiliated with Kyokugen Karate, especially with Ryo Sakazaki. She comes in and out of Southtown, but other than that, she stays in Japan, training and studying. On the whole, rather harmless."

"What does Kasumi Todo have to do with our assignment?" Clark asked doubtfully. "Leona said she was harmless."

"Kasumi Todo has everything to do with your assignment," growled Heidern. "Look at the rest of the file."

The three obliged, only to find crime scene photographs of the Todo dojo. It looked unharmed and intact. "Sir...?"

"Kasumi Todo vanished from her dojo a week ago. The operative we had watching her..."

"Operative? Why would we need anyone to watch Kasumi?"

Heidern grew surlier, but faced the window to regain his composure. "After the '96 tournament, I took the liberty of assigning a watcher to each participant of the tournament from that point on. Everyone from Kyo Kusanagi to Mary Ryan to Choi Bounge has a watcher assigned to him or her, someone to monitor their movements. In case one of them decides to...act up. The higher priority the target, the more skilled the watcher assigned. In the cases of potentially dangerous subjects, such as Iori Yagami or Ryuji Hamazaki, the watcher doubles as a sleeper agent, to neutralize the target if need be. For others like Terry Bogard or Athena Asamiya, the watcher is more like a guardian angel. They never make contact with the target, unless it is to save his or her life.

"Now, before Ralf interrupts me again, I was going to say that the operative I assigned to Miss Todo vanished two days ago. From what Ralf told me about the Chechnya mission, I believe we have a mole in our organization. Now look at the last set of photos."

The photos had a lanky man with spiky brown hair conversing with another man with olive skin. They appeared to be talking in a café with Portuguese language menus. Both were wearing sunglasses, but Clark immediately identified them.

"The skinny man is Aidan O' Farrell and the other one is Khalil al-Farzay. Now asides from both being wanted terrorists, what would they have in common to meet publicly in a Portuguese café?"

"That's also what I want you to investigate. There are two more people I need to show you." Heidern slid another picture across the table. That picture was a grainy black and white of an older, thicker man in a car, talking with O' Farrell. "This was taken by one of our operatives in South Korea. Can anyone identify this one?"

"That's Andrei Vikodin," began Leona. "Ex-KGB, ex-Spetsnaz, currently working as a professional killer in the Moscow underworld. Why?"

"Vikodin was sighted by our operative watching Kasumi. Two weeks ago, while O' Farrell was in Korea, Kim Kaphwan's apprentice May Lee disappeared from her home. Meanwhile, Athena Asamiya was on tour in Portugal at the same time al-Farzay was in Portugal. These three men are connected somehow. However, here's the lynchpin."

Heidern slid another photo. Ralf looked at the grainy photo closely before he began to crush it in his hand. "That's him," he said quietly. Upon further scrutiny by Clark and Leona, they saw a giant man in a trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat. "That's the guy from Grozny."

Leona blanched slightly, trying to mask the look on her face with stoicism, but Heidern saw it anyway. He didn't say anything, but gave her an appraising look that cause Leona to look at her feet, trying to hide her face.

"That is Marvin Thompson," Heidern said simply. "He ran an outfit of mercenaries out of the Louisiana bayou that have done extensive work here in Latin America.

"All these men are connected not only through the disappearances, but also by their simultaneous appearances here in Brazil every now and then for the past 10 years. Now, they're heading to Southtown, along with nearly every other known terrorist, guerilla, mercenary, and enforcer. Now unless Geese Howard is holding a seminar for the biggest scumbags on this planet, we don't know why they're going to Southtown.

"Your assignment, then, is to investigate the reason these men are heading to Southtown. You are also to investigate the disappearances of Kasumi Todo and May Lee, as well as to why this guy Thompson was in Chechnya. I have a hunch he may know something about our mole. You're to leave for Southtown in 48 hours. With the exception of Leona, you're dismissed."

Ralf and Clark, puzzled looks on their faces, rose, saluted, and marched straight out of Heidern's office, and back into the sweltering heat of a Brazilian rain forest.

"This shit's getting more and more complicated by the minute," Clark lamented, all the while tearing at his tie and trying to remove his jacket.

Ralf was in thought, walking slowly behind Clark, who seemed to be carrying a conversation with himself thinking Ralf was listening to him. Ralf for once didn't have time to clown around with Clark. He started remembering Leona's odd behavior around that animal Thompson, and remembered from the meeting that O' Farrell and Vikodin were connected to the disappearances of two young female fighters, seemingly without a trace. The wheels in his head seemed to be much faster than the fast pace they would already spin at. Plus, these terrorists were no joke. O' Farrell was a high up within the most militant, fanatical branch of the Irish Republican Army and was responsible for several bombing assassinations in and around Belfast recently. Al-Farzay was a notorious member of Hezbollah and Ralf himself had tangled with Andrei Vikodin before. Now this new guy Thompson shows up and he's suddenly connected to the first three psychopaths. He couldn't help but wonder whether or not this new assignment might finally be the one to do him in. Ralf was used to playing the odds, but perhaps, these odds could be a little too much for the cagey mercenary veteran and his crack partners. It was definitely something he was going to lose sleep over.